40964	----	TONY and the BEETLES by Philip K. Dick [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Orbit volume 1 number 2, 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [Illustration: A TEN-YEAR-OLD BOY GROWS UP FAST WHEN HISTORY CATCHES UP WITH THE HUMAN RACE.] Reddish-yellow sunlight filtered through the thick quartz windows into the sleep-compartment. Tony Rossi yawned, stirred a little, then opened his black eyes and sat up quickly. With one motion he tossed the covers back and slid to the warm metal floor. He clicked off his alarm clock and hurried to the closet. It looked like a nice day. The landscape outside was motionless, undisturbed by winds or dust-shift. The boy's heart pounded excitedly. He pulled his trousers on, zipped up the reinforced mesh, struggled into his heavy canvas shirt, and then sat down on the edge of the cot to tug on his boots. He closed the seams around their tops and then did the same with his gloves. Next he adjusted the pressure on his pump unit and strapped it between his shoulder blades. He grabbed his helmet from the dresser, and he was ready for the day. In the dining-compartment his mother and father had finished breakfast. Their voices drifted to him as he clattered down the ramp. A disturbed murmur; he paused to listen. What were they talking about? Had he done something wrong, again? And then he caught it. Behind their voices was another voice. Static and crackling pops. The all-system audio signal from Rigel IV. They had it turned up full blast; the dull thunder of the monitor's voice boomed loudly. The war. Always the war. He sighed, and stepped out into the dining-compartment. "Morning," his father muttered. "Good morning, dear," his mother said absently. She sat with her head turned to one side, wrinkles of concentration webbing her forehead. Her thin lips were drawn together in a tight line of concern. His father had pushed his dirty dishes back and was smoking, elbows on the table, dark hairy arms bare and muscular. He was scowling, intent on the jumbled roar from the speaker above the sink. "How's it going?" Tony asked. He slid into his chair and reached automatically for the ersatz grapefruit. "Any news from Orion?" Neither of them answered. They didn't hear him. He began to eat his grapefruit. Outside, beyond the little metal and plastic housing unit, sounds of activity grew. Shouts and muffled crashes, as rural merchants and their trucks rumbled along the highway toward Karnet. The reddish daylight swelled; Betelgeuse was rising quietly and majestically. "Nice day," Tony said. "No flux wind. I think I'll go down to the n-quarter awhile. We're building a neat spaceport, a model, of course, but we've been able to get enough materials to lay out strips for--" With a savage snarl his father reached out and struck the audio roar immediately died. "I knew it!" He got up and moved angrily away from the table. "I told them it would happen. They shouldn't have moved so soon. Should have built up Class A supply bases, first." "Isn't our main fleet moving in from Bellatrix?" Tony's mother fluttered anxiously. "According to last night's summary the worst that can happen is Orion IX and X will be dumped." Joseph Rossi laughed harshly. "The hell with last night's summary. They know as well as I do what's happening." "What's happening?" Tony echoed, as he pushed aside his grapefruit and began to ladle out dry cereal. "Are we losing the battle?" "Yes!" His father's lips twisted. "Earthmen, losing to--to _beetles_. I told them. But they couldn't wait. My God, there's ten good years left in this system. Why'd they have to push on? Everybody knew Orion would be tough. The whole damn beetle fleet's strung out around there. Waiting for us. And we have to barge right in." "But nobody ever thought beetles would fight," Leah Rossi protested mildly. "Everybody thought they'd just fire a few blasts and then--" "They _have_ to fight! Orion's the last jump-off. If they don't fight here, where the hell can they fight?" Rossi swore savagely. "Of course they're fighting. We have all their planets except the inner Orion string--not that they're worth much, but it's the principle of the thing. If we'd built up strong supply bases, we could have broken up the beetle fleet and really clobbered it." "Don't say 'beetle,'" Tony murmured, as he finished his cereal. "They're Pas-udeti, same as here. The word 'beetle' comes from Betelgeuse. An Arabian word we invented ourselves." Joe Rossi's mouth opened and closed. "What are you, a goddamn beetle-lover?" "Joe," Leah snapped. "For heaven's sake." Rossi moved toward the door. "If I was ten years younger I'd be out there. I'd really show those shiny-shelled insects what the hell they're up against. Them and their junky beat-up old hulks. Converted freighters!" His eyes blazed. "When I think of them shooting down Terran cruisers with _our_ boys in them--" "Orion's their system," Tony murmured. "_Their_ system! When the hell did you get to be an authority on space law? Why, I ought to--" He broke off, choked with rage. "My own kid," he muttered. "One more crack out of you today and I'll hang one on you you'll feel the rest of the week." Tony pushed his chair back. "I won't be around here today. I'm going into Karnet, with my EEP." "Yeah, to play with beetles!" Tony said nothing. He was already sliding his helmet in place and snapping the clamps tight. As he pushed through the back door, into the lock membrane, he unscrewed his oxygen tap and set the tank filter into action. An automatic response, conditioned by a lifetime spent on a colony planet in an alien system. * * * * * A faint flux wind caught at him and swept yellow-red dust around his boots. Sunlight glittered from the metal roof of his family's housing unit, one of endless rows of squat boxes set in the sandy slope, protected by the line of ore-refining installations against the horizon. He made an impatient signal, and from the storage shed his EEP came gliding out, catching the sunlight on its chrome trim. "We're going down into Karnet," Tony said, unconsciously slipping into the Pas dialect. "Hurry up!" The EEP took up its position behind him, and he started briskly down the slope, over the shifting sand, toward the road. There were quite a few traders out, today. It was a good day for the market; only a fourth of the year was fit for travel. Betelgeuse was an erratic and undependable sun, not at all like Sol (according to the edutapes, fed to Tony four hours a day, six days a week--he had never seen Sol himself). He reached the noisy road. Pas-udeti were everywhere. Whole groups of them, with their primitive combustion-driven trucks, battered and filthy, motors grinding protestingly. He waved at the trucks as they pushed past him. After a moment one slowed down. It was piled with _tis_, bundled heaps of gray vegetables dried, and prepared for the table. A staple of the Pas-udeti diet. Behind the wheel lounged a dark-faced elderly Pas, one arm over the open window, a rolled leaf between his lips. He was like all other Pas-udeti; lank and hard-shelled, encased in a brittle sheath in which he lived and died. "You want a ride?" the Pas murmured--required protocol when an Earthman on foot was encountered. "Is there room for my EEP?" The Pas made a careless motion with his claw. "It can run behind." Sardonic amusement touched his ugly old face. "If it gets to Karnet we'll sell it for scrap. We can use a few condensers and relay tubing. We're short on electronic maintenance stuff." "I know," Tony said solemnly, as he climbed into the cabin of the truck. "It's all been sent to the big repair base at Orion I. For your warfleet." Amusement vanished from the leathery face. "Yes, the warfleet." He turned away and started up the truck again. In the back, Tony's EEP had scrambled up on the load of _tis_ and was gripping precariously with its magnetic lines. Tony noticed the Pas-udeti's sudden change of expression, and he was puzzled. He started to speak to him--but now he noticed unusual quietness among the other Pas, in the other trucks, behind and in front of his own. The war, of course. It had swept through this system a century ago; these people had been left behind. Now all eyes were on Orion, on the battle between the Terran warfleet and the Pas-udeti collection of armed freighters. "Is it true," Tony asked carefully, "that you're winning?" The elderly Pas grunted. "We hear rumors." Tony considered. "My father says Terra went ahead too fast. He says we should have consolidated. We didn't assemble adequate supply bases. He used to be an officer, when he was younger. He was with the fleet for two years." The Pas was silent a moment. "It's true," he said at last, "that when you're so far from home, supply is a great problem. We, on the other hand, don't have that. We have no distances to cover." "Do you know anybody fighting?" "I have distant relatives." The answer was vague; the Pas obviously didn't want to talk about it. "Have you ever seen your warfleet?" "Not as it exists now. When this system was defeated most of our units were wiped out. Remnants limped to Orion and joined the Orion fleet." "Your relatives were with the remnants?" "That's right." "Then you were alive when this planet was taken?" "Why do you ask?" The old Pas quivered violently. "What business is it of yours?" Tony leaned out and watched the walls and buildings of Karnet grow ahead of them. Karnet was an old city. It had stood thousands of years. The Pas-udeti civilization was stable; it had reached a certain point of technocratic development and then leveled off. The Pas had inter-system ships that had carried people and freight between planets in the days before the Terran Confederation. They had combustion-driven cars, audiophones, a power network of a magnetic type. Their plumbing was satisfactory and their medicine was highly advanced. They had art forms, emotional and exciting. They had a vague religion. "Who do you think will win the battle?" Tony asked. "I don't know." With a sudden jerk the old Pas brought the truck to a crashing halt. "This is as far as I go. Please get out and take your EEP with you." Tony faltered in surprise. "But aren't you going--?" "No farther!" Tony pushed the door open. He was vaguely uneasy; there was a hard, fixed expression on the leathery face, and the old creature's voice had a sharp edge he had never heard before. "Thanks," he murmured. He hopped down into the red dust and signaled his EEP. It released its magnetic lines, and instantly the truck started up with a roar, passing on inside the city. Tony watched it go, still dazed. The hot dust lapped at his ankles; he automatically moved his feet and slapped at his trousers. A truck honked, and his EEP quickly moved him from the road, up to the level pedestrian ramp. Pas-udeti in swarms moved by, endless lines of rural people hurrying into Karnet on their daily business. A massive public bus had stopped by the gate and was letting off passengers. Male and female Pas. And children. They laughed and shouted; the sounds of their voices blended with the low hum of the city. "Going in?" a sharp Pas-udeti voice sounded close behind him. "Keep moving--you're blocking the ramp." It was a young female, with a heavy armload clutched in her claws. Tony felt embarrassed; female Pas had a certain telepathic ability, part of their sexual make-up. It was effective on Earthmen at close range. "Here," she said. "Give me a hand." Tony nodded his head, and the EEP accepted the female's heavy armload. "I'm visiting the city," Tony said, as they moved with the crowd toward the gates. "I got a ride most of the way, but the driver let me off out here." "You're from the settlement?" "Yes." She eyed him critically. "You've always lived here, haven't you?" "I was born here. My family came here from Earth four years before I was born. My father was an officer in the fleet. He earned an Emigration Priority." "So you've never seen your own planet. How old are you?" "Ten years. Terran." "You shouldn't have asked the driver so many questions." They passed through the decontamination shield and into the city. An information square loomed ahead; Pas men and women were packed around it. Moving chutes and transport cars rumbled everywhere. Buildings and ramps and open-air machinery; the city was sealed in a protective dust-proof envelope. Tony unfastened his helmet and clipped it to his belt. The air was stale-smelling, artificial, but usable. "Let me tell you something," the young female said carefully, as she strode along the foot-ramp beside Tony. "I wonder if this is a good day for you to come into Karnet. I know you've been coming here regularly to play with your friends. But perhaps today you ought to stay at home, in your settlement." "Why?" "Because today everybody is upset." "I know," Tony said. "My mother and father were upset. They were listening to the news from our base in the Rigel system." "I don't mean your family. Other people are listening, too. These people here. My race." "They're upset, all right," Tony admitted. "But I come here all the time. There's nobody to play with at the settlement, and anyhow we're working on a project." "A model spaceport." "That's right." Tony was envious. "I sure wish I was a telepath. It must be fun." The female Pas-udeti was silent. She was deep in thought. "What would happen," she asked, "if your family left here and returned to Earth?" "That couldn't happen. There's no room for us on Earth. C-bombs destroyed most of Asia and North America back in the Twentieth Century." "Suppose you _had_ to go back?" Tony did not understand. "But we can't. Habitable portions of Earth are overcrowded. Our main problem is finding places for Terrans to live, in other systems." He added, "And anyhow, I don't particularly want to go to Terra. I'm used to it here. All my friends are here." "I'll take my packages," the female said. "I go this other way, down this third-level ramp." Tony nodded to his EEP and it lowered the bundles into the female's claws. She lingered a moment, trying to find the right words. "Good luck," she said. "With what?" She smiled faintly, ironically. "With your model spaceport. I hope you and your friends get to finish it." "Of course we'll finish it," Tony said, surprised. "It's almost done." What did she mean? The Pas-udeti woman hurried off before he could ask her. Tony was troubled and uncertain; more doubts filled him. After a moment he headed slowly into the lane that took him toward the residential section of the city. Past the stores and factories, to the place where his friends lived. The group of Pas-udeti children eyed him silently as he approached. They had been playing in the shade of an immense _hengelo_, whose ancient branches drooped and swayed with the air currents pumped through the city. Now they sat unmoving. "I didn't expect you today," B'prith said, in an expressionless voice. Tony halted awkwardly, and his EEP did the same. "How are things?" he murmured. "Fine." "I got a ride part way." "Fine." Tony squatted down in the shade. None of the Pas children stirred. They were small, not as large as Terran children. Their shells had not hardened, had not turned dark and opaque, like horn. It gave them a soft, unformed appearance, but at the same time it lightened their load. They moved more easily than their elders; they could hop and skip around, still. But they were not skipping right now. "What's the matter?" Tony demanded. "What's wrong with everybody?" No one answered. "Where's the model?" he asked. "Have you fellows been working on it?" After a moment Llyre nodded slightly. Tony felt dull anger rise up inside him. "Say something! What's the matter? What're you all mad about?" "Mad?" B'prith echoed. "We're not mad." Tony scratched aimlessly in the dust. He knew what it was. The war, again. The battle going on near Orion. His anger burst up wildly. "Forget the war. Everything was fine yesterday, before the battle." "Sure," Llyre said. "It was fine." Tony caught the edge to his voice. "It happened a hundred years ago. It's not my fault." "Sure," B'prith said. "This is my home. Isn't it? Haven't I got as much right here as anybody else? I was born here." "Sure," Llyre said, tonelessly. Tony appealed to them helplessly. "Do you have to act this way? You didn't act this way yesterday. I was here yesterday--all of us were here yesterday. What's happened since yesterday?" "The battle," B'prith said. "What difference does _that_ make? Why does that change everything? There's always war. There've been battles all the time, as long as I can remember. What's different about this?" B'prith broke apart a clump of dirt with his strong claws. After a moment he tossed it away and got slowly to his feet. "Well," he said thoughtfully, "according to our audio relay, it looks as if our fleet is going to win, this time." "Yes," Tony agreed, not understanding. "My father says we didn't build up adequate supply bases. We'll probably have to fall back to...." And then the impact hit him. "You mean, for the first time in a hundred years--" "Yes," Llyre said, also getting up. The others got up, too. They moved away from Tony, toward the near-by house. "We're winning. The Terran flank was turned, half an hour ago. Your right wing has folded completely." Tony was stunned. "And it matters. It matters to all of you." "Matters!" B'prith halted, suddenly blazing out in fury. "Sure it matters! For the first time--in a century. The first time in our lives we're beating you. We have you on the run, you--" He choked out the word, almost spat it out. "You white-grubs!" They disappeared into the house. Tony sat gazing stupidly down at the ground, his hands still moving aimlessly. He had heard the word before, seen it scrawled on walls and in the dust near the settlement. _White-grubs._ The Pas term of derision for Terrans. Because of their softness, their whiteness. Lack of hard shells. Pulpy, doughy skin. But they had never dared say it out loud, before. To an Earthman's face. Beside him, his EEP stirred restlessly. Its intricate radio mechanism sensed the hostile atmosphere. Automatic relays were sliding into place; circuits were opening and closing. "It's all right," Tony murmured, getting slowly up. "Maybe we'd better go back." He moved unsteadily toward the ramp, completely shaken. The EEP walked calmly ahead, its metal face blank and confident, feeling nothing, saying nothing. Tony's thoughts were a wild turmoil; he shook his head, but the crazy spinning kept up. He couldn't make his mind slow down, lock in place. "Wait a minute," a voice said. B'prith's voice, from the open doorway. Cold and withdrawn, almost unfamiliar. "What do you want?" B'prith came toward him, claws behind his back in the formal Pas-udeti posture, used between total strangers. "You shouldn't have come here, today." "I know," Tony said. B'prith got out a bit of _tis_ stalk and began to roll it into a tube. He pretended to concentrate on it. "Look," he said. "You said you have a right here. But you don't." "I--" Tony murmured. "Do you understand why not? You said it isn't your fault. I guess not. But it's not my fault, either. Maybe it's nobody's fault. I've known you a long time." "Five years. Terran." B'prith twisted the stalk up and tossed it away. "Yesterday we played together. We worked on the spaceport. But we can't play today. My family said to tell you not to come here any more." He hesitated, and did not look Tony in the face. "I was going to tell you, anyhow. Before they said anything." "Oh," Tony said. "Everything that's happened today--the battle, our fleet's stand. We didn't know. We didn't dare hope. You see? A century of running. First this system. Then the Rigel system, all the planets. Then the other Orion stars. We fought here and there--scattered fights. Those that got away joined up. We supplied the base at Orion--you people didn't know. But there was no hope; at least, nobody thought there was." He was silent a moment. "Funny," he said, "what happens when your back's to the wall, and there isn't any further place to go. Then you have to fight." "If our supply bases--" Tony began thickly, but B'prith cut him off savagely. "Your supply bases! Don't you understand? We're beating you! Now you'll have to get out! All you white-grubs. Out of our system!" Tony's EEP moved forward ominously. B'prith saw it. He bent down, snatched up a rock, and hurled it straight at the EEP. The rock clanged off the metal hull and bounced harmlessly away. B'prith snatched up another rock. Llyre and the others came quickly out of the house. An adult Pas loomed up behind them. Everything was happening too fast. More rocks crashed against the EEP. One struck Tony on the arm. "Get out!" B'prith screamed. "Don't come back! This is our planet!" His claws snatched at Tony. "We'll tear you to pieces if you--" Tony smashed him in the chest. The soft shell gave like rubber, and the Pas stumbled back. He wobbled and fell over, gasping and screeching. "_Beetle_," Tony breathed hoarsely. Suddenly he was terrified. A crowd of Pas-udeti was forming rapidly. They surged on all sides, hostile faces, dark and angry, a rising thunder of rage. More stones showered. Some struck the EEP, others fell around Tony, near his boots. One whizzed past his face. Quickly he slid his helmet in place. He was scared. He knew his EEP's E-signal had already gone out, but it would be minutes before a ship could come. Besides, there were other Earthmen in the city to be taken care of; there were Earthmen all over the planet. In all the cities. On all the twenty-three Betelgeuse planets. On the fourteen Rigel planets. On the other Orion planets. "We have to get out of here," he muttered to the EEP. "Do something!" A stone hit him on the helmet. The plastic cracked; air leaked out, and then the autoseal filmed over. More stones were falling. The Pas swarmed close, a yelling, seething mass of black-sheathed creatures. He could smell them, the acrid body-odor of insects, hear their claws snap, feel their weight. The EEP threw its heat beam on. The beam shifted in a wide band toward the crowd of Pas-udeti. Crude hand weapons appeared. A clatter of bullets burst around Tony; they were firing at the EEP. He was dimly aware of the metal body beside him. A shuddering crash--the EEP was toppled over. The crowd poured over it; the metal hull was lost from sight. Like a demented animal, the crowd tore at the struggling EEP. A few of them smashed in its head; others tore off struts and shiny arm-sections. The EEP ceased struggling. The crowd moved away, panting and clutching jagged remains. They saw Tony. As the first line of them reached for him, the protective envelope high above them shattered. A Terran scout ship thundered down, heat beam screaming. The crowd scattered in confusion, some firing, some throwing stones, others leaping for safety. Tony picked himself up and made his way unsteadily toward the spot where the scout was landing. * * * * * "I'm sorry," Joe Rossi said gently. He touched his son on the shoulder. "I shouldn't have let you go down there today. I should have known." Tony sat hunched over in the big plastic easychair. He rocked back and forth, face pale with shock. The scout ship which had rescued him had immediately headed back toward Karnet; there were other Earthmen to bring out, besides this first load. The boy said nothing. His mind was blank. He still heard the roar of the crowd, felt its hate--a century of pent-up fury and resentment. The memory drove out everything else; it was all around him, even now. And the sight of the floundering EEP, the metallic ripping sound, as its arms and legs were torn off and carried away. His mother dabbed at his cuts and scratches with antiseptic. Joe Rossi shakily lit a cigarette and said, "If your EEP hadn't been along they'd have killed you. Beetles." He shuddered. "I never should have let you go down there. All this time.... They might have done it any time, any day. Knifed you. Cut you open with their filthy goddamn claws." Below the settlement the reddish-yellow sunlight glinted on gunbarrels. Already, dull booms echoed against the crumbling hills. The defense ring was going into action. Black shapes darted and scurried up the side of the slope. Black patches moved out from Karnet, toward the Terran settlement, across the dividing line the Confederation surveyors had set up a century ago. Karnet was a bubbling pot of activity. The whole city rumbled with feverish excitement. Tony raised his head. "They--they turned our flank." "Yeah." Joe Rossi stubbed out his cigarette. "They sure did. That was at one o'clock. At two they drove a wedge right through the center of our line. Split the fleet in half. Broke it up--sent it running. Picked us off one by one as we fell back. Christ, they're like maniacs. Now that they've got the scent, the taste of our blood." "But it's getting better," Leah fluttered. "Our main fleet units are beginning to appear." "We'll get them," Joe muttered. "It'll take a while. But by God we'll wipe them out. Every last one of them. If it takes a thousand years. We'll follow every last ship down--we'll get them all." His voice rose in frenzy. "Beetles! Goddamn insects! When I think of them, trying to hurt my kid, with their filthy black claws--" "If you were younger, you'd be in the line," Leah said. "It's not your fault you're too old. The heart strain's too great. You did your job. They can't let an older person take chances. It's not your fault." Joe clenched his fists. "I feel so--futile. If there was only something I could do." "The fleet will take care of them," Leah said soothingly. "You said so yourself. They'll hunt every one of them down. Destroy them all. There's nothing to worry about." Joe sagged miserably. "It's no use. Let's cut it out. Let's stop kidding ourselves." "What do you mean?" "Face it! We're not going to win, not this time. We went too far. Our time's come." There was silence. Tony sat up a little. "When did you know?" "I've known a long time." "I found out today. I didn't understand, at first. This is--stolen ground. I was born here, but it's stolen ground." "Yes. It's stolen. It doesn't belong to us." "We're here because we're stronger. But now we're not stronger. We're being beaten." "They know Terrans can be licked. Like anybody else." Joe Rossi's face was gray and flabby. "We took their planets away from them. Now they're taking them back. It'll be a while, of course. We'll retreat slowly. It'll be another five centuries going back. There're a lot of systems between here and Sol." Tony shook his head, still uncomprehending. "Even Llyre and B'prith. All of them. Waiting for their time to come. For us to lose and go away again. Where we came from." Joe Rossi paced back and forth. "Yeah, we'll be retreating from now on. Giving ground, instead of taking it. It'll be like this today--losing fights, draws. Stalemates and worse." He raised his feverish eyes toward the ceiling of the little metal housing unit, face wild with passion and misery. "But, by God, we'll give them a run for their money. All the way back! Every inch!" 
59036	----	The York Problem BY HERBERT D. KASTLE _Warfare, diplomacy, art, music, science, religion--have all failed to secure peace for the world. But still there is hope for Mankind. Another experiment remains: change the color line--and let's see what happens...._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] They sat around the table, thirteen men dressed in the prescribed blue of their office. They spoke quietly, without tension, and they all seemed alike. Commissioner Dobu summed up this meeting of the Earth Council of Prevention and Correction of Non-Conformity. "It is to be regretted," he said, "that the juvenile deliquency problem remains unsolved in York. It is also to be noted, and included in the local reports of the sector captains, that the problem has existed some six hundred years, since 3046, speaking in general figures. Therefore, the fault lies not with us--though this point is to be hinted at rather than stated per se, Peaceful Sirs." The council members accepted his aside, with brief nods and briefer smiles, for the problem of York was nothing to smile at. Dobu cleared his throat and continued. "Since the Federated Galactic Bill of Inherent Human Rights forbids psychiatric treatment or syndromic surgery against an individual's wishes, and since the people of York under the fanatic tutorship of their church masters consider psychiatry a sacrilege, there is no easy solution--no humane solution. But people who have refused all advice, aid and education for six hundred years no longer deserve humane treatment. Therefore, as we have done on so many other occasions, and as has been done by our predecessors, we present what we feel is the only solution. Namely, that York as a community, and the people of York as a whole, be eliminated in whatever manner the Federated Galactic Council sees fit. Sterilization appears to be the method most suitable. But even euthanasia would not be out of order." Mala Wang yawned as she read the commissioner's report. It was like all the others she'd sent to Galactic Council in the four years she'd been with the CPCNC. And nothing had ever happened; not unless you counted the Report-Received flashes. She inserted a fresh strip into the feeder, worked the keys efficiently, and began sending. "Federated Galactic Council, Centauri Two, Code CPCNC-Earth. Most Peaceful Sirs: In the meeting of July, 3646, the problem of York, its adult inhabitants, and more particularly its juvenile delinquents...." Some forty minutes later, she was finished. She shut off the feeder, opened the ejector, and waited. Before she'd finished buffing the nails on her left hand, the ejector began clicking. "Report Received" emerged on the tape. Mala shrugged and pushed back her chair, but another series of clicks stopped her. "Urgently request operator stand by for results emergency session, Federated Galactic Council, being called at this time. Business: Continuing reports of CPCNC-Earth on York Sector." Mala stared at the tape, and slowly her eyes grew wide and her lips parted. Then she threw the inter-departmental switch and rang Commissioner Dobu. As soon as Dobu's face materialized on the screen, she said, "Peaceful Sir! I've just received a message that indicates the Galactic Council is going to take action on your reports!" A half-hour later, the Earth Council of Prevention and Correction of Non-Conformity was reconvened, waiting for the Galactic Council's decision. They were all wondering whether it would be sterilization or euthanasia. * * * * * John Stevens was irritable. He'd been that way for weeks now, or was it months? Anyway, life was getting to be a foul-blooded pain! He saw the empty can, kicked it, watched it bounce along the cracked pavement. When it stopped bouncing, he was again faced with his problem: What to do on a hot July afternoon? He considered going down to Frank's Vizio Palace, but decided against it. Not that he was afraid of the Sinais, but it was too hot to invade enemy territory alone. Besides, he had brained all this month's vizios and new ones wouldn't be in for at least a week. So he leaned against the tenement's warped wall and looked for more cans to kick. On a day like this, he thought, a kid could almost wish vacation was over and school back in operation. Then he saw Pete Smith and waved a languid hand. "How's the pure-blood?" he asked. "Living," Pete answered. "And I can see Mr. Aryan's doing all right for--" Both froze as the patrol bubble turned the corner on racing treads and pulled up short. John considered making a run for it, but saw it was too late. Pete had arrived at the same conclusion. "They picked our lips on the vocal-box," Pete whispered. "We're in trouble." John didn't have a chance to answer. The two Blasts were out of their bubble and coming toward them. The tall one said mechanically, "Section twenty-seven, Earth Ordinances, using profane language on public lanes. Subsection twelve, covering classification of terms of racial-superiority as profanity due to its negation of established fact and the harmful effects--" "Oh, shove it, Blast," Pete muttered. "We know the public scroll. So you picked us up on the box. So what?" The CPCNC officer looked at him. "You people never will learn. Why don't you accept the status quo, learn to live like human beings?" "That's what I always say," John murmured sarcastically. The Blast stepped in and slapped him, hard. John rocked back on his heels, clenched his fists, but did nothing. The Blast slapped him again, not quite so hard but with a great deal more deliberation. John bit his lip and dropped his eyes. "Yeah," he said. "Why don't _we_ act like human beings!" The second Blast, a shorter, heavier man, waved his companion away. "Easy, Farn. Don't let this Yorker get you." He turned to the two adolescents, something like pity in his brown eyes. "We'll let it pass, this time. But we've got you down on our photopads. The next offense means Re-education House." Neither boy said a word, but John's cheek burned and something in his chest burned even more. The conciliatory Blast hesitated; then said, "Why don't you boys come down to Composite Youth Center? We've got the latest vizios, athletic--" "We're members of Race-Through-God," John said, a quiet satisfaction in his voice. "The scroll says we can't be forced to attend CYC. Our master told us that. We go to meetings regularly." Farn, the Blast who had slapped John, whirled around and stamped back to the bubble. "C'mon, Stan!" he called. "This filthy slum sickens me!" Stan nodded, but lowered his voice to a confidential murmur. "You'll never get out of York, be issued a space visa, or do anything worth while if you stick to the race-church stuff, boys. You don't know what the Galaxy is like--the planets, the beautiful cities. It's really something. Just sign up for CYC. After that, you can qualify for Integration and meet some really beautiful ladies." "We got our own ladies," John said, sullen and irritated. And his emotions bothered him. He should be enraged, after the slaps and sacriligeous lecture; not irritated. "We don't want Integration." Stan shrugged wearily. "All right. So you'll stick in this archaic hole, and eventually try to kill one of us, and end up on a euthanasia table. And one day the Galactic Council will get fed up and clean out the lot of you." He turned to the bubble, speaking over his shoulder. "Watch your steps. Any gang fights, stealing, or profanity will get you six months. The Blasts in Re-education won't slap--they'll use electros on your fannies!" When the bubble went down the street and around the corner, Pete spat eloquently. John was still fighting his irritation, his vast sense of dissatisfaction, but he spat too, and said, "Man, I'd love to do a carve on all Outsiders!" "John!" a shrill voice called. "John, you getting into trouble again?" John turned light blue eyes to the left and looked at the ground floor window. "Oh, ease up, Ma! Can't an Aryan stand up to a foul-blood Outsider?" "John!" the gray-haired, prematurely-old woman screeched. Her eyes darted up and down the street and her voice dropped to an intense whisper. "Don't you use those words in public! A profanity charge is all we need, what with your father drinking--" John tried to interrupt, but she raised her voice again and shouted him down. "Don't you go getting into trouble, bringing those Blasts around bothering God-fearing folk who want to be left alone! It's you kids that make it tough for the rest of us. That rabble would let us be if you--" John rubbed his short-cropped blond hair in exasperation, and stalked to the corner. Pete followed, and they paused near the curb, ignoring the tirade which continued behind them. Finally, the woman stopped speaking and drew her head back inside the window. The street was old, cracked in many places. But it didn't matter. The only traffic was the ramshackle public snake which ran once every half-hour, and an occasional transport, and the Blast bubbles which were constantly on the prowl for profanity, theft, attacks on Outsiders, and juvenile delinquency. "For once in a foul-blood lifetime," John exploded, "let's cut a different caper! I'm sick of fighting the Sinais and Albines and Sons of Musso. I want Upper City, where we can pick up some high loot." Pete's thick jaw fell open and he stared at his blond, slender companion. "Upper City! But the Blasts--" "It's a free Galaxy, ain't it?" John snapped. "We're allowed anywhere our disks take us, ain't we? So I want to travel Upper City." "They'll watch us," Pete muttered. "Even if we could grab some loot, I don't like it there. My old man works as custodian in a food vendro. I went with him a few times and I didn't like it. The Outsiders look at us as if we smelled bad, and they don't sit near when we're on the snake. I tell you it's tough, John. Let's get a few of the boys and raid the Sons of Musso." John hesitated, and then decided that as leader of the Adolphs he had to follow through on what he'd said. He moved into the street and walked casually to the snake stop. "If you're jetting out, okay. But I don't operate that way." Pete didn't move. "You been there lately?" he jeered. "You know what it's like?" John acted as if he were too disgusted to answer. He'd been to Upper City several times, but that was years ago, when he was a baby and his mother had gone against the Divine-Angel-Church master's wishes and had him inoculated against cancer. Everyone was doing it on the sly anyway, so she took him for his three shots. Then she'd switched to the Race-Through-God sect, and it was like the other, only there the master let it be known he'd taken his anti-cancer shots like everyone else. But John didn't remember much of Upper City, except that the people had looked at them with amusement and some contempt. He'd wondered why they did, but when he asked his mother she'd said he'd find out for himself. He had. The foul-blood trash! They had no pride. And they were all alike! He searched for a disk as the snake appeared at the corner. The jointed series of cars moved slowly on its tractor-like treads, turbo exhaust filtering through the block-tube high on the engine. Each year it seemed to get slower, noisier, shabbier. * * * * * John stepped into car three as the snake stopped. He placed his disk in the slot, waited a moment, then moved inside as the Clear buzzer sounded. He'd tried to fake his disk a few times, cutting imitations from plastic cans, but the auto-guard was too damn smart. It always rang for the Blast each snake carried in a little booth hinged to the last car. He found a seat near a window and glanced around. Not half-filled this early in the day. Later, when four o'clock came, it would be jammed. He turned to the window and watched the familiar shabby streets flow by. As they entered Sinai territory, he felt a tightening of the stomach muscles. But then he laughed and remembered he was on the snake, not invading. Nevertheless, when two big kids got on and took seats across the aisle, he knew a moment of fear. They were Sinais, all right. He'd seen the muscular one in a caper last winter. And they knew him for an Adolph. They exchanged glares, and John kept his face tough. The muscular Sinai took out a knife, holding it low so no one but John could see and began to run his finger over the blade. John reached for his own sticker; then stopped. He grinned and whistled ONE GALAXY, ONE PEOPLE. The Sinais didn't like it. It was equivalent to calling them Outsiders. But their corner came along and they had to hop it. John turned back to the window. He'd get his sticker into that muscular one; see if he didn't! "Your sister sleeps with Outsiders," a soft voice murmured. John jerked around, and saw the three kids shuffling past his seat. They grinned at him and the soft-spoken one said, "You don't like it, Adolph? Step off at Benito Street and we'll have it out." John controlled his rage. "Some other time," he said, voice calm. "I'm capering Upper City today. Maybe you boys would like to declare a truce and come along?" They all stared at him. Then the one who did all the talking said, "Hell, he's a foul-blood liar!" "Sure," John said as they slumped into seats. "Follow me to the Split and see." "Okay," another Son of Musso said. "We will." And the three of them grinned at him. John grinned back, but he felt far from Aryan inside. Now he wouldn't be able to jet out. Now he'd really have to cross the Split. He began to sweat, hoping the snake would break down along the route, that a Blast would stop him from crossing, that the Earth would blow up! Anything to keep from having to cross the Split. He knew now that he'd never meant to do it--just take a ride, kill some time, and bluff Pete when he got back. Ten minutes later, the Last Corner sign lit up at car end. The three Sons of Musso strolled out into the street and waited, standing quietly under the eyes of the Blasts who were always around the dry river bed which separated York from Upper City. This was the Split, and John had to leave the car. He came out, walked past the three kids toward the span, and stopped at the gate. "One to Upper City," he said, throat dry. The Blast gave him a sharp look. "Why do you want to go there, boy?" "Free Galaxy, ain't it?" John muttered. The Blast shrugged, handed him a transfer disk, lifted the gate. John had a momentary surge of satisfaction as he heard the Sons of Musso talking excitedly behind him. It wasn't every day that a kid from York invaded Upper City. Then he was at the shiny new snake and his stomach tightened and he was sweating. He kept walking, got on the fifth car, took a seat in the last row. He was the only passenger, but he'd seen others waiting in the cars he'd passed. Older folks. People who worked in Upper City, doing various menial tasks for the Outsiders. When the Blast walked through on his way to the back-box, John ran to the port and looked out across the one-piece duralume span. The Sons of Musso were still there. Before he could make a decision, the snake eased forward fluidly and then hit high speed. John Stevens was frightened, but he composed his features and returned to his seat. He sat straight and tried to remember what the master had said about maintaining dignity in front of Outsiders, showing them the stuff pure-bloods were made of. But the words fled his mind as he gazed out of the window. Upper City was really something. Wide thoroughfares lacing over and under each other in stop-free throughways. Thousands--no, _millions_ of private bubbles rolling along with gaily-dressed passengers! Low, square, bright-looking buildings. Trees and grass and flowers everywhere. And then, for one glorious moment, they were in Bunche Spaceport, the greatest on Earth! John drank in the huge, upright needles that stood gleaming in the July sun, waiting to blast off for planets where even greater cities and spaceports were established. If only he, John Stevens of York, could get inside one of those ships and go-- Deep bitterness hit him, and all the irritation he'd felt for the past weeks was back. They don't let us do anything! he thought. They keep us poor; in dirt and ignorance! That's what the master had said. And he'd added that the Outsiders were afraid of Aryans. That's why they persecuted them. John was seeing the full majesty of Upper City now, the spacious walks and busy drives and sun-filled buildings. And he couldn't help wondering why his people refused Integration. He suddenly realized that the car had filled with passengers, with Outsiders. He also realized that the twin seat next to his was just about the only one left in the jammed car. He felt his face stiffen, felt the hatred rise in his blood; and then the girl flounced up the aisle and hesitated, looking at him. She sat down. Not more than sixteen, John thought. Just right for him. And she sure was cute. Lovely golden skin-- He stopped the thoughts there. It wasn't right to think that way. The master at Race-Through-God wouldn't approve. Not that John attended church regularly, as he'd told the Blast back in York. But still, such thoughts weren't right. They smacked of Integration. He kept his head still, but flicked his eyes around the crowded car. They'd made another stop, and now Outsiders were standing. They didn't seem to resent him, or, for that matter, pay him any particular attention. It was just that _he_ felt different, and that made him angry, and that led to his standing up and moving to the port and getting off at the next corner--all this instead of being sensible and staying on the snake until it returned to the span and York. But even as he stepped into the street, he was remembering how that girl had looked, with her big brown eyes and dark hair and golden skin. He muttered, "Damned, non-Aryan, foul-blood Outsiders!" Then walked quickly down the street when he realized he'd used terms of racial-superiority. Getting picked up here for profanity wouldn't be fun. He'd get six months in Re-education House for sure. * * * * * It was a hot, bright day and Upper City was clean, fragrant and beautiful, but John Stevens wasn't enjoying himself. He was filled with nagging irritation, growing angrier by the second without knowing exactly why. He began to search the eyes of people passing by--well-dressed Outsiders in their one-piece coroplast suits, colors ranging through all the hues of the rainbow. He felt shabby in his old brown plasts. Those eyes seemed to be sneering at him. They seemed to be looking at him with disgust and contempt. He was about to turn around and go back to the snake stop, about to obey the warning bell that had begun ringing in his brain, when it happened. It wasn't much, and yet it was the last straw--the one that broke the normal behavior patterns and left him at the mercy of his own emotions. A young woman, sleek and well-groomed, was passing with a little boy of about five. The child stopped dead on seeing John. In spite of himself, John stopped too. The child stared at John, eyes wide and filled with wonder. "Mommy!" he shrilled. "Mommy, _look_ at him!" The woman tried to hush her son, to drag him away, but the child eluded her grasp and danced back, still staring at John. "Look at him, Mommy! What a funny color--" John raised his hand as if to strike the child. He didn't mean it, not really, but he wanted to stop that high-pitched voice, stop those amazed eyes from examining him. The child screamed and ran to his mother. The mother shrank back, enfolding the little boy in her arms, and shouted, "Help! Help me, please!" John turned and ran, almost into the arms of a tall Blast. He stopped, whirled around, and headed back past the woman and child. He cut left at the next corner, ran faster than ever before in his life, cut right, and left, and kept going until the breath rasped through his throat like liquified metal. But even as he ran, he was without fear. He was too angry now to be frightened. And it was anger such as he'd never before experienced. A sickening, confusing, red-hazed mélange of emotion that had about it a nightmare quality. He had to slow down, and saw that it was all right. He'd lost that Blast, left the entire scene far behind. "Lousy foul-blooded Outsiders!" he panted, and at the same time knew that it wasn't just the Outsiders. It was his mother, and his father, and the slum, and the gangs, and the poverty. It was his life he hated, his life he raged at. This then was the irritation he'd felt in the past weeks, now transformed by Upper City into a maniacal rage. John Stevens was leader of the Adolphs. John Stevens wasn't even close to being the biggest or strongest boy in his crowd. But he was the smartest. And this raw, basic, but still superior intellect worked against him as he stalked the wide avenues of Upper City. A caper, he thought. He'd pull a big caper, return with loot, justify this visit, take out his anger on these people--these scum who had made his life so poor. Or was it his mother and father who had made his life poor? Was it the masters who had done that? Why had he come here when it brought such confusion, such pain? Another quick change of thought. He blocked everything from his mind but the red haze of rage; fed it, allowed it to grow to the point where it swallowed everything but his desire to strike back. He didn't know where he was, where he was going, and he no longer saw the Outsiders. He had regained his wind now, and began walking quickly, almost running. It was later, much later, when he finally found the right street, and the right vendro, and the focal point for his hatred. Clothing. New, bright, expensive coroplast suits. Eight hundred disks and up! More than his father made in three months. More than John Stevens had ever seen in a lump sum. The street was quiet, empty of pedestrians. He walked past the vendro, casing it with eyes that saw nothing but inner hate. Something sane--something still resisting the never-before-experienced rage--cried out that he wasn't being smart, that he wasn't checking for Blasts, that he couldn't think straight enough for a caper, especially one in Upper City. But he was back at the vendro now, and he was going inside. There was only the commersh, and an old man magnetting dust from the floor. The commersh was an Outsider, naturally. But the old man was one of York's folk, and this made John Stevens lose whatever grain of caution he might have retained. His folk, slaving for these scum! The commersh was moving toward him, face bland, only his dark eyes showing something other than serenity at seeing a kid from York. "Are you sure you have the right--" he began, and then gasped as John pulled his knife and snapped the eight-inch blade free of the haft. John pressed the blade against the Outsider's stomach and said, "Five suits, the best, and I'm with you every foul-blood inch of the way!" "Don't, son!" the old man said from the side. "Get out before--" John half-turned his head, and then felt the numbness strike his body. He stood there, completely rigid for a moment, and then found he could breathe and move his lips and shift his eyes. The commersh stepped back, pressed a red button on the counter. "You Yorkers must be insane," he said mildly. "Do you think we haven't got adequate protection against criminals of our own group, not to say such pitiful amateurs as you? I can paralyze a whole vendro full of people with this little ornament on my wrist." He showed John the metallic strap and small case. "It's six months Re-education House for you." The old man shuffled closer, peered at John, said, "The Blasts will be here soon. You can talk. Tell me your name and I'll get word to your folks and your master. Maybe they can help." The rage was so strong now that John barely heard the old man. He was screaming inside, bellowing insane things that couldn't get through his rigid throat. But the words, "You can talk," penetrated, and he calmed himself. He tried hard, and squeaking sounds came through his lips. He shaped the words, and then had nothing to say. There wasn't anything bad enough, anything that could hurt this Outsider, anything that could penetrate his shield of superiority. And then he remembered the ancient word, the forbidden word, the cardinal sin that meant death if used. He'd heard it one night when his father had gotten hold of enough medicinal prychol for a long drunk, and had ranted and raved against the Outsiders. "Nigger!" John screamed. "Niggers, all of you! Billions of foul-blood Niggers! Planets full of lousy Niggers! All alike! All brown! Only we are white! Only we are pure-bloods! Only we aren't Nig--" The paralysis intensified, everything stopped, he couldn't breathe, he wanted desperately to breathe. And, more than that, in a final instant of clarity, he wanted to say that it was all a mistake--everything he'd said, everything he'd thought, everything he'd lived by. He too would be a golden brown, like the billions of others. It was his own folk who were the outsiders, but it wasn't their fault either. It was the fault of those few thousand who'd refused Integration when all the rest of Earth's population had decided on mixed breeding as a solution to human conflict. And that was six hundred years ago, and the cults had formed in York, and no one knew how to break the pattern of hatred, envy and fear. But he was falling into a long tube that had no light and had no end. That girl on the snake, that lovely girl with the sweet smell and soft eyes and golden skin, that composite of all the white, black, brown, yellow and red races of Earth would never be his. The space ships and wonderful planets would never be his. _Never_, he thought, _because I am dead._ He was wrong. He wasn't dead. He opened his eyes later and vomited and was then hauled to his feet and stripped and given fresh clothing. He was taken by two Outsiders--only he didn't think of them that way any more, only used the term because he had no others--was taken by them to a white room and pushed inside and left there alone as the port slid shut. A voice spoke from the smooth white walls. "CPCNC-Earth urges you to accept psychiatric treatment." "No," John said automatically. He didn't want his brain touched. There were stories told by the masters-- The voice spoke again. "Very well. You have used the term of utmost profanity to villify a citizen of Upper City. The Galactic Scroll calls for a penalty of death. However, because of your youth, and probable syndromic history, the sentence is reduced to ten years in Re-education House. Have you anything to say?" John fought not to cry out. Ten years! That was worse than death! Six months was enough to break a man, and ten years would drive him mad. He'd wanted to say he was ready for CYC. He'd wanted to say he was anxious for the time when he'd be eligible for Integration, when he'd be sent to another part of Earth and allowed to mingle with the golden-skinned people and so lose his hatreds, fears and tensions. But now he couldn't. Because it wasn't a matter of free choice any longer. It was an escape from terror, from ten years in hell. Later, he was told that this room would be his home for the next ten years. He didn't answer the unseen voice, nor touch the food that was given him through the minor-port. He decided he would use the only means of escape men had ever found in Re-education House. He would starve himself to death. He meant it. * * * * * In the council room not far away, the thirteen members of CPCNC-Earth were considerably more subdued. They'd had an hour of waiting, and an hour of thinking. Each was now wrestling with his conscience, wondering what portion of responsibility was his in the coming decision. Of course, everyone in the Galaxy agreed that York's eight hundred thousand residents had to be eliminated since they were incorrigible race-god fanatics. But now that the moment was almost at hand, sterilization seemed quite drastic, and euthanasia-- To a man, they looked up as Mala entered the chamber. "Most Peaceful Sir," she began, stopping before Commissioner Dobu's chair. But Dobu snatched the transcription from her hand, mumbled over the code-identification and formal introductions, and read the meat of the report in a voice that trembled only slightly. "After years of work, our scientists on Centauri Two have produced the answer to the York problem. Four million units, liquid, of a new geneological agent is en route to Earth, York Sector, for immediate administration to the white population. The effect produced by induction of this agent into the bloodstream will be an instantaneous change of pigmentation to accepted norm, and subsequent loss of racial tension. Change is permanent, and will be transmitted to offspring. Administration will be initiated by paralysis of entire white population, said method to be launched immediately. Shipment of geneological agent should arrive Bunche Spaceport, 22 hundred hours, day-this-report. Within five days after change of pigmentation, population of York is to be separated into family units and sent to as many different Galactic sectors as is possible. This order applies to all white residents, not excluding those found outside of York, or those in re-education institutions." * * * * * John Stevens didn't hear the shout that went up from thirteen relieved and delighted men. He was entering the second hour of his fast unto the death. He couldn't know that he'd fail to complete a single day of it. 
15402	----	WHAT ANSWER? Anna E. Dickinson 1868 WHAT ANSWER? CHAPTER I "_In flower of youth and beauty's pride._" DRYDEN A crowded New York street,--Fifth Avenue at the height of the afternoon; a gallant and brilliant throng. Looking over the glittering array, the purple and fine linen, the sweeping robes, the exquisite equipages, the stately houses; the faces, delicate and refined, proud, self-satisfied, that gazed out from their windows on the street, or that glanced from the street to the windows, or at one another,--looking over all this, being a part of it, one might well say, "This is existence, and beside it there is none other. Let us dress, dine, and be merry! Life is good, and love is sweet, and both shall endure! Let us forget that hunger and sin, sorrow and self-sacrifice, want, struggle, and pain, have place in the world." Yet, even with the words, "poverty, frost-nipped in a summer suit," here and there hurried by; and once and again through the restless tide the sorrowful procession of the tomb made way. More than one eye was lifted, and many a pleasant greeting passed between these selected few who filled the street and a young man who lounged by one of the overlooking windows; and many a comment was uttered upon him when the greeting was made:-- "A most eligible _parti_!" "Handsome as a god!" "O, immensely rich, I assure you!" "_Isn't_ he a beauty!" "Pity he wasn't born poor!" "Why?" "O, because they say he carried off all the honors at college and law-school, and is altogether overstocked with brains for a man who has no need to use them." "Will he practise?" "Doubtful. Why should he?" "Ambition, power,--gratify one, gain the other." "Nonsense! He'll probably go abroad and travel for a while, come back, marry, and enjoy life." "He does that now, I fancy." "Looks so." And indeed he did. There was not only vigor and manly beauty, splendid in its present, but the "possibility of more to be in the full process of his ripening days,"--a form alert and elegant, which had not yet all of a man's muscle and strength; a face delicate, yet strong,--refined, yet full of latent power; a mass of rippling hair like burnished gold, flung back on the one side, sweeping low across brow and cheek on the other; eyes "Of a deep, soft, lucent hue,-- Eyes too expressive to be blue, Too lovely to be gray." People involuntarily thought of the pink and flower of chivalry as they looked at him, or imagined, in some indistinct fashion, that they heard the old songs of Percy and Douglas, or the later lays of the cavaliers, as they heard his voice,--a voice that was just now humming one of these same lays:-- "Then mounte! then mounte, brave gallants, all, And don your helmes amaine; Death's couriers, Fame and Honor, call Us to the field againe." "Stuff!" he cried impatiently, looking wistfully at the men's faces going by,--"stuff! _We_ look like gallants to ride a tilt at the world, and die for Honor and Fame,--we!" "I thank God, Willie, you are not called upon for any such sacrifice." "Ah, little mother, well you may!" he answered, smiling, and taking her hand,--"well you may, for I am afraid I should fall dreadfully short when the time came; and then how ashamed you'd be of your big boy, who took his ease at home, with the great drums beating and the trumpets blowing outside. And yet--I should like to be tried!" "See, mother!" he broke out again,--"see what a life it is, getting and spending, living handsomely and doing the proper thing towards society, and all that,--rubbing through the world in the old hereditary way; though I needn't growl at it, for I enjoy it enough, and find it a pleasant enough way, Heaven knows. Lazy idler! enjoying the sunshine with the rest. Heigh-ho!" "You have your profession, Willie. There's work there, and opportunity sufficient to help others and do for yourself." "Ay, and I'll _do_ it! But there is so much that is poor and mean, and base and tricky, in it all,--so much to disgust and tire one,--all the time, day after day, for years. Now if it were only a huge giant that stands in your way, you could out rapier and have at him at once, and there an end,--laid out or triumphant. That's worth while!" "O youth, eager and beautiful," thought the mother who listened, "that in this phase is so alike the world over,--so impatient to do, so ready to brave encounters, so willing to dare and die! May the doing be faithful, and the encounters be patiently as well as bravely fought, and the fancy of heroic death be a reality of noble and earnest life. God grant it! Amen." "Meanwhile," said the gay voice,--"meanwhile it's a pleasant world; let us enjoy it! and as to do this is within the compass of a man's wit, therefore will I attempt the doing." While he was talking he had once more come to the window, and, looking out, fastened his eyes unconsciously but intently upon the face of a young girl who was slowly passing by,--unconsciously, yet so intently that, as if suddenly magnetized, a flicker of feeling went over it; the mouth, set with a steady sweetness, quivered a little; the eyes--dark, beautiful eyes--were lifted to his an instant, that was all. The mother beside him did not see; but she heard a long breath, almost a sigh, break from him as he started, then flashed out of the room, snatching his hat in the hall, and so on to the street, and away. Away after her, through block after block, across the crowded avenue to Broadway. "Who is she? where did she come from? _I_ never saw her before. I wonder if Mrs. Russell knows her, or Clara, or anybody! I will know where she lives, or where she is going at least,--that will be some clew! There! she is stopping that stage. I'll help her in! no, I won't,--she will think I am chasing her. Nonsense! do you suppose she saw you at the window? Of course! No, she didn't; don't be a fool! There! I'll get into the next stage. Now I'll keep watch of that, and she'll not know. So--all right! Go ahead, driver." And happy with some new happiness, eager, bright, the handsome young fellow sat watching that other stage, and the stylish little lace bonnet that was all he could see of his magnet, through the interminable journey down Broadway. How clear the air seemed! and the sun, how splendidly it shone! and what a glad look was upon all the people's faces! He felt like breaking out into gay little snatches of song, and moved his foot to the waltz measure that beat time in his brain till the irate old gentleman opposite, whom nature had made of a sour complexion and art assisted to corns, broke out with an angry exclamation. That drew his attention for a moment. A slackening of speed, a halt, and the stage was wedged in one of the inextricable "jams" on Broadway. Vain the search for _her_ stage then; looking over the backs of the poor, tired horses, or from the sidewalk,--here, there, at this one and that one,--all for naught! Stage and passenger, eyes, little lace bonnet, and all, had vanished away, as William Surrey confessed, and confessed with reluctance and discontent. "No matter!" he said presently,--"no matter! I shall see her again. I know it! I feel it! It is written in the book of the Fates! So now I shall content me with something"--that looks like her he did not say definitely, but felt it none the less, as, going over to the flower-basket near by, he picked out a little nosegay of mignonette and geranium, with a tea-rosebud in its centre, and pinned it at his button-hole. "Delicate and fine!" he thought,--"delicate and fine!" and with the repetition he looked from it down the long street after the interminable line of stages; and somehow the faint, sweet perfume, and the fair flower, and the dainty lace bonnet, were mingled in wild and charming confusion in his brain, till he shook himself, and laughed at himself, and quoted Shakespeare to excuse himself,--"A mad world, my masters!"--seeing this poor old earth of ours, as people always do, through their own eyes. "God bless ye! and long life to yer honor! and may the blessed Virgin give ye the desire of yer heart!" called the Irishwoman after him, as he put back the change in her hand and went gayly up the street. "Sure, he's somebody's darlint, the beauty! the saints preserve him!" she said, as she looked from the gold piece in her palm to the fair, sunny head, watching it till it was lost in the crowd from her grateful eyes. Evidently this young man was a favorite, for, as he passed along, many a face, worn by business and care, brightened as he smiled and spoke; many a countenance stamped with the trade-mark, preoccupied and hard, relaxed in a kindly recognition as he bowed and went by; and more than one found time, even in that busy whirl, to glance for a moment after him, or to remember him with a pleasant feeling, at least till the pavement had been crossed on which they met,--a long space at that hour of the day, and with so much more important matters--Bull and Bear, rise and fall, stock and account--claiming their attention. Evidently a favorite, for, turning off into one of the side streets, coming into his father's huge foundry, faces heated and dusty, tired, stained, and smoke-begrimed, glanced up from their work, from forge and fire and engine, with an expression that invited a look or word,--and look and word were both ready. "The boss is out, sir," said one of the foremen, "and if you please, and have got the time to spare, I'd like to have a word with you before he comes in." "All right, Jim! say your say." "Well, sir, you'll likely think I'm sticking my nose into what doesn't concern me. 'Tain't a very nice thing I've got to say, but if I don't say it I don't know who in thunder will; and, as it's my private opinion that somebody ought to, I'll just pitch in." "Very good; pitch in." "Very good it is then. Only it ain't. Very bad, more like. It's a nasty mess, and no mistake! and there's the cause of it!" pointing his brawny hand towards the door, upon which was marked, "Office. Private," and sniffing as though he smelt something bad in the air. "You don't mean my father!" flame shooting from the clear eyes. "Be damned if I do. Beg pardon. Of course I don't. I mean the fellow as is perched up on a high stool in that there office, this very minute, poking into his books." "Franklin?" "You've hit it. Franklin,--Abe Franklin,--that's the ticket." "What's the matter with him? what has he done?" "Done? nothing! not as I know of, anyway, except what's right and proper. 'Tain't what he's done or's like to do. It's what he is." "And what may that be?" "Well, he's a nigger! there's the long and short of it. Nobody here'd object to his working in this place, providing he was a runner, or an errand-boy, or anything that it's right and proper for a nigger to be; but to have him sitting in that office, writing letters for the boss, and going over the books, and superintending the accounts of the fellows, so that he knows just what they get on Saturday nights, and being as fine as a fiddle, is what the boys won't stand; and they swear they'll leave, every man of 'em, unless he has his walking papers,--double-quick too." "Very well; let them. There are other workmen, good as they, in this city of New York." "Hold on, sir! let me say my say first. There are seven hundred men working in this place: the most of 'em have worked here a long while. Good work, good pay. There ain't a man of 'em but likes Mr. Surrey, and would be sorry to lose the place; so, if they won't bear it, there ain't any that will. Wait a bit! I ain't through yet." "Go on,"--quietly enough spoken, but the mouth shook under its silky fringe, and a fiery spot burned on either cheek. "All right. Well, sir, I know all about Franklin. He's a bright one, smart enough to stock a lot of us with brains and have some to spare; he don't interfere with us, and does his work well, too, I reckon,--though that's neither here nor there, nor none of our business if the boss is satisfied; and he looks like a gentleman, and acts like one, there's no denying that! and as for his skin,--well!" a smile breaking over his good-looking face, "his skin's quite as white as mine now, anyway," smearing his red-flannel arm over his grimy phiz; "but then, sir, it won't rub off. He's a nigger, and there's no getting round it. "All right, sir! give you your chance directly. Don't speak yet,--ain't through, if _you_ please. Well, sir, it's agen nature,--you may talk agen it, and work agen it, and fight agen it till all's blue, and what good'll it do? You can't get an Irishman, and, what's more, a free-born American citizen, to put himself on a level with a nigger,--not by no manner of means. No, sir; you can turn out the whole lot, and get another after it, and another after that, and so on to the end of the chapter, and you can't find men among 'em all that'll stay and have him strutting through 'em, up to his stool and his books, grand as a peacock." "Would they work _with_ him?" "At the same engines, and the like, do you mean?" "Yes." "Nary time, so 'tain't likely they'll work under him. Now, sir, you see I know what I'm saying, and I'm saying it to _you_, Mr. Surrey, and not to your father, because he won't take a word from me nor nobody else,--and here's just the case. Now I ain't bullying, you understand, and I say it because somebody else'd say it, if I didn't, uglier and rougher. Abe Franklin'll have to go out of this shop in precious short order, or every man here'll bolt next Saturday night. There! now I've done, sir, and you can fire away." But as he showed no signs of "firing away," and stood still, pondering, Jim broke out again:-- "Beg pardon, sir. If I've said anything you don't like, sorry for it. It's because Mr. Surrey is so good an employer, and, if you'll let me say so, because I like you so well," glancing over him admiringly,--"for, you see, a good engineer takes to a clean-built machine wherever he sees it,--it's just because of this I thought it was better to tell you, and get you to tell the boss, and to save any row; for I'd hate mortally to have it in this shop where I've worked, man and boy, so many years. Will you please to speak to him, sir? and I hope you understand." "Thank you, Jim. Yes, I understand; and I'll speak to him." Was it that the sun was going down, or that some clouds were in the sky, or had the air of the shop oppressed him? Whatever it was, as he came out he walked with a slower step from which some of the spring had gone, and the people's faces looked not so happy; and, glancing down at his rosebud, he saw that its fair petals had been soiled by the smoke and grime in which he had been standing; and, while he looked a dead march came solemnly sounding up the street, and a soldier's funeral went by,--rare enough, in that autumn of 1860, to draw a curious crowd on either side; rare enough to make him pause and survey it; and as the line turned into another street, and the music came softened to his ear, he once more hummed the words of the song which had been haunting him all the day:-- "Then mounte! then mounte, brave gallants, all, And don your helmes amaine; Death's couriers, Fame and Honor, call Us to the field againe,"-- sang them to himself, but not with the gay, bright spirit of the morning. Then he seemed to see the cavaliers, brilliant and brave, riding out to the encounter. Now, in the same dim and fanciful way, he beheld them stretched, still and dead, upon the plain. CHAPTER II "_Thou--drugging pain by patience._" Arnold "Laces cleaned, and fluting and ruffling done here,"--that was what the little sign swinging outside the little green door said. And, coming under it into the cosey little rooms, you felt this was just the place in which to leave things soiled and torn, and come back to find them, by some mysterious process, immaculate and whole. Two rooms, with folding-doors between, in which through the day stood a counter, cut up on the one side into divers pigeon-holes rilled with small boxes and bundles, carefully pinned and labelled,--owner's name, time left, time to be called for, money due; neat and nice as a new pin, as every one said who had any dealings there. The counter was pushed back now, as always after seven o'clock, for the people who came in the evening were few; and then, when that was out of the way, it seemed more home-like and less shoppy, as Mrs. Franklin said every night, as she straightened things out, and peered through the window or looked from the front door, and wondered if "Abram weren't later than usual," though she knew right well he was punctual as clock-work,--good clock-work too,--when he was going to his toil or hurrying back to his home. Pleasant little rooms, with the cleanest and brightest of rag carpets on the floor; a paper on the walls, cheap enough, but gay with scarlet rosebuds and green leaves, rivalled by the vines and berries on the pretty chintz curtains; chairs of a dozen ages and patterns, but all of them with open, inviting countenances and a hospitable air; a wood fire that _looked_ like a wood fire crackling and sparkling on the hearth, shining and dancing over the ceiling and the floor and the walls, cutting queer capers with the big rocking-chair,--which turned into a giant with long arms,--and with the little figures on the mantel-shelf, and the books in their cases, softening and glorifying the two grand faces hanging in their frames opposite, and giving just light enough below them to let you read "John Brown" and "Phillips," if you had any occasion to read, and did not know those whom the world knows; and first and last, and through all, as if it loved her, and was loath to part with her for a moment, whether she poked the flame, or straightened a chair, or went out towards the little kitchen to lift a lid and smell a most savory stew, or came back to the supper-table to arrange and rearrange what was already faultless in its cleanliness and simplicity, wherever she went and whatever she did, this firelight fell warm about a woman, large and comfortable and handsome, with a motherly look to her person, and an expression that was all kindness in her comely face and dark, soft eyes,--eyes and face and form, though, that might as well have had "Pariah" written all over them, and "leper" stamped on their front, for any good, or beauty, or grace, that people could find in them; for the comely face was a dark face, and the voice, singing an old Methodist hymn, was no Anglo-Saxon treble, but an Anglo-African voice, rich and mellow, with the touch of pathos or sorrow always heard in these tones. "There!" she said, "there he is!" as a step, hasty yet halting, was heard on the pavement; and, turning up the light, she ran quickly to open the door, which, to be sure, was unfastened, and to give the greeting to her "boy," which, through many a year, had never been omitted. _Her_ boy,--you would have known that as soon as you saw him,--the same eyes, same face, the same kindly look; but the face was thinner and finer, and the brow was a student's brow, full of thought and speculation; and, looking from her hearty, vigorous form, you saw that his was slight to attenuation. "Sit down, sonny, sit down and rest. There! how tired you look!" bustling round him, smoothing his thin face and rough hair. "Now don't do that! let your old mother do it!" It pleased her to call herself old, though she was but just in her prime. "You've done enough for one day, I'm sure, waiting on other people, and walking with your poor lame foot till you're all but beat out. You be quiet now, and let somebody else wait on you." And, going down on her knees, she took up the lame foot, and began to unlace the cork-soled, high-cut shoe, and, drawing it out, you saw that it was shrunken and small, and that the leg was shorter than its fellow. "Poor little foot!" rubbing it tenderly, smoothing the stocking over it, and chafing it to bring warmth and life to its surface. Her "baby," she called it, for it was no bigger than when he was a little fellow. "Poor, tired foot! ain't it a dreadful long walk, sonny?" "Pretty long, mother; but I'd take twice that to do such work at the end." "Yes, indeed, it's good work, and Mr. Surrey's a good man, and a kind one, that's sure! I only wish some others had a little of his spirit. Such a shame to have you dragging all the way up here, when any dirty fellow that wants to can ride. I don't mind for myself so much, for I can walk about spry enough yet, and don't thank them for their old omnibuses nor cars; but it's too bad for you, so it is,--too bad!" "Never mind, mother! keep a brave heart. 'There's a good time coming soon, a good time coming!' as I heard Mr. Hutchinson sing the other night,--and it's true as gospel." "Maybe it is, sonny!" dubiously, "but I don't see it,--not a sign of it,--no indeed, not one! It gets worse and worse all the time, and it takes a deal of faith to hold on; but the good Lord knows best, and it'll be right after a while, anyhow! And now _that's_ straight!" pulling a soft slipper on the lame foot, and putting its mate by his side; then going off to pour out the tea, and dish up the stew, and add a touch or two to the appetizing supper-table. "It's as good as a feast,"--taking a bite out of her nice home-made bread,--"better'n a feast, to think of you in that place; and I can't scarcely realize it yet. It seems too fine to be true." "That's the way I've felt all the month, mother! It has been just like a dream to me, and I keep thinking surely I'm asleep and will waken to find this is just an air-castle I've been building, or 'a vision of the night,' as the good book says." "Well, it's a blessed vision, sure enough! and I hope to the good Lord it'll last;--but you won't if you make a vision of your supper in that way. You just eat, Abram! and have done your talking till you're through, if you can't do both at once. Talking's good, but eating's better when you're hungry; and it's my opinion you ought to be hungry, if you ain't." So the teacups were filled and emptied, and the spoons clattered, and the stew was eaten, and the baked potatoes devoured, and the bread-and-butter assaulted vigorously, and general havoc made with the good things and substantial things before and between them; and then, this duty faithfully performed, the wreck speedily vanished away; and cups and forks, spoons and plates, knives and dishes, cleaned and cupboarded, Mrs. Franklin came, and, drawing away the book over which he was poring, said, while she smoothed face and hair once more, "Come, Abram, what is it?" "What's what, mother?" with a little laugh. "Something ails you, sonny. That's plain enough. I know when anything's gone wrong with ye, sure, and something's gone wrong to-day." "O mother! you worry about me too much, indeed you do. If I'm a little tired or out of sorts,--which I haven't any right to be, not here,--or quiet, or anything, you think somebody's been hurting me, or abusing me, or that everything's gone wrong with me, when I do well enough all the time." "Now, Abram, you can't deceive me,--not that way. My eyes is mother's eyes, and they see plain enough, where you're concerned, without spectacles. Who's been putting on you to-day? Somebody. You don't carry that down look in your face and your eyes for nothing, I found that out long ago, and you've got it on to-night." "O mother!" "Don't you 'O mother' me! I ain't going to be put off in that way, Abram, an' you needn't think it. Has Mr. Surrey been saying anything hard to you?" "No, indeed, mother; you needn't ask that." "Nor none of the foremen?" "None." "Has Snipe been round?" "Hasn't been near the office since Mr. Surrey dismissed him." "Met him anywhere?" "Nein!" laughing, "I haven't laid eyes on him." "Well, the men have been saying or doing something then." "N-no; why, what an inquisitor it is!" "'N-no.' You don't say that full and plain, Abram. Something _has_ been going wrong with the men. Now what is it? Come, out with it." "Well, mother, if you _will_ know, you will, I suppose; and, as you never get tired of the story, I'll go over the whole tale. "So long as I was Mr. Surrey's office-boy, to make his fires, and sweep and dust, and keep things in order, the men were all good enough to me after their fashion; and if some of them growled because they thought he favored me, Mr. Given, or some one said, 'O, you know his mother was a servant of Mrs. Surrey for no end of years, and of course Mr. Surrey has a kind of interest in him'; and that put everything straight again. "Well! you know how good Mr. Willie has been to me ever since we were little boys in the same house,--he in the parlor and I in the kitchen; the books he's given me, and the chances he's made me, and the way he's put me in of learning and knowing. And he's been twice as kind to me ever since I refused that offer of his." "Yes, I know, but tell me about it again." "Well, Mr. Surrey sent me up to the house one day, just while Mr. Willie was at home from college, and he stopped me and had a talk with me, and asked me in his pleasant way, not as if I were a 'nigger,' but just as he'd talk to one of his mates, ever so many questions about myself and my studies and my plans; and I told him what I wanted,--how hard you worked, and how I hoped to fit myself to go into some little business of my own, not a barber-shop, or any such thing, but something that'd support you and keep you like a lady after while, and that would help me and my people at the same time. For, of course," I said, "every one of us that does anything more than the world expects us to do, or better, makes the world think so much the more and better of us all." "What did he say to that?" "I wish you'd seen him! He pushed back that beautiful hair of his, and his eyes shone, and his mouth trembled, though I could see he tried hard to hold it still, and put up his hand to cover it; and he said, in a solemn sort of way, 'Franklin, you've opened a window for me, and I sha'n't forget what I see through it to-day.' And then he offered to set me up in some business at once, and urged hard when I declined." "Say it all over again, sonny; what was it you told him?" "I said that would do well enough for a white man; that he could help, and the white man be helped, just as people were being and doing all the time, and no one would think a thought about it. But, sir," I said, "everybody says we can do nothing alone; that we're a poor, shiftless set; and it will be just one of the master race helping a nigger to climb and to stand where he couldn't climb or stand alone, and I'd rather fight my battle alone." "Yes, yes! well, go on, go on. I like to hear what followed." "Well, there was just a word or two more, and then he put out his hand and shook mine, and said good by. It was the first time I ever shook hands with a white _gentleman_. Some white hands have shaken mine, but they always made me feel that they _were_ white and that mine was black, and that it was a condescension. I felt that, when they didn't mean I should. But there was nothing between us. I didn't think of his skin, and, for once in my life, I quite forgot I was black, and didn't remember it again till I got out on the street and heard a dirty little ragamuffin cry, 'Hi! hi! don't that nagur think himself foine?' I suspect, in spite of my lameness, I had been holding up my head and walking like a man." In spite of his lameness he was holding up his head and walking like a man now; up and down and across the little room, trembling, excited, the words rushing in an eager flow from his mouth. His mother sat quietly rocking herself and knitting. She knew in this mood there was nothing to be said to him; and, indeed, what had she to say save that which would add fuel to the flame? "Well!"--a long sigh,--"after that Mr. Surrey doubled my wages, and was kinder to me than ever, and watched me, as I saw, quite closely; and that was the way he found out about Mr. Snipe. "You see Mr. Snipe had been very careless about keeping the books; would come down late in the mornings, just before Mr. Surrey came in, and go away early in the afternoons, as soon as he had left. Of course, the books got behindhand every month, and Mr. Snipe didn't want to stay and work overhours to make them up. One day he found out, by something I said, that I understood bookkeeping, and tried me, and then got me to take them home at night and go over them. I didn't know then how bad he was doing, and that I had no business to shield him, and all went smooth enough till the day I was too sick to get down to the office, and two of the books were at home. Then Mr. Surrey discovered the whole thing. There was a great row, it seems; and Mr. Surrey examined the books, and found, as he was pleased to say, that I'd kept them in first-rate style; so he dismissed Mr. Snipe on the spot, with six months' pay,--for you know he never does anything by halves,--and put me in his place. "The men don't like it, I know, and haven't liked it, but of course they can't say anything to him, and they haven't said anything to me; but I've seen all along that they looked at me with no friendly eyes, and for the last day or two I've heard a word here and there which makes me think there's trouble brewing,--bad enough, I'm afraid; maybe to the losing of my place, though Mr. Surrey has said nothing about it to me." Just here the little green door opened, and the foreman whom we have before seen--James Given as the register had him entered, Jim Given as every one knew him--came in; no longer with grimy face and flannel sleeves, but brave in all his Sunday finery, and as handsome a b'hoy, they said, at his engine-house, as any that ran with the machine; having on his arm a young lady whom he apostrophized as Sallie, as handsome and brave as he. "Evening,"--a nod of the head accompanying. "Miss Howard's traps done?" "I wish you wouldn't say 'traps,' Jim," corrected Sallie, _sotto voce_: "it's not proper. It's for a collar and pair of cuffs, Mrs. Franklin," she added aloud, putting down a little check. "Not proper! goodness gracious me! there spoke Snipe! Come, Sallie, you've pranced round with that stuck-up jackanapes till you're getting spoiled entirely, so you are, and I scarcely know you. Not proper,--O my!" "Spoiled, am I? Thank you, sir, for the compliment! And you don't know me at all,--don't you? Very well, then I'll say good night, and leave; for it wouldn't be proper to take a young lady you don't know to the theatre,--now, would it? Good by!"--making for the door. "Now don't, Sallie, please." "Don't what?" "Don't talk that way." "Don't yourself, more like. You're just as cross as cross can be, and disagreeable, and hateful,--all because I happen to know there's some other man in the world besides yourself, and smile at him now and then. 'Don't,' indeed!" "Come, Sallie, you're too hard on a fellow. It's your own fault, you know well enough, if you will be so handsome. Now, if you were an ugly old girl, or I was certain of you, I shouldn't feel so bad, nor act so neither. But when there's a lot of hungry chaps round, all gaping to gobble you up, and even poor little Snipes trying to peck and bite at you, and you won't say 'yes' nor 'no' to me, how do you expect a man to keep cool? Can't do it, nohow, and you needn't ask it. Human nature's human nature, I suppose, and mine ain't a quiet nor a patient one, not by no manner of means. Come, Sallie, own up; you wouldn't like me so well as I hope you do if it was,--now, would you?" Mrs. Franklin smiled, though she had heard not a word of the lovers' quarrel, as she put a pin in the back of the ruffled collar which Sallie had come to reclaim. A quarrel it had evidently been, and as evidently the lady was mollified, for she said, "Don't be absurd, Jim!" and Jim laughed and responded, "All right, Sallie, you're an angel! But come, we must hurry, or the curtain'll be up,"--and away went the dashing and handsome couple. Abram, shutting in the shutters, and fastening the door, sat down to a quiet evening's reading, while his mother knitted and sewed,--an evening the likeness of a thousand others of which they never tired; for this mother and son, to whom fate had dealt so hard a measure, upon whom the world had so persistently frowned, were more to each other than most mothers and sons whose lines had fallen in pleasanter places,--compensation, as Mr. Emerson says, being the law of existence the world over. CHAPTER III "_Every one has his day, from which he dates._" OLD PROVERB You see, Surrey, the school is something extra, and the performances, and it will please Clara no end; so I thought I'd run over, and inveigled you into going along for fear it should be stupid, and I would need some recreation." "Which I am to afford?" "Verily." "As clown or grindstone?--to make laugh, or sharpen your wits upon?" "Far be it from me to dictate. Whichever suits our character best. On the whole, I think the last would be the most appropriate; the first I can swear wouldn't!" "_Pourquoi_?" "O, a woman's reason,--because!" "Because why? Am I cross?" "Not exactly." "Rough?" "As usual,--like a May breeze." "Cynical?" "As Epicurus." "Irritable?" "'A countenance [and manner] more in sorrow than in anger.' Something's wrong with you; who is she?" "She!" "Ay,--she. That was a wise Eastern king who put at the bottom of every trouble and mischief a woman." "Fine estimate." "Correct one. Evidently he had studied the genus thoroughly, and had a poor opinion of it." "No wonder." "Amazing! _you_ say 'no wonder'! Astounding words! speak them again." "No wonder,--seeing that he had a mother, and that she had such a son. He must needs have been a bad fellow or a fool to have originated so base a philosophy, and how then could he respect the source of such a stream as himself?" "Sir Launcelot,--squire of dames!" "Not Sir Launcelot, but squire of dames, I hope." "There you go again! Now I shall query once more, who is she?" "No woman." "No?" "No, though by your smiling you would seem to say so!" "Nay, I believe you, and am vastly relieved in the believing. Take advice from ten years of superior age, and fifty of experience, and have naught to do with them. Dost hear?" "I do." "And will heed?" "Which?--the words or the acts of my counsellor? who, of a surety, preaches wisely and does foolishly, or who does wisely and preaches foolishly; for preaching and practice do not agree." "Nay, man, thou art unreasonable; to perform either well is beyond the capacity of most humans, and I desire not to be blessed above my betters. Then let my rash deeds and my prudent words both be teachers unto thee. But if it be true that no woman is responsible for your grave countenance this morning, then am I wasting words, and will return to our muttons. What ails you?" "I am belligerent." "I see,--that means quarrelsome." "And hopeless." "Bad,--very! belligerent and hopeless! When you go into a fight always expect to win; the thought is half the victory." "Suppose you are an atom against the universe?" "Don't fight, succumb. There's a proverb,--a wise one,--Napoleon's, 'God is on the side of the strongest battalions.'" "A lie,--exploded at Waterloo. There's another proverb, 'One on the side of God is a majority.' How about that?" "Transcendental humbug." "A truth demonstrated at Wittenberg." "Are you aching for the martyr's palm?" "I am afraid not. On the whole, I think I'd rather enjoy life than quarrel with it. But"--with a sudden blaze--"I feel to-day like fighting the world." "Hey, presto! what now, young'un?" "I don't wonder you stare"--a little laugh. "I'm talking like a fool, and, for aught I know, feeling like one, aching to fight, and knowing that I might as well quarrel with the winds, or stab that water as it flows by." "As with what?" "The fellow I've just been getting a good look at." "What manner of fellow?" "Ignorant, selfish, brutal, devilish." "Tremendous! why don't you bind him over to keep the peace?" "Because he is like the judge of old time, neither fears God nor respects his image,--when his image is carved in ebony, and not ivory." "What do you call this fellow?" "Public Opinion." "This big fellow is abusing and devouring a poor little chap, eh? and the chap's black?" "True." "And sometimes the giant is a gentleman in purple and fine linen, otherwise broadcloth; and sometimes in hodden gray, otherwise homespun or slop-shop; and sometimes he cuts the poor little chap with a silver knife, which is rhetoric, and sometimes with a wooden spoon, which is raw-hide. Am I stating it all correctly?" "All correctly." "And you've been watching this operation when you had better have been minding your own business, and getting excited when you had better have kept cool, and now want to rush into the fight, drums beating and colors flying, to the rescue of the small one. Don't deny it,--it's all written out in your eyes." "I sha'n't deny it, except about the business and the keeping cool. It's any gentleman's business to interfere between a bully and a weakling that he's abusing; and his blood must be water that does not boil while he 'watches the operation' as you say, and goes in." "To get well pommelled for his pains, and do no good to any one, himself included. Let the weakling alone. A fellow that can't save himself is not worth saving. If he can't swim nor walk, let him drop under or go to the wall; that's my theory." "Anglo-Saxon theory--and practice." "Good theory, excellent practice,--in the main. What special phase of it has been disturbing your equanimity?" "You know the Franklins?" "Of course: Aunt Mina's son--what's his name?--is a sort of _protégé_ of yours, I believe: what of him?" "He is cleanly?" "A nice question. Doubtless." "Respectable?" "What are you driving at?" "Intelligent?" "Most true." "Ambitious?" "Or his looks belie him." "Faithful, trusty, active, helpful, in every way devoted to my father's service and his work." "With Sancho, I believe it all because your worship says so." "Well, this man has just been discharged from my father's employ because seven hundred and forty-two other men gave notice to quit if he remained." "The reason?" "His skin." "The reason is not 'so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door, but it is enough.' Of course they wouldn't work with him, and my uncle Surrey, begging your pardon, should not have attempted anything so Quixotic." "His skin covering so many excellent qualities, and these qualities gaining recognition,--that was the cause. They worked with him so long as he was a servant of servants: so soon as he demonstrated that he could strike out strongly and swim, they knocked him under; and, proving that he could walk alone, they ran hastily to shove him to the wall." "What! quoting my own words against me?" "Anglo-Saxon says we are the masters: we monopolize the strength and courage, the beauty, intelligence, power. These creatures,--what are they? poor, worthless, lazy, ignorant, good for nothing but to be used as machines, to obey. When lo! one of these dumb machines suddenly starts forth with a man's face; this creature no longer obeys, but evinces a right to command; and Anglo-Saxon speedily breaks him in pieces." "Come, Willie, I hope you're not going to assert these people our equals,--that would be too much." "They have no intelligence, Anglo-Saxon declares,--then refuses them schools, while he takes of their money to help educate his own sons. They have no ambition,--then closes upon them every door of honorable advancement, and cries through the key-hole, Serve, or starve. They cannot stand alone, they have no faculty for rising,--then, if one of them finds foothold, the ground is undermined beneath him. If a head is seen above the crowd, the ladder is jerked away, and he is trampled into the dust where he is fallen. If he stays in the position to which Anglo-Saxon assigns him, he is a worthless nigger; if he protests against it, he is an insolent nigger; if he rises above it, he is a nigger not to be tolerated at all,--to be crushed and buried speedily." "Now, Willie, 'no more of this, an thou lovest me.' I came not out to-day to listen to an abolition harangue, nor a moral homily, but to have a good time, to be civil and merry withal, if you will allow it. Of course you don't like Franklin's discharge, and of course you have done something to compensate him. I know--you have found him another place. No,--you couldn't do that? "No, I couldn't." "Well, you've settled him somewhere,--confess." "He has some work for the present; some copying for me, and translating, for this unfortunate is a scholar, you know." "Very good; then let it rest. Granted the poor devils have a bad time of it, you're not bound to sacrifice yourself for them. If you go on at this pace, you'll bring up with the long-haired, bloomer reformers, and then--God help you. No, you needn't say another word,--I sha'n't listen,--not one; so. Here we are! school yonder,--well situated?" "Capitally." "Fine day." "Very." "Clara will be charmed to see you." "You flatter me. I hope so." "There, now you talk rationally. Don't relapse. We will go up and hear the pretty creatures read their little pieces, and sing their little songs, and see them take their nice blue-ribboned diplomas, and fall in love with their dear little faces, and flirt a bit this evening, and to-morrow I shall take Ma'm'selle Clara home to Mamma Russell, and you may go your ways." "The programme is satisfactory." "Good. Come on then." All Commencement days, at college or young ladies' school, if not twin brothers and sisters, are at least first cousins, with a strong family likeness. Who that has passed through one, or witnessed one, needs any description thereof to furbish up its memories. This of Professor Hale's belonged to the great tribe, and its form and features were of the old established type. The young ladies were charming; plenty of white gowns, plenty of flowers, plenty of smiles, blushes, tremors, hopes, and fears; little songs, little pieces, little addresses, to be sung, to be played, to be read, just as Tom Russell had foreshadowed, and proving to be-- "Just the least of a bore!" as he added after listening awhile; "don't you think so, Surrey?" "Hush! don't talk." Tom stared; then followed his cousin's eye, fixed immovably upon one little spot on the platform. "By Jove!" he cried, "what a beauty! As Father Dryden would say, 'this is the porcelain clay of humankind.' No wonder you look. Who is she,--do you know?" "No." "No! short, clear, and decisive. Don't devour her, Will. Remember the sermon I preached you an hour ago. Come, look at this,"--thrusting a programme into his face,--"and stop staring. Why, boy, she has bewitched you,--or inspired you,"--surveying him sharply. And indeed it would seem so. Eyes, mouth, face, instinct with some subtle and thrilling emotion. As gay Tom Russell looked, he involuntarily stretched out his hand, as one would put it between another and some danger of which that other is unaware, and remembered what he had once said in talking of him,--"If Will Surrey's time does come, I hope the girl will be all right in every way, for he'll plunge headlong, and love like distraction itself,--no half-way; it will be a life-and-death affair for him." "Come, I must break in on this." "Surrey!" "Yes." "There's a pretty girl." No answer. "There! over yonder. Third seat, second row. See her? Pretty?" "Very pretty." "Miss--Miss--what's her name? O, Miss Perry played that last thing very well for a school-girl, eh?" "Very well." "Admirable room this, for hearing; rare quality with chapels and halls; architects in planning generally tax ingenuity how to confuse sound. Now these girls don't make a great noise, yet you can distinguish every word,--can't you?" No response. "I say, can't you?" "Every word." Tom drew a long breath. "Professor Hale's a sensible old fellow; I like the way he conducts this school." (Mem. Tom didn't know a thing about it.) "Carries it on excellently." A pause. Silence. "Fine-looking, too. A man's physique has a deal to do with his success in the world. If he carries a letter of recommendation in his face, people take him on trust to begin with; and if he's a big fellow, like the Professor yonder, he imposes on folks awfully; they pop down on their knees to him, and clear the track for him, as if he had a right to it all. Bless me! I never thought of that before,--it's the reason you and I have got on so swimmingly,--is it not, now? Certainly. You think so? Of course." "Of course,"--sedately and gravely spoken. Tom groaned, for, with a face kind and bright, he was yet no beauty; while if Surrey had one crowning gift in this day of fast youths and self-satisfied Young America, it was that of modesty with regard to himself and any gifts and graces nature had blessed him withal. "Clara has a nice voice." "Very nice." "She is to sing, do you know?" "I know." "Do you know when?" No reply. "She sings the next piece. Are you ready to listen?" "Ready." "Good Lord!" cried Tom, in despair, "the fellow has lost his wits. He has turned parrot; he has done nothing but repeat my words for me since he sat here. He's an echo." "Echo of nothingness?" queried the parrot, smilingly. "Ah, you've come to yourself, have you? Capital! now stay awake. There's Clara to sing directly, and you are to cheer her, and look as if you enjoyed it, and throw her that bouquet when I tell you, and let her think it's a fine thing she has been doing; for this is a tremendous affair to her, poor child, of course." "How bright and happy she is! You will laugh at me, Tom, and indeed I don't know what has come over me, but somehow I feel quite sad, looking at those girls, and wondering what fate and time have in store for them." "Sunshine and bright hours." "The day cometh, and also the night,"--broke in the clear voice that was reading a selection from the Scriptures. Tom started, and Willie took from his button-hole just such a little nosegay as that he had bought on Broadway a fortnight before,--a geranium leaf, a bit of mignonette, and a delicate tea-rosebud, and, seeing it was drooping, laid it carefully upon the programme on his knee. "I don't want that to fade," he thought as he put it down, while he looked across the platform at the same face which he had so eagerly pursued through a labyrinth of carriages, stages, and people, and lost at last. "There! Clara is talking to your beauty. I wonder if she is to sing, or do anything. If she does, it will be something dainty and fine, I'll wager. Helloa! there's Clara up,--now for it." Clara's bright little voice suited her bright little face,--like her brother's, only a great deal prettier,--and the young men enjoyed both, aside from brotherly and cousinly feeling, cheered her "to the echo" as Willie said, threw their bouquets,--great, gorgeous things they had brought from the city to please her,--and wished there was more of it all when it was through. "What next?" said Willie. "Heaven preserve us! your favorite subject. Who would expect to tumble on such a theme here?--'Slavery; by Francesca Ercildoune.' Odd name,--and, by Jove! it's the beauty herself." They both leaned forward eagerly as she came from her seat; slender, shapely, every fibre fine and exquisite, no coarse graining from the dainty head to the dainty foot; the face, clear olive, delicate and beautiful,-- "The mouth with steady sweetness set, And eyes conveying unaware The distant hint of some regret That harbored there,"-- eyes deep, tender, and pathetic. "What's this?" said Tom. "Queer. It gives me a heartache to look at her." "A woman for whom to fight the world, or lose the world, and be compensated a million-fold if you died at her feet," thought Surrey, and said nothing. "What a strange subject for her to select!" broke in Tom. It was a strange one for the time and place, and she had been besought to drop it, and take another; but it should be that or nothing, she asserted,--so she was left to her own device. Oddly treated, too. Tom thought it would be a pretty lady-like essay, and said so; then sat astounded at what he saw and heard. Her face--this schoolgirl's face--grew pallid, her eyes mournful, her voice and manner sublime, as she summoned this Monster to the bar of God's justice and the humanity of the world; as she arraigned it; as she brought witness after witness to testify against it; as she proved its horrible atrocities and monstrous barbarities; as she went on to the close, and, lifting hand and face and voice together, thrilled out, "I look backward into the dim, distant past, but it is one night of oppression and despair; I turn to the present, but I hear naught save the mother's broken-hearted shriek, the infant's wail, the groan wrung from the strong man in agony; I look forward into the future, but the night grows darker, the shadows deeper and longer, the tempest wilder, and involuntarily I cry out, 'How long, O God, how long?'" "Heavens! what an actress she would make!" said somebody before them. "That's genius," said somebody behind them; "but what a subject to waste it upon!" "Very bad taste, I must say, to talk about such a thing here," said somebody beside them. "However, one can excuse a great deal to beauty like that." Surrey sat still, and felt as though he were on fire, filled with an insane desire to seize her in one arm like a knight of old, and hew his way through these beings, and out of this place, into some solitary spot where he could seat her and kneel at her feet, and die there if she refused to take him up; filled with all the sweet, extravagant, delicious pain that thrills the heart, full of passion and purity, of a young man who begins to love the first, overwhelming, only love of a lifetime. CHAPTER IV "_'Tis an old tale, and often told._" SIR WALTER SCOTT That evening some people who were near them were talking about it, and that made Tom ask Clara if her friend was in the habit of doing startling things. "Should you think so to look at her now?" queried Clara, looking across the room to where Miss Ercildoune stood. "Indeed I shouldn't," Tom replied; and indeed no one would who saw her then. "She's as sweet as a sugar-plum," he added, as he continued to look. "What does she mean by getting off such rampant discourses? She never wrote them herself,--don't tell _me_; at least somebody else put her up to it,--that strong-minded-looking teacher over yonder, for instance. _She_ looks capable of anything, and something worse, in the denouncing way; poor little beauty was her cat's-paw this morning." "O Tom, how you talk! She is nobody's cat's-paw. I can tell you she does her own thinking and acting too. If you'd just go and do something hateful, or impose on somebody,--one of the waiters, for instance,--you'd see her blaze up, fast enough." "Ah! philanthropic?" Clara looked puzzled. "I don't know; we have some girls here who are all the time talking about benevolence, and charity, and the like, and they have a little sewing-circle to make up things to be sold for the church mission, or something,--I don't know just what; but Francesca won't go near it." "Democratic, then, maybe." "No, she isn't, not a bit. She's a thorough little aristocrat: so exclusive she has nothing to say to the most of us. I wonder she ever took me for a friend, though I do love her dearly." Tom looked down at his bright little sister, and thought the wonder was not a very great one, but didn't say so; reserving his gallantries for somebody else's sister. "You seem greatly taken with her, Tom." "I own the soft impeachment." "Well, you'll have a fair chance, for she's coming home with me. I wrote to mamma, and she says, bring her by all means,--and Mr. Ercildoune gives his consent; so it is all settled." "Mr. Ercildoune! is there no Mrs. E.?" "None,--her mother died long ago; and her father has not been here, so I can't tell you anything about him. There: do you see that elegant-looking lady talking with Professor Hale? that is her aunt, Mrs. Lancaster. She is English, and is here only on a visit. She wants to take Francesca home with her in the spring, but I hope she won't." "Why, what is it to you?" "I am afraid she will stay, and then I shall never see her any more." "And why stay? do you fancy England so very fascinating?" "No, it is not that; but Francesca don't like America; she's forever saying something witty and sharp about our 'democratic institutions,' as she calls them; and, if you had looked this morning, you'd have seen that she didn't sing The Star-Spangled Banner with the rest of us. Her voice is splendid, and Professor Hale wanted her to lead, as she often does, but she wouldn't sing that, she said,--no, not for anything; and though we all begged, she refused,--flat." "Shocking! what total depravity! I wonder is she converting Surrey to her heresies." No, she wasn't; not unless silence is more potent than words; for after they had danced together Surrey brought her to one of the great windows facing towards the sea, and, leaning over her chair, there was stillness between them as their eyes went out into the night. A wild night! great clouds drifted across the moon, which shone out anon, with light intensified, defining the stripped trees and desolate landscape, and then the beach, and "Marked with spray The sunken reefs, and far away The unquiet, bright Atlantic plain," while through all sounded incessantly the mournful roar of buffeting wind and surging tide; and whether it was the scene, or the solemn undertone of the sea, the dance music, which a little while before had been so gay, sounded like a wail. How could it be otherwise? Passion is akin to pain. Love never yet penetrated an intense nature and made the heart light; sentiment has its smiles, its blushes, its brightness, its words of fancy and feeling, readily and at will; but when the internal sub-soiling is broken up, the heart swells with a steady and tremendous pressure till the breast feels like bursting; the lips are dumb, or open only to speak upon indifferent themes. Flowers may be played with, but one never yet cared to toy with flame. There are souls that are created for one another in the eternities, hearts that are predestined each to each, from the absolute necessities of their nature; and when this man and this woman come face to face, these hearts throb and are one; these souls recognize "my master!" "my mistress!" at the first glance, without words uttered or vows pronounced. These two young lives, so fresh, so beautiful; these beings, in many things such antipodes, so utterly dissimilar in person, so unlike, yet like; their whole acquaintance a glance on a crowded street and these few hours of meeting,--looked into one another's eyes, and felt their whole nature set each to each, as the vast tide "of the bright, rocking ocean sets to shore at the full moon." These things are possible. Friendship is excellent, and friendship may be called love; but it is not love. It may be more enduring and placidly satisfying in the end; it may be better, and wiser, and more prudent, for acquaintance to beget esteem, and esteem regard, and regard affection, and affection an interchange of peaceful vows: the result, a well-ordered life and home. All this is admirable, no doubt; an owl is a bird when you can get no other; but the love born of a moment, yet born of eternity, which comes but once in a lifetime, and to not one in a thousand lives, unquestioning, unthinking, investigating nothing, proving nothing, sufficient unto itself,--ah, that is divine; and this divine ecstasy filled these two souls. Unconsciously. They did not define nor comprehend. They listened to the sea where they sat, and felt tears start to their eyes, yet knew not why. They were silent, and thought they talked; or spoke, and said nothing. They danced; and as he held her hand and uttered a few words, almost whispered, the words sounded to the listening ear like a part of the music to which they kept time. They saw a multitude of people, and exchanged the compliments of the evening, yet these people made no more impression upon their thoughts than gossamer would have made upon their hands. "Come, Francesca!" said Clara Russell, breaking in upon this, "it is not fair for you to monopolize my cousin Will, who is the handsomest man in the room; and it isn't fair for Will to keep you all to himself in this fashion. Here is Tom, ready to scratch out his eyes with vexation because you won't dance with him; and here am I, dying to waltz with somebody who knows my step,--to say nothing of innumerable young ladies and gentlemen who have been casting indignant and beseeching glances this way: so, sir, face about, march!" and away the gay girl went with her prize, leaving Francesca to the tender mercies of half a dozen young men who crowded eagerly round her, and from whom Tom carried her off with triumph and rejoicing. The evening was over at last, and they were going away. Tom had said good night. "You are to be in New York, at my uncle's, Clara tells me." "It is true." "I may see you there?" For answer she put out her hand. He took it as he would have taken a delicate flower, laid his other hand softly, yet closely, over it, and, without any adieu spoken, went away. "Tom always declared Willie was a little queer, and I'm sure I begin to think so," said Clara, as she kissed her friend and departed to her room. CHAPTER V "_A breathing sigh, a sigh for answer, A little talking of outward things._" JEAN INGELOW Ah, the weeks that followed! People ate and drank and slept, lived and loved and hated, were born and died,--the same world that it had been a little while before, yet not the same to them,--never to seem quite the same again. A little cloud had fallen between them and it, and changed to their eyes all its proportions and hues. They were incessantly together, riding, or driving, or walking, looking at pictures, dancing at parties, listening to opera or play. "It seems to me Will is going it at a pretty tremendous pace somewhere," said Mr. Surrey to his wife, one morning, after this had endured for a space. "It would be well to look into it, and to know something of this girl." "You are right," she replied. "Yet I have such absolute faith in Willie's fine taste and sense that I feel no anxiety." "Nor I; yet I shall investigate a bit to-night at Augusta's." "Clara tells me that when Miss Ercildoune understood it was to be a great party, she insisted on ending her visit, or, at least, staying for a while with her aunt, but they would not hear of it." "Mrs. Lancaster goes back to England soon?" "Very soon." "Does any one know aught of Miss Ercildoune's family save that Mrs. Lancaster is her aunt?" "If 'any one' means me, I understand her father to be a gentleman of elegant leisure,--his home near Philadelphia; a widower, with one other child,--a son, I believe; that his wife was English, married abroad; that Mrs. Lancaster comes here with the best of letters, and, for herself, is most evidently a lady." "Good. Now I shall take a survey of the young lady herself." When night came, and with it a crowd to Mrs. Russell's rooms, the opportunity offered for the survey, and it was made scrutinizingly. Surrey was an only son, a well-beloved one, and what concerned him was investigated with utmost care. Scrutinizingly and satisfactorily. They were dancing, his sunny head bent till it almost touched the silky blackness of her hair. "Saxon and Norman," said somebody near who was watching them; "what a delicious contrast!" "They make an exquisite picture," thought the mother, as she looked with delight and dread: delight at the beauty; dread that fills the soul of any mother when she feels that she no longer holds her boy,--that his life has another keeper,--and queries, "What of the keeper?" "Well?" she said, looking up at her husband. "Well," he answered, with a tone that meant, well. "She's thorough-bred. Democratic or not, I will always insist, blood tells. Look at her: no one needs to ask _who_ she is. I'd take her on trust without a word." "So, then, you are not her critic, but her admirer." "Ah, my dear, criticism is lost in admiration, and I am glad to find it so." "And I. Willie saw with our eyes, as a boy; it is fortunate that we can see with his eyes, as a man." So, without any words spoken, after that night, both Mr. and Mrs. Surrey took this young girl into their hearts as they hoped soon to take her into their lives, and called her "daughter" in their thought, as a pleasant preparation for the uttered word by and by. Thus the weeks fled. No word had passed between these two to which the world might not have listened. Whatever language their hearts and their eyes spoke had not been interpreted by their lips. He had not yet touched her hand save as it met his, gloved or formal, or as it rested on his arm; and yet, as one walking through the dusk and stillness of a summer night feels a flower or falling leaf brush his check, and starts, shivering as from the touch of a disembodied soul, so this slight outward touch thrilled his inmost being; this hand, meeting his for an instant, shook his soul. Indefinite and undefined,--there was no thought beyond the moment; no wish to take this young girl into his arms and to call her "wife" had shaped itself in his brain. It was enough for both that they were in one another's presence, that they breathed the same air, that they could see each other as they raised their eyes, and exchange a word, a look, a smile. Whatever storm of emotion the future might hold for them was not manifest in this sunny and delightful present. Upon one subject alone did they disagree with feeling,--in other matters their very dissimilarity proving an added charm. This was a curious question to come between lovers. All his life Surrey had been a devotee of his country and its flag. While he was a boy Kossuth had come to these shores, and he yet remembered how he had cheered himself hoarse with pride and delight, as the eloquent voice and impassioned lips of the great Magyar sounded the praise of America, as the "refuge of the oppressed and the hope of the world." He yet remembered how when the hand, every gesture of which was instinct with power, was lifted to the flag,--the flag, stainless, spotless, without blemish or flaw; the flag which was "fair as the sun, clear as the moon," and to the oppressors of the earth "terrible as an army with banners,"--he yet remembered how, as this emblem of liberty was thus apostrophized and saluted, the tears had rushed to his boyish eyes, and his voice had said, for his heart, "Thank God, I am an American!" One day he made some such remark to her. She answered, "I, too, am an American, but I do not thank God for it." At another time he said, as some emigrants passed them in the street, "What a sense of pride it gives one in one's country, to see her so stretch out her arms to help and embrace the outcast and suffering of the whole world!" She smiled--bitterly, he thought; and replied, "O just and magnanimous country, to feed and clothe the stranger from without, while she outrages and destroys her children within!" "You do not love America," he said. "I do not love America," she responded. "And yet it is a wonderful country." "Ay," briefly, almost satirically, "a wonderful country, indeed!" "Still you stay here, live here." "Yes, it is my country. Whatever I think of it, I will not be driven away from it; it is my right to remain." "Her right to remain?" he thought; "what does she mean by that? she speaks as though conscience were involved in the thing. No matter; let us talk of something pleasanter." One day she gave him a clew. They were looking at the picture of a great statesman,--a man as famous for the grandeur of face and form as for the power and splendor of his intellect. "Unequalled! unapproachable!" exclaimed Surrey, at last. "I have seen its equal," she answered, very quietly, yet with a shiver of excitement in the tones. "When? where? how? I will take a journey to look at him. Who is he? where did he grow?" For response she put her hand into the pocket of her gown, and took out a velvet case. What could there be in that little blue thing to cause such emotion? As Surrey saw it in her hand, he grew hot, then cold, then fiery hot again. In an instant by this chill, this heat, this pain, his heart was laid bare to his own inspection. In an instant he knew that his arms would be empty did they hold a universe in which Francesca Ercildoune had no part, and that with her head on his heart the world might lapse from him unheeded; and, with this knowledge, she held tenderly and caressingly, as he saw, another man's picture in her hand. His own so shook that he could scarcely take the case from her, to open it; but, opened, his eyes devoured what was under them. A half-length,--the face and physique superb. Of what color were the hair and eyes the neutral tints of the picture gave no hint; the brow princely, breaking the perfect oval of the face; eyes piercing and full; the features rounded, yet clearly cut; the mouth with a curious combination of sadness and disdain. The face was not young, yet it was so instinct with magnificent vitality that even the picture impressed one more powerfully than most living men, and one involuntarily exclaimed on beholding it, "This man can never grow old, and death must here forego its claim!" Looking up from it with no admiration to express for the face, he saw Francesca's smiling on it with a sort of adoration, as she, reclaiming her property, said,-- "My father's old friends have a great deal of enjoyment, and amusement too, from his beauty. One of them was the other day telling me of the excessive admiration people had always shown, and laughingly insisted that when papa was a young man, and appeared in public, in London or Paris, it was between two police officers to keep off the admiring crowd; and," laughing a gay little laugh herself, "of course I believed him! why shouldn't I?" He was looking at the picture again. "What an air of command he has!" "Yes. I remember hearing that when Daniel Webster was in London, and walked unattended through the streets, the coal-heavers and workmen took off their hats and stood bareheaded till he had gone by, thinking it was royalty that passed. I think they would do the same for papa." "If he looks like a king, I know somebody who looks like a princess," thought the happy young fellow, gazing down upon the proud, dainty figure by his side; but he smiled as he said, "What a little aristocrat you are, Miss Ercildoune! what a pity you were born a Yankee!" "I am not a Yankee, Mr. Surrey," replied the little aristocrat, "if to be a Yankee is to be a native of America. I was born on the sea." "And your mother, I know, was English." "Yes, she was English." "Is it rude to ask if your father was the same? "No!" she answered emphatically, "my papa is a Virginian,--a Virginia gentleman,"--the last word spoken with an untransferable accent,--"there are few enough of them." "So, so!" thought Willie, "here my riddle is read. Southern--Virginia--gentleman. No wonder she has no love to spend on country or flag; no wonder we couldn't agree. And yet it can't be that,--what were the first words I ever heard from her mouth?" and, remembering that terrible denunciation of the "peculiar institution" of Virginia and of the South, he found himself puzzled the more. Just then there came into the picture-gallery, where they were wasting a pleasant morning, a young man to whom Surrey gave the slightest of recognitions,--well-dressed, booted, and gloved, yet lacking the nameless something which marks the gentleman. His glance, as it rested on Surrey, held no love, and, indeed, was rather malignant. "That fellow," said Surrey, indicating him, "has a queer story connected with him. He was discharged from my father's employ to give place to a man who could do his work better; and the strange part of it"--he watched her with an amused smile to see what effect the announcement would have upon her Virginia ladyship--"is that number two is a black man." A sudden heat flushed her cheeks: "Do you tell me your father made room for a black man in his employ, and at the expense of a white one?" "It is even so." "Is he there now?" Surrey's beautiful Saxon face crimsoned. "No: he is not," he said reluctantly. "Ah! did he, this black man,--did he not do his work well?" "Admirably." "Is it allowable, then, to ask why he was discarded?" "It is allowable, surely. He was dismissed because the choice lay between him and seven hundred men." "And you"--her face was very pale now, the flush all gone out of it--"you have nothing to do with your father's works, but you are his son,--did you do naught? protest, for instance?" "I protested--and yielded. The contest would have been not merely with seven hundred men, but with every machinist in the city. Justice _versus_ prejudice, and prejudice had it; as, indeed, I suppose it will for a good many generations to come: invincible it appears to be in the American mind." "Invincible! is it so?" She paused over the words, scrutinizing him meanwhile with an unconscious intensity. "And this black man,--what of him? He was flung out to starve and die; a proper fate, surely, for his presumption. Poor fool! how did he dare to think he could compete with his masters! You know nothing of _him _?" Surely he must be mistaken. What could this black man, or this matter, be to her? yet as he listened her voice sounded to his ear like that of one in mortal pain. What held him silent? Why did he not tell her, why did he not in some way make her comprehend, that he, delicate exclusive, and patrician, as the people of his set thought him, had gone to this man, had lifted him from his sorrow and despondency to courage and hope once more; had found him work; would see that the place he strove to fill in the world should be filled, could any help of his secure that end. Why did the modesty which was a part of him, and the high-bred reserve which shrank from letting his own mother know of the good deeds his life wrought, hold him silent now? In that silence something fell between them. What was it? But a moment, yet in that little space it seemed to him as though continents divided them, and seas rolled between. "Francesca!" he cried, under his breath,--he had never before called her by her Christian name,--"Francesca!" and stretched out his hand towards her, as a drowning man stretches forth his hand to life. "This room is stifling!" she said for answer; and her voice, dulled and unnatural, seemed to his strangely confused senses as though it came from a far distance,--"I am suffering: shall we go out to the air?" CHAPTER VI "_But more than loss about me clings._" Jean Ingelow "No! no, I am mad to think it! I must have been dreaming! what could there have been in that talk to have such an effect as I have conjured up? She pitied Franklin! yes, she pities every one whom she thinks suffering or wronged. Dear little tender heart! of course it was the room,--didn't she say she was ill? it must have been awful; the heat and the closeness got into my head,--that's it. Bad air is as bad as whiskey on a man's brain. What a fool I made of myself! not even answering her questions. What did she think of me? Well." Surrey in despair pushed away the book over which he had been bending all the afternoon, seeing for every word Francesca, and on every page an image of her face. "I'll smoke myself into some sort of decent quiet, before I go up town, at least"; and taking his huge meerschaum, settling himself sedately, began his quieting operation with appalling energy. The soft rings, gray and delicate, taking curious and airy shapes, floated out and filled the room; but they were not soothing shapes, nor ministering spirits of comfort. They seemed filmy garments, and from their midst faces beautiful, yet faint and dim, looked at him, all of them like unto her face; but when he dropped his pipe and bent forward, the wreaths of smoke fell into lines that made the faces appear sad and bathed in tears, and the images faded from his sight. As the last one, with its visionary arms outstretched towards him, receded from him, and disappeared, he thought, "That is Francesca's spirit, bidding me an eternal adieu"--and, with the foolish thought, in spite of its foolishness, he shivered and stretched out his arms in return. "Of a verity," he then cried, "if nature failed to make me an idiot, I am doing my best to consummate that end, and become one of free choice. What folly possesses me? I will dissipate it at once,--I will see her in bodily shape,--that will put an end to such fancies,"--starting up, and beginning to pull on his gloves. "No! no, that will not do,"--pulling them off again. "She will think I am an uneasy ghost that pursues her. I must wait till this evening, but ah, what an age till evening!" Fortunately, all ages, even lovers' ages, have an end. The evening came; he was at the Fifth Avenue,--his card sent up,--his feet impatiently travelling to and fro upon the parlor carpet,--his heart beating with happiness and expectancy. A shadow darkened the door; he flew to meet the substance,--not a sweet face and graceful form, but a servant, big and commonplace, bringing him his own card and the announcement, "The ladies is both out, sir." "Impossible! take it up again." He said "impossible" because Francesca had that morning told him she would be at home in the evening. "All right, sir; but it's no use, for there's nobody there, I know"; and he vanished for a second attempt, unsuccessful as the first. Surrey went to the office, still determinedly incredulous. "Are Mrs. Lancaster and Miss Ercildoune not in?" "No, sir; both out. Keys here,"--showing them. "Left for one of the five-o'clock trains; rooms not given up; said they would be back in a few days." "From what depot did they leave?" "Don't know, sir. They didn't go in the coach; had a carriage, or I could tell you." "But they left a note, perhaps,--or some message?" "Nothing at all, sir; not a word, nor a scrap. Can I serve you in any way further?" "Thanks! not at all. Good evening." "Good evening, sir." That was all. What did it mean?--to vanish without a sign! an engagement for the evening, and not a line left in explanation or excuse! It was not like her. There must be something wrong, some mystery. He tormented himself with a thousand fancies and fears over what, he confessed, was probably a mere accident; wisely determined to do so no longer,--but did, spite of such excellent resolutions and intent. This took place on the evening of Saturday, the 13th of April, 1861. The events of the next few days doubtless augmented his anxiety and unhappiness. Sunday followed,--a day filled not with a Sabbath calm, but with the stillness felt in nature before some awful convulsion; the silence preceding earthquake, volcano, or blasting storm; a quiet broken from Maine to the Pacific slope when the next day shone, and men roused themselves from the sleep of a night to the duty of a day, from the sleep of generations, fast merging into death, at the trumpet-call to arms,--a cry which sounded through every State and every household in the land, which, more powerful than the old songs of Percy and Douglas, "brought children from their play, and old men from their chimney-corners," to emulate humanity in its strength and prime, and contest with it the opportunity to fight and die in a deathless cause. A cry which said, "There are wrongs to be redressed already long enough endured,--wrongs against the flag of the nation, against the integrity of the Union, against the life of the republic; wrongs against the cause of order, of law, of good government, against right, and justice, and liberty, against humanity and the world; not merely in the present, but in the great future, its countless ages and its generations yet unborn." To this cry there sounded one universal response, as men dropped their work at loom, or forge, or wheel, in counting-room, bank, and merchant's store, in pulpit, office, or platform, and with one accord rushed to arms, to save these rights so frightfully and arrogantly assailed. One voice that went to swell this chorus was Surrey's; one hand quick to grasp rifle and cartridge-box, one soul eager to fling its body into the breach at this majestic call, was his. He felt to the full all the divine frenzy and passion of those first days of the war, days unequalled in the history of nations and of the world. All the elegant dilettanteism, the delicious idleness, the luxurious ease, fell away, and were as though they had never been. All the airy dreams of a renewed chivalrous age, of courage, of heroism, of sublime daring and self-sacrifice, took substance and shape, and were for him no longer visions of the night, but realities of the day. Still, while flags waved, drums beat, and cannon thundered; while friends said, "Go!" the world stood ready to cheer him on, and fame and honor and greater things than these beckoned him to come; while he felt the whirl and excitement of it all,--his heart cried ceaselessly, "Only let me see her--once--if but for a moment, before I go!" It was so little he asked of fate, yet too much to be granted. In vain he went every day, and many times a day, in the brief space left him, to her hotel. In vain he once more questioned clerk and servants; in vain haunted the house of his aunt, with the dim hope that Clara might hear from her, or that in some undefined way he might learn of her whereabouts, and so accomplish his desire. But the days passed, too slowly for the ardent young patriot, all too rapidly for the unhappy lover. Friday came. Early in the day multitudes of people began to collect in the street, growing in numbers and enthusiasm as the hours wore on, till, in the afternoon, the splendid thoroughfare of New York from Fourth Street down to the Cortlandt Ferry--a stretch of miles--was a solid mass of humanity; thousands and tens of thousands, doubled, quadrupled, and multiplied again. Through the morning this crowd in squads and companies traversed the streets, collected on the corners, congregating chiefly about the armory of their pet regiment, the Seventh, on Lafayette Square,--one great mass gazing unweariedly at its windows and walls, then moving on to be replaced by another of the like kind, which, having gone through the same performance, gave way in turn to yet others, eager to take its place. So the fever burned; the excitement continued and augmented till, towards three o'clock in the afternoon, the mighty throng stood still, and waited. It was no ordinary multitude; the wealth, refinement, fashion, the greatness and goodness of a vast city were there, pressed close against its coarser and darker and homelier elements. Men and women stood alike in the crowd, dainty patrician and toil-stained laborer, all thrilled by a common emotion, all vivified--if in unequal degree--by the same sublime enthusiasm. Overhead, from every window and doorway and housetop, in every space and spot that could sustain one, on ropes, on staffs, in human hands, waved, and curled, and floated, flags that were in multitude like the swells of the sea; silk, and bunting, and painted calico, from the great banner spreading its folds with an indescribable majesty, to the tiny toy shaken in a baby hand. Under all this glad and gay and splendid show, the faces seemed, perhaps by contrast, not sad, but grave; not sorrowful, but intense, and luminously solemn. Gradually the men of the Seventh marched out of their armory. Hands had been wrung, adieus said, last fond embraces and farewells given. The regiment formed in the open square, the crowd about it so dense as to seem stifling, the windows of its building rilled with the sweetest and finest and fairest of faces,--the mothers, wives, and sweethearts of these young splendid fellows just ready to march away. Surrey from his station gazed and gazed at the window where stood his mother, so well beloved, his relations and friends, many of them near and dear to him,--some of them with clear, bright eyes that turned from the forms of brothers in the ranks to seek his, and linger upon it wistfully and tenderly; yet looking at all these, even his mother, he looked beyond, as though in the empty space a face would appear, eyes would meet his, arms be stretched towards him, lips whisper a fond adieu, as he, breaking from the ranks, would take her to his embrace, and speak, at the same time, his love and farewell. A fruitless longing. Four o'clock struck over the great city, and the line moved out of the square, through Fourth Street, to Broadway. Then began a march, which whoso witnessed, though but a little child, will remember to his dying day, the story of which he will repeat to his children, and his children's children, and, these dead, it will be read by eyes that shall shine centuries hence, as one of the most memorable scenes in the great struggle for freedom. Hands were stretched forth to touch the cloth of their uniforms, and kissed when they were drawn back. Mothers held up their little children to gain inspiration for a lifetime. A roar of voices, continuous, unbroken, rent the skies; while, through the deafening cheers, men and women, with eyes blinded by tears, repeated, a million times, "God bless--God bless and keep them!" And so, down the magnificent avenue, through the countless, shouting multitude, through the whirlwind of enthusiasm and adoration, under the glorious sweep of flags, the grand regiment moved from the beginning of its march to its close,--till it was swept away towards the capital, around which were soon to roll such bloody waves of death. Meanwhile, where was Miss Ercildoune? Surrey had thought her behavior strange the last morning they spent together. How much stranger, how unaccountable, indeed, would it have seemed to him, could he have seen her through the afternoon following! "What is wrong with you? are you ill, Francesca?" her aunt had inquired as she came in, pulling off her hat with the air of one stifling, and throwing herself into a chair. "Ill! O no!"--with a quick laugh,--"what could have made you think so? I am quite well, thank you; but I will go to my room for a little while and rest. I think I am tired." "Do, dear, for I want you to take a trip up the Hudson this afternoon. I have to see some English people who are living at a little village a score of miles out of town, and then I must go on to Albany before I take you home. It will be pleasant at Tanglewood over the Sabbath,--unless you have some engagements to keep you here?" "O Aunt Alice, how glad I am! I was going home this afternoon without you. I thought you would come when you were ready; but this will do just as well,--anything to get out of town." "Anything to get out of town? why, Francesca, is it so hateful to you? 'Going home! and this do almost as well!'--what does the child mean? is she the least little bit mad? I'm afraid so. She evidently needs some fresh country air, and rest from excitement. Go, dear, and take your nap, and refresh yourself before five o'clock; that is the time we leave." As the door closed between them, she shook her head dubiously. '"Going home this afternoon!' what does that signify? Has she been quarrelling with that young lover of hers, or refusing him? I should not care to ask any questions till she herself speaks; but I fear me something is wrong." She would not have feared, but been certain, could she have looked then and there into the next room. She would have seen that the trouble was something deeper than she dreamed. Francesca was sitting, her hands supporting an aching head, her large eyes fixed mournfully and immovably upon something which she seemed to contemplate with a relentless earnestness, as though forcing herself to a distressing task. What was this something? An image, a shadow in the air, which she had not evoked from the empty atmosphere, but from the depths of her own nature and soul,--the life and fate of a young girl. Herself! what cause, then, for mournful scrutiny? She, so young, so brilliant, so beautiful, upon whom fate had so kindly smiled, admired by many, tenderly and passionately loved by at least one heart,--surely it was a delightful picture to contemplate,--this life and its future; a picture to bring smiles to the lips, rather than tears to the eyes. Though, in fact, there were none dimming hers,--hot, dry eyes, full of fever and pain. What visions passed before them? what shadows of the life she inspected darkened them? what sunshine now and then fell upon it, reflecting itself in them, as she leaned forward to scan these bright spots, holding them in her gaze after other and gloomier ones had taken their places, as one leans forth from window or doorway to behold, long as possible, the vanishing form of some dear friend. Looking at these, she cried out, "Fool! to have been so happy, and not to have known what the happiness meant, and that it was not for me,--never for me! to have walked to the verge of an abyss,--to have plunged in, thinking the path led to heaven. Heaven for me! ah,--I forgot,--I forgot. I let an unconscious bliss seize me, possess me, exclude memory and thought,--lived in it as though it would endure forever." She got up and moved restlessly to and fro across the room, but presently came back to the seat she had abandoned, and to the inspection which, while it tortured her, she yet evidently compelled herself to pursue. "Come," she then said, "let us ask ourself some questions, constitute ourself confessor and penitent, and see what the result will prove." "Did you think fate would be more merciful to you than to others?" "No, I thought nothing about fate." "Did you suppose that he loved you sufficiently to destroy 'an invincible barrier?'" "I did not think of his love. I remembered no barrier. I only knew I was in heaven, and cared for naught beyond." "Do you see the barrier now?" "I do--I do." "Did _he_ help you to behold it; to discover, or to remember it? did he, or did he not?" "He did. Too true,--he did." "Does he love you?" "I--how should I know? his looks, his acts--I never thought--O Willie, Willie!"--her voice going out in a little gasping sob. "Come,--none of that. No sentiment,--face the facts. Think over all that was said, every word. Have you done so?" "I have,--every word." "Well?" "Ah, stop torturing me. Do not ask me any more questions. I am going away,--flying like a coward. I will not tempt further suffering. And yet--once more--only once? could that do harm? Ah, God, my God, be merciful!" she cried, clasping her hands and lifting them above her bowed head. Then remembering, in the midst of her anguish, some words she had been reading that morning, she repeated them with a bitter emphasis,--"What can wringing of the hands do, that which is ordained to alter?" As she did so she tore asunder her clasped hands, to drop them clinched by her side,--the gesture of despair substituted for that of hope. "It is not Heaven I am to besiege!" she exclaimed. "Will I never learn that? Its justice cannot overcome the injustice of man. My God!" she cried then, with a sudden, terrible energy, "our punishment should be light, our rest sure, our paradise safe, at the end, since we have to make now such awful atonement; since men compel us to endure the pangs of purgatory, the tortures of hell, here upon earth." After that she sat for a long while silent, evidently revolving a thousand thoughts of every shape and hue, judging from the myriads of lights and shadows that flitted over her face. At last, rousing herself, she perceived that she had no more time to spend in this sorrowful employment,--that she must prepare to go away from him, as her heart said, forever. "Forever!" it repeated. "This, then, is the close of it all,--the miserable end!" With that thought she shut her slender hand, and struck it down hard, the blood almost starting from the driven nails and bruised flesh, unheeding; though a little space thereafter she smiled, beholding it, and muttered, "So--the drop of savage blood is telling at last!" Presently she was gone. It was a pleasant spot to which her aunt took her,--one of the pretty little villages scattered up and down the long sweep of the Hudson. Pleasant people they were too,--these English friends of Mrs. Lancaster,--who made her welcome, but did not intrude upon the solitude which they saw she desired. Sabbath morning they all went to the little chapel, and left her, as she wished, alone. Being so alone, after hearing their adieus, she went up to her room and sat down to devote herself once again to sorrowful contemplation,--not because she would, but because she must. Poor girl! the bright spring sunshine streamed over her where she sat;--not a cloud in the sky, not a dimming of mist or vapor on all the hills, and the broad river-sweep which, placid and beautiful, rolled along; the cattle far off on the brown fields rubbed their silky sides softly together, and gazed through the clear atmosphere with a lazy content, as though they saw the waving of green grass, and heard the rustle of wind in the thick boughs, so soon to bear their leafy burden. Stillness everywhere,--the blessed calm that even nature seems to feel on a sunny Sabbath morn. Stillness scarcely broken by the voices, mellowed and softened ere they reached her ear, chanting in the village church, to some sweet and solemn music, words spoken in infinite tenderness long ago, and which, through all the centuries, come with healing balm to many a sore and saddened heart: "Come unto me," the voices sang,--"come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "Ah, rest," she murmured while she listened,--"rest"; and with the repetition of the word the fever died out of her eyes, leaving them filled with such a look, more pitiful than any tears, as would have made a kind heart ache even to look at them; while her figure, alert and proud no longer, bent on the window ledge in such lonely and weary fashion that a strong arm would have involuntarily stretched out to shield it from any hardness or blow that might threaten, though the owner thereof were a stranger. There was something indescribably appealing and pathetic in her whole look and air. Outside the window stood a slender little bird which had fluttered there, spent and worn, and did not try to flit away any further. Too early had it flown from its southern abode; too early abandoned the warm airs, the flowers and leafage, of a more hospitable region, to find its way to a northern home; too early ventured into a rigorous clime; and now, shivering, faint, near to death, drooped its wings and hung its weary head, waiting for the end of its brief life to come. Francesca, looking up with woeful eyes, beheld it, and, opening the window, softly took it in. "Poor birdie!" she whispered, striving to warm it in her gentle hand and against her delicate cheek,--"poor little wanderer!--didst thou think to find thy mate, and build thy tiny nest, and be a happy mother through the long bright summer-time? Ah, my pet, what a sad close is this to all these pleasant dreams!" The frail little creature could not eat even the bits of crumbs which she put into its mouth, nor taste a drop of water. All her soothing presses failed to bring warmth and life to the tiny frame that presently stretched itself out, dead,--all its sweet songs sung, its brief, bright existence ended forever. "Ah, my little birdie, it is all over," whispered Francesca, as she laid it softly down, and unconsciously lifted her hand to her own head with a self-pitying gesture that was sorrowful to behold. "Like me," she did not say; yet a penetrating eye looking at them--the slight bird lying dead, its brilliant plumage already dimmed, the young girl gazing at it--would perceive that alike these two were fitted for the warmth and sunshine, would perceive that both had been thwarted and defrauded of their fair inheritance, would perceive that one lay spent and dead in its early spring. What of the other? "Aunt Alice," said Francesca a few days after that, "can you go to New York this afternoon or to-morrow morning?" "Certainly, dear. I purposed returning to-day or early in the morning to see the Seventh march away. Of course you would like to be there." "Yes." She spoke slowly, and with seeming indifference. It was because she could scarcely control her voice to speak at all. "I should like to be there." Francesca knew, what her aunt did not, that Surrey was a member of the Seventh, and that he would march away with it to danger,--perhaps to death. So they were there, in a window overlooking the great avenue,--Mrs. Lancaster, foreigner though she was, thrilled to the heart's core by the magnificent pageant; Francesca straining her eyes up the long street, through the vast sea of faces, to fasten them upon just one face that she knew would presently appear in the throng. "Ah, heavens!" cried Mrs. Lancaster, "what a sight! look at those young men; they are the choice and fine of the city. See, see! there is Hunter, and Winthrop, and Pursuivant, and Mortimer, and Shaw, and Russell, and, yes--no--it is, over there--your friend, Surrey, himself. Did you know, Francesca?" Francesca did not reply. Mrs. Lancaster turned to see her lying white and cold in her chair. Endurance had failed at last. CHAPTER VII "_The plain, unvarnished tale of my whole course of love._" Shakespeare "What a handsome girl that is who always waits on us!" Francesca had once said to Clara Russell, as they came out of Hyacinth's with some dainty laces in their hands. "Very," Clara had answered. The handsome girl was Sallie. At another time Francesca, admiring some particular specimen of the pomps and vanities with which the store was crowded, was about carrying it away, but first experimented as to its fit. "O dear!" she cried, in dismay, "it is too short, and"--rummaging through the box--"there is not another like it, and it is the only one I want." "How provoking!" sympathized Clara. "I could very easily alter that," said Sallie, who was behind the counter; "I make these up for the shop, and I'll be glad to fix this for you, if you like it so much." "Thanks. You are very kind. Can you send it up to-morrow?" "This evening, if you wish it." "Very good; I shall be your debtor." "Well!" exclaimed Clara, as they turned away, this is the first time in all my shopping I ever found a girl ready to put herself out to serve one. They usually act as if they were conferring the most overwhelming favor by condescending to wait upon you at all." "Why, Clara, I'm sure I always find them civil." "I know they seem devoted to you. I wonder why. Oh!"--laughing and looking at her friend with honest admiration,--"it must be because you are so pretty." "Excellent,--how discerning you are!" smiled Francesca, in return. If Clara had had a little more discernment, she would have discovered that what wrought this miracle was a friendly courtesy, that never failed to either equal or subordinate. Six weeks after the Seventh had marched out of New York, Francesca, sitting in her aunt's room, was roused from evidently painful thought by the entrance of a servant, who announced, "If you please, a young woman to see you." "Name?" "She gave none, miss." "Send her up." Sallie came in. "Bird of Paradise" Francesca had called her more than once, she was so dashing and handsome; but the title would scarcely fit now, for she looked poor, and sad, and woefully dispirited. "Ah, Miss Sallie, is it you? Good morning." "Good morning, Miss Ercildoune." She stood, and looked as though she had something important to say. Presently Francesca had drawn it from her,--a little story of her own sorrows and troubles. "The reason I have come to you, Miss Ercildoune, when you are so nearly a stranger, is because you have always been so kind and pleasant to me when I waited on you at the store, and I thought you'd anyway listen to what I have to say." "Speak on, Sallie." "I've been at Hyacinth's now, over four years, ever since I left school. It's a good place, and they paid me well, but I had to keep two people out of it, my little brother Frank and myself; Frank and I are orphans. And I'm very fond of dress; I may as well confess that at once. So the consequence is, I haven't saved a cent against a rainy day. Well," blushing scarlet, "I had a lover,--the best heart that ever beat,--but I liked to flirt, and plague him a little, and make him jealous; and at last he got dreadfully so about a young gentleman,--a Mr. Snipe, who was very attentive to me,--and talked to me about it in a way I didn't like. That made me worse. I don't know what possessed me; but after that I went out with Mr. Snipe a great deal more, to the theatre and the like, and let him spend his money on me, and get things for me, as freely as he chose. I didn't mean any harm, indeed I didn't,--but I liked to go about and have a good time; and then it made Jim show how much he cared for me, which, you see, was a great thing to me; and so this went on for a while, till Jim gave me a real lecture, and I got angry and wouldn't listen to anything he had to say, and sent him away in a huff"--here she choked--"to fight; to the war; and O dear! O dear!" breaking down utterly, and hiding her face in her shawl, "he'll be killed,--I know he will; and oh! what shall I do? My heart will break, I am sure." Francesca came and stood by her side, put her hand gently on her shoulder, and stroked her beautiful hair. "Poor girl!" she said, softly, "poor girl!" and then, so low that even Sallie could not hear, "You suffer, too: do we all suffer, then?" Presently Sallie looked up, and continued: "Up to that time, Mr. Snipe hadn't said anything to me, except that he admired me very much, and that I was pretty, too pretty to work so hard, and that I ought to live like a lady, and a good deal more of that kind of talk that I was silly enough to listen to; but when he found Jim was gone, first, he made fun of him for 'being such a great fool as to go and be shot at for nothing,' and then he--O Miss Ercildoune, I can't tell you what he said; it makes me choke just to think of it. How dared he? what had I done that he should believe me such a thing as that? I don't know what words I used when I did find them, and I don't care, but they must have stung. I can't tell you how he looked, but it was dreadful; and he said, 'I'll bring down that proud spirit of yours yet, my lady. I'm not through with you,--don't think it,--not by a good deal'; and then he made me a fine bow, and laughed, and went out of the room. "The next day Mr. Dodd--that's one of our firm--gave me a week's notice to quit: 'work was slack,' he said, 'and they didn't want so many girls.' But I'm just as sure as sure can be that Mr. Snipe's at the bottom of it, for I've been at the store, as I told you, four years and more, and they always reckoned me one of their best hands, and Mr. Dodd and Mr. Snipe are great friends. Since then I've done nothing but try to get work. I must have been into a thousand stores, but it's true work is slack; there's not a thing been doing since the war commenced, and I can't get any place. I've been to Miss Russell and some of the ladies who used to come to the store, to see if they'd give me some fine sewing; but they hadn't any for me, and I don't know what in the world to do, for I understand nothing very well but to sew, and to stand in a store. I've spent all my money, what little I had, and--and--I've even sold some of my clothes, and I can't go on this way much longer. I haven't a relative in the world; nor a home, except in a boarding-house; and the girls I know all treat me cool, as though I had done something bad, because I've lost my place, I suppose, and am poor. "All along, at times, Mr. Snipe has been sending me things,--bouquets, and baskets of fruit, and sometimes a note, and, though I won't speak to him when I meet him on the street, he always smiles and bows as if he were intimate; and last night, when I was coming home, tired enough from my long search, he passed me and said, with such a look, 'You've gone down a peg or two, haven't you, Sallie? Come, I guess we'll be friends again before long.' You think it's queer I'm telling you all this. I can't help it; there's something about you that draws it all out of me. I came to ask you for work, and here I've been talking all this while about myself. You must excuse me; I don't think I would have said so much, if you hadn't looked so kind and so interested"; and so she had,--kind as kind could be, and interested as though the girl who talked had been her own sister. "I am glad you came, Sallie, and glad that you told me all this, if it has been any relief to you. You may be sure I will do what I can for you, but I am afraid that will not be a great deal, here; for I am a stranger in New York, and know very few people. Perhaps--Would you go away from here?" "Would I?--O wouldn't I? and be glad of the chance. I'd give anything to go where I couldn't get sight or sound of that horrid Snipe. Can't I go with you, Miss Ercildoune?" "I have no counter behind which to station you," said Francesca, smiling. "No, I know,--of course; but"--looking at the daintily arrayed figure--"you have plenty of elegant things to make, and I can do pretty much anything with my needle, if you'd like to trust me with some work. And then--I'm ashamed to ask so much of you, but a few words from you to your friends, I'm sure, would send me all that I could do, and more." "You think so?" Miss Ercildoune inquired, with a curious intonation to her voice, and the strangest expression darkening her face. "Very well, it shall be tried." Sallie was nonplussed by the tone and look, but she comprehended the closing words fully and with delight. "You will take me with you," she cried. "O, how good, how kind you are! how shall I ever be able to thank you?" "Don't thank me at all," said Miss Ercildoune, "at least not now. Wait till I have done something to deserve your gratitude." But Sallie was not to be silenced in any such fashion, and said her say with warmth and meaning; then, after some further talk about time and plans, went away carrying a bit of work which Miss Ercildoune had found, or made, for her, and for which she had paid in advance. "God bless her!" thought Sallie; "how nice and how thoughtful she is! Most ladies, if they'd done anything for me, would have given me some money and made a beggar of me, and I should have felt as mean as dish-water. But now"--she patted her little bundle and walked down the street, elated and happy. Francesca watched her out of the door with eyes that presently filled with tears. "Poor girl!" she whispered; "poor Sallie! her lover has gone to the wars with a shadow between them. Ah, that must not be; I must try to bring them together again, if he loves her dearly and truly. He might die,"--she shuddered at that,--"die, as other men die, in the heat and flame of battle. My God! my God! how shall I bear it? Dead! and without a word! Gone, and he will never know how well I love him! O Willie, Willie! my life, my love, my darling, come back, come back to me." Vain cry!--he cannot hear. Vain lifting of an agonized face, beautiful in its agony!--he cannot see. Vain stretching forth of longing hands and empty arms!--he is not there to take them to his embrace. Carry thy burden as others have carried it before thee, and learn what multitudes, in times past and in time present, have learned,--the lesson of endurance when happiness is denied, and of patience and silence when joy has been withheld. Go thou thy way, sorrowful and suffering soul, alone; and if thy own heart bleeds, strive thou to soothe its pangs, by medicining the wounds and healing the hurts of another. A few days thereafter, when Miss Ercildoune went over to Philadelphia, Sallie and Frank bore her company. She had become as thoroughly interested in them as though she had known and cared for them for a long while; and as she was one who was incapable of doing in an imperfect or partial way aught she attempted, and whose friendship never stopped short with pleasant sounding words, this interest had already bloomed beautifully, and was fast ripening into solid fruit. She had written in advance to desire that certain preparations should be made for her _protégés_,--preparations which had been faithfully attended to; and thus, reaching a strange city, they felt themselves not strangers, since they had a home ready to receive them, and this excellent friend by their side. The home consisted of two rooms, neat, cheerful, high up,--"the airier and healthier for that," as Sallie decided when she saw them. "I believe everything is in order," said the good-natured-looking old lady, the mistress of the establishment. "My lodgers are all gentlemen who take their meals out, and I shall be glad of some company. Any one whom Friend Comstock recommends will be all right, I know." As Mrs. Healey's style of designation indicated, Friend Comstock was a Quakeress, well known, greatly esteemed, an old friend of Miss Ercildoune, and of Miss Ercildoune's father. She it was to whom Francesca had written, and who had found this domicile for the wanderers, and who at the outset furnished Sallie with an abundance of fine and dainty sewing. Indeed, without giving the matter special thought, she was surprised to discover that, with one or two exceptions, the people Miss Ercildoune sent her were of the peaceful and quiet sect. This bird of brilliant plumage seemed ill assorted with the sober-hued flock. She found in this same bird a helper in more ways than one. It was not alone that she gave her employment and paid her well, nor that she sent her others able and willing to do the same. She found Frankie a good school, and saw him properly installed. She never came to them empty-handed; through the long, hot summer-time she brought them fruit and flowers from her home out of town; and when she came not herself, if the carriage was in the city it stopped with these same delightful burdens. Sallie declared her an angel, and Frank, with his mouth stuffed full, stood ready to echo the assertion. So the heated term wore away,--before it ended, telling heavily on Sallie. Her anxiety about Jim, her close confinement and constant work, the fever everywhere in the spiritual air through that first terrible summer of the war, bore her down. "You need rest," said Miss Ercildoune to her one day, looking at her with kindly solicitude,--"rest, and change, and fresh air, and freedom from care. I can't give you the last, but I can the first if you will accept them. You need some country living." "O Miss Ercildoune, will you let me do your work at your own home? I know it would do me good just to be under the same roof with you, and then I should have all the things you speak of combined and another one added. If you only will!" This was not the plan Francesca had proposed to herself. She had intended sending Sallie away to some pleasant country or seaside place, till she was refreshed and ready to come to her work once more. Sallie did not know what to make of the expression of the face that watched her, nor of the exclamation, "Why not? let me try her." But she had not long to consider, for Miss Ercildoune added, "Be it so. I will send in for you to-morrow, and you shall stay till you are better and stronger, or--till you please to come home,"--the last words spoken in a bitter and sorrowful tone. The next day Sallie found her way to the superb home of her employer. Superb it was, in every sense. Never before had she been in such a delightful region, never before realized how absolutely perfect breeding sets at ease all who come within the charm of its magic sphere,--employed, acquaintance, or friend. There was a shadow, however, in this house,--a shadow, the premonition of which she had seen more than once on the face of its mistress ere she ever beheld her home; a shadow to which, for a few days, she had no clew, but which was suddenly explained by the arrival of the master of this beautiful habitation; a shadow from which most people would have fled as from the breath of a pestilence, or the shade of the tomb; nay, one from which, but a few short months before, Sallie herself would have sped with feet from which she would have shaken the very dust of the threshold when she was beyond its doors,--but not now. Now, as she beheld it, she sat still to survey it, with surprise that deepened into indignation and compassion, that many a time filled her eyes with tears, and brought an added expression of respect to her voice when she spoke to these people who seemed to have all the good things that this world can offer, upon whom fortune had expended her treasures, yet-- Whatever it was, Sallie came from that home with many an old senseless prejudice destroyed forever, with a new thought implanted in her soul, the blossoming of which was a noxious vapor in the nostrils of some who were compelled to inhale it, but as a sweet-smelling savor to more than one weary wayfarer, and to that God to whom the darkness and the light are alike, and who, we are told by His own word, is no respecter of persons. "Poor, dear Miss Ercildoune!" half sobbed, half scolded Sallie, as she sat at her work, blooming and, fresh, the day after her return. "What a tangled thread it is, to be sure," jerking at her knotty needleful. "Well, I know what I'll do,--I'll treat her as if she was a queen born and crowned, just so long as I have anything to do with her,--so I will." And she did. CHAPTER VIII "_For hearts of truest mettle Absence doth join, and time doth settle._" Anonymous It were a vain endeavor to attempt the telling of what filled the heart and soul of Surrey, as he marched away that day from New York, and through the days and weeks and months that followed. Fired by a sublime enthusiasm for his country; thirsting to drink of any cup her hand might present, that thus he might display his absolute devotion to her cause; burning with indignation at the wrongs she had suffered; thrilled with an adoring love for the idea she embodied; eager to make manifest this love at whatever cost of pain and sorrow and suffering to himself,--through all this the man never once was steeped in forgetfulness in the soldier; the divine passion of patriotism never once dulled the ache, or satisfied the desire, or answered the prayer, or filled the longing heart, that through the day marches and the night watches cried, and would not be appeased, for his darling. "Surely," he thought as he went down Broadway, as he reflected, as he considered the matter a thousand times thereafter,--"surely I was a fool not to have spoken to her then; not to have seen her, have devised, have forced some way to reach her, not to have met her face to face, and told her all the love with which she had filled my heart and possessed my soul. And then to have been such a coward when I did write to her, to have so said a say which was nothing"; and he groaned impatiently as he thought of the scene in his room and the letter which was its final result. How he had written once, and again, and yet again, letters short and long, letters short and burning, or lengthy and filled almost to the final line with delicate fancies and airy sentiment, ere he ventured to tell that of which all this was but the prelude; how, at the conclusion of each attempt, he had watched these luminous effusions blaze and burn as he regularly committed them to the flames; how he found it difficult to decide which he enjoyed the most,--writing them out, or seeing them burn; how at last he had put upon paper some such words as these:-- "After these delightful weeks and months of intercourse, I am to go away from you, then, without a single word of parting, or a solitary sentence of adieu. Need I tell you how this pains me? I have in vain besieged the house that has held you; in vain made a thousand inquiries, a thousand efforts to discover your retreat and to reach your side, that I might once more see your face and take your hand ere I went from the sight and touch of both, perchance forever. This I find may not be. The hour strikes, and in a little space I shall march away from the city to which my heart clings with infinite fondness, since it is filled with associations of you. I have again and again striven to write that which will be worthy the eyes that are to read, and striven in vain. 'Tis a fine art to which I do not pretend. Then, in homely phrase, good by. Give me thy spiritual hand, and keep me, if thou wilt, in thy gentle remembrance. Adieu! a kind adieu, my friend; may the brighter stars smile on thee, and the better angels guard thy footsteps wherever thou mayst wander, keep thy heart and spirit bright, and let thy thoughts turn kindly back to me, I pray very, very often. And so, once more, farewell." Remembering all this, thinking what he would do and say were the doing and saying yet possible in an untried future, the time sped by. He waited and waited in vain. He looked, yet was gratified by no sight for which his eyes longed. He hoped, till hope gave place to despondency and almost despair: not a word came to him, not a line of answer or remembrance. This long silence was all the more intolerable, since the time that intervened did but the more vividly stamp upon his memory the delights of the past, and color with softer and more exquisite tints the recollection of vanished hours,--hours spent in galloping gayly by her side in the early morning, or idly and deliciously lounged away in picture-galleries or concert-rooms, or in a conversation carried on in some curious and subtle shape between two hearts and spirits with the help of very few uttered words; hours in which he had whirled her through many a fairy maze and turn of captivating dance-music, or in some less heated and crowded room, or cool conservatory, listened to the voice of the siren who walked by his side, "while the sweet wind did gently kiss the flowers and make no noise," and the strains of "flute, violin, bassoon," and the sounds of the "dancers dancing in tune," coming to them on the still air of night, seemed like the sounds from another and a far-off world,--listened, listened, listened, while his silver-tongued enchantress builded castles in the air, or beguiled his thought, enthralled his heart, his soul and fancy, through many a golden hour. Thinking of all this, his heart well found expression for its feelings in the half-pleasing, half-sorrowful lines which almost unconsciously repeated themselves again and again in his brain:-- "Still o'er those scenes my memory wakes, And fondly broods with miser care; Time but the impression deeper makes, As streams their channels deeper wear." Thinking of all this, he took comfort in spite of his trouble. "Perhaps," he said to himself, "he was mistaken. Perhaps"--O happy thought!--it was but make-believe displeasure which had so tortured him. Perhaps--yes, he would believe it--she had never received his letter; they had been careless, they had failed to give it her or to send it aright. He would write her once again, in language which would relieve his heart, and which she must comprehend. He loved her; perhaps, ah, perhaps she loved him a little in return: he would believe so till he was undeceived, and be infinitely happy in the belief. Is it not wondrous how even the tiniest grain of love will permeate the saddest and sorest recesses of the heart, and instantly cause it to pulsate with thoughts and emotions the sweetest and dearest in life? O Love, thou sweet, thou young and rose lipped cherubim, how does thy smile illuminate the universe! how does thy slightest touch electrify the soul! how gently and tenderly dost thou lead us up to heaven! With Surrey, to decide was to act. The second letter, full of sweetest yet intensest love,--his heart laid bare to her,--was written; was sent, enclosed in one to his aunt. Tom was away in another section, fighting manfully for the dear old flag, or the precious missive would have been intrusted to his care. He sent it thus that it might reach her sooner. Now that he had a fresh hope, he could not wait to write for her address, and forward it himself to her hands; he must adopt the speediest method of putting it in her possession. In a little space came answer from Mrs. Russell, enclosing the letter he had sent: a kindly epistle it was. He was a sort of idol with this same aunt, so she had put many things on paper that were steeped in gentleness and affection ere she said at the end, "I re-enclose your letter. I have seen Miss Ercildoune. She restores it to you; she implores you never to write her again,--to forget her. I add my entreaties to hers. She begs of me to beseech you not to try her by any further appeals, as she will but return them unopened." That was all. What could it mean? He loved her so absolutely, he had such exalted faith in her kindness, her gentleness, her fairness and superiority,--in _her_,--that he could not believe she would so thrust back his love, purely and chivalrously offered, with something that seemed like ignominy, unless she had a sufficient reason--or one she deemed such--for treating so cruelly him and the offering he laid at her feet. But she had spoken. It was for him, then, when she bade silence, to keep it; when she refused his gift, to refrain from thrusting it upon her attention and heart. But ah, the silence and the refraining! Ah, the time--the weary, sore, intolerable time--that followed! Summer, and autumn, and winter, and the seasons repeated once again, he tramped across the soil of Virginia, already wet with rebel and patriot blood; he felt the shame and agony of Bull Run; he was in the night struggle at Ball's Bluff, where those wondrous Harvard boys found it "sweet to die for their country," and discovered, for them, "death to be but one step onward in life." He lay in camp, chafing with impatience and indignation as the long months wore away, and the thousands of graves about Washington, filled by disease and inaction, made "all quiet along the Potomac." He went down to Yorktown; was in the sweat and fury of the seven days' fight; away in the far South, where fever and pestilence stood guard to seize those who were spared by the bullet and bayonet; and on many a field well lost or won. Through it all marching or fighting, sick, wounded thrice and again; praised, admired, heroic, promoted,--from private soldier to general,--through two years and more of such fiery experience, no part of the tender love was burned away, tarnished, or dimmed. Sometimes, indeed, he even smiled at himself for the constant thought, and felt that he must certainly be demented on this one point at least, since it colored every impression of his life, and, in some shape, thrust itself upon him at the most unseemly and foreign times. One evening, when the mail for the division came in, looking over the pile of letters, his eye was caught by one addressed to James Given. The name was familiar,--that of his father's old foreman, whom he knew to be somewhere in the army; doubtless the same man. Unquestionably, he thought, that was the reason he was so attracted to it; but why he should take up the delicate little missive, scan it again and again, hold it in his hand with the same touch with which he would have pressed a rare flower, and lay it down as reluctantly as he would have yielded a known and visible treasure,--that was the mystery. He had never seen Francesca's writing, but he stood possessed, almost assured, of the belief that this letter was penned by her hand; and at last parted with it slowly and unwillingly, as though it were the dear hand of which he mused; then took himself to task for this boyish weakness and folly. Nevertheless, he went in pursuit of Jim, not to question him,--he was too thorough a gentleman for that,--but led on partly by his desire to see a familiar face, partly by this folly, as he called it with a sort of amused disdain. Folly, however, it was not, save in such measure as the subtle telegraphings between spirit and spirit can be thus called. Unjustly so called they are, constantly; it being the habit of most people to denounce as heresy or ridicule as madness things too high for their sight or too deep for their comprehension. As these people would say, "oddly enough," or "by an extraordinary coincidence," this very letter was from Miss Ercildoune,--a letter which she wrote as she purposed, and as she well knew how to write, in behalf of Sallie. It was ostensibly on quite another theme; asking some information in regard to a comrade, but so cunningly devised and executed as to tell him in few words, and unsuspiciously, some news of Sallie,--news which she knew would delight his heart, and overthrow the little barrier which had stood between them, making both miserable, but which he would not, and she could not, clamber over or destroy. It did its work effectually, and made two hearts thoroughly happy,--this letter which had so strangely bewitched Surrey; which, in his heart, spite of the ridicule of his reason, he was so sure was hers; and which, indeed, was hers, though he knew not that till long afterward. "So," he thought, as he went through the camp, "Given is here, and near. I shall be glad to see a face from home, whatever kind of a face it may be, and Given's is a good one; it will be a pleasant rememberance." "Whither away?" called a voice behind him. "To the 29th," he answered the questioner, one of his officers and friends, who, coming up, took his arm,--"in pursuit of a man." "What's his name?" "Given,--christened James. What are you laughing at? do you know him?" "No, I don't know him, but I've heard some funny stories about him; he's a queer stick, I should think." "Something in that way.--Helloa! Brooks, back again?" to a fine, frank-looking young fellow,--"and were you successful?" "Yes, to both your questions. In addition I'll say, for your rejoicing, that I give in, cave, subside, have nothing more to say against your pet theory,--from this moment swear myself a rank abolitionist, or anything else you please, now and forever,--so help me all ye black gods and goddesses!" "Phew! what's all this?" cried Whittlesly, from the other side of his Colonel; "what are you driving at? I'll defy anybody to make head or tail of that answer." "Surrey understands." "Not I; your riddle's too much for me." "Didn't you go in pursuit of a dead man?" queried Whittlesly. "Just that." "Did the dead man convert you?" "No, Colonel, not precisely. And yet yes, too; that is, I suppose I shouldn't have been converted if he hadn't died, and I gone in search of him." "I believe it; you're such an obstinate case that you need one raised from the dead to have any effect on you." "Obstinate! O, hear the pig-headed fellow talk! You're a beauty to discourse on that point, aren't you!" "Surrey laughed, and stopped at the call of one of his men, who hailed him as he went by. Evidently a favorite here as in New York, in camp as at home; for in a moment he was surrounded by the men, who crowded about him, each with a question, or remark, to draw special attention to himself, and a word or smile from his commander. Whatever complaint they had to enter, or petition to make, or favor to beg, or wish to urge, whatever help they wanted or information they desired, was brought to him to solve or to grant, and--never being repulsed by their officer--they speedily knew and loved their friend. Thus it was that the two men standing at a little distance, watching the proceeding, were greatly amused at the motley drafts made upon his attention in the shape of tents, shoes, coats, letters to be sent or received, books borrowed and lent, a man sick, or a chicken captured. They brought their interests and cares to him,--these big, brown fellows,--as though they were children, and he a parent well beloved. "One might think him the father of the regiment," said Brooks, with a smile. "The mother, more like: it must be the woman element in him these fellows feel and love so." "Perhaps; but it would have another effect on them, if, for instance, he didn't carry that sabre-slash on his hand. They've seen him under steel and fire, and know where he's led them." "What is this you were joking about with him, a while ago?" "What! about turning abolitionist?" "Precisely." "O, you know he's rampant on the slavery question. I believe it's the only thing he ever loses his temper over, and he has lost it with me more than once. I've always been a rank heretic with regard to Cuffee, and the result was, we disagreed." "Yes, I know. But what connection has that with your expedition?" "Just what I want to know," added Surrey, coming up at the moment. "Ah! you're in time to hear the confession, are you?" "'An honest confession--'You know what the wise man says." "Come, don't flatter yourself we will think you so because you quote him. Be quiet, both of you, and let me go on to tell my tale." "Attention!" "Proceed!" "Thus, then. You understand what my errand was?" "Not exactly; Lieutenant Hunt was drowned somewhere, wasn't he?" "Yes: fell overboard from a tug; the men on board tried to save him, and then to recover his body, and couldn't do either. Some of his people came down here in pursuit of it, and I was detailed with a squad to help them in their search. "Well, the naval officers gave us every facility in their power; the river was dragged twice over, and the woods along-shore ransacked, hoping it might have been washed in and, maybe, buried; but there wasn't sight or trace of it. While we were hunting round we stumbled on a couple of darkies, who told us, after a bit of questioning, that darky number three, somewhere about, had found the body of a Federal officer on the river bank, and buried it. On that hint we acted, posted over to the fellow's shanty, and found, not him, but his wife, who was ready enough to tell us all she knew. She showed us some traps of the buried officer, among them a pair of spurs, which his brother recognized directly. When she was quite sure that we were all correct, and that the thing had fallen into the right hands, she fished out of some safe corner his wallet, with fifty-seven dollars in it. I confess I stared, for they were slaves, both of them, and evidently poor as Job's turkey, and it has always been one of my theories that a nigger invariably steals when he gets a chance. However, I wasn't going to give in at that." "Of course you weren't," said the Colonel. "Did you ever read about the man who was told that the facts did not sustain his theory, and of his sublime answer? 'Very well,' said he, 'so much the worse for the facts!'" "Come, Colonel, you talk too much. How am I ever to get on with my narrative, if you keep interrupting me in this style? Be quiet." "Word of command. Quiet. Quiet it is. Continue." "No, I said, of course they expect some reward,--that's it." "What an ass you must be!" broke in Whittlesly. "Hadn't you sense enough to see they could keep the whole of it, and nobody the wiser? and of course they couldn't have supposed any one was coming after it,--could they? "How am I to know what they thought? If you don't stop your comments, I'll stop the story; take your choice." "All right: go ahead." "While I was considering the case, in came the master of the mansion,--a thin, stooped, tired-looking little fellow,--'Sam,' he told us, was his name; then proceeded to narrate how he had found the body, and knew the uniform, and was kind and tender with it because of its dress, 'for you see, sah, we darkies is all Union folks'; how he had brought it up in the night, for fear of his Secesh master, and made a coffin for it, and buried it decently. After that he took us out to a little spot of fresh earth, covered with leaves and twigs, and, digging down, we came to a rough pine box made as well as the poor fellow knew how to put it together. Opening it, we found all that was left of poor Hunt, respectably clad in a coarse, clean white garment which Sam's wife had made as nicely as she could out of her one pair of sheets. 'It wa'n't much,' said the good soul, with tears in her eyes, 'it wa'n't much we's could do for him, but I washed him, and dressed him, peart as I could, and Sam and me, we buried him. We wished, both on us, that we could have done heaps more for him, but we did all that we could,'--which, indeed, was plain enough to be seen. "Before we went away, Sam brought from a little hole, which he burrowed in the floor of his cabin, a something, done up in dirty old rags; and when we opened it, what under the heavens do you suppose we found? You'll never guess. Three hundred dollars in bank-bills, and some important papers, which he had taken and hid,--concealed them even from his wife, because, he said, the guerillas often came round, and they might frighten her into giving them up if she knew they were there. "I collapsed at that, and stood with open mouth, watching for the next proceeding. I knew there was to be some more of it, and there was. Hunt's brother offered back half the money; _offered_ it! why, he tried to force it on the fellow, and couldn't. His master wouldn't let him buy himself and his wife,--I suspect, out of sheer cussedness,--and he hadn't any other use for money, he said. Besides, he didn't want to take, and wouldn't take, anything that looked like pay for doing aught for a 'Linkum sojer,' alive or dead. "'They'se going to make us all free, sometime,' he said, 'that's enough. Don't look like it, jest yet, I knows; but I lives in faith; it'll come byumby' When the fellow said that, I declare to you, Surrey, I felt like hiding my face. At last I began to comprehend what your indignation meant against the order forbidding slaves coming into our lines, and commanding their return when they succeed in entering. Just then we all seemed to me meaner than dirt." "As we are; and, as dirt, deserve to be trampled underfoot, beaten, defeated, till we're ready to stand up and fight like men in this struggle." "Amen to that, Colonel," added Whittlesly. "Well, I'm pretty nearly ready to say so myself," finished Brooks, half reluctantly. CHAPTER IX "_The best-laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft agley._" BURNS They didn't find Jim in the camp of his regiment, so went up to head-quarters to institute inquiries. "Given?" a little thought and investigation. "Oh! Given is out on picket duty." "Whereabouts?" The direction indicated. "Thanks! we'll find him." Having commenced the search, Surrey was determined to end it ere he turned back, and his two friends bore him company. As they came down the road, they saw in the distance a great stalwart fellow, red-shirted and conspicuous, evidently absorbed in some singular task,--what they did not perceive, till, coming to closer quarters, they discovered, perched by his side, a tin cup filled with soap-suds, a pipe in his mouth, and that by the help of the two he was regaling himself with the pastime of blowing bubbles. "I'll wager that's Jim," said Surrey, before he saw his face. "It's like him, certainly: from what I've heard of him, I think he would die outright if he couldn't amuse himself in some shape." "Why, the fellow must be a curiosity worth coming here to see." "Pretty nearly." Surrey walked on a little in advance, and tapped him on the shoulder. Down came the pipe, up went the hand in a respectful military salute, but before it was finished he saw who was before him. "Wow!" he exclaimed, "if it ain't Mr. Willie Surrey. My! Ain't I glad to see you? How _do_ you do? The sight of you is as good as a month's pay." "Come, Given, don't stun me with compliments," cried Surrey, laughing and putting out his hand to grasp the big, red paw that came to meet it, and shake it heartily. "If I'd known you were over here, I'd have found you before, though my regiment hasn't been down here long." Jim at that looked sharply at the "eagles," and then over the alert, graceful person, finishing his inspection with an approving nod, and the emphatic declaration, "Well, if I know what's what, and I rayther reckon I do, you're about the right figger for an officer, and on the whole I'd sooner pull off my cap to you than any other fellow I've seen round,"--bringing his hand once more to the salute. "Why, Jim, you have turned courtier; army life is spoiling you," protested the inspected one; protesting,--yet pleased, as any one might have been, at the evidently sincere admiration. "Nary time," Jim strenuously denied; and, these little courtesies being ended, they talked about enlistment, and home, and camp, and a score of things that interested officer and man alike. In the midst of the confab a dust was seen up the road, coming nearer, and presently out of it appeared a family carriage somewhat dilapidated and worse for wear, but still quite magnificent; enthroned on the back seat a fullblown F.F.V. with rather more than the ordinary measure of superciliousness belonging to his race; driven, of course, by his colored servant. Jim made for the middle of the road, and, holding his bayonet in such wise as to threaten at one charge horse, negro, and chivalry, roared out, "Tickets!" At such an extraordinary and unceremonious demand the knight flushed angrily, frowned, made an expressive gesture with his lips and his nose which suggestively indicated that there was something offensive in the air between the wind and his gentility, ending the pantomime by finding a pass and handing it over to his "nigger," then--not deigning to speak--motioned him and it to the threatening figure. As this black man came forward, Brooks, looking at him a moment, cried excitedly, "By Jove! it's Sam." "No? Hunt's Sam?" "Yes, the very same; and I suppose that's his cantankerous old master." Surrey ran forward to Jim, for the three had fallen back when the carriage came near, and said a few sentences to him quickly and earnestly. "All right, Colonel! just as you please," he replied. "You leave it to me; I'll fix him." Then, turning to Sam, who stood waiting, demanded, "Well, have you got it?" "Yes, massa." "Fork over,"--and looking at it a moment pronounced "All right! Move on!" elucidating the remark by a jerk at the coat-collar of the unsuspecting Sam, which sent him whirling up the road at a fine but uncomfortable rate of speed. "Now, sir, what do you want?" addressing the astounded chevalier, who sat speechlessly observant of this unlooked-for proceeding. "Want?" cried the irate Virginian, his anger loosening his tongue, "want? I want to go on, of course; that was my pass." "Was it now? I want to know! that's singular! Why didn't you offer it yourself then?" "Because I thought my nigger a fitter person to parley with a Lincoln vandal," loftily responded his eminence. "That's kind of you, I'm sure. Sorry I can't oblige you in return,--very; but you'll just have to turn tail and drive back again. That bit of paper says 'Pass the bearer,' and the bearer's already passed. You can't get two men through this picket on one man's pass, not if one is a nigger and t'other a skunk; so, sir, face about, march!" This was an unprepared-for dilemma. Mr. V. looked at the face of the "Lincoln vandal," but saw there no sign of relenting; then into the distance whither he was anxiously desirous to tend; glanced reflectively at the bayonet in the centre and the narrow space on either side the road; and finally called to his black man to come back. Sam approached with reluctance, and fell back with alacrity when the glittering steel was brandished towards his own breast. "Where's your pass, sirrah?" demanded Jim, with asperity. "Here, massa," said the chattel, presenting the same one which had already been examined. "Won't do," said Jim. "Can't come that game over this child. That passes you to Fairfax,--can't get any one from Fairfax on that ticket. Come," flourishing the shooting-stick once more, "move along"; which Sam proceeded to do with extraordinary readiness. "Now, sir," turning to the again speechless chevalier, "if you stay here any longer, I shall take you under arrest to head-quarters: consequently, you'd better accept the advice of a disinterested friend, and make tracks, lively." By this time the scion of a latter-day chivalry seemed to comprehend the situation, seized his lines, wheeled about, and went off at a spanking trot over the "sacred soil,"--Jim shouting after him, "I say, Mr. F.F.V. if you meet any 'Lincoln vandals,' just give them my respects, will you?" to which as the knight gave no answer, we are left in doubt to this day whether Given's commission was ever executed. "There! my mind's relieved on that point," announced Jim, wiping his face with one hand and shaking the other after the retreating dust. "Mean old scoot! I'll teach him to insult one of our boys,--'Lincoln vandals' indeed! I'd like to have whanged him!" with a final shake and a final explosion, cooling off as rapidly as he had heated, and continuing the interrupted conversation with recovered temper and _sangfroid_. He was delighted at meeting Surrey, and Surrey was equally glad to see once more his old favorite, for Jim and he had been great friends when he was a little boy and had watched the big boy at work in his father's foundry,--a favoritism which, spite of years and changes, and wide distinctions of social position, had never altered nor cooled, and which showed itself now in many a pleasant shape and fashion so long as they were near together. They aided and abetted one another in more ways than one. Jim at Surrey's request, and by a plan of his proposing, succeeded in getting Sam's wife away from her home,--not from any liking for the expedition, or interest in either of the "niggers," as he stoutly asserted, but solely to please the Colonel. If that, indeed, were his only purpose, he succeeded to a charm, for when Surrey saw the two reunited, safe from the awful clutch of slavery, supplied with ample means for the journey and the settlement thereafter, and on their way to a good Northern home, he was more than pleased,--he was rejoiced, and said, "Thank God!" with all his heart, and reverently, as he watched them away. Before the summer ended Jim was down with what he called "a scratch"; a pretty ugly wound, the surgeon thought it, and the Colonel remembered and looked after him with unflagging interest and zeal. Many a book and paper, many a cooling drink and bit of fruit delicious to the parched throat and fevered lips, found their way to the little table by his side. Surrey was never too busy by reason of his duties, or among his own sick and wounded men, to find time for a chat, or a scrap of reading, or to write a letter for the prostrate and helpless fellow, who suffered without complaining, as, indeed, they did all about him, only relieving himself now and then by a suppressed growl. And so, with occasional episodes of individual interest, with marches and fightings, with extremes of heat and cold, of triumph and defeat, the long months wore away. These men were soldiers, each in his place in the great war with the record of which all the world is familiar, a tale written in blood, and flame, and tears,--terrible, yet heroic; ghastly, yet sublime. As soldiers in such a conflict, they did their duty and noble endeavor,--Jim, a nameless private in the ranks,--Surrey, not braver perchance, but so conspicuous with all the elements which fit for splendid command, so fortunate in opportunities for their display, so eminent in seizing them and using them to their fullest extent, regardless of danger and death, as to make his name known and honored by all who watched the progress of the fight, read its record with interest, and knew its heroes and leaders with pride and love. In the winter of '63 Jim's regiment was ordered away to South Carolina; and he who at parting looked with keen regret on the face of the man who had been so faithful and well tried a friend, would have looked upon it with something deeper and sadder, could he at the same time have gazed a little way into the future, and seen what it held in store for him. Four months after he marched away, Surrey's brigade was in that awful fight and carnage of Chancellorsville, where men fought like gods to counteract the blunders, and retrieve the disaster, induced by a stunned and helpless brain. There was he stricken down, at the head of his command, covered with dust and smoke; twice wounded, yet refusing to leave the field,--his head bound with a handkerchief, his eyes blazing like stars beneath its stained folds, his voice cheering on his men; three horses shot under him; on foot then; contending for every inch of the ground he was compelled to yield; giving way only as he was forced at the point of the bayonet; his men eager to emulate him, to follow him into the jaws of death, to fall by his side,--thus was he prostrated; not dead, as they thought and feared when they seized him and bore him at last from the field, but insensible, bleeding with frightful abundance, his right arm shattered to fragments; not dead, yet at death's door--and looking in. May blossoms had dropped, and June harvests were ripe on all the fields, ere he could take advantage of the unsolicited leave, and go home. Home--for which his heart longed! He was not, however, in too great haste to stop by the way, to pause in Washington, and do what he had sooner intended to accomplish,--solicit, as a special favor to himself, as an honor justly won by the man for whom he entreated it, a promotion for Jim. "It is impossible now," he was informed, "but the case should be noted and remembered. If anything could certainly secure the man an advance, it was the advocacy of General Surrey"; and so, not quite content, but still satisfied that Jim's time was in the near future, he went on his way. As the cars approached Philadelphia his heart beat so fast that it almost stifled him, and he leaned against the window heavily for air and support. It was useless to reason with himself, vain to call good judgment to his counsels and summon wisdom to his aid. This was her home. Somewhere in this city to which he was so rapidly hastening, she was moving up and down, had her being, was living and loving. After these long years his eyes so ached to see her, his heart was so hungry for her presence, that it seemed to him as though the sheer longing would call her out of her retreat, on to the streets through which he must pass, across his path, into the sight of his eyes and reach of his hand. He had thought that he felt all this before. He found, as the space diminished between them,--as, perchance, she was but a stone's throw from his side,--that the pain, and the longing, and the intolerable desire to behold her once again, increased a hundred-fold. Eager as he had been a little while before to reach his home, he was content to remain quietly here now. He laughed at himself as he stepped into a carriage, and, tired as he was,--for his amputated arm, not yet thoroughly healed, made him weak and worn,--drove through all the afternoon and evening, across miles and miles of heated, wearisome stones, possessed by the idea that somewhere, somehow, he should see her, he would find her before his quest was done. After that last painful rebuff, he did not dare to go to her home, could he find it, till he had secured from her, in some fashion, a word or sign. "This," he said, "is certainly doubly absurd, since she does not live in the city; but she is here to-day, I know,--she must be here"; and persisted in his endeavor,--persisted, naturally, in vain; and went to bed, at last, exhausted; determined that to-morrow should find him on his journey farther north, whatever wish might plead for delay, yet with a final cry for her from the depths of his soul, as he stretched out his solitary arm, ere sinking to restless sleep, and dreams of battle and death--sleep unrefreshing, and dreams ill-omened; as he thought, again and again, rousing himself from their hold, and looking out to the night, impatient for the break of day. When day broke he was unable to rise with its dawn. The effect of all this tension on his already overtaxed nerves was to induce a fever in the unhealed arm, which, though not painful, was yet sufficient to hold him close prisoner for several days; a delay which chafed him, and which filled his family at home with an intolerable anxiety, not that they knew its cause,--_that_ would have been a relief,--but that they conjectured another, to them infinitely worse than sickness or suffering, bad and sorrowful as were these. CHAPTER X "_Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you._" Izaak Walton Car No. 14, Fifth Street line, Philadelphia, was crowded. Travelling bags, shawls, and dusters marked that people were making for the 11 A.M. New York train, Kensington depot. One pleasant-looking old gentleman whose face shone under a broad brim, and whose cleanly drabs were brought into distasteful proximity with the garments of a drunken coal-heaver, after a vain effort to edge away, relieved his mind by turning to his neighbor with the statement, "Consistency is a jewel." "Undoubtedly true, Mr. Greenleaf," answered the neighbor, "but what caused the remark?" "That,"--looking with mild disgust at the dirty and ragged leg sitting by his own. "Here's this filthy fellow, a nuisance to everybody near him, can ride in these cars, and a nice, respectable colored person can't. So I couldn't help thinking, and saying, that consistency is a jewel." "Well, it's a shame,--that's a fact; but of course nobody can interfere if the companies don't choose to let them ride; it's their concern, not ours." "There's a fine specimen now, out there on the sidewalk." The fine specimen was a large, powerfully made man, black as ebony, dressed in army blouse and trousers, one leg gone,--evidently very tired, for he leaned heavily on his crutches. The conductor, a kindly-faced young fellow, pulled the strap, and helped him on to the platform with a peremptory "Move up front, there!" to the people standing inside. "Why!" exclaimed the old Friend,--"do my eyes deceive me?" Then getting up, and taking the man by the arm, he seated him in his own place: "Thou art less able to stand than I." Tears rushed to his eyes as he said, "Thank you, sir! you are too kind." Evidently he was weak, and as evidently unaccustomed to find any one "too kind." "Thee has on the army blue; has thee been fighting any?" "Yes, sir!" he answered, promptly. "I didn't know black men were in the army; yet thee has lost a leg. Where did that go?" "At Newbern, sir." "At Newbern,--ah! long ago? and how did it happen?" "Fourteenth of March, sir. There was a land fight, and the gunboats came up to the rescue. Some of us black men were upon board a little schooner that carried one gun. 'Twasn't a great deal we could do with that, but we did the best we could; and got well peppered in return. This is what it did for me,"--looking down at the stump. "I guess thee is sorry now that thee didn't keep out of it, isn't thee?" "No, sir; no indeed, sir. If I had five hundred legs and fifty lives, I'd be glad to give them all in such a war as this." Here somebody got out; the old Friend sat down; and the coal-heaver, roused by the stir, lifted himself from his drunken sleep, and, looking round, saw who was beside him. A vile oath, an angry stare from his bloodshot eyes. "Ye ----, what are ye doin' here? out wid ye, quick!" "What's the matter?" queried the conductor, who was collecting somebody's fare. "The matther, is it? matther enough! what's this nasty nagur doin' here? Put him out, can't ye?" The conductor took no notice. "Conductor!" spoke up a well-dressed man, with the air and manner of a gentleman, "what does that card say?" The conductor looked at the card indicated, upon which was printed "Colored people not allowed in this car," legible enough to require less study than he saw fit to give it. "Well!" he said. "Well," was the answer,--"your duty is plain. Put that fellow out." The conductor hesitated,--looked round the car. Nobody spoke. "I'm sorry, my man! I hoped there would be no objection when I let you in; but our orders are strict, and, as the passengers ain't willing, you'll have to get off,"--jerking angrily at the bell. As the car slackened speed, a young officer, whom nobody noticed, got on. There was a moment's pause as the black man gathered up his crutches, and raised himself painfully. "Stop!" cried a thrilling and passionate voice,--"stand still! Of what stuff are you made to sit here and see a man, mangled and maimed in _your_ cause and for _your_ defence, insulted and outraged at the bidding of a drunken boor and a cowardly traitor?" The voice, the beautiful face, the intensity burning through both, electrified every soul to which she appealed. Hands were stretched out to draw back the crippled soldier; eyes that a moment before were turned away looked kindly at him; a Babel of voices broke out, "No, no," "let him stay," "it's a shame," "let him alone, conductor," "we ain't so bad as that," with more of the same kind; those who chose not to join in the chorus discreetly held their peace, and made no attempt to sing out of time and tune. The car started again. The _gentleman_, furious at the turn of the tide, cried out, "Ho, ho! here's a pretty preacher of the gospel of equality! why, ladies and gentlemen, this high-flyer, who presumes to lecture us, is nothing but a"-- The sentence was cut short in mid-career, the insolent sneer dashed out of his face,--face and form prone on the floor of the car,--while over him bent and blazed the young officer, whose entrance, a little while before, nobody had heeded. Spurning the prostrate body at his feet, he turned to Francesca, for it was she, and stretched out his hand,--his left hand,--his only one. It was time; all the heat, and passion, and color, had died out, and she stood there shivering, a look of suffering in her face. "Miss Ercildoune! you are ill,--you need the air,--allow me!" drawing her hand through his arm, and taking her out with infinite deference and care. "Thank you! a moment's faintness,--it is over now," as they reached the sidewalk. "No, no, you are too ill to walk,--let me get you a carriage." Hailing one that was passing by, he put her in, his hand lingering on hers, lingering on the folds of her dress as he bent to arrange it; his eyes clinging to her face with a passionate, woeful tenderness. "It is two years since I saw you, since I have heard from you," he said, his voice hoarse with the effort to speak quietly. "Yes," she answered, "it is two years." Stooping her head to write upon a card, her lips moved as if they said something,--something that seemed like "I must! only once!" but of course that could not be. "It is my address," she then said, putting the card in his hand. "I shall be happy to see you in my own home." "This afternoon?" eagerly. She hesitated. "Whenever you may call. I thank you again,--and good morning." Meanwhile the car had moved on its course: outwardly, peaceful enough; inwardly, full of commotion. The conservative gentleman, gathering himself up from his prone estate, white with passion and chagrin, saw about him everywhere looks of scorn, and smiles of derision and contempt, and fled incontinently from the sight. His coal-heaving _confrère_, left to do battle alone, came to the charge valiant and unterrified. Another outbreak of blasphemy and obscenity were the weapons of assault; the ladies looked shocked, the gentlemen indignant and disgusted. "Friend," called the non-resistant broad-brim, beckoning peremptorily to the conductor,--"friend, come here." The conductor came. "If colored persons are not permitted to ride, I suppose it is equally against the rules of the company to allow nuisances in their cars. Isn't it?" "You are right, sir," assented the conductor, upon whose face a smile of comprehension began to beam. "Well, I don't know what thee thinks, or what these other people think, but I know of no worse nuisance than a filthy, blasphemous drunkard. There he sits,--remove him." There was a perfect shout of laughter and delight; and before the irate "citizen" comprehended what was intended, or could throw himself into a pugilistic attitude, he was seized, _sans_ ceremony, and ignominiously pushed and hustled from the car; the people therein, black soldier and all, drawing a long breath of relief, and going on their way rejoicing. Everybody's eyes were brighter; hearts beat faster, blood moved more quickly; everybody felt a sense of elation, and a kindness towards their neighbor and all the world. A cruel and senseless prejudice had been lost in an impulse, generous and just; and for a moment the sentiment which exalted their humanity, vivified and gladdened their souls. CHAPTER XI "_The future seemed barred By the corpse of a dead hope._" OWEN MEREDITH So, then, after these long years he had seen her again. Having seen her, he wondered how he had lived without her. If the wearisome months seemed endless in passing, the morning hours were an eternity. "This afternoon?" he had said. "Be it so," she had answered. He did not dare to go till then. Thinking over the scene of the morning, he scarcely dared go at all. She had not offered her hand; she had expressed no pleasure, either by look or word, at meeting him again. He had forced her to say, "Come": she could do no less when he had just interfered to save her insult, and had begged the boon. "Insult!" his arm ached to strike another blow, as he remembered the sentence it had cut short. Of course the fellow had been drinking, but outrage of her was intolerable, whatever madness prompted it. The very sun must shine more brightly, and the wind blow softly, when she passed by. Ah me! were the whole world what an ardent lover prays for his mistress, there were no need of death to enjoy the bliss of heaven. What could he say? what do? how find words to speak the measured feelings of a friend? how control the beatings of his heart, the passion of his soul, that no sign should escape to wound or offend her? She had bade him to silence: was he sufficiently master of himself to strike the lighter keys without sounding some deep chords that would jar upon her ear? He tried to picture the scene of their second meeting. He repeated again and again her formal title, Miss Ercildoune, that he might familiarize his tongue and his ear to the sound, and not be on the instant betrayed into calling the name which he so often uttered in his thoughts. He said over some civil, kindly words of greeting, and endeavored to call up, and arrange in order, a theme upon which he should converse. "I shall not dare to be silent," he thought, "for if I am, my silence will tell the tale; and if that do not, she will hear it from the throbbings of my heart. I don't know though,"--he laughed a little, as he spoke aloud,--bitterly it would have been, had his voice been capable of bitterness,--"perhaps she will think the organism of the poor thing has become diseased in camp and fightings,"--putting his hand up to his throat and holding the swollen veins, where the blood was beating furiously. Presently he went down stairs and out to the street, in pursuit of some cut flowers which he found in a little cellar, a stone's throw from his hotel,--a fresh, damp little cellar, which smelt, he could not help thinking, like a grave. Coming out to the sunshine, he shook himself with disgust. "Faugh!" he thought, "what sick fancies and sentimental nonsense possess me? I am growing unwholesome. My dreams of the other night have come back to torment me in the day. These must put them to flight." The fancy which had sent him in pursuit of these flowers he confessed to be a childish one, but none the less soothing for that. He had remembered that the first day he beheld her a nosegay had decorated his button-hole; a fair, sweet-scented thing which seemed, in some subtle way, like her. He wanted now just such another,--some mignonette, and geranium, and a single tea-rosebud. Here they were,--the very counterparts of those which he had worn on a brighter and happier day. How like they were! how changed was he! In some moods he would have smiled at this bit of girlish folly as he fastened the little thing over his heart; now, something sounded in his throat that was pitifully like a sob. Don't smile at him! he was so young; so impassioned, yet gentle; and then he loved so utterly with the whole of his great, sore heart. By and by the time came to go, and eager, yet fearful, he went. It was a fresh, beautiful day in early June; and when the city, with its heat, and dust, and noise, was left behind, and all the leafy greenness--the soothing quiet of country sights and country sounds--met his ear and eye, a curious peace took possession of his soul. It was less the whisper of hope than the calm of assured reality. For the moment, unreasonable as it seemed, something made him blissfully sure of her love, spite of the rebuffs and coldness she had compelled him to endure. "This is the place, sir!" suddenly called his driver, stopping the horses in front of a stately avenue of trees, and jumping down to open the gates. "You need not drive in; you may wait here." This, then, was her home. He took in the exquisite beauty of the place with a keen pleasure. It was right that all things sweet and fine should be about her; he had before known that they were, but it delighted him to see them with his own eyes. Walking slowly towards the house,--slowly, for he was both impelled and retarded by the conflicting feelings that mastered him,--he heard her voice at a little distance, singing; and directly she came out of a by-path, and faced him. He need not have feared the meeting; at least, any display of emotion; she gave no opportunity for any such thing. A frankly extended hand,--an easy "Good afternoon, Mr. Surrey!" That was all. It was a cool, beautiful room into which she ushered him; a room filled with an atmosphere of peace, but which was anything but peaceful to him. He was restless, nervous; eager and excited, or absent and still. He determined to master his emotion, and give no outward sign of the tempest raging within. At the instant of this conclusion his eye was caught by an exquisite portrait miniature upon an easel near him. Bending over it, taking it into his hands, his eyes went to and fro from the pictured face to the human one, tracing the likeness in each. Marking his interest, Francesca said, "It is my mother." "If the eyes were dark, this would be your veritable image." "Or, if mine were blue, I should be a portrait of mamma, which would be better." "Better?" "Yes." She was looking at the picture with weary eyes, which he could not see. "I had rather be the shadow of her than the reality of myself: an absurd fancy!" she added, with a smile, suddenly remembering herself. "I would it were true!" he exclaimed. She looked a surprised inquiry. His thought was, "for then I should steal you, and wear you always on my heart." But of course he could speak no such lover's nonsense; so he said, "Because of the fitness of things; you wished to be a shadow, which is immaterial, and hence of the substance of angels." Truly he was improving. His effort to betray no love had led him into a ridiculous compliment. "What an idiot she will think me to say anything so silly!" he reflected; while Francesca was thinking, "He has ceased to love me, or he would not resort to flattery. It is well!" but the pang that shot through her heart belied the closing thought, and, glancing at him, the first was denied by the unconscious expression of his eyes. Seeing that, she directly took alarm, and commenced to talk upon a score of indifferent themes. He had never seen her in such a mood: gay, witty, brilliant,--full of a restless sparkle and fire; she would not speak an earnest word, nor hear one. She flung about bonmots, and chatted airy persiflage till his heart ached. At another time, in another condition, he would have been delighted, dazzled, at this strange display; but not now. In some careless fashion the war had been alluded to, and she spoke of Chancellorsville. "It was there you were last wounded?" "Yes," he answered, not even looking down at the empty sleeve. "It was there you lost your arm?" "Yes," he answered again, "I am sorry it was my sword-arm." "It was frightful,"--holding her breath. "Do you know you were reported mortally wounded? worse?" "I have heard that I was sent up with the slain," he replied, half-smiling. "It is true. I looked for your name in the columns of 'wounded' and 'missing,' and read it at last in the list of 'killed.'" "For the sake of old times, I trust you were a little sorry to so read it," he said, sadly, for the tone hurt him. "Sorry? yes, I was sorry. Who, indeed, of your friends would not be?" "Who, indeed?" he repeated: "I am afraid the one whose regret I should most desire would sorrow the least." "It is very like," she answered, with seeming carelessness,--"disappointment is the rule of life." This would not do. He was getting upon dangerous ground. He would change the theme, and prevent any farther speech till he was better master of it. He begged for some music. She sat down at once and played for him; then sang at his desire. Rich as she was in the gifts of nature, her voice was the chief,--thrilling, flexible, with a sympathetic quality that in singing pathetic music brought tears, though the hearer understood not a word of the language in which she sang. In the old time he had never wearied listening, and now he besought her to repeat for him some of the dear, familiar songs. If these held for her any associations, he did not know it; she gave no outward sign,--sang to him as sweetly and calmly as to the veriest stranger. What else had he expected? Nothing; yet, with the unreasonableness of a lover, was disappointed that nothing appeared. Taking up a piece at random, without pausing to remember the words, he said, spreading it before her, "May I tax you a little farther? I am greedy, I know, but then how can I help it?" It was the song of the Princess. She hesitated a moment, and half closed the book. Had he been standing where he could see her face, he would have been shocked by its pallor. It was over directly: she recovered herself, and, opening the music with a resolute air, began to sing:-- "Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, With fold to fold, of mountain and of cape; But, O too fond, when have I answered thee? Ask me no more. "Ask me no more: what answer should I give? I love not hollow cheek or faded eye; Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live: Ask me no more." She sang thus far with a clear, untrembling voice,--so clear and untrembling as to be almost metallic,--the restraint she had put upon herself making it unnatural. At the commencement she had estimated her strength, and said, "It is sufficient!" but she had overtaxed it, as she found in singing the last verse:-- "Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are sealed; I strove against the stream and all in vain; Let the great river take me to the main; No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield: Ask me no more." All the longing, the passion, the prayer of which a human soul is capable found expression in her voice. It broke through the affected coldness and calm, as the ocean breaks through its puny barriers when, after wind and tempest, all its mighty floods are out. Surrey had changed his place, and stood fronting her. As the last word fell, she looked at him, and the two faces saw in each but a reflection of the same passion and pain: pallid, with eyes burning from an inward fire,--swayed by the same emotion,--she bent forward as he, stretching forth his arms, in a stifling voice cried, "Come!" Bent, but for an instant; then, by a superhuman effort, turned from him, and put out her hand with a gesture of dissent, though she could not control her voice to speak a word. At that he came close to her, not touching her hand or even her dress, but looking into her face with imploring eyes, and whispering, "Francesca, my darling, speak to me! say that you love me! one word! You are breaking my heart!" Not a word. "Francesca!" She had mastered her voice. "Go!" she then said, beseechingly. "Oh, why did you ask me? why did I let you come?" "No, no," he answered. "I cannot go,--not till you answer me." "Ah!" she entreated, "do not ask! I can give no such answer as you desire. It is all wrong,--all a mistake. You do not comprehend." "Make me, then." She was silent. "Forgive me. I am rude: I cannot help it. I will not go unless you say, 'I do not love you.' Nothing but this shall drive me away." Francesca's training in her childhood had been by a Catholic governess; she never quite lost its effect. Now she raised her hand to a little gold cross that hung at her neck, her fingers closing on it with a despairing clasp. "Ah, Christ, have pity!" her heart cried. "Blessed Mother of God, forgive me! have mercy upon me!" Her face was frightfully pale, but her voice did not tremble as she gave him her hand, and said gently, "Go, then, my friend. I do not love you." He took her hand, held it close for a moment, and then, without another look or word, put it tenderly down, and was gone. So absorbed was he in painful thought that, passing down the long avenue with bent head, he did not notice, nor even see, a gentleman who, coming from the opposite direction, looked at him at first carelessly, and then searchingly, as he went by. This gentleman, a man in the prime of life, handsome, stately, and evidently at home here, scrutinized the stranger with a singular intensity,--made a movement as though he would speak to him,--and then, drawing back, went with hasty steps towards the house. Had Willie looked up, beheld this face and its expression, returned the scrutiny of the one, and comprehended the meaning of the other, while memory recalled a picture once held in his hands, some things now obscured would have been revealed to him, and a problem been solved. As it was, he saw nothing, moved mechanically onward to the carriage, seated himself and said, "Home!" This young man was neither presumptuous nor vain. He had been once repulsed and but now utterly rejected. He had no reason to hope, and yet--perhaps it was his poetical and imaginative temperament--he could not resign himself to despair. Suddenly he started with an exclamation that was almost a cry. What was it? He remembered that, more than two years ago, on the last day he had been with her, he had begged the copy of a duet which they sometimes sang. It was in manuscript, and he desired to have it written out by her own hand. He had before petitioned, and she promised it; and when he thus again spoke of it, she laughed, and said, "What a memory it is, to be sure! I shall have to tie a bit of string on my finger to refresh it." "Is that efficacious?" he had asked. "Doubtless," she had replied, searching in her pocket for a scrap of anything that would serve. "Will this do?" he then queried, bringing forth a coil of gold wire which he had been commissioned to buy for some fanciful work of his mother. "Finely," she declared; "it is durable, it will give me a wide margin, it will be long in wearing out." "Nay, then, you must have something more fragile," he had objected. At that they both laughed, as he twisted a fragment of it on the little finger of her right hand. "There it is to stay," he asserted, "till your promise is redeemed." That was the last time he had seen her till to-day. Now, sitting, thinking of the interview just passed, suddenly he remembered, as one often recalls the vision of something seemingly unnoticed at the time, that, upon her right hand, the little finger of the right hand, there was a delicate ring,--a mere thread,--in fact, a wire of gold; the very one himself had tied there two years ago. In an instant, by one of those inexplicable connections of the brain or soul, he found himself living over an experience of his college youth. He had been spending the day in Boston with a dear friend, some score of years his senior; a man of the rarest culture, and of a most sweet and gentle nature withal; and when evening came they had drifted naturally to the theatre,--the fool's paradise it may be sometimes, but to them on that occasion a real paradise. He remembered well the play. It was Scott's _Bride of Lammermoor_. He had never read it, but, before the curtain rose, his friend had unfolded the story in so kind and skilful a manner as to have imbued him as fully with the spirit of the tale as though he had studied the book. What he chiefly recalled in the play was the scene in which Ravenswood comes back to Emily long after they had been plighted,--long after he had supposed her faithless,--long after he had been tossed on a sea of troubles, touching the seeming decay in her affections. Just as she is about to be enveloped in the toils which were spread for her,--just as she is about to surrender herself to the hated nuptials, and submit to the embrace of one whom she loathed more than she dreaded death,--Ravenswood, the man whom Heaven had made for her, presents himself. What followed was quiet, yet intensely dramatic. Ravenswood, wrought to the verge of despair, bursts upon the scene at the critical moment, detaches Emily from her party, and leads her slowly forward. He is unutterably sad. He questions her very tenderly; asks her whether she is not enforced; whether she is taking this step of her own free will and accord; whether she has indeed dismissed the dear, old fond love for him from her heart forever? He must hear it from her own lips. When timidly and feebly informed that such is indeed the case, he requests her to return a certain memento,--a silver trinket which had been given her as the symbol of his love on the occasion of their betrothal. Raising her hand to her throat she essays to draw it from her bosom. Her fingers rest upon the chain which binds it to her neck, but the o'erfraught heart is still,--the troubled, but unconscious head droops upon his shoulder,--he lifts the chain from its resting-place, and withdraws the token from her heart. Supporting her with one hand and holding this badge of a lost love with the other, he says, looking down upon her with a face of anguish, and in a voice of despair, "_And she could wear it thus!_" As this scene rose and lived before him, Surrey exclaimed, "Surely that must have been the perfection of art, to have produced an effect so lasting and profound,--'and she could wear it thus!'--ah," he said, as in response to some unexpressed thought, "but Emily loved Ravenswood. Why--?" Evidently he was endeavoring to answer a question that baffled him. CHAPTER XII "_And down on aching heart and brain Blow after blow unbroken falls._" BOKER "A letter for you, sir," said the clerk, as Surrey stopped at the desk for his key. It was a bulky epistle, addressed in his aunt Russell's hand, and he carried it off, wondering what she could have to say at such length. He was in no mood to read or to enjoy; but, nevertheless, tore open the cover, finding within it a double letter. Taking the envelope of one from the folds of the other, his eye fell first upon his mother's writing; a short note and a puzzling one. * * * * * "My dear Willie:-- "I have tried to write you a letter, but cannot. I never wounded you if I could avoid it, and I do not wish to begin now. Augusta and I had a talk about you yesterday which crazed me with anxiety. She told me it was my place to write you what ought to be said under these trying circumstances, for we are sure you have remained in Philadelphia to see Miss Ercildoune. At first I said I would, and then my heart failed me. I was sure, too, that she could write, as she always does, much better than I; so I begged her to say all that was necessary, and I would send her this note to enclose with her letter. Read it, I entreat you, and then hasten, I pray you, hasten to us at once. "Take care of your arm, do not hurt yourself by any excitement; and, with dear love from your father, which he would send did he know I was writing, believe me always your devoted "MOTHER." * * * * * "'Trying circumstances!'--'Miss Ercildoune!'--what does it mean?" he cried, bewildered. "Come, let us see." The letter which he now opened was an old and much-fingered one, written--as he saw at the first glance--by his aunt to his mother. Why it was sent to him he could not conjecture; and, without attempting to so do, at once plunged into its pages:-- * * * * * "CONTINENTAL HOTEL, PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 27, 1861 "MY DEAR LAURA:-- "I can readily understand with what astonishment you will read this letter, from the amazement I have experienced in collecting its details. I will not weary you with any personal narration, but tell my tale at once. "Miss Ercildoune, as you know, was my daughter's intimate at school,--a school, the admittance to which was of itself a guarantee of respectability. Of course I knew nothing of her family, nor of her,--save as Clara wrote me of her beauty and her accomplishments, and, above all, of her style,--till I met Mrs. Lancaster. Of her it is needless for me to speak. As you know, she is irreproachable, and her position is of the best. Consequently when Clara wrote me that her friend was to come to New York to her aunt, and begged to entertain her for a while, I added my request to her entreaty, and Miss Ercildoune came. Ill-fated visit! would it had never been made! "It is useless now to deny her gifts and graces. They are, reluctantly I confess, so rare and so conspicuous--have so many times been seen, and known, and praised by us all,--that it would put me in the most foolish of attitudes should I attempt to reconsider a verdict so frequently pronounced, or to eat my own words, uttered a thousand times. "It is also, I presume, useless to deny that we were well pleased--nay, delighted--with Willie's evident sentiment for her. Indeed, so thoroughly did she charm me, that, had I not seen how absolutely his heart was enlisted in her pursuit, she is the very girl whom I should have selected, could I have so done, as a wife for Tom and a daughter for myself. "I knew full well how deep was this feeling for her when he marched away, on that day so full of supreme splendor and pain, unable to see her and to say adieu. His eyes, his face, his manner, his very voice, marked his restlessness, his longing, and disappointment. I was positively angry with the girl for thwarting and hurting him so, and, whatever her excuse might be, for her absence at such a time. How constantly are we quarrelling with our best fates! "She remained in New York, as you know, for some weeks after the 19th; in fact, has been at home but for a little while. Once or twice, so provoked with her was I for disappointing our pet, I could not resist the temptation of saying some words about him which, if she cared for him, I knew would wound her: and, indeed, they did,--wounded her so deeply, as was manifest in her manner and her face, that I had not the heart to repeat the experiment. "One week ago I had a letter from Willie, enclosing another to her, and an entreaty, as he had written one which he was sure had miscarried, that I would see that this reached her hands in safety. So anxious was I to fulfil his request in its word and its spirit, and so certain that I could further his cause,--for I was sure this letter was a love-letter,--that I did not forward it by post, but, being compelled to come to Burlington, I determined to go on to Philadelphia, drive out to her home, and myself deliver the missive into her very hands. A most fortunate conclusion, as you will presently decide. "Last evening I reached the city,--rested, slept here,--and this morning was driven to her father's place. For all our sakes, I was somewhat anxious, under the circumstances, that this should be quite the thing; and I confess myself, on the instant of its sight, more than satisfied. It is really superb!--the grounds extensive, and laid out with the most absolute taste. The house, large and substantial, looks very like an English mansion; with a certain quaint style and antique elegance, refreshing to contemplate, after the crude newness and ostentatious vulgarity of almost everything one sees here in America. It is within as it is without. Although a great many lovely things are scattered about of recent make, the wood-work and the heavy furniture are aristocratic from their very age, and in their way, literally perfection. "Miss Ercildoune met me with not quite her usual grace and ease. She was, no doubt, surprised at my unexpected appearance, and--I then thought, as a consequence--slightly embarrassed. I soon afterwards discovered the constraint in her manner sprang from another cause. "I had reached the house just at lunch-time, and she would take me out to the table to eat something with her. I had hoped to see her father, and was disappointed when she informed me he was in the city. All I saw charmed me. The appointments of the table were like those of the house: everything exquisitely fine, and the silver massive and old,--not a new piece among it,--and marked with a monogram and crest. "I write you all this that you may the more thoroughly appreciate my absolute horror at the final _denouement_, and share my astonishment at the presumption of these people in daring to maintain such style. "I had given her Willie's letter before we left the parlor, with a significant word and smile, and was piqued to see that she did not blush,--in fact, became excessively white as she glanced at the writing, and with an unsteady hand put it into her pocket. After lunch she made no motion to look at it, and as I had my own reasons for desiring her to peruse it, I said, 'Miss Francesca, will you not read your letter? that I may know if there is any later news from our soldier.' "She hesitated a moment, and then said, with what I thought an unnatural manner, 'Certainly, if you so desire,' and, taking it out, broke the seal. 'Allow me,' she added, going towards a window,--as though she desired more light, but in reality, I knew, to turn her back upon me,--forgetting that a mirror, hanging opposite, would reveal her face with distinctness to my gaze. "It was pale to ghastliness, with a drawn, haggard look about the mouth and eyes that shocked as much as it amazed me; and before commencing to read she crushed the letter in her hands, pressing it to her heart with a gesture which was less of a caress than of a spasm. "However, as she read, all this changed; and before she finished said, 'Ah, Willie, it is clear your cause needs no advocate.' Positively, I did not know a human countenance could express such happiness; there was something in it absolutely dazzling. And evidently entirely forgetful of me, she raised the paper to her mouth, and kissed it again and again, pressing her lips upon it with such clinging and passionate fondness as would have imbued it with life were that possible." Here Willie flung down his aunt's epistle and tore from his pocket this self-same letter. He had kept it,--carried it about with him,--for two reasons: because it was _hers_, he said,--this avowal of his love was hers, whether she refused it or no, and he had no right to destroy her property; and because, as he had nothing else she had worn or touched, he cherished this sacredly since it had been in her dear hands. Now he took it into his clasp as tenderly as though it were Francesca's face, and kissed it with the self-same clinging and passionate fondness as this of which he had just read. Here had her lips rested,--here; he felt their fragrance and softness thrilling him under the cold, dead paper, and pressed it to his heart while he continued to read:-- "Before she turned, I walked to another window,--wishing to give her time to recover calmness, or at least self-control, and was at once absorbed in contemplating a gentleman whom I felt assured to be Mr. Ercildoune. He stood with his back to me, apparently giving some order to the coachman: thus I could not see his face, but I never before was so impressed with, so to speak, the personality of a man. His physique was grand, and his air and bearing magnificent, and I watched him with admiration as he walked slowly away. I presume he passed the window at which she was standing, for she called, 'Papa!' 'In a moment, dear,' he answered, and in a moment entered, and was presented; and I, raising my eyes to his face,--ah, how can I tell you what sight they beheld! "Self-possessed as I think I am, and as I certainly ought to be, I started back with an involuntary exclamation, a mingling doubtless of incredulity and disgust. This man, who stood before me with all the ease and self-assertion of a gentleman, was--you will never believe it, I fear--_a mulatto_! "Whatever effect my manner had on him was not perceptible. He had not seated himself, and, with a smile that was actually satirical, he bowed, uttered a few words of greeting, and went out of the room. "'How dared you?' I then cried, for astonishment had given place to rage, 'how dared you deceive me--deceive us all--so? how dared you palm yourself off as white and respectable, and thus be admitted to Mr. Hale's school and to the society and companionship of his pupils?' I could scarcely control myself when I thought of how shamefully we had all been cozened. "'Pardon me, madam,' she answered with effrontery,--effrontery under the circumstances,--'you forget yourself, and what is due from one lady to another.' (Did you ever hear of such presumption!) 'I practised no deceit upon Professor Hale. He knew papa well,--was his intimate friend at college, in England,--and was perfectly aware who was Mr. Ercildoune's daughter when she was admitted to his school. For myself, I had no confessions to make, and made none. I was your daughter's friend; as such, went to her house, and invited her here. I trust you have seen in me nothing unbecoming a gentlewoman, as, _up to this time_, I have beheld in you naught save the attributes of a lady. If we are to have any farther conversation, it must be conducted on the old plan, and not the extraordinary one you have just adopted; else I shall be compelled, in self-respect, to leave you alone in my own parlor.' "Imagine if you can the effect of this speech upon me. I assure you I was composed enough outwardly, if not inwardly, ere she ended her sentence. Having finished, I said, 'Pardon me, Miss Ercildoune, for any words which may have offended your dignity. I will confine myself for the rest of our interview to your own rules!' "'It is well,' she responded. I had spoken satirically, and expected to see her shrink under it, but she answered with perfect coolness and _sang froid_. I continued, 'You will not deny that you are a negro, at least a mulatto.' "'Pardon me, madam,' she replied; 'my father is a mulatto, my mother was an Englishwoman. Thus, to give you accurate information upon the subject, I am a quadroon.' "'Quadroon be it!' I answered, angrily again, I fear. 'Quadroon, mulatto, or negro, it is all one. I have no desire to split hairs of definition. You could not be more obnoxious were you black as Erebus. I have no farther words to pass upon the past or the present, but something to say of the future. You hold in your hands a letter--a love-letter, I am sure--a declaration, as I fear--from my nephew, Mr. Surrey. You will oblige me by at once sitting down, writing a peremptory and unqualified refusal to his proposal, if he has made you one,--a refusal that will admit of no hope and no double interpretation,--and give it into my keeping before I leave this room.' "When I first alluded to Willie's letter she had crimsoned, but before I closed she was so white I should have thought her fainting, but for the fire in her eyes. However, she spoke up clear enough when she said, 'And what, madam, if I deny your right to dictate any action whatever to me, however insignificant, and utterly refuse to obey your command?' "'At your peril do so,' I exclaimed. 'Refuse, and I will write the whole shameful story, with my own comments; and you may judge for yourself of the effect it will produce.' "At that she smiled,--an indescribable sort of smile,--and shut her fingers on the letter she held,--I could not help thinking as though it were a human hand. 'Very well, madam, write it. He has already told me'-- "'That he loves you,' I broke in. 'Do you think he would continue to do so if he knew what you are?' "'He knows me as well now,' she answered, 'as he will after reading any letter of yours.' "'Incredible!' I exclaimed. 'When he wrote you that, he did not know, he could not have known, your birth, your race, the taint in your blood. I will never believe it.' "'No,' she said, 'I did not say he did. I said he knew _me_; so well, I think, judging from this,'--clasping his letter with the same curious pressure I had before noticed,--'that you could scarcely enlighten him farther. He knows my heart, and soul, and brain,--as I said, he knows _me_.' "'O, yes,' I answered,--or rather sneered, for I was uncontrollably indignant through all this,--'if you mean _that_, very likely. I am not talking lovers' metaphysics, but practical common-sense. He does not know the one thing at present essential for him to know; and he will abandon you, spurn you,--his love turned to scorn, his passion to contempt,--when he reads what I shall write him if you refuse to do what I demand!' "I expected to see her cower before me. Conceive, then, if you can, my sensations when she cried, 'Stop, madam! Say what you will to me; insult, outrage me, if you please, and have not the good breeding and dignity to forbear; but do not presume to so slander him. Do not presume to accuse him, who is all nobility and greatness of soul, of a sentiment so base, a prejudice so infamous. Study him, madam, know him better, ere you attempt to be his mouth-piece.' "As she uttered these words, a horrible foreboding seized me, or, to speak more truthfully, I so felt the certainty of what she spoke, that a shudder of terror ran over me. I thought of him, of his character, of his principles, of his insane sense of honor, of his terrible will under all that soft exterior,--the hand of steel under the silken glove; I saw that if I persisted and she still refused to yield I should lose all. On the instant I changed my attack. "'It is true,' I said, 'having asked you to become his wife, he will marry you; he will redeem his pledge though it ruin his life and blast his career, to say nothing of the effect an unending series of outrages and mortifications will have upon his temper and his heart. A pretty love, truly, yours must be,--whatever his is,--to condemn him to so terrible an ordeal, so frightful a fate.' "She shivered at that, and I went on,--blaming my folly in not remembering, being a woman, that it was with a woman and her weakness I had to deal. "'He is young,' I continued; 'he has probably a long life before him. Rich, handsome, brilliant,--a magnificent career opening to him,--position, ease, troops of friends,--you will ruthlessly ruin all this. Married to you, white as you are, the peculiarity of your birth would in some way be speedily known. His father would disinherit him (it was not necessary to tell her he has a fortune in his own right), his family disown him, his friends abandon him, society close its doors upon him, business refuse to seek him, honor and riches elude his grasp. If you do not know the strength of this prejudice, which you call infamous, pre-eminently in the circle to which he belongs, I cannot tell it you. Taking all this from him, what will you give him in return? Ruining his life, can your affection make amends? Blasting his career, will your love fill the gap? Do you flatter yourself by the supposition that you can be father, mother, relatives, friends, society, wealth, position, honor, career,--all,--to him? Your people are cursed in America, and they transfer their curse to any one mad enough, or generous enough (that was a diplomatic turn), to connect his fate with yours.' "Before I was through, I saw that I had carried my point. All the fine airs went out of my lady, and she looked broken and humbled enough. I might have said less, but I ached to say more to the insolent. "'Enough, madam,' she gasped, 'stop.' And then said, more to herself than to me, 'I could give heaven for him,'--the rest I rather guessed from the motion of her lips than from any sound,--'but I cannot ask him to give the world for me.' "'Will you write the letter?' I asked. "'No.'--She said the word with evident effort, and then, still more slowly, 'I will give you a message. Say "I implore you never to write me again,--to forget me. I beseech of you not to try me by any farther appeals, as I shall but return them unopened."' I wrote down the words as she spoke them. 'This is well,' I said when she finished; 'but it is not enough. I must have the letter.' "'The letter?' she said. 'What need of a letter? surely that is sufficient.' "'I do not mean your letter. I mean his,--the one which you hold in your hands.' "'This?' she queried, looking down on it,--'this?' "I thought the repetition senseless and affected, but I answered, 'Yes,--that. He will not believe you are in earnest if you keep his avowal of love. You must give him up entirely. If you let me send that back, with your words, he shall never--at least from me--have clew or reason for your conduct. That will close the whole affair.' "'Close the whole affair,' she repeated after me, mechanically,--'close the whole affair.' "I was getting heartily tired of this, and had no desire to listen to an echo conversation; so, without answering, I stretched out my hand for it. She held it towards me, then drew it back and raised it to her heart with the same gesture I had marked when she first opened it,--a gesture as I said, of that, which was less of a caress than a spasm. Indeed, I think now that it was wholly physical and involuntary. Then she handed it to me, and, motioning towards the door, said, 'Go!' "I rose, and, infamous as I thought her past deceit, wearied as I was with the interview, small claim as she had upon me for the slightest consideration, I said 'You have done well, Miss Ercildoune! I commend you for your sensible decision, and for your ability, if late, to appreciate the situation. I wish you all success in life, I am sure; and, permit me to add, a future union with one of your own race, if that will bring you happiness.' "Heavens! what a face and what eyes she turned upon me as, rising, she once more pointed to the door, and cried, 'Go!' And indeed I went,--the girl actually frightened me. "When I got on to the lawn, I missed my bag and parasol, and had to return for them. I opened the door with some slight trepidation, but had no need for fear. She was lying prostrate upon the floor, as I saw on coming near, in a dead faint. She had evidently fallen so suddenly and with such force as to have hurt herself; her head had struck against an ornament of the bookcase, near which she had been standing; and a little stream of blood was trickling from her temple. It made me sick to behold it. As I looked at her where she lay, I could not but pity her a little, and think what a merciful fate it would be for her, and such as she, if they could all die,--and so put an end to what, I presume, though I never before thought of it, is really a very hard existence. "It was no time, however, to sentimentalize. I rang for a servant, and, having waited till one came, took my leave. "Of course all this is very shocking and painful, but I am glad I came. The matter is ended now in a satisfactory manner. I think it has been well done. Let us both keep our counsel, and the affair will soon become a memory with us, as it is nothing with every one else. "Always your loving sister, "AUGUSTA." * * * * * It is better to be silent upon some themes than to say too little. Words would fail to express the emotions with which Willie read this history: let silence and imagination tell the tale. Flinging down the paper with a passionate cry, he saw yet another letter,--the one in which these had been enfolded,--a letter written to him, and by Mrs. Russell. As by a flash, he perceived that there had been some blunder here, by which he was the gainer; and, partly at least, comprehended it. These two, mother and aunt, fearing the old fire had not yet burned to ashes,--nay, from their knowledge of him, sure of it,--hearing naught of his illness, for he did not care to distress them by any account thereof, were satisfied that he had either met, or was remaining to compass a meeting, with Miss Ercildoune. His mother had not the courage, or the baseness, to write such a letter as that to which Mrs. Russell urged her,--a letter which should degrade his love in his own eyes, and recall him from an unworthy pursuit. "Very well!" Mrs. Russell had then said, "It will be better from you; it will look more like unwarranted interference from me; but I will write, and you shall send an accompanying line. Let me have it to-morrow." The next morning Mrs. Surrey was not well enough to drive out, and thus sent her note by a servant, enclosing with it the letter of June 27th,--thinking that her sister might want it for reference. When it reached Mrs. Russell, it was almost mail-time, and with the simple thought, "So,--Laura has written it, after all," she enclosed it in her own, and sent it off, post-haste; not even looking at the unsealed envelope, as Mrs. Surrey had taken for granted she would, and thus failing to know of its double contents. Thus the very letter which they would have compassed land and sea to have prevented coming under his eyes, unwisely yet most fortunately kept in existence, was sent by themselves to his hands. Without pausing to read a line of that which his aunt had written him, he tore it into fragments, flung it into the empty grate; and, bounding down the stairs and on to the street, plunged into a carriage and was whirled away, all too slowly, to the home he had left but a little space before with such widely, such painfully different emotions. CHAPTER XIII "_I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more._" LOVELACE Just after Surrey, for the third time, had passed through the avenue of trees, two men appeared in it, earnestly conversing. One, the older, was the same who had met Willie as he was going out, and had examined him with such curious interest. The other, in feature, form, and bearing, was so absolutely the counterpart of his companion that it was easy to recognize in them father and son,--a father and son whom it would be hard to match. "The finest type of the Anglo-Saxon race I have seen from America," was the verdict pronounced upon Mr. Ercildoune, when he was a young man studying abroad, by an enthusiastic and nationally ignorant Englishman; "but then, sir," he added, "what very dark complexions you Americans have! Is it universal?" "By no means, sir," was Mr. Ercildoune's reply. "There are some exceedingly fine ones among my countrymen. I come from the South: that is a bad climate for the tint of the skin." "Is it so?" exclaimed John Bull,--"worse than the North?" "Very much worse, sir, in more ways than one." Perhaps Robert Ercildoune was a trifle fairer than his father, but there was still perceptible the shade which marked him as effectually an outcast from the freedom of American society, and the rights of American citizenship, as though it had been the badge of crime or the strait jacket of a madman. Something of this was manifested in the conversation in which the two were engaged. "It is folly, Robert, for you to carry your refinement and culture into the ranks as a common soldier, to fight and to die, without thanks. You are made of too good stuff to serve simply as food for powder." "Better men than I, father, have gone there, and are there to-day; men in every way superior to me." "Perhaps,--yes, if you will have it so. But what are they? white men, fighting for their own country and flag, for their own rights of manhood and citizenship, for a present for themselves and a future for their children, for honor and fame. What is there for you?" "For one thing, just that of which you spoke. Perhaps not a present for me, but certainly a future for those that come after." "A future! How are you to know? what warrant or guarantee have you for any such future? Do you judge by the past? by the signs of to-day? I tell you this American nation will resort to any means--will pledge anything, by word or implication--to secure the end for which it fights; and will break its pledges just so soon as it can, and with whomsoever it can with impunity. You, and your children, and your children's children after you, will go to the wall unless it has need of you in the arena." "I do not think so. This whole nation is learning, through pain and loss, the lesson of justice; of expediency, doubtless, but still of justice; and I do not think it will be forgotten when the war is ended. This is our time to wipe off a thousand stigmas of contempt and reproach: this"-- "Who is responsible for them? ourselves? What cast them there? our own actions? I trow not. Mark the facts. I pay taxes to support the public schools, and am compelled to have my children educated at home. I pay taxes to support the government, and am denied any representation or any voice in regard to the manner in which these taxes shall be expended. I hail a car on the street, and am laughed to scorn by the conductor,--or, admitted, at the order of the passengers am ignominiously expelled. I offer my money at the door of any place of public amusement, and it is flung back to me with an oath. I enter a train to New York, and am banished to the rear seat or the 'negro car.' I go to a hotel, open for the accommodation of the public, and am denied access; or am requested to keep my room, and not show myself in parlor, office, or at table. I come within a church, to worship the good God who is no respecter of persons, and am shown out of the door by one of his insolent creatures. I carry my intelligence to the polls on election morning, and am elbowed aside by an American boor or a foreign drunkard, and, with opprobrious epithets by law officers and rabble, am driven away. All this in the North; all this without excuse of slavery and of the feeling it engenders; all this from arrogant hatred and devilish malignity. At last, the country which has disowned me, the government which has never recognized save to outrage me, the flag which has refused to cover or to protect me, are in direct need and utmost extremity. Then do they cry for me and mine to come up to their help ere they perish. At least, they hold forth a bribe to secure me? at least, if they make no apology for the past, they offer compensation for the future? at least, they bid high for the services they desire? Not at all! "They say to one man, 'Here is twelve hundred dollars bounty with which to begin; here is sixteen dollars a month for pay; here is the law passed, and the money pledged, to secure you in comfort for the rest of life, if wounded or disabled, or help for your family, if killed. Here is every door set wide for you to rise, from post to post; money yours, advancement yours, honor, and fame, and glory yours; the love of a grateful country, the applause of an admiring world.' "They say to another man,--you, or me, or Sam out there in the field,--'There is no bounty for you, not a cent; there is pay for you, twelve dollars a month, the hire of a servant; there is no pension for you, or your family, if you be sent back from the front, wounded or dead; if you are taken prisoner you can be murdered with impunity, or be sold as a slave, without interference on our part. Fight like a lion! do acts of courage and splendor! and you shall never rise above the rank of a private soldier. For you there is neither money nor honor, rights secured, nor fame gained. Dying, you fall into a nameless grave: living, you come back to your old estate of insult and wrong. If you refuse these tempting offers, we brand you cowards. If, under these infamous restraints and disadvantages, you fail to equal the white troops by your side, you are written down--inferiors. If you equal them, you are still inferiors. If you perform miracles, and surpass them, you are, in a measure, worthy commendation at last; we consent to see in you human beings, fit for mention and admiration,--not as types of your color and of what you intrinsically are, but as exceptions; made such by the habit of association, and the force of surrounding circumstances.' "These are the terms the American people offer you, these the terms which you stoop to accept, these the proofs that they are learning a lesson of justice! So be it! there is need. Let them learn it to the full! let this war go on 'until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly destroyed.' Do not you interfere. Leave them to the teachings and the judgments of God." Ercildoune had spoken with such impassioned feeling, with such fire in his eyes, such terrible earnestness in his voice, that Robert could not, if he would, interrupt him; and, in the silence, found no words for the instant at his command. Ere he summoned them they saw some one approaching. "A fine looking fellow! fighting has been no child's play for him," said Robert, looking, as he spoke, at the empty sleeve. Mr. Ercildoune advanced to meet the stranger, and Surrey beheld the same face upon whose pictured semblance he had once gazed with such intense feelings, first of jealousy, and then of relief and admiration; the same splendor of life, and beauty, and vitality. Surrey knew him at once, knew that it was Francesca's father, and went up to him with extended hand. Mr. Ercildoune took the proffered hand, and shook it warmly. "I am happy to meet you, Mr. Surrey." "You know me?" said he with surprise. "I thought to present myself." "I have seen your picture." "And I yours. They must have held the mirror up to nature, for the originals to be so easily known. But may I ask where you saw mine? _yours_ was in Miss Ercildoune's possession." "As was yours," was answered after a moment's hesitation,--Surrey thought, with visible reluctance. His heart flew into his throat. "She has my picture,--she has spoken of me," he said to himself. "I wonder what her father will think,--what he will do. Come, I will to the point immediately." "Mr. Ercildoune," said he, aloud, "you know something of me? of my position and prospects?" "A great deal." "I trust, nothing disparaging or ignoble." "I know nothing for which any one could desire oblivion." "Thanks. Let me speak to you, then, of a matter which should have been long since proposed to you had I been permitted the opportunity. I love your daughter. I cannot speak about that, but you will understand all that I wish to say. I have twice--once by letter, once by speech--let her know this and my desire to call her wife. She has twice refused,--absolutely. You think this should cut off all hope?" Ercildoune had been watching him closely. "If she does not love you," he answered, at the pause. "I do not know. I went away from here a little while ago with her peremptory command not to return. I should not have dared disobey it had I not learned--thought--in fact, but for some circumstances--I beg your pardon--I do not know what I am saying. I believed if I saw her once more I could change her determination,--could induce her to give me another response,--and came with that hope." "Which has failed?" "Which has thus far failed that she will not at all see me; will hold no communication with me. I should be a ruffian did I force myself on her thus without excuse or reason. My own love would be no apology did I not think, did I not dare to hope, that it is not aversion to me that induces her to act as she has done. Believing so, may I beg a favor of you? may I entreat that you will induce her to see me, if only for a little while?" Ercildoune smiled a sad, bitter smile, as he answered, "Mr. Surrey, if my daughter does not love you, it would be hopeless for you or for me to assail her refusal. If she does, she has doubtless rejected you for a reason which you can read by simply looking into my face. No words of mine can destroy or do that away." "There is nothing to destroy; there is nothing to do away. Thank you for speaking of it, and making the way easy. There is nothing in all the wide world between us,--there can be nothing between us,--if she loves me; nothing to keep us apart save her indifference or lack of regard for me. I want to say so to her if she will give me the chance. Will you not help me to it?" "You comprehend all that I mean?" "I do. It is, as I have said, nothing. That love would not be worth the telling that considered extraneous circumstances, and not the object itself." "You have counted all the consequences? I think not. How, indeed, should you be able? Come with me a moment." The two went up to the house, across the wide veranda, into a room half library, half lounging-room, which, from a score of evidences strewn around, was plainly the special resort of the master. Over the mantel hung the life-size portrait of an excessively beautiful woman. A fine, _spirituelle_ face, with proud lines around the mouth and delicate nostrils, but with a tender, appealing look in the eyes, that claimed gentle treatment. This face said, "I was made for sunshine and balmy airs, but, if darkness and storm assail, I can walk through them unflinching, though the progress be short; I can die, and give no sign." Willie went hastily up to this, and stood, absorbed, before it. "Francesca is very like her mother," said Ercildoune, coming to his side. It was his own thought, but he made no answer. "I will tell you something of her and myself; a very little story; you can draw the moral. My father, who was a Virginian, sent my brother and me to England when we were mere boys, to be trained and educated. After his fashion, doubtless, he loved us; for he saw that we had every advantage that wealth, and taste, and care could provide; and though he never sent for us, nor came to us, in all the years after we left his house,--and though we had no legal claim upon him,--he acknowledged us his children, and left us the entire proceeds of his immense estates, unincumbered. We were so young when we went abroad, had been so tenderly treated at home, had seen and known so absolutely nothing of the society about us, that we were ignorant as Arabs of the state of feeling and prejudice in America against such as we, who carried any trace of negro blood. Our treatment in England did but increase this oblivion. "We graduated at Oxford; my brother, who was two years older than I, waiting upon me that we might go together through Europe; and together we had three of the happiest years of life. On the Continent I met _her_. You see what she is; you know Francesca: it is useless for me to attempt to describe her. I loved her,--she loved me,--it was confessed. In a little while I called her wife; I would, if I could, tell you of the time that followed: I cannot. We had a beautiful home, youth, health, riches, friends, happiness, two noble boys. At last an evil fate brought us to America. I was to look after some business affairs which, my agent said, needed personal supervision. My brother, whose health had failed, was advised to try a sea-voyage, and change of scene and climate. My wife was enthusiastic about the glorious Republic,--the great, free America,--the land of my birth. We came, carrying with us letters from friends in England, that were an open sesame to the most jealously barred doors. They flew wide at our approach, but to be shut with speed when my face was seen; hands were cordially extended, and drawn back as from a loathsome contact when mine went to meet them. In brief, we were outlawed, ostracised, sacrificed on the altar of this devilish American prejudice,--wholly American, for it is found nowhere else in the world,--I for my color, she for connecting her fate with mine. "I was so held as to be unable to return at once, and she would not leave me. Then my brother drooped more and more. His disease needed the brightest and most cheerful influences. The social and moral atmosphere stifled him. He died; and we, with grief intensified by bitterness, laid him in the soil of his own country as though it had been that of the stranger and enemy. "At this time the anti-slavery movement was provoking profound thought and feeling in America. I at once identified myself with it; not because I was connected with the hated and despised race, but because I loathed all forms of tyranny, and fought against them with what measure of strength I possessed. Doubtless this made me a more conspicuous mark for the shafts of malice and cruelty, and as I could nowhere be hurt as through her, malignity exhausted its devices there. She was hooted at when she appeared with me on the streets; she was inundated with infamous letters; she was dragged before a court of _justice_ upon the plea that she had defied the law of the state against amalgamation, forbidding the marriage of white and colored; though at the time it was known that she was English, that we were married in England and by English law. One night, in the midst of the riots which in 1838 disgraced this city, our house was surrounded by a mob, burned over us; and I, with a few faithful friends, barely succeeded in carrying her to a place of safety,--uncovered, save by her delicate night-robe and a shawl, hastily caught up as we hurried her away. The yelling fiends, the burning house, the awful horror of fright and danger, the shock to her health and strength, the storm,--for the night was a wild and tempestuous one, which drenched her to the skin,--from all these she might have recovered, had not her boy, her first-born, been carried into her, bruised and dead,--dead, through an accident of burning rafters and falling stones; an accident, they said; yet as really murdered as though they had wilfully and brutally stricken him down. "After that I saw that she, too, would die, were she not taken back to our old home. The preparations were hastily made; we turned our faces towards England; we hoped to reach it at least before another pair of eyes saw the light, but hoped in vain. There on the broad sea Francesca was born. There her mother died. There was she buried." It was with extreme difficulty Ercildoune had controlled his face and voice, through the last of this distressing recital, and with the final word he bowed his forehead on the picture-frame,--convulsed with agony,--while voiceless sobs, like spasms, shook his form. Surrey realized that no words were to be said here, and stood by, awed and silent. What hand, however tender, could be laid on such a wound as this? Presently he looked up, and continued: "I came back here, because, I said, here was my place. I had wealth, education, a thousand advantages which are denied the masses of people who are, like me, of mixed race. I came here to identify my fate with theirs; to work with and for them; to fight, till I died, against the cruel and merciless prejudice which grinds them down. I have a son, who has just entered the service of this country, perhaps to die under its flag. I have a daughter,"--Willie flushed and started forward;--"I asked you when I began this recital, if you had counted all the consequences. You know my story; you see with what fate you link yours; reflect! Francesca carries no mark of her birth; her father or brother could not come inside her home without shocking society by the scandal, were not the story earlier known. The man whom you struck down this morning is one of our neighbors; you saw and heard his brutal assault: are you ready to face more of the like kind? Better than you I know what sentence will be passed upon you,--what measure awarded. It is for your own sake I say these things; consider them. I have finished." Surrey had made to speak a half score of times, and as often checked himself,--partly that he should not interrupt his companion; partly that he might be master of his emotions, and say what he had to utter without heat or excitement. "Mr. Ercildoune," he now said, "listen to me. I should despise myself were I guilty of the wicked and vulgar prejudice universal in America. I should be beneath contempt did I submit or consent to it. Two years ago I loved Miss Ercildoune without knowing aught of her birth. She is the same now as then; should I love her the less? If anything hard or cruel is in her fate that love can soften, it shall be done. If any painful burdens have been thrown upon her life, I can carry, if not the whole, then a part of them. If I cannot put her into a safe shelter where no ill will befall her, I can at least take her into my arms and go with her through the world. It will be easier for us, I think,--I hope,--to face any fate if we are together. Ah, sir, do not prevent it; do not deny me this happiness. Be my ambassador, since she will not let me speak for myself, and plead my own cause." In his earnestness he had come close to Mr. Ercildoune, putting out his one hand with a gesture of entreaty, with a tone in his voice, and a look in his face, irresistible to hear and behold. Ercildoune took the hand, and held it in a close, firm grasp. Some strong emotion shook him. The expression, a combination of sadness and scorn, which commonly held possession of his eyes, went out of them, leaving them radiant. "No," he said, "I will say nothing for you. I would not for worlds spoil your plea; prevent her hearing, from your own mouth, what you have to say. I will send her to you,"--and, going to a door, gave the order to a servant, "Desire Miss Francesca to come to the parlor." Then, motioning Surrey to the room, he went away, buried in thought. Standing in the parlor, for he was too restless to sit, he tried to plan how he should meet her; to think of a sentence which at the outset should disarm her indignation at being thus thrust upon him, and convey in some measure the thought of which his heart was full, without trespassing on her reserve, or telling her of the letter which he had read. Then another fear seized him; it was two years since he had written,--two years since that painful and terrible scene had been enacted in the very room where he stood,--two years since she had confessed by deed and look that she loved him. Might she not have changed? might she not have struggled for the mastery of this feeling with only too certain success? might she not have learned to regard him with esteem, perchance,--with friendship,--sentiment,--anything but that which he desired or would claim at her hands? Silence and absence and time are pitiless destructives. Might they not? Aye, might they not? He paced to and fro, with quick, restless tread, at the thought. All his love and his longing cried out against such a cruel supposition. He stopped by the side of the bookcase against which she had fallen in that merciless and suffering struggle, and put his hand down on the little projection, which he knew had once cut and wounded her, with a strong, passionate clasp, as though it were herself he held. Just then he heard a step,--her step, yet how unlike!--coming down the stairs. Where he stood he could see her as she crossed the hall, coming unconsciously to meet him. All the brightness and airy grace seemed to have been drawn quite out of her. The alert, slender figure drooped as if it carried some palpable weight, and moved with a step slow and unsteady as that of sickness or age. Her face was pathetic in its sad pallor, and blue, sorrowful circles were drawn under the deep eyes, heavy and dim with the shedding of unnumbered tears. It almost broke his heart to look at her. A feeling, pitiful as a mother would have for her suffering baby, took possession of his soul,--a longing to shield and protect her. Tears blinded him; a great sob swelled in his throat; he made a step forward as she came into the room. "Papa," she said, without looking up, "you wanted me?" There was no response. "Papa!" In an instant an arm enfolded her; a presence, tender and strong, bent above her; a voice, husky with crowding emotions, yet sweet with all the sweetness of love, breathed, "My darling! my darling!" as _his_ fair, sunny hair swept her face. Even then she remembered another scene, remembered her promise; even then she thought of him, of his future, and struggled to release herself from his embrace. What did he say? what could he say? Where were the arguments he had planned, the entreaties he had purposed? where the words with which he was to tell his tale, combat her refusal, win her to a willing and happy assent? All gone. There was nothing but his heart and its caresses to speak for him. Silent, with the ineffable stillness he kissed her eyes, her mouth, held her to his breast with a passionate fondness,--a tender, yet masterful hold, which said, "Nothing shall separate us now." She felt it, recognized it, yielded without power to longer contend, clasped her arms about his neck, met his eyes, and dropped her face upon his heart with a long, tremulous sigh which confessed that heaven was won. CHAPTER XIV "_The golden hours, on angel wings, Flew o'er me and my dearie._" BURNS The evening that followed was of the brightest and happiest; even the adieus spoken to the soldier who was just leaving his home did not sadden it. They were in such a state of exaltation as to see everything with courageous and hopeful eyes, and sent Robert off with the feeling that all these horrible realities they had known so long were but bogies to frighten foolish children, and that he would come back to them wearing, at the very least, the stars of a major-general. Whatever sombre and painful thoughts filled Ercildoune's heart he held there, that no gloom might fall from him upon these fresh young lives, nor sadden the cheery expectancy of his son. Surrey, having carried the first line of defence, prepared for a vigorous assault upon the second. Like all eager lovers, his primary anxiety was to hear "Yes"; afterwards, the day. To that end he was pleading with every resource that love and impatience could lend; but Francesca shook her head, and smiled, and said that was a long way off,--that was not to be thought of, at least till the war was over, and her soldier safe at home; but he insisted that this was the flimsiest, and poorest of excuses; nay, that it was the very reverse of the true and sensible idea, which was of course wholly on his side. He had these few weeks at home, and then must away once more to chances of battle and death. He did not say this till he had exhausted every other entreaty; but at last, gathering her close to him with his one loving arm,--"how fortunate," he had before said, "that it is the left arm, because if it were the other I could not hold you so near my heart!"--so holding her, he glanced down at the empty sleeve, and whispered, "My darling! who knows? I have been wounded so often, and am now only a piece of a fellow to come to you. It may be something more next time, and then I shall never call you wife. It would make no difference hereafter, I know: we belong to each other for time and eternity. But then I should like to feel that we were something more to one another than even betrothed lovers, before the end comes, if come it does, untimely. Be generous, dearie, and say yes." He did not give utterance to another fear, which was that by some device she might again be taken away from him; that some cruel plan might be put in execution to separate them once more. He would not take the risk; he would bind her to him so securely that no device, however cunning,--no plan, however hard and shrewd,--could again divide them. She hesitated long; was long entreated; but the result was sure, since her own heart seconded every prayer he uttered. At last she consented; but insisted that he should go home at once, see the mother and father who were waiting for him with such anxious hearts, give to them--as was their due--at least a part of the time, and then, when her hasty bride-preparations were made, come back and take her wholly to himself. Thus it was arranged, and he left her. Into the mysteries which followed--the mysteries of hemming and stitching, of tucking and trimming, ruffling, embroidering, of all the hurry and delicious confusion of an elegant yet hasty bridal trousseau--let us not attempt to investigate. Doubtless through those days, through this sweet and happy whirl of emotion, Francesca had many anxious and painful hours: hours in which she looked at the future--for him more than for herself--with sorrowful anticipations and forebodings. But with each evening came a letter, written in the morning by his dear hand; a letter so full of happy, hopeful love, of resolute, manly spirit, that her cares and anxieties all took flight, and were but as a tale that is told, or as a dream of darkness when the sun shines upon a blessed reality. He wrote her that he had told his parents of his wishes and plans; and that, as he had known before, they were opposed, and opposed most bitterly; but he was sure that time would soften, and knowledge destroy this prejudice utterly. He wrote as he believed. They were so fond of him, so devoted to him who was their only child, that he was assured they would not and could not cast him off, nor hate that which he loved. He did not know that his father, who had never before been guilty of a base action,--his mother, who was fine to daintiness,--were both so warped by this senseless and cruel feeling--having seen Francesca and known all her beautiful and noble elements of personal character--as to have written her a letter which only a losel should have penned and an outcast read. She did not tell him. Being satisfied that they two belonged to one another; that if they were separated it would be as the tearing asunder of a perfect whole, leaving the parts rent and bleeding,--she would not listen to any voice that attempted, nor heed any hand that strove to drive an entering wedge, or to divide them. Why, then, should she trouble him by the knowledge that this effort had again been made, and by those he trusted and honored. Let it pass. The future must decide what the future must be, meanwhile, they were to live in a happy present. He learned of it, however, before he left his home. Finding that neither persuasions, threats, nor prayers could move him,--that he would be true to honor and love,--they told him of what they had done; laid bare the whole intensity of their feeling; and putting her on the one side, placing themselves on the other, said, "Choose,--this wife, or those who have loved you for a lifetime. Cleave to her, and your father disowns you, your mother renounces, your home shuts its doors upon you, never to open. With the world and its judgment we have nothing to do; that is between it and you; but no judgment of indifferent strangers shall be more severe than ours." A painful position; a cruel alternative; but not for an instant did he hesitate. Taking the two hands of father and mother into his solitary one, he said,--"Father, I have always found you a gentleman; mother, you have shown all the graces of the Christian character which you profess; yet in this you are supporting the most dishonorable sentiment, the most infidel unbelief, with which the age is shamed. You are defying the dictates of justice and the teachings of God. When you ask me to rank myself on your side, I cannot do it. Were my heart less wholly enlisted in this matter, my reason and sense of right would rebel. Here, then, for the present at least, we must say farewell." And so, with many a heart-ache and many a pang, he went away. As true love always grows with passing time, so his increased with the days, and intensified by the cruel heat which was poured upon it. He realized the torture to which, in a thousand ways, this darling of his heart had for a lifetime been subjected; and his tenderness and love--in which was an element of indignation and pathos--deepened with every fresh revelation of the passing hours. When he came back to her he had few words to speak, and no airy grace of sentence or caress to bestow; he followed her about in a curious, shadow-like way, with such a strain on his heart as made him many a time lift his hand to it, as if to check physical pain. For her, she was as one who had found a beloved master, able and willing to lighten all her burdens; a physician, whose slightest touch brought balm and healing to every aching wound. And so these two when the time came, spite of the absence of friends who should have been there, spite of warnings and denunciations and evil prophecies, stood up and said to those who listened what their hearts had long before confessed, that they were one for time and eternity; then, hand in hand, went out into the world. For the present it was a pleasant enough world to them. Surrey had a lovely little place on the Hudson to which he would carry her, and pleased himself by fitting it up with every convenience and beauty that taste could devise and wealth supply. How happy they were there! To be sure, nobody came to see them, but then they wished to see nobody; so every one was well satisfied. The delicious lovers' life of two years before was renewed, but with how much richer and deeper delights and blissfulness! They galloped on many a pleasant morning across miles and miles of country, down rocky slopes, and through wild and romantic glens. They drove lazily, on summer noons, through leafy fastnesses and cool forest paths; or sat idly by some little stream on the fresh, green moss, with a line dancing on the crystal water, amusing themselves by the fiction that it was fishing upon which they were intent, and not the dear delight of watching one another's faces reflected from the placid stream. They spent hours at home, reading bits of poems, or singing scraps of love-songs, talking a little, and then falling away into silence; or she sat perched on his knee or the elbow of his chair, smoothing his sunny hair, stroking his long, silky mustache, or looking into his answering eyes, till the world lapsed quite away from them, and they thought themselves in heaven. An idle, happy time! a time to make a worker sigh only to behold, and a Benthamite lift his hands in deprecation and despair. A time which would not last, because it could not, any more than apple-blossoms and May flowers, but which was sweet and fragrant past all describing while it endured. Some _kindly_ disposed person sent Surrey a city paper with an item marked in such wise as to make him understand its unpleasant import without the reading. "Come," he said, "we will have none of this; this owl does not belong to our sunshine,"--and so destroyed and forgot it. Others, however, saw that which he scorned to read. He had not been into the city since he called at his father's house, and walked into the reception room of his aunt, and been refused interview or speech at either place. "Very well," he thought, "I will go from this painful inhospitality and coldness to my Paradise"; and he went, and remained. The only letter he wrote was to his old friend and favorite cousin, Tom Russell,--who was away somewhere in the far South, and from whom he had not heard for many a day,--and hoped that he, at least, would not disappoint him; would not disappoint the hearty trust he had in his breadth of nature and manly sensibility. And so, with clouds doubtless in the sky, but which they did not see,--the sun shone so bright for them; and some discords in the minor keys which they did not heed,--the major music was so sweet and intoxicating,--the brief, glad hours wore away, and the time for parting, with hasty steps, had almost reached and faced them. Meanwhile, what was occurring to others, in other scenes and among other surroundings? CHAPTER XV "_There are some deeds so grand That their mighty doers stand Ennobled, in a moment, more than kings._" BOKER It was towards the evening of a blazing July day on Morris Island. The mail had just come in and been distributed. Jim, with some papers and a precious missive from Sallie in one hand, his supper in the other, betook himself to a cool spot by the river,--if, indeed, any spot could be called cool in that fiery sand,--and proceeded to devour the letter with wonderful avidity while the "grub," properly enough, stood unnoticed and uncared for. Presently he stopped, rubbed his eyes, and re-read a paragraph in the epistle before him, then re-rubbed, and read it again; and then, laying it down, gave utterance to a long whistle, expressive of unbounded astonishment, if not incredulity. The whistle was answered by its counterpart, and Jim, looking up, beheld his captain,--Coolidge by name,--a fast, bright New York boy, standing at a little distance, and staring with amazed eyes at a paper he held in his hands. Glancing from this to Jim, encountering his look, he burst out laughing and came towards him. "Helloa, Given!" he called: Jim was a favorite with him, as indeed with pretty much every one with whom he came in contact, officers and men,--"you, too, seem put out. I wonder if you've read anything as queer as that," handing him the paper and striking his finger down on an item; "read it." Jim read:-- "MISCEGENATION. DISGRACEFUL FREAK IN HIGH LIFE. FRUIT OF AN ABOLITION WAR.--We are credibly informed that a young man belonging to one of the first families in the city, Mr. W.A.S.,--we spare his name for the sake of his relatives,--who has been engaged since its outset in this fratricidal war, has just given evidence of its legitimate effect by taking to his bosom a nigger wench as _his wife_. Of course he is disowned by his family, and spurned by his friends, even radical fanaticism not being yet ready for such a dose as this. However--" Jim did not finish the homily of which this was the presage, but, throwing the paper on the ground, indignantly drove his heel through it, tearing and soiling it, and then viciously kicked it into the river. Said the Captain when this operation was completed, having watched it with curious eyes, "Well, my man, are you aware of the fact that that is _my_ paper?" "Don't care if it is. What in thunder did you bring the damned Copperhead sheet to me for, if you didn't want it smashed? Ain't you ashamed of yourself having such a thing round? How'd you feel if you were picked up dead by a reb, with that stuff in your pocket? Say now!" Coolidge laughed,--he was always ready to laugh: that was probably why the men liked him so well, and stood in awe of him not a bit. "Feel? horridly, of course. Bad enough, being dead, to yet speak, and tell 'em that paper didn't represent my politics: 'd that do?" Jim shook his head dubiously. "What are you making such a devil of a row for, I'd like to know? it's too hot to get excited. 'Tain't likely you know anything about Willie Surrey." "O ho! it is Mr. Will, then, is it? Know him,--don't I, though? Like a book. Known him ever since he was knee-height of a grasshopper. I'd like to have that fellow"--shaking his fist toward the floating paper--"within arm's reach. Wouldn't I pummel him some? O no, of course not,--not at all. Only, if he wants a sound skin, I'd advise him, as a friend, to be scarce when I'm round, because it'd very likely be damaged." "You think it's all a Copperhead lie, then! I should have thought so, at first, only I know Surrey's capable of doing any Quixotic thing if he once gets his mind fixed on it." "I know what I know," Jim answered, slowly folding and unfolding Sallie's letter, which he still held in his hand. "I know all about that young lady he's been marrying. She's young, and she's handsome--handsome as a picture--and rich, and as good as an angel; that's about what she is, if Sallie Howard and I know B from a bull's foot." "Who is Sallie Howard?" queried the Captain. "She? O,"--very red in the face,--"she's a friend of mine, and she's Miss Ercildoune's seamstress." "Ercildoune? good name! Is she the _lady_ upon whom Surrey has been bestowing his--?" "Yes, she is; and here's her photograph. Sallie begged it of her, and sent it to me, once after she had done a kind thing by both of us. Looks like a 'nigger wench,' don't she?" The Captain seized the picture, and, having once fastened his eyes upon it, seemed incapable of removing them. "This? this her?" he cried. "Great Cæsar! I should think Surrey would have the fellow out at twenty paces in no time. Heavens, what a beauty!" Jim grinned sardonically: "She is rather pretty, now,--ain't she?" "Pretty! ugh, what an expression! pretty, indeed! I never saw anything so beautiful. But what a sad face it is!" "Sad! well, 'tain't much wonder. I guess her life's been sad enough, in spite of her youth, and her beauty, and her riches, and all the rest." "Why, how should that be?" "Suppose you take another squint at that face." "Well." "See anything peculiar about it?" "Nothing except its beauty." "Not about the eyes?" "No,--only I believe it is they that make the face so sorrowful." "Very like. You generally see just such big mournful-looking eyes in the faces of people that are called--octoroons." "What?" cried the Captain, dropping the picture in his surprise. "Just so," Jim answered, picking it up and dusting it carefully before restoring it to its place in his pocket-book. "So, then, it is part true, after all." "True!" exclaimed Jim, angrily,--"don't make an ass of yourself, Captain." "Why, Given, didn't you say yourself that she was an octoroon, or some such thing?" "Suppose I did,--what then?" "I should say, then, that Surrey has disgraced himself forever. He has not only outraged his family and his friends, and scandalized society, but he has run against nature itself. It's very plain God Almighty never intended the two races to come together." "O, he didn't, hey? Had a special despatch from him, that you know all about it? I've heard just such talk before from people who seemed to be pretty well posted about his intentions,--in this particular matter,--though I generally noticed they weren't chaps who were very intimate with him in any other way." The Captain laughed. "Thank you, Jim, for the compliment; but come, you aren't going to say that nature hasn't placed a barrier between these people and us? an instinct that repels an Anglo-Saxon from a negro always and everywhere?" "Ho, ho! that's good! why, Captain, if you keep on, you'll make me talk myself into a regular abolitionist. Instinct, hey? I'd like to know, then, where all the mulattoes, and the quadroons, and the octoroons come from,--the yellow-skins and brown-skins and skins so nigh white you can't tell 'em with your spectacles on! The darkies must have bleached out amazingly here in America, for you'd have to hunt with a long pole and a telescope to boot to find a straight-out black one anywhere round,--leastwise that's my observation." "That was slavery." "Yes 'twas,--and then the damned rascals talk about the amalgamationists, and all that, up North. 'Twan't the abolitionists; 'twas the slaveholders and their friends that made a race of half-breeds all over the country; but, slavery or no slavery, they showed nature hadn't put any barriers between them,--and it seems to me an enough sight decenter and more respectable plan to marry fair and square than to sell your own children and the mother that bore them. Come, now, ain't it?" "Well, yes, if you come to that, I suppose it is!" "You _suppose_ it is! See here,--I've found out something since I've been down here, and have had time to think; 'tain't the living together that troubles squeamish stomachs; it's the marrying. That's what's the matter!" "Just about!" assented the Captain, with an amused look, "and here's a case in point. Surrey ought to have been shot for marrying one of that degraded race." "Bah! he married one of his own race, if I know how to calculate." "There, Jim, don't be a fool! If she's got any negro blood in her veins she's a nigger, and all your talk won't make her anything else." "I say, Captain, I've heard that some of your ancestors were Indians: is that so?" "Yes: my great-grandmother was an Indian chief's daughter,--so they say; and you might as well claim royalty when you have the chance." "Bless me! your great-grandmother, eh? Come, now, what do you call yourself,--an Injun?" "No, I don't. I call myself an Anglo-Saxon." "What, not call yourself an Injun,--when your great-grandmother was one? Here's a pretty go!" "Nonsense! 'tisn't likely that filtered Indian blood can take precedence and mastery of all the Anglo-Saxon material it's run through since then." "Hurray! now you've said it. Lookee here, Captain. You say the Anglo-Saxon's the master race of the world." "Of course I do." "Of course you do,--being a sensible fellow. So do I; and you say the negro blood is mighty poor stuff, and the race a long way behind ours." "Of course, again." "Now, Captain, just take a sober squint at your own logic. You back Anglo-Saxon against the field; very well! here's Miss Ercildoune, we'll say, one eighth negro, seven eighths Anglo-Saxon. You make that one eighth stronger than all the other seven eighths: you make that little bit of negro master of all the lot of Anglo-Saxon. Now I have such a good opinion of my own race that if it were t'other way about, I'd think the one eighth Saxon strong enough to beat the seven eighths nigger. That's sound, isn't it? consequently, I call anybody that's got any mixture at all, and that knows anything, and keeps a clean face,--and ain't a rebel, nor yet a Copperhead,--I call him, if it's a him, and her, if it's a she, one of us. And I mean to say to any such from henceforth, 'Here's your chance,--go in, and win, if you can,--and anybody be damn'd that stops you!'" "Blow away, Jim," laughed the Captain, "I like to hear you; and it's good talk if you don't mean it." "I'll be blamed if I don't." "Come, you're talking now,--you're saying a lot more than you'll live up to,--you know that as well as I. People always do when they're gassing." "Well, blow or no blow, it's truth, whether I live up to it or not." And he, evidently with not all the steam worked off, began to gather sticks and build a fire to fry his bit of pork and warm the cold coffee. Just then they heard the plash of oars keeping time to the cadence of a plantation hymn, which came floating solemn and clear through the night:-- "My brudder sittin' on de tree ob life, An' he yearde when Jordan roll. Roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll, Roll Jordan, roll!" They both paused to listen as the refrain was again and again repeated. "There's nigger for you," broke out Jim, "what'n thunder'd they mean by such gibberish as that?" The Captain laughed. "Come, Given, don't quarrel with what's above your comprehension. Doubtless there's a spiritual meaning hidden away somewhere, which your unsanctified ears can't interpret." "Spiritual fiddlestick!" "Worse and worse! what a heathen you're demonstrating yourself! Violins are no part of the heavenly chorus." "Much you know about it! Hark,--they're at it again"; and again the voices and break of oars came through the night:-- "O march, de angel march! O march, de angel march! O my soul arise in heaven, Lord, for to yearde when Jordan roll! Roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll." "Well, I confess that's a little bit above my comprehension,--that is. Spiritual or something else. Lazy vermin! they'll paddle round in them boats, or lie about in the sun, and hoot all day and all night about 'de good Lord' and 'de day ob jubilee,'--and think God Almighty is going to interfere in their special behalf, and do big things for them generally." "It's a fact; they do all seem to be waiting for something." "Well, I reckon they needn't wait any longer. The day of miracles is gone by, for such as them, anyway. They ain't worth the salt that feeds them, so far as I can discover." Through the wash of the waters they could hear from the voices, as they sang, that their possessors were evidently drawing nearer. "Sense or not," said the Captain, "I never listen to them without a queer feeling. What they sing is generally ridiculous enough, but their voices are the most pathetic things in the world." Here the hymn stopped; a boat was pulled up, and presently they saw two men coming from the sands and into the light of their fire,--ragged, dirty; one shabby old garment--a pair of tow pantaloons--on each; bareheaded, barefooted,--great, clumsy feet, stupid and heavy-looking heads; slouching walk, stooping shoulders; something eager yet deprecating in their black faces. "Look at 'em, Captain; now you just take a fair look at 'em; and then say that Mr. Surrey's wife belongs to the same family,--own kith and kin,--you ca-a-n't do it." "Faugh! for heaven's sake, shut up! of course, when it comes to this, I can't say anything of the kind." "'Nuff said. You see, I believe in Mr. Surrey, and what's more, I believe in Miss Ercildoune,--have reason to; and when I hear anybody mixing her up with these onry, good-for-nothing niggers, it's more'n I can stand, so don't let's have any more of it"; and turning with an air which said that subject was ended, Jim took up his forgotten coffee, pulled apart some brands and put the big tin cup on the coals, and then bent over it absorbed, sniffing the savory steam which presently came up from it. Meanwhile the two men were skulking about among the trees, watching, yet not coming near,--"at their usual work of waiting," as the Captain said. "Proper enough, too, let 'em wait. Waiting's their business. Now," taking off his tin and looking towards them, "what d'ye s'pose those anemiles want? Pity the boat hadn't tipped over before they got here. Camp's overrun now with just such scoots. Here, you!" he called. The men came near. "Where'd you come from?" One of them pointed back to the boat, seen dimly on the sand. "Was that you howling a while ago, 'Roll Jordan,' or something?" "Yes, massa." "And where did you come from?--no, you needn't look back there again,--I mean, where did you and the boat too come from?" "Come from Mass' George Wingate's place, massa." "Far from here?" "Big way, massa." "What brought you here? what did you come for?" "If you please, massa, 'cause the Linkum sojers was yere, an' de big guns, an' we yearde dat all our people's free when dey gets yere." "Free! what'll such fellows as you do with freedom, hey?" The two looked at their interrogator, then at one another, opened their mouths as to speak, and shut them hopelessly,--unable to put into words that which was struggling in their darkened brains,--and then with a laugh, a laugh that sounded woefully like a sob, answered, "Dunno, massa." "What fools!" cried Jim, angrily; but the Captain, who was watching them keenly, thought of a line he had once read, "There is a laughter sadder than tears." "True enough,--poor devils!" he added to himself. "Are you hungry?" Jim proceeded. "I hope massa don't think we's come yere for to git suthin' to eat," said the smaller of the two, a little, thin, haggard-looking fellow,--"we's no beggars. Some ob de darkies is, but we's not dem kind,--Jim an' me,--we's willin' to work, ain't we, Jim?" "Jim!" soliloquized Given,--"my name, hey? we'll take a squint at this fellow." The squint showed two impoverished-looking wretches, with a starved look in their eyes, which he did not comprehend, and a starved look in their faces and forms, which he did. "Come, now, are you hungry?" he queried once more. "If ye please, massa," began the little one who was spokesman,--'little folks always are gas-bags,' Jim was fond of saying from his six feet of height,--"if ye please, massa, we's had nothin' to eat but berries an' roots an' sich like truck for long while." "Well, why by the devil haven't you had something else then? what've you been doing with yourselves for 'long while'? what d'ye mean, coming here starved to death, making a fellow sick to look at you? Hold your gab, and eat up that pork," pushing over his tin plate, "'n' that bread," sending it after, "'n' that hard tack,--'tain't very good, but it's better'n roots, I reckon, or berries either,--'n' gobble up that coffee, double-quick, mind; and don't you open your heads to talk till the grub's gone, slick and clean. Ugh!" he said to the Captain,--"sight o' them fellows just took my appetite away; couldn't eat to save my soul; lucky they came to devour the rations; pity to throw them away." The Captain smiled,--he knew Jim. "Poor cusses!" he added presently, "eat like cannibals, don't they? hope they enjoy it. Had enough?" seeing they had devoured everything put before them. "Thankee, massa. Yes, massa. Bery kind, massa. Had quite 'nuff." "Well, now, you, sir!" looking at the little one,--"by the way, what's your name?" "'Bijah, if ye please, massa." "'Bijah? Abijah, hey? well, I don't please; however, it's none of my name. Well, 'Bijah, how came you two to be looking like a couple of animated skeletons? that's the next question." "Yes, massa." "I say, how came you to be starved? Hai'n't they nothing but roots and berries up your way? Mass' George Wingate must have a jolly time, feasting, in that case. Come, what's your story? Out with the whole pack of lies at once." "I hope massa thinks we wouldn't tell nuffin but de truf," said Jim, who had not before spoken save to say, "Thankee,"--"cause if he don't bleeve us, ain't no use in talkin'." "You shut up! I ain't conversing with you, rawbones! Speak when you're spoken to! Come, 'Bijah, fire away." "Bery good, massa. Ye see I'se Mass' George Wingate's boy. Mass' George he lives in de back country, good long way from de coast,--over a hundred miles, Jim calklates,--an' Jim's smart at calklating; well, Mass' George he's not berry good to his people; never was, an' he's been wuss'n ever since the Linkum sojers cum round his way, 'cause it's made feed scurce ye see, an' a lot of de boys dey tuck to runnin' away,--so what wid one ting an' anoder, his temper got spiled, an' he was mighty hard on us all de time. "At las' I got tired of bein' cuffed an' knocked round, an' den I yearde dat if our people, any of dem, got to de Fedral lines dey was free, so I said, 'Cum, 'Bijah,--freedom's wuth tryin' for'; an' one dark night I did up some hoe-cake an' a piece of pork an' started. I trabbeled hard's I could all night,--'bout fifteen mile, I reckon,--an' den as 'twas gittin' toward mornin' I hid away in a swamp. Ye see I felt drefful bad, for I could year way off, but plain enuff, de bayin' of de hounds, an' I knew dat de men an' de guns an' de dogs was all after me; but de day passed an' dey didn't come. So de next night I started off agen, an' run an' walked hard all night, an' towards mornin' I went up to a little house standen off from de road, thinking it was a nigger house, an' jest as I got up to it out walked a white woman scarin' me awfully, an' de fust ting she axed me was what I wanted." "Tight slave!" interrupted Jim,--"what d'ye do then?" "Well, massa, ye see I saw mighty quick I was in for a lie anyhow, so I said, 'Is massa at home?' 'Yes,' says she,--an' sure nuff, he cum right out. 'Hello, nigger!' he said when he seed me, 'whar you cum from? so I tells him from Pocotaligo, an' before he could ax any more queshuns, I went on an' tole him we cotched fifty Yankees down dere yesterday, an' massa he was so tickled dat he let me go to Barnwells to see my family, an' den I said I'd got off de track an' was dead beat an' drefful hungry, an' would he please to sell me suthin to eat. At dat de woman streaked right into de house, an' got me some bread an' meat, an' tole me to eat it up an' not talk about payin,'--'we don't charge good, faithful niggers nothin',' she said,--so I thanked her an' eat it all up, an' den, when de man had tole me how to go, I went right long till I got out ob sight ob de little house, an' den I got into de woods, an' turned right round de oder way an' made tracks fast as I could in dat direcshun." "Ho! ho! you're about what I call a 'cute nigger," laughed Jim. "Come, go on,--this gets interesting." "Well, directly I yearde de dogs. Dere was a pond little way off; so I tuck to it, an' waded out till I could just touch my toes an' keep my nose above water so's to breathe. Presently dey all cum down, an' I yearde Mass' George say, 'I'll hunt dat nigger till I find him if takes a month. I'se goin' to make a zample of him,'--so I shook some at dat, for I know'd what Mass' George's zamples was. Arter while one ob de men says, 'He ain't yere,--he'd shown hisself before dis, if he was,' an' I spose I would, for I was pretty nearly choked, only I said to myself when I went in, 'I'll go to de bottom before I'll come up to be tuck,' so I jest held on by my toes an' waited. "I didn't dare to cum out when dey rode away to try a new scent, an' when I did I jest skulked round de edge ob de pond, ready to take to it agen if I yearde dem, an' when night cum I started off an' run an' walked agen hard's I could, an' den at day-dawn I tuck to anoder pond, an' went on a log dat was stickin' in de water, and broke down some rushes an' bushes enuf to lie down on an' cover me up, an' den I slept all day, for I was drefful tired an' most starved too. Next evenin' when it got dark, I went on agen, an' trabblin through de woods I seed a little light, an' sartin dis time dat it was a darkey's cabin, I made for it, an' it was. It was his'n,"--pointing to the big fellow who stood beside him, and who nodded his head in assent. "I had a palaver before he'd let me in, but when I was in I seed what de matter was. He had a sojer dere, a Linkum sojer, bad wounded, what he'd found in de woods,--he was a runaway hisself, ye see, like me,--an' he'd tuck him to dis ole cabin an'd been nussin him on for good while. When I seed dat I felt drefful bad, for I knowed dey was a huntin for me yet, an' I tought if de dogs got on de trail dey'd get to dis cabin, sure: an' den dey'd both be tuck. So I up an' tole dem, an' de sojer he says, 'Come, Jim, you've done quite enuff fur me, my boy. If you're in danger now, be off with you fast as you can,--an' God reward you, for I never can, for all you've done for me.' "'No,' says Jim, 'Capen, ye needn't talk in dat way, for I'se not goin to budge widout you. You got wounded fur me an' my people, an' now I'll stick by you an' face any thing fur you if it's Death hisself!' That's just what Jim said; an' de sojer he put his hand up to his face, an' I seed it tremble bad,--he was weak, you see,--an' some big tears cum out troo his fingers onto de back ob it. "Den Jim says, 'Dis isn't a safe place for any on us, an' we'll have to take to our heels agen, an' so de sooner we's off de better.' So he did up some vittels,--all he had dere,--an' gave 'em to me to tote,--an' den before de Capen could sneeze he had him up on his back, an' we was off. "It was pretty hard work I kin tell you, strong as Jim was, an' we'd have to stop an' rest putty ofen; an' den, Jim an' I, we'd tote him atween us on some boughs; an' den we had to lie by, some days, all day,--an' we trabbled putty slow, cause we'd lost our bearing an' was in a secesh country, we knowed,--an' we had nudin but berries an' sich to eat, an' got nigh starved. "One night we cum onto half a dozen fellows skulkin' in de woods, an' at fust dey made fight, but d'rectly dey know'd we was friends, fur dey was some more Linkum sojers, an' dey'd lost dere way, or ruther, dey know'd where dey was, but dey didn't know how to git way from dere. Dey was 'scaped pris'ners, dey told us; when I yearde where 'twas I know'd de way to de coast, an' said I'd show 'em de way if dey'd cum long wid us, so dey did; an' we got 'long all right till we got to de ribber up by Mass' Rhett's place." "Yes, I know where it is," said the Captain. "Den what to do was de puzzle. De country was all full ob secesh pickets, an' dere was de ribber, an' we had no boat,--so Jim, he says, 'I know what to do; fust I'll hide you yere,' an' he did all safe in de woods; 'an' den I'll git ye suthin to eat from de niggers round,' an' he did dat too, do he couldn't git much, for fear he'd be seen; an' den we, he and I, made some ropes out ob de tall grass like dat we'd ofen made fur mats, an' tied dem together wid some oder grass, an' stuck a board in, an' den made fur de Yankee camp, an' yere we is." "Yes," said the black man Jim, here,--breaking silence,--"we'll show you de way back if you kin go up in a boat dey can rest in, fur dey's most all clean done out, an' de capen's wound is awful bad yit." "This captain,--what's his name?" inquired Coolidge. "His name is here," said Jim, carefully drawing forth a paper from his rags,--"he has on dis some figgers an' a map of de country he took before he got wounded, an' some words he writ wid a bit of burnt stick just before we cum away,--an' he giv it to me, an' tole me to bring it to camp, fur fear something might happen to him while we was away." "My God!" cried Coolidge when he had opened the paper, and with hasty eyes scanned its contents, "it's Tom Russell; I know him well. This must be sent up to head-quarters, and I'll get an order, and a boat, and some men, to go for them at once." All of which was promptly done. "See here! I speak to be one of the fellows what goes," Jim emphatically announced. "All right. I reckon we'll both go, Given, if the General will let us,--and I think he will,"--which was a safe guess and a true one. The boat was soon ready and manned. 'Bijah, too weak to pull an oar, was left behind; and Jim, really not fit to do aught save guide them, still insisted on taking his share of work. They found the place at last, and the men; and taking them on board,--Russell having to be moved slowly and carefully,--they began to pull for home. The tide was going out, and the river low: that, with the heavy laden boat, made their progress lingering; a fact which distressed them all, as they knew the night to be almost spent, and that the shores were so lined with batteries, open and masked, and the country about so scoured by rebels, as to make it almost sure death to them if they were not beyond the lines before the morning broke. The water was steadily and perceptibly ebbing,--the rowing growing more and more insecure,--the danger becoming imminent. "Ease her off, there! ease her off!" cried the Captain,--as a harsh, gravelly sound smote on his ear, and at the same moment a shot whizzed past them, showing that they were discovered,--"ease her off, there! or we're stuck!" The warning came too late,--indeed, could not have been obeyed, had it come earlier. The boat struck; her bottom grating hard on the wet sand. "Great God! she's on a bar," cried Coolidge, "and the tide's running out, fast." "Yes, and them damned rebs are safe enough from _our_ fire," said one of the men. A few scattering shot fell about them. "They're going to make their mark on us, anyway," put in another. "And we can't send 'em anything in return, blast 'em!" growled a third. "That's the worst of it," broke out a fourth, "to be shot at like a rat in a hole." All said in a breath, and the balls by this time falling thick and fast,--a fiery, awful rain of death. The men were no cowards, and the captain was brave enough; but what could they do? To stand up was but to make figure-heads at which the concealed enemy could fire with ghastly certainty; to fire in return was to waste their ammunition in the air. The men flung themselves face foremost on the deck, silent and watchful. Through it all Jim had been sitting crouched over his oar. He, unarmed, could not have fought had the chance offered; breaking out, once and again, into the solemn-sounding chant which he had been singing when he came up in his boat the evening before:-- "O my soul arise in heaven, Lord, for to yearde when Jordan roll, Roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll,"-- the words falling in with the sound of the water as it lapsed from them. "Stop that infernal noise, will you?" cried one of the men, impatiently. The noise stopped. "Hush, Harry,--don't swear!" expostulated another, beside whom was lying a man mortally wounded. "This is awful! 'tain't like going in fair and square, on your chance." "That's so,--it's enough to make a fellow pray," was the answer. Here Russell, putting up his hand, took hold of Jim's brawny black one with a gesture gentle as a woman's. It hurt him to hear his faithful friend even spoken to harshly. All this, while the hideous shower of death was dropping about them; the water was ebbing, ebbing,--falling and running out fast to sea, leaving them higher and drier on the sands; the gray dawn was steadily brightening into day. At this fearful pass a sublime scene was enacted. "Sirs!" said a voice,--it was Jim's voice, and in it sounded something so earnest and strange, that the men involuntarily turned their heads to look at him. Then this man stood up,--a black man,--a little while before a slave,--the great muscles swollen and gnarled with unpaid toil, the marks of the lash and the branding-iron yet plain upon his person, the shadows of a lifetime of wrongs and sufferings looking out of his eyes. "Sirs!" he said, simply, "somebody's got to die to get us out of dis, and it may as well be me,"--plunged overboard, put his toil-hardened shoulders to the boat; a struggle, a gasp, a mighty wrench,--pushed it off clear; then fell, face foremost, pierced by a dozen bullets. Free at last! CHAPTER XVI "_Ye died to live._" BOKER The next day Jim was recounting this scene to some men in camp, describing it with feeling and earnestness, and winding up the narration by the declaration, "and the first man that says a nigger ain't as good as a white man, and a damn'd sight better'n those graybacks over yonder, well"-- "Well, suppose he does?"--interrupted one of the men. "O, nothing, Billy Dodge,--only he and I'll have a few words to pass on the subject, that's all"; doubling up his fist and examining the big cords and muscles on it with curious and well-satisfied interest. "See here, Billy!" put in one of his comrades, "don't you go to having any argument with Jim,--he's a dabster with his tongue, Jim is." "Yes, and a devil with his fist," growled a sullen-looking fellow. "Just so,"--assented Jim,--"when a blackguard's round to feel it." "Well, Given, do you like the darkies well enough to take off your cap to them?" queried a sergeant standing near. "What are you driving at now, hey?" "O, not much; but you'll have to play second fiddle to them to-night. The General thinks they're as good as the rest of us, and a little bit better, and has sent over for the Fifty-fourth to lead the charge this evening. What have you got to say to that?" "Bull, for them! that's what I've got to say. Any objection?" looking round him. "Nary objec!" "They deserve it!" "They fought like tigers over on James Island!" "I hope they'll pepper the rebs well!"--"It ought to be a free fight, and no quarter, with them!" "Yes, for they get none if they're taken!" "Go in, Fifty-fourth!" These and the like exclamations broke from the men on all sides, with absolute heartiness and good will. "It seems to me," sneered a dapper little officer who had been looking and listening, "that the niggers have plenty of advocates here." Two or three of the men looked at Jim. "You may bet your pile on that, Major!" said he, with becoming gravity; "we love our friends, and we hate our enemies, and it's the dark-complected fellows that are the first down this way." "Pretty-looking set of friends!" "Well, they ain't much to look at, that's a fact; but I never heard of anybody saying you was to turn a cold shoulder on a helper because he was homely, except,"--this as the Major was walking away, "except a secesh, or a fool, or one of little Mac's staff officers." "Homely? what are you gassing about?" objected a little fellow from Massachusetts; "the Fifty-fourth is as fine-looking a set of men as shoulder rifles anywhere in the army." "Jack's sensitive about the credit of his State," chaffed a big Ohioan. "He wants to crack up these fellows, seeing they're his comrades. I say, Johnny, are all the white men down your way such little shavers as you?" "For a fellow that's all legs and no brains, you talk too much," answered Johnny. "Have any of you seen the Fifty-fourth?" "I haven't." "Nor I." "Yes, I saw them at Port Royal." "And I." "And I." "Well, the Twenty-third was at Beaufort while they were there, and I used to go over to their camp and talk with them. I never saw fellows so in earnest; they seemed ready to die on the instant, if they could help their people, or walk into the slaveholders any, first. They were just full of it; and yet it seemed absurd to call 'em a black regiment; they were pretty much all colors, and some of 'em as white as I am." "Lord," said Jim, "that's not saying much, you've got a smutty face." The men laughed, Jack with the rest, as he dabbed at his heated, powder-stained countenance. "Come," said he, "that's no fair,--they're as white as I am, then, when I've just scrubbed; and some of them are first-raters, too; none of your rag, tag, and bobtail. There's one I remember, a man from Philadelphia, who walks round like a prince. He's a gentleman, every inch,--and he's rich,--and about the handsomest-looking specimen of humanity I've set eyes upon for an age." "Rich, is he? how do you know he's rich?" "I was over one night with Captain Ware, and he and this man got to talking about the pay for the Fifty-fourth. The government promised them regular pay, you see, and then when it got 'em refused to stick to its agreement, and they would take no less, so they haven't seen a dime since they enlisted; and it's a darned mean piece of business, that's my opinion of the matter, and I don't care who knows it," looking round belligerently. "Come, Bantam, don't crow so loud," interrupted the big Ohioan; "nobody's going to fight you on that statement; it's a shame, and no mistake. But what about your paragon?" "I'll tell you. The Captain was trying to convince him that they had better take what they could get till they got the whole, and that, after all, it was but a paltry difference. 'But,' said the man, 'it's not the money, though plenty of us are poor enough to make that an item. It's the badge of disgrace, the stigma attached, the dishonor to the government. If it were only two cents we wouldn't submit to it, for the difference would be made because we are colored, and we're not going to help degrade our own people, not if we starve for it. Besides, it's our flag, and our government now, and we've got to defend the honor of both against any assailants, North or South,--whether they're Republican Congressmen or rebel soldiers.' The Captain looked puzzled at that, and asked what he meant. 'Why,' said he, 'the United States government enlisted us as soldiers. Being such, we don't intend to disgrace the service by accepting the pay of servants.'" "That's the kind of talk," bawled Jim from a fence-rail upon which he was balancing. "I'd like to have a shake of that fellow's paw. What's his name, d'ye know?" "Ercildoune." "Hey?" "Ercildoune." "Jemime! Ercildoune,--from Philadelphia, you say?" "Yes,--do you know him?" "Well, no,--I don't exactly know him, but I think I know something about him. His pa's rich as a nob, if it's the one I mean,"--and then finished sotto voce, "it's Mrs. Surrey's brother, sure as a gun!" "Well, he ought to be rich, if he ain't. As we, that's the Captain and me, were walking away, the Captain said to one of the officers of the Fifty-fourth who'd been listening to the talk, 'It's easy for that man to preach self-denial for a principle. He's rich, I've heard. It don't hurt him any; but it's rather selfish to hold some of the rest up to his standard; and I presume that such a man as he has no end of influence with them!' "'As he should,' said his officer. 'Ercildoune has brains enough to stock a regiment, and refinement, and genius, and cultivation that would assure him the highest position in society or professional life anywhere out of America. He won't leave it though; for in spite of its wrongs to him he sees its greatness and goodness,--says that it is _his_, and that it is to be saved, it and all its benefits, for Americans,--no matter what the color of their skin,--of whom he is one. He sees plain enough that this war is going to break the slave's chain, and ultimately the stronger chain of prejudice that binds his people to the grindstone, and he's full of enthusiasm for it, accordingly; though I'm free to confess, the magnanimity of these colored men from the North who fight, on faith, for the government, is to me something amazing.'" "'Why,' said the Captain,--'why, any more from the North than from the South?'" "Why? the blacks down here can at least fight their ex-masters, and pay off some old scores; but for a man from the North who is free already, and so has nothing to gain in that way,--whose rights as a man and a citizen are denied,--for such a man to enlist and to fight, without bounty, pay, honor, or promotion,--without the promise of gaining anything whatever for himself,--condemned to a thankless task on the one side,--to a merciless death or even worse fate on the other,--facing all this because he has faith that the great republic will ultimately be redeemed; that some hands will gather in the harvest of this bloody sowing, though he be lying dead under it,--I tell you, the more I see of these men, the more I know of them, the more am I filled with admiration and astonishment. "Now here's this one of whom we are talking, Ercildoune, born with a silver spoon in his mouth: instead of eating with it, in peace and elegance, in some European home, look at him here. You said something about his lack of self-sacrifice. He's doing 'what he is from a principle; and beyond that, it's no wonder the men care for him: he has spent a small fortune on the most needy of them since they enlisted,--finding out which of them have families, or any one dependent on them, and helping them in the finest and most delicate way possible. There are others like him here, and it's a fortunate circumstance, for there's not a man but would suffer, himself,--and, what's more, let his family suffer at home,--before he'd give up the idea for which they are contending now." "'Well, good luck to them!' said the Captain as we came away; and so say I," finished Jack. "And I,"--"And I," responded some of the men. "We must see this man when they come over here." "I'll bet you a shilling," said Jim, pulling out a bit of currency, "that he'll make his mark to-night." "Lend us the change, Given, and I'll take you up," said one of the men. The others laughed. "He don't mean it," said Jim: which, indeed, he didn't. Nobody seemed inclined to run any risks by betting on the other side of so likely a proposition. This talk took place late in the afternoon, near the head-quarters of the commanding General; and the men directly scattered to prepare for the work of the evening: some to clean a bayonet, or furbish up a rifle; others to chat and laugh over the chances and to lay plans for the morrow,--the morrow which was for them never to dawn on earth; and yet others to sit down in their tents and write letters to the dear ones at home, making what might, they knew, be a final-farewell,--for the fight impending was to be a fierce one,--or to read a chapter in a little book carried from some quiet fireside, balancing accounts perchance, in anticipation of the call of the Great Captain to come up higher. Through the whole afternoon there had been a tremendous cannonading of the fort from the gunboats and the land forces: the smooth, regular engineer lines were broken, and the fresh-sodded embankments torn and roughened by the unceasing rain of shot and shell. About six o'clock there came moving up the island, over the burning sands and under the burning sky, a stalwart, splendid-appearing set of men, who looked equal to any daring, and capable of any heroism; men whom nothing could daunt and few things subdue. Now, weary, travel-stained, with the mire and the rain of a two days' tramp; weakened by the incessant strain and lack of food, having taken nothing for forty-eight hours save some crackers and cold coffee; with gaps in their ranks made by the death of comrades who had fallen in battle but a little time before,--under all these disadvantages, it was plain to be seen of what stuff these men were made, and for what work they were ready. As this regiment, the famous Fifty-fourth, came up the island to take its place at the head of the storming party in the assault on Wagner, it was cheered from all sides by the white soldiers, who recognized and honored the heroism which it had already shown, and of which it was soon to give such new and sublime proof. The evening, or rather the afternoon, was a lurid and sultry one. Great masses of clouds, heavy and black, were piled in the western sky, fringed here and there by an angry red, and torn by vivid streams of lightning. Not a breath of wind shook the leaves or stirred the high, rank grass by the water-side; a portentous and awful stillness filled the air,--the stillness felt by nature before a devastating storm. Quiet, with the like awful and portentous calm, the black regiment, headed by its young, fair-haired, knightly colonel, marched to its destined place and action. When within about six hundred yards of the fort it was halted at the head of the regiments already stationed, and the line of battle formed. The prospect was such as might daunt the courage of old and well-tried veterans, but these soldiers of a few weeks seemed but impatient to take the odds, and to make light of impossibilities. A slightly rising ground, raked by a murderous fire, to within a little distance of the battery; a ditch holding three feet of water; a straight lift of parapet, thirty feet high; an impregnable position, held by a desperate and invincible foe. Here the men were addressed in a few brief and burning words by their heroic commander. Here they were besought to glorify their whole race by the lustre of their deeds; here their faces shone with a look which said, "Though men, we are ready to do deeds, to achieve triumphs, worthy the gods!" here the word of command was given:-- "We are ordered and expected to take Battery Wagner at the point of the bayonet. Are you ready?" "Ay, ay, sir! ready!" was the answer. And the order went pealing down the line, "Ready! Close ranks! Charge bayonets! Forward! Double-quick, march!"--and away they went, under a scattering fire, in one compact line till within one hundred feet of the fort, when the storm of death broke upon them. Every gun belched forth its great shot and shell; every rifle whizzed out its sharp-singing, death-freighted messenger. The men wavered not for an instant;--forward,--forward they went; plunged into the ditch; waded through the deep water, no longer of muddy hue, but stained crimson with their blood; and commenced to climb the parapet. The foremost line fell, and then the next, and the next. The ground was strewn with the wrecks of humanity, scattered prostrate, silent, where they fell,--or rolling under the very feet of the living comrades who swept onward to fill their places. On, over the piled-up mounds of dead and dying, of wounded and slain, to the mouth of the battery; seizing the guns; bayoneting the gunners at their posts; planting their flag and struggling around it; their leader on the walls, sword in hand, his blue eyes blazing, his fair face aflame, his clear voice calling out, "Forward, my brave boys!"--then plunging into the hell of battle before him. Forward it was. They followed him, gathered about him, gained an angle of the fort, and fought where he fell, around his prostrate body, over his peaceful heart,--shielding its dead silence by their living, pulsating ones,--till they, too, were stricken down; then hacked, hewn, battered, mangled, heroic, yet overcome, the remnant was beaten back. Ably sustained by their supporters, Anglo-African and Anglo-Saxon vied together to carry off the palm of courage and glory. All the world knows the last fought with heroism sublime: all the world forgets this and them in contemplating the deeds and the death of their compatriots. Said Napoleon at Austerlitz to a young Russian officer, overwhelmed with shame at yielding his sword, "Young man, be consoled: those who are conquered by my soldiers may still have titles to glory." To say that on that memorable night the last were surpassed by the first is still to leave ample margin on which to write in glowing characters the record of their deeds. As the men were clambering up the parapet their color-sergeant was shot dead, the colors trailing stained and wet in the dust beside him. Ercildoune, who was just behind, sprang forward, seized the staff from his dying hand, and mounted with it upward. A ball struck his right arm, yet ere it could fall shattered by his side, his left hand caught the flag and carried it onward. Even in the mad sweep of assault and death the men around him found breath and time to hurrah, and those behind him pressed more gallantly forward to follow such a lead. He kept in his place, the colors flying,--though faint with loss of blood and wrung with agony,--up the slippery steep; up to the walls of the fort; on the wall itself, planting the flag where the men made that brief, splendid stand, and melted away like snow before furnace-heat. Here a bayonet thrust met him and brought him down, a great wound in his brave breast, but he did not yield; dropping to his knees, pressing his unbroken arm upon the gaping wound,--bracing himself against a dead comrade,--the colors still flew; an inspiration to the men about him; a defiance to the foe. At last when the shattered ranks fell back, sullenly and slowly retreating, it was seen by those who watched him,--men lying for three hundred rods around in every form of wounded suffering,--that he was painfully working his way downward, still holding aloft the flag, bent evidently on saving it, and saving it as flag had rarely, if ever, been saved before. Some of the men had crawled, some had been carried, some hastily caught up and helped by comrades to a sheltered tent out of range of the fire; a hospital tent, they called it, if anything could bear that name which was but a place where men could lie to suffer and expire, without a bandage, a surgeon, or even a drop of cooling water to moisten parched and dying lips. Among these was Jim. He had a small field-glass in his pocket, and forgot or ignored his pain in his eager interest of watching through this the progress of the man and the flag, and reporting accounts to his no less eager companions. Black soldiers and white were alike mad with excitement over the deed; and fear lest the colors which had not yet dipped should at last bite the ground. Now and then he paused at some impediment: it was where the dead and dying were piled so thickly as to compel him to make a detour. Now and then he rested a moment to press his arm tighter against his torn and open breast. The rain fell in such torrents, the evening shadows were gathering so thickly, that they could scarcely trace his course, long before it was ended. Slowly, painfully, he dragged himself onward,--step by step down the hill, inch by inch across the ground,--to the door of the hospital; and then, while dying eyes brightened,--dying hands and even shattered stumps were thrown into the air,--in brief, while dying men held back their souls from the eternities to cheer him,--gasped out, "I did--but do--my duty, boys,--and the dear--old flag--never once--touched the ground,"--and then, away from the reach and sight of its foes, in the midst of its defenders, who loved and were dying for it, the flag at last fell. * * * * * Meanwhile, other troops had gone up to the encounter; other regiments strove to win what these men had failed to gain; and through the night, and the storm, and the terrific reception, did their gallant endeavor--in vain. * * * * * The next day a flag of truce went up to beg the body of the heroic young chief who had so led that marvellous assault. It came back without him. A ditch, deep and wide, had been dug; his body, and those of twenty-two of his men found dead upon and about him, flung into it in one common heap and the word sent back was, "We have buried him with his niggers." It was well done. The fair, sweet face and gallant breast lie peacefully enough under their stately monument of ebony. It was well done. What more fitting close of such a life,--what fate more welcome to him who had fought with them, had loved, and believed in them, had led them to death,--than to lie with them when they died? It was well done. Slavery buried these men, black and white, together,--black and white in a common grave. Let Liberty see to it, then, that black and white be raised together in a life better than the old. CHAPTER XVII "_Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues._" SHAKESPEARE Surrey was to depart for his command on Monday night, and as there were various matters which demanded his attention in town ere leaving, he drove Francesca to the city on the preceding Sunday,--a soft clear summer evening, full of pleasant sights and sounds. They scarcely spoke as, hand in hand, they sat drinking in the scene whilst the old gray, for they wished no high-stepping prancers for this ride, jogged on the even tenor of his way. Above them, the blue of the sky never before seemed so deep and tender, while in it floated fleecy clouds of delicate amber, rose, and gold, like gossamer robes of happy spirits invisible to human eyes. The leaves and grass just stirred in the breeze, making a slight, musical murmur, and across them fell long shadows cast by the westering sun. A sentiment so sweet and pleasurable as to be tinged with pain, took possession of these young, susceptible souls, as the influences of the time closed about them. In our happiest moments, our moments of utmost exaltation, it is always thus:--when earth most nearly approaches the beatitudes of heaven, and the spirit stretches forward with a vain longing for the far off, which seems but a little way beyond; the unattained and dim, which for a space come near. "Darling!" said Surrey softly, "does it not seem easy now to die?" "Yes, Willie," she whispered, "I feel as though it would be stepping over a very little stream to some new and beautiful shore." Doubtless, when a pure and great soul is close to eternity, ministering angels draw nigh to one soon to be of their number, and cast something of the peace and glory of their presence on the spirit yet held by its cerements of clay. At last the ride and the evening had an end. The country and its dear delights were mere memories,--fresh, it is true, but memories still, and no longer realities,--in the luxurious rooms of their hotel. Evidently Surrey had something to say, which he hesitated and feared to utter. Again and again, when Francesca was talking of his plans and purposes, trusting and hoping that he might see no hard service, nor be called upon for any exposing duty, "not yet awhile," she prayed, at least,--again and again he made as if to speak, and then, ere she could notice the movement, shook his head with a gesture of silence, or--she seeing it, and asking what it was he had to say--found ready utterance for some other thought, and whispered to himself, "not yet; not quite yet. Let her rest in peace a little space longer." They sat talking far into the night, this last night that they could spend together in so long a time,--how long, God, with whom are hid the secrets of the future, could alone tell. They talked of what had passed, which was ended,--and of what was to come, which was not sure but full of hope,--but of both with a feeling that quickened their heart-throbs, and brought happy tears to their eyes. Twice or thrice a sound from some far distance, undecided, yet full of a solemn melody, came through the open window, borne to their ears on the still air of night,--something so undefined as not consciously to arrest their attention, yet still penetrating their nerves and affecting some fine, inner sense of feeling, for both shivered as though a chill wind had blown across them, and Surrey--half ashamed of the confession--said, "I don't know what possesses me, but I hear dead marches as plainly as though I were following a soldier's funeral." Francesca at that grew white, crept closer to his breast, and spread out her arms as if to defend him by that slight shield from some impending danger; then both laughed at these foolish and superstitious fancies, and went on with their cheerful and tender talk. Whatever the sound was, it grew plainer and came nearer; and, pausing to listen, they discovered it was a mighty swell of human voices and the marching of many feet. "A regiment going through," said they, and ran to the window to see if it passed their way, looking for it up the long street, which lay solemn and still in the moonlight. On either side the palace-like houses stood stately and dark, like giant sentinels guarding the magnificent avenue, from whence was banished every sight and sound of the busy life of day; not a noise, not a footfall, not a solitary soul abroad, not a wave nor a vestige of the great restless sea of humanity which a little space before surged through it, and which, in a little while to come, would rise and swell to its full, and then ebb, and fall, and drop away once more into silence and nothingness. Through this white stillness there came marching a regiment of men, without fife or drum, moving to the music of a refrain which lifted and fell on the quiet air. It was the Battle Hymn of the Republic,--and the two listeners presently distinguished the words,-- "In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me; As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on." The effect of this; the thousand voices which sang; the marching of twice one thousand feet; the majesty of the words; the deserted street; the clear moonlight streaming over the men, reflected from their gleaming bayonets, brightening the faded blue of their uniforms, illumining their faces which, one and all, seemed to wear--and probably _did_ wear--a look more solemn and earnest than that of common life and feeling,--the combined effect of it all was something indescribably impressive:--inspiring, yet solemn. They stood watching and listening till the pageant had vanished, and then turned back into their room, Francesca taking up the refrain and singing the line, "As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on." Surrey's face brightened at the rapt expression of hers. "Sing it again, dearie!" he said. She sang it again. "Do you mean it?" he asked then. "Can you sing it, and mean it with all your heart, for me?" She looked at him with an expression of anxiety and pain. "What are you asking, Willie?" He sat down; taking her upon his knee, and with the old fond gesture, holding her head to his heart,--"I should have told you before, dearie, but I did not wish to throw any shadow on the happy days we have been spending together; they were few and brief enough without marring them; and I was certain of the effect it would have upon you, by your incessant anxiety for Robert." She drew a long, gasping sigh, and started away from his hold: "O Willie, you are not going to--" His arm drew her back to her resting-place. "I do not return to my command, darling. I am to raise a black brigade." "Freedmen?" "Yes, dearie." "O Willie,--and that act just passed!" "It is true; yet, after all, it is but one risk more." "One? O Willie, it is a thousand. You had that many chances of escape where you were; you might be wounded and captured a score of times, and come home safe at last; but this!" "I know." "To go into every battle with the sentence of death hanging over you; to know that if you are anywhere captured, anyhow made prisoner, you are condemned to die,--O Willie, I can't bear it; I can't bear it! I shall die, or go mad, to carry such a thought all the time." For answer he only held her close, with his face resting upon her hair, and in the stillness they could hear each other's heart beat. "It is God's service," he said, at last. "I know." "It will end slavery and the war more effectually than aught else." "I know." "It will make these freedmen, wherever they fight, free men. It will give them and their people a sense of dignity and power that might otherwise take generations to secure." "I know." "And I. Both feeling and knowing this, who so fit to yield and to do for such a cause? If those who see do not advance, the blind will never walk." Silence for a space again fell between them. Francesca moved in his arm. "Dearie." She looked up. "I want to do no half service. I go into this heart and soul, but I do not wish to go alone. It will be so much to me to know that you are quite willing, and bade me go. Think what it is." She did. For an instant all sacrifices appeared easy, all burdens light. She could send him out to death unfaltering. One of those sublime moods in which martyrdom seems glorious filled and possessed her. She took away her clinging arms from his neck, and said, "Go,--whether it be for life or for death; whether you come back to me or go up to God; I am willing--glad--to yield you to such a cause." It was finished. There was nothing more to be said. Both had climbed the mount of sacrifice, and sat still with God. After a while the cool gray dawn stole into their room. The night had passed in this communion, and another day come. There were many "last things" which claimed Surrey's attention; and he, wishing to get through them early so as to have the afternoon and evening undisturbed with Francesca, plunged into a stinging bath to refresh him for the day, breakfasted, and was gone. He attended to his business, came across many an old acquaintance and friend, some of whom greeted him coldly; a few cut him dead; whilst others put out their hands with cordial frankness, and one or two congratulated him heartily upon his new condition and happiness. These last gave him fresh courage for the task which he had set himself. If friends regarded the matter thus, surely they--his father and mother--would relent, when he came to say what might be a final adieu. He ran up the steps, rang the bell, and, speaking a pleasant word to the old servant, went directly to his mother's room. His father had not yet gone down town; thus he found them together. They started at seeing him, and his mother, forgetting for the instant all her pride, chagrin, and anger, had her arms about his neck, with the cry, "O Willie, Willie," which came from the depths of her heart; then seeing her husband's face, and recovering herself, sat down cold and still. It was a painful interview. He could not leave without seeing them once more; he longed for a loving good by; but after that first outburst he almost wished he had not forced the meeting. He did not speak of his wife, nor did they; but a barrier as of adamant was raised between them, and he felt as though congealing in the breath of an iceberg. At length he rose to go. "Father!" he said then, "perhaps you will care to know that I do not return to my old command, but have been commissioned to raise a brigade from the freedmen." Both father and mother knew the awful peril of this service, and both cried, half in suffering, half in anger, "This is your wife's work!" while his father added, with a passionate exclamation, "It is right, quite right, that you should identify yourself with her people. Well, go your way. You have made your bed; lie in it." The blood flushed into Surrey's face. He opened his lips, and shut them again. At last he said, "Father, will you never forego this cruel prejudice?" "Never!" answered his mother, quickly. "Never!" repeated his father, with bitter emphasis. "It is a feeling that will never die out, and ought never to die out, so long as any of the race remain in America. She belongs to it, that is enough." Surrey urged no further; but with few words, constrained on their part,--though under its covering of pride the mother's heart was bleeding for him,--sad and earnest on his, the farewell was spoken, and they watched him out of the room. How and when would they see him again? There was one other call upon his time. The day was wearing into the afternoon, but he would not neglect it. This was to see his old _protégé_, Abram Franklin, in whom he had never lost interest, and for whose welfare he had cared, though he had not seen him in more than two years. He knew that Abram was ill, had been so for a long time, and wished to see him and speak to him a few friendly and cheering words,--sure, from what the boy's own hand had written, that this would be his last opportunity upon earth to so do. Thus he went on from his father's stately palace up Fifth Avenue, turned into the quiet side street, and knocked at the little green door. Mrs. Franklin came to open it, her handsome face thinner and sadder than of old. She caught Surrey's hand between both of hers with a delighted cry: "Is it you, Mr. Willie? How glad I am to see you! How glad Abram will be! How good of you to come!" And, holding his hand as she used when he was a boy, she led him up stairs to the sick-room. This room was even cosier than the two below; its curtains and paper cheerfuller; its furniture of quainter and more hospitable aspect; its windows letting in more light and air; everything clean and homely, and pleasant for weary, suffering eyes to look upon. Abram was propped up in bed, his dark, intelligent face worn to a shadow, fiery spots breaking through the tawny hue upon cheeks and lips, his eyes bright with fever. Surrey saw, as he came and sat beside him, that for him earthly sorrow and toil were almost ended. He had brought some fruit and flowers, and a little book. This last Abram, having thanked him eagerly for all, stretched out his hand to examine. "You see, Mr. Willie, I have not gotten over my old love," he said, as his fingers closed upon it. "Whittier? 'In War-Time'? That is fine. I can read about it, if I can't do anything in it," and he lay for a while quietly turning over the pages. Mrs. Franklin had gone out to do an errand, and the two were alone. "Do you know, Mr. Willie," said Abram, putting his finger upon the titles of two successive poems, "The Waiting," and "The Summons," "I had hard work to submit to this sickness a few months ago? I fought against it strong; do you know why?" "Not your special reason. What was it?" "I had waited so long, you see,--I, and my people,--for a chance. It made me quite wild to watch this big fight go on, and know that it was all about us, and not be allowed to participate; and at last when the chance came, and the summons, and the way was opened, I couldn't answer, nor go. It's not the dying I care for; I'd be willing to die the first battle I was in; but I want to do something for the cause before death comes." The book was lying open where it had fallen from his hand, and Surrey, glancing down at the very poem of which he spoke, said gently, "Here is your answer, Franklin, better than any I can make; it ought to comfort you; listen, it is God's truth! 'O power to do! O baffled will! O prayer and action! ye are one; Who may not strive may yet fulfil The harder task of standing still, And good but wished with God is done!'" "It is so," said Abram. "You act and I pray, and you act for me and mine. I'd like to be under you when you get the troops you were telling me about; but--God knows best." Surrey sat gazing earnestly into space, crowded by emotions called up by these last words, whilst Abram lay watching him with admiring and loving eyes. "For me and mine," he repeated softly, his look fastening on the blue sleeve, which hung, limp and empty, near his hand. This he put out cautiously, but drew it back at some slight movement from his companion; then, seeing that he was still absorbed, advanced it, once more, and slowly, timidly, gently, lifted it to his mouth, pressing his lips upon it as upon a shrine. "For me and mine!" he whispered,--"for me and mine!" tears dimming the pathetic, dying eyes. The peaceful quiet was broken by a tempest of awful sound,--groans and shrieks and yells mingled in horrible discord, blended with the trampling of many feet,--noises which seemed to their startled and excited fancies like those of hell itself. The next moment a door was flung open; and Mrs. Franklin, bruised, lame, her garments torn, blood flowing from a cut on her head, staggered into the room. "O Lord! O Lord Jesus!" she cried, "the day of wrath has come!" and fell, shuddering and crying, on the floor. CHAPTER XVIII "_Will the future come? It seems that we may almost ask this question, when we see such terrible shadow._" VICTOR HUGO Here it will be necessary to consider some facts which, while they are rather in the domain of the grave recorder of historical events, than in that of the narrator of personal experiences, are yet essential to the comprehension of the scenes in which Surrey and Francesca took such tragic parts. Following the proclamation for a draft in the city of New York, there had been heard on all sides from the newspaper press which sympathized with and aided the rebellion, premonitions of the coming storm; denunciations of the war, the government, the soldiers, of the harmless and inoffensive negroes; angry incitings of the poor man to hatred against the rich, since the rich man could save himself from the necessity of serving in the ranks by the payment of three hundred dollars of commutation money; incendiary appeals to the worst passions of the most ignorant portion of the community; and open calls to insurrection and arms to resist the peaceable enforcement of a law enacted in furtherance of the defence of the nation's life. Doubtless this outbreak had been intended at the time of the darkest and most disastrous days of the Republic; when the often-defeated and sorely dispirited Army of the Potomac was marching northward to cover Washington and Baltimore, and the victorious legions of traitors under Lee were swelling across the border, into a loyal State; when Grant stood in seemingly hopeless waiting before Vicksburg, and Banks before Port Hudson; and the whole people of the North, depressed and disheartened by the continued series of defeats to our arms, were beginning to look each at his neighbor, and whisper with white lips, "Perhaps, after all, this struggle is to be in vain." Had it been attempted at this precise time, it would, without question, have been, not a riot, but an insurrection,--would have been a portion of the army of rebellion, organized and effective for the prosecution of the war, and not a mob, hideous and devilish in its work of destruction, yet still a mob; and as such to be beaten down and dispersed in a comparatively short space of time. On the morning of Monday, the thirteenth of July, began this outbreak, unparalleled in atrocities by anything in American history, and equalled only by the horrors of the worst days of the French Revolution. Gangs of men and boys, composed of railroad _employées_, workers in machine-shops, and a vast crowd of those who lived by preying upon others, thieves, pimps, professional ruffians,--the scum of the city,--jail-birds, or those who were running with swift feet to enter the prison-doors, began to gather on the corners, and in streets and alleys where they lived; from thence issuing forth they visited the great establishments on the line of their advance, commanding their instant close and the companionship of the workmen,--many of them peaceful and orderly men,--on pain of the destruction of one and a murderous assault upon the other, did not their orders meet with instant compliance. A body of these, five or six hundred strong, gathered about one of the enrolling-offices in the upper part of the city, where the draft was quietly proceeding, and opened the assault upon it by a shower of clubs, bricks, and paving-stones torn from the streets, following it up by a furious rush into the office. Lists, records, books, the drafting-wheel, every article of furniture or work in the room was rent in pieces, and strewn about the floor or flung into the street; while the law officers, the newspaper reporters,--who are expected to be everywhere,--and the few peaceable spectators, were compelled to make a hasty retreat through an opportune rear exit, accelerated by the curses and blows of the assailants. A safe in the room, which contained some of the hated records, was fallen upon by the men, who strove to wrench open its impregnable lock with their naked hands, and, baffled, beat them on its iron doors and sides till they were stained with blood, in a mad frenzy of senseless hate and fury. And then, finding every portable article destroyed,--their thirst for ruin growing by the little drink it had had,--and believing, or rather hoping, that the officers had taken refuge in the upper rooms, set fire to the house, and stood watching the slow and steady lift of the flames, filling the air with demoniac shrieks and yells, while they waited for the prey to escape from some door or window, from the merciless fire to their merciless hands. One of these, who was on the other side of the street, courageously stepped forward, and, telling them that they had utterly demolished all they came to seek, informed them that helpless women and little children were in the house, and besought them to extinguish the flames and leave the ruined premises; to disperse, or at least to seek some other scene. By his dress recognizing in him a government official, so far from hearing or heeding his humane appeal, they set upon him with sticks and clubs, and beat him till his eyes were blind with blood, and he--bruised and mangled--succeeded in escaping to the handful of police who stood helpless before this howling crew, now increased to thousands. With difficulty and pain the inoffensive tenants escaped from the rapidly spreading fire, which, having devoured the house originally lighted, swept across the neighboring buildings till the whole block stood a mass of burning flames. The firemen came up tardily and reluctantly, many of them of the same class as the miscreants who surrounded them, and who cheered at their approach, but either made no attempt to perform their duty, or so feeble and farcical a one, as to bring disgrace upon a service they so generally honor and ennoble. At last, when there was here nothing more to accomplish, the mob, swollen to a frightful size, including myriads of wretched, drunken women, and the half-grown, vagabond boys of the pavements, rushed through the intervening streets, stopping cars and insulting peaceable citizens on their way, to an armory where were manufactured and stored carbines and guns for the government. In anticipation of the attack, this, earlier in the day, had been fortified by a police squad capable of coping with an ordinary crowd of ruffians, but as chaff before fire in the presence of these murderous thousands. Here, as before, the attack was begun by a rain of missiles gathered from the streets; less fatal, doubtless, than more civilized arms, but frightful in the ghastly wounds and injuries they inflicted. Of this no notice was taken by those who were stationed within; it was repeated. At last, finding they were treated with contemptuous silence, and that no sign of surrender was offered, the crowd swayed back,--then forward,--in a combined attempt to force the wide entrance-doors. Heavy hammers and sledges, which had been brought from forges and workshops, caught up hastily as they gathered the mechanics into their ranks, were used with frightful violence to beat them in,--at last successfully. The foremost assailants began to climb the stairs, but were checked, and for the moment driven back by the fire of the officers, who at last had been commanded to resort to their revolvers. A half-score fell wounded; and one, who had been acting in some sort as their leader,--a big, brutal, Irish ruffian,--dropped dead. The pause was but for an instant. As the smoke cleared away there was a general and ferocious onslaught upon the armory; curses, oaths, revilings, hideous and obscene blasphemy, with terrible yells and cries, filled the air in every accent of the English tongue save that spoken by a native American. Such were there mingled with the sea of sound, but they were so few and weak as to be unnoticeable in the roar of voices. The paving stones flew like hail, until the street was torn into gaps and ruts, and every window-pane, and sash, and doorway, was smashed or broken. Meanwhile, divers attempts were made to fire the building, but failed through haste or ineffectual materials, or the vigilant watchfulness of the besieged. In the midst of this gallant defence, word was brought to the defenders from head-quarters that nothing could be done for their support; and that, if they would save their lives, they must make a quick and orderly retreat. Fortunately, there was a side passage with which the mob was unacquainted, and, one by one they succeeded in gaining this, and vanishing. A few, too faithful or too plucky to retreat before such a foe, persisted in remaining at their posts till the fire, which had at last been communicated to the building, crept unpleasantly near; then, by dropping from sill to sill of the broken windows, or sliding by their hands and feet down the rough pipes and stones, reached the pavement,--but not without injuries and blows, and broken bones, which disabled for a lifetime, if indeed they did not die in the hospitals to which a few of the more mercifully disposed carried them. The work thus begun, continued,--gathering in force and fury as the day wore on. Police stations, enrolling-offices, rooms or buildings used in any way by government authority, or obnoxious as representing the dignity of law, were gutted, destroyed, then left to the mercy of the flames. Newspaper offices, whose issues had been a fire in the rear of the nation's armies by extenuating and defending treason, and through violent and incendiary appeals stirring up "lewd fellows of the baser sort" to this very carnival of ruin and blood, were cheered as the crowd went by. Those that had been faithful to loyalty and law were hooted, stoned, and even stormed by the army of miscreants who were only driven off by the gallant and determined charge of the police, and in one place by the equally gallant, and certainly unique defence, which came from turning the boiling water from the engines upon the howling wretches, who, unprepared for any such warm reception as this, beat a precipitate and general retreat. Before night fell it was no longer one vast crowd collected in a single section, but great numbers of gatherings, scattered over the whole length and breadth of the city,--some of them engaged in actual work of demolition and ruin; others with clubs and weapons in their hands, prowling round apparently with no definite atrocity to perpetrate, but ready for any iniquity that might offer,--and, by way of pastime, chasing every stray police officer, or solitary soldier, or inoffensive negro, who crossed the line of their vision; these three objects--the badge of a defender of the law,--the uniform of the Union army,--the skin of a helpless and outraged race--acted upon these madmen as water acts upon a rabid dog. Late in the afternoon a crowd which could have numbered not less than ten thousand, the majority of whom were ragged, frowzy, drunken women, gathered about the Orphan Asylum for Colored Children,--a large and beautiful building, and one of the most admirable and noble charities of the city. When it became evident, from the menacing cries and groans of the multitude, that danger, if not destruction, was meditated to the harmless and inoffensive inmates, a flag of truce appeared, and an appeal was made in their behalf, by the principal, to every sentiment of humanity which these beings might possess,--a vain appeal! Whatever human feeling had ever, if ever, filled these souls was utterly drowned and washed away in the tide of rapine and blood in which they had been steeping themselves. The few officers who stood guard over the doors, and manfully faced these demoniac legions, were beaten down and flung to one side, helpless and stunned whilst the vast crowd rushed in. All the articles upon which they could seize--beds, bedding, carpets, furniture,--the very garments of the fleeing inmates, some of these torn from their persons as they sped by--were carried into the streets, and hurried off by the women and children who stood ready to receive the goods which their husbands, sons, and fathers flung to their care. The little ones, many of them, assailed and beaten; all,--orphans and caretakers,--exposed to every indignity and every danger, driven on to the street,--the building was fired. This had been attempted whilst the helpless children--some of them scarce more than babies--were still in their rooms; but this devilish consummation was prevented by the heroism of one man. He, the Chief of the Fire Department, strove by voice and arm to stay the endeavor; and when, overcome by superior numbers, the brands had been lit and piled, with naked hands, and in the face of threatened death, he tore asunder the glowing embers, and trod them under foot. Again the effort was made, and again failed through the determined and heroic opposition of this solitary soul. Then, on the front steps, in the midst of these drunken and infuriate thousands, he stood up and besought them, if they cared nothing for themselves nor for these hapless orphans, that they would not bring lasting disgrace upon the city by destroying one of its noblest charities, which had for its object nothing but good. He was answered on all sides by yells and execrations, and frenzied shrieks of "Down with the nagurs!" coupled with every oath and every curse that malignant hate of the blacks could devise, and drunken, Irish tongues could speak. It had been decreed that this building was to be razed to the ground. The house was fired in a thousand places, and in less than two hours the walls crashed in,--a mass of smoking, blackened ruins; whilst the children wandered through the streets, a prey to beings who were wild beasts in everything save the superior ingenuity of man to agonize and torture his victims. Frightful as the day had been, the night was yet more hideous; since to the horrors which were seen was added the greater horror of deeds which might be committed in the darkness; or, if they were seen, it was by the lurid glare of burning buildings,--the red flames of which--flung upon the stained and brutal faces, the torn and tattered garments, of men and women who danced and howled around the scene of ruin they had caused--made the whole aspect of affairs seem more like a gathering of fiends rejoicing in Pandemonium than aught with which creatures of flesh and blood had to do. Standing on some elevated point, looking over the great city, which presented, as usual, at night, a solemn and impressive show, the spectator was thrilled with a fearful admiration by the sights and sounds which gave to it a mysterious and awful interest. A thousand fires streamed up against the sky, making darkness visible; and from all sides came a combination of noises such as might be heard from an asylum in which were gathered the madmen of the world. The next morning's sun rose on a city which was ruled by a reign of terror. Had the police possessed the heads of Hydra and the arms of Briareus, and had these heads all seen, these arms all fought, they would have been powerless against the multitude of opposers. Outbreaks were made, crowds gathered, houses burned, streets barricaded, fights enacted, in a score of places at once. Where the officers appeared they were irretrievably beaten and overcome; their stand, were it ever so short, but inflaming the passions of the mob to fresh deeds of violence. Stores were closed; the business portion of the city deserted; the large works and factories emptied of men, who had been sent home by their employers, or were swept into the ranks of the marauding bands. The city cars, omnibuses, hacks, were unable to run, and remained under shelter. Every telegraph wire was cut, the posts torn up, the operators driven from their offices. The mayor, seeing that civil power was helpless to stem this tide, desired to call the military to his aid, and place the city under martial law, but was opposed by the Governor,--a governor, who, but a few days before, had pronounced the war a failure; and not only predicted, but encouraged this mob rule, which was now crushing everything beneath its heavy and ensanguined feet. This man, through almost two days of these awful scenes, remained at a quiet seaside retreat but a few miles from the city. Coming to it on the afternoon of the second day,--instead of ordering cannon planted in the streets, giving these creatures opportunity to retire to their homes, and, in the event of refusal, blowing them there by powder and ball,--he first went to the point where was collected the chiefest mob, and proceeded to address them. Before him stood incendiaries, thieves, and murderers, who even then were sacking dwelling-houses, and butchering powerless and inoffensive beings. These wretches he apostrophized as "My friends," repeating the title again and again in the course of his harangue, assuring them that he was there as a proof of his friendship,--which he had demonstrated by "sending his adjutant-general to Washington, to have the draft stopped"; begging them to "wait for his return"; "to separate now as good citizens"; with the promise that they "might assemble again whenever they wished to so do"; meanwhile, he would "take care of their rights." This model speech was incessantly interrupted by tremendous cheering and frantic demonstrations of delight,--one great fellow almost crushing the Governor in his enthusiastic embrace. This ended, he entered a carriage, and was driven through the blackened, smoking scenes of Monday's devastations; through fresh vistas of outrage, of the day's execution; bland, gracious, smiling. Wherever he appeared, cheer upon cheer rent the air from these crowds of drunken blasphemers; and in one place the carriage in which he sat was actually lifted from the ground, and carried some rods, by hands yet red with deeds of arson and murder; while from all sides voices cried out, "Will ye stop the draft, Gov'nur?" "Bully boy!" "Ye're the man for us!" "Hooray for Gov'nur Saymoor!" Thus, through the midst of this admiring and applauding crowd, this high officer of the law, sworn to maintain public peace, moved to his hotel, where he was met by a despatch from Washington, informing him that five regiments were under arms and on their way to put an end to this bloody assistance to the Southern war. His allies in newspaper offices attempted to throw the blame upon the loyal press and portion of the community. This was but a repetition of the cry, raised by traitors in arms, that the government, struggling for life in their deadly hold, was responsible for the war: "If thou wouldst but consent to be murdered peaceably, there could be no strife." These editors outraged common sense, truth, and decency, by speaking of the riots as an "uprising of the people to defend their liberties,"--"an opposition on the part of the workingmen to an unjust and oppressive law, enacted in favor of the men of wealth and standing." As though the _people_ of the great metropolis were incendiaries, robbers, and assassins; as though the poor were to demonstrate their indignation against the rich by hunting and stoning defenceless women and children; torturing and murdering men whose only offence was the color God gave them, or men wearing the self-same uniform as that which they declared was to be thrust upon them at the behest of the rich and the great. It was absurd and futile to characterize this new Reign of Terror as anything but an effort on the part of Northern rebels to help Southern ones, at the most critical moment of the war,--with the State militia and available troops absent in a neighboring Commonwealth,--and the loyal people unprepared. These editors and their coadjutors, men of brains and ability, were of that most poisonous growth,--traitors to the Government and the flag of their country,--renegade Americans. Let it, however, be written plainly and graven deeply, that the tribes of savages--the hordes of ruffians--found ready to do their loathsome bidding, were not of native growth, nor American born. While it is true that there were some glib-tongued fellows who spoke the language without foreign accent, all of them of the lowest order of Democratic ward-politicians, of creatures skulking from the outstretched arm of avenging law; while the most degraded of the German population were represented; while it is also true that there were Irish, and Catholic Irish too,--industrious, sober, intelligent people,--who indignantly refused participation in these outrages, and mourned over the barbarities which were disgracing their national name; it is pre-eminently true,--proven by thousands of witnesses, and testified to by numberless tongues,--that the masses, the rank and file, the almost entire body of rioters, were the worst classes of Irish emigrants, infuriated by artful appeals, and maddened by the atrocious whiskey of thousands of grog-shops. By far the most infamous part of these cruelties was that which wreaked every species of torture and lingering death upon the colored people of the city,--men, women, and children, old and young, strong and feeble alike. Hundreds of these fell victims to the prejudice fostered by public opinion, incorporated in our statute-books, sanctioned by our laws, which here and thus found legitimate outgrowth and action. The horrors which blanched the face of Christendom were but the bloody harvest of fields sown by society, by cultured men and women, by speech, and book, and press, by professions and politics, nay, by the pulpit itself, and the men who there make God's truth a lie,--garbling or denying the inspired declaration that "He has made of one blood all people to dwell upon the face of the earth"; and that he, the All-Just and Merciful One, "is no respecter of persons." This riot, begun ostensibly to oppose the enforcement of a single law, developed itself into a burning and pillaging assault upon the homes and property of peaceful citizens. To realize this, it was only necessary to walk the streets, if that were possible, through those days of riot and conflagration, observe the materials gathered into the vast, moving multitudes, and scrutinize the faces of those of whom they were composed,--deformed, idiotic, drunken, imbecile, poverty-stricken; seamed with every line which wretchedness could draw or vicious habits and associations delve. To walk these streets and look upon these faces was like a fearful witnessing in perspective of the last day, when the secrets of life, more loathsome than those of death, shall be laid bare in all their hideous deformity and ghastly shame. The knowledge of these people and their deeds was sufficient to create a paralysis of fear, even where they were not seen. Indeed, there was terror everywhere. High and low, rich and poor, cultured and ignorant, all shivered in its awful grasp. Upon stately avenues and noisome alleys it fell with the like blackness of darkness. Women cried aloud to God with the same agonized entreaty from knees bent on velvet carpets or bare and dingy floors. Men wandered up and down, prisoners in their own homes, and cursed or prayed with equal fury or intensity whether the homes were simple or splendid. Here one surveyed all his costly store of rare and exquisite surroundings, and shook his head as he gazed, ominous and foreboding. There, another of darker hue peered out from garret casement, or cellar light, or broken window-pane, and, shuddering, watched some woman stoned and beaten till she died; some child shot down, while thousands of heavy, brutal feet trod over it till the hard stones were red with its blood, and the little prostrate form, yet warm, lost every likeness of humanity, and lay there, a sickening mass of mangled flesh and bones; some man assaulted, clubbed, overborne, left wounded or dying or dead, as he fell, or tied to some convenient tree or lamp-post to be hacked and hewn, or flayed and roasted, yet living, where he hung,--and watching this, and cowering as he watched, held his breath, and waited his own turn, not knowing when it might come. CHAPTER XIX "_In breathless quiet, after all their ills._" ARNOLD A body of these wretches, fresh from some act of rapine and pillage, had seen Mrs. Franklin, hastening home, and, opening the hue and cry, had started in full chase after her. Struck by sticks and stones that darkened the air, twice down, fleeing as those only do who flee for life, she gained her own house, thinking there to find security. Vain hope! the door was battered in, the windows demolished, the puny barriers between the room in which they were gathered and the creatures in pursuit, speedily destroyed,--and these three turned to face death. By chance, Surrey had his sword at his side, and, tearing this from its scabbard, sprang to the defence,--a gallant intent, but what could one weapon and one arm do against such odds as these? He was speedily beaten down and flung aside by the miscreants who swarmed into the room. It was marvellous they did not kill him outright. Doubtless they would have done so but for the face propped against the pillows, which caught their hungry eyes. Soldier and woman were alike forgotten at sight of this dying boy. Here was a foeman worthy their steel. They gathered about him, and with savage hands struck at him and the bed upon which he lay. A pause for a moment to hold consultation, crowded with oaths and jeers and curses; obscenity and blasphemy too hideous to read or record,--then the cruel hands tore him from his bed, dragged him over the prostrate body of his mother, past the senseless form of his brave young defender, out to the street. Here they propped him against a tree, to mock and torment him; to prick him, wound him, torture him; to task endurance to its utmost limit, but not to extinguish life. These savages had no such mercy as this in their souls; and when, once or twice he fell away into insensibility, a cut or blow administered with devilish skill or strength, restored him to anguish and to life. Surrey, bewildered and dizzy, had recovered consciousness, and sat gazing vacantly around him, till the cries and yells without, the agonized face within, thrilled every nerve into feeling. Starting up, he rushed to the window, but recoiled at the awful sight. Here, he saw, there was no human power within reach or call that could interfere. The whole block, from street to street, was crowded with men and boys, armed with the armory of the street, and rejoicing like veritable fiends of hell over the pangs of their victim. Even in the moment he stood there he beheld that which would haunt his memory, did it endure for a century. At last, tired of their sport, some of those who were just about Abram had tied a rope about his body, and raised him to the nearest branch of an overhanging tree; then, heaping under him the sticks and clubs which were flung them from all sides, set fire to the dry, inflammable pile, and watched, for the moment silent, to see it burn. Surrey fled to the other side of the room, and, cowering down, buried his head in his arm to shut out the awful sight and sounds. But his mother,--O marvellous, inscrutable mystery of mother-love!--his mother knelt by the open window, near which hung her boy, and prayed aloud, that he might hear, for the wrung body and passing soul. Great God! that such things were possible, and thy heavens fell not! Through the sound of falling blows, reviling oaths, and hideous blasphemy, through the crackling of burning fagots and lifting flames, there went out no cry for mercy, no shriek of pain, no wail of despair. But when the torture was almost ended, and nature had yielded to this work of fiends, the dying face was turned towards his mother,--the eyes, dim with the veil that falls between time and eternity, seeking her eyes with their latest glance,--the voice, not weak, but clear and thrilling even in death, cried for her ear, "Be of good cheer, mother! they may kill the body, but they cannot touch the soul!" and even with the words the great soul walked with God. * * * * * After a while the mob melted out of the street to seek new scenes of ravage and death; not, however, till they had marked the house, as those within learned, for the purpose of returning, if it should so please them, at some future time. When they were all gone, and the way was clear, these two--the mother that bore him, the elegant patrician who instinctively shrank from all unpleasant and painful things--took down the poor charred body, and carrying it carefully and tenderly into the house of a trembling neighbor, who yet opened her doors and bade them in, composed it decently for its final rest. It was drawing towards evening, and Surrey was eager to get away from this terrible region,--both to take the heart-stricken woman, thus thrown upon his care, to some place of rest and safety, and to reassure Francesca, who, he knew, would be filled with maddening anxiety and fear at his long absence. At length they ventured forth: no one was in the square;--turned at Fortieth Street,--all clear;--went on with hasty steps to the Avenue,--not a soul in sight. "Safe,--thank God!" exclaimed Surrey, as he hurried his companion onward. Half the space to their destination had been crossed, when a band of rioters, rushing down the street from the sack and burning of the Orphan Asylum, came upon them. Defence seemed utterly vain. Every house was shut; its windows closed and barred; its inmates gathered in some rear room. Escape and hope appeared alike impossible; but Surrey, flinging his charge behind him, with drawn sword, face to the on-sweeping hordes, backed down the street. The combination--a negro woman, a soldier's uniform--intensified the mad fury of the mob, which was nevertheless held at bay by the heroic front and gleaming steel of their single adversary. Only for a moment! Then, not venturing near him, a shower of bricks and stones hurtled through the air, falling about and upon him. At this instant a voice called, "This way! this way! For God's sake! quick! quick!" and he saw a friendly black face and hand thrust from an area window. Still covering with his body his defenceless charge, he moved rapidly towards this refuge. Rapid as was the motion, it was not speedy enough; he reached the railing, caught her with his one powerful arm, imbued now with a giant's strength, flung her over to the waiting hands that seized and dragged her in, pausing for an instant, ere he leaped himself, to beat back a half-dozen of the foremost miscreants, who would else have captured their prey, just vanishing from sight. Sublime, yet fatal delay! but an instant, yet in that instant a thousand forms surrounded him, disarmed him, overcame him, and beat him down. Meanwhile what of Francesca? The morning passed, and with its passing came terrible rumors of assault and death. The afternoon began, wore on,--the rumors deepened to details of awful facts and realities; and he--he, with his courage, his fatal dress--was absent, was on those death-crowded streets. She wandered from room to room, forgetting her reserve, and accosting every soul she met for later news,--for information which, received, did but torture her with more intolerable pangs, and send her to her knees; though, kneeling, she could not pray, only cry out in some dumb, inarticulate fashion, "God be merciful!" The afternoon was spent; the day gone; the summet twilight deepening into night; and still he did not come. She had caught up her hat and mantle with some insane intention of rushing into the wide, wild city, on a frenzied search, when two gentlemen passing by her door, talking of the all-absorbing theme, arrested her ear and attention. "The house ought to be guarded! These devils will be here presently,--they are on the Avenue now." "Good God! are you certain?" "Certain." "You may well be," said a third voice, as another step joined theirs. "They are just above Thirtieth Street. I was coming down the Avenue, and saw them myself. I don't know what my fate would have been in this dress,"--Francesca knew from this that he who talked was of the police or soldiery,--"but they were engaged in fighting a young officer, who made a splendid defence before they cut him down; his courage was magnificent. It makes my blood curdle to think of it. A fair-haired, gallant-looking fellow, with only one arm. I could do nothing for him, of course, and should have been killed had I stayed; so I ran for life. But I don't think I'll ever quite forgive myself for not rushing to the rescue, and taking my chance with him." She did not stay to hear the closing words. Out of the room, past them, like a spirit,--through the broad halls,--down the wide stairways,--on to the street,--up the long street, deserted here, but O, with what a crowd beyond! A company of soldiers, paltry in number, yet each with loaded rifle and bayonet set, charged past her at double-quick upon this crowd, which gave way slowly and sullenly at its approach, holding with desperate ferocity and determination to whatever ghastly work had been employing their hands,--dropped at last,--left on the stones,--the soldiers between it and the mob,--silent, motionless,--she saw it, and knew it where it lay. O woful sight and knowledge for loving eyes and bursting heart! Ere she reached it some last stones were flung by the retreating crowd, a last shot fired in the air,--fired at random, but speeding with as unerring aim to her aching, anguished breast, death-freighted and life-destroying,--but not till she had reached her destined point and end; not till her feet failed close to that bruised and silent form; not till she had sunk beside it, gathered it in her fair young arms, and pillowed its beautiful head--from which streamed golden hair, dabbled and blood-bestained--upon her faithful heart. There it stirred; the eyes unclosed to meet hers, a gleam of divine love shining through their fading fire; the battered, stiffened arm lifted, as to fold her in the old familiar caress. "Darling--die--to make--free"--came in gasps from the sweet, yet whitening lips. Then she lay still. Where his breath blew across her hair it waved, and her bosom moved above the slow and labored beating of his heart; but, save for this, she was as quiet as the peaceful dead within their graves,--and, like them, done with the noise and strife of time forever. For him,--the shadows deepened where he lay,--the stars came out one by one, looking down with clear and solemn eyes upon this wreck of fair and beautiful things, wrought by earthly hate and the awful passions of men,--then veiled their light in heavy and sombre clouds. The rain fell upon the noble face and floating, sunny hair,--washing them free of soil, and dark and fearful stains; moistening the fevered, burning lips, and cooling the bruised and aching frame. How passed the long night with that half-insensible soul? God knoweth. The secrets of that are hidden in the eternity to which it now belongs. Questionless, ministering spirits drew near, freighted with balm and inspiration; for when the shadows fled, and the next morning's sun shone upon these silent forms, it revealed faces radiant as with some celestial fire, and beatified as reflecting the smile of God. The inmates of the house before which lay this solemn mystery, rising to face a new-made day, looking out from their windows to mark what traces were left of last night's devastations, beheld this awful yet sublime sight. "A prejudice which, I trust, will never end," had Mr. Surrey said, in bidding adieu to his son but a few short hours before. This prejudice, living and active, had now thus brought death and desolation to his own doors. "How unsearchable are the judgments of God, and his ways past finding out!" CHAPTER XX "_Drink,--for thy necessity is yet greater than mine._" Sir Philip Sidney The hospital boat, going out of Beaufort, was a sad, yet great sight. It was but necessary to look around it to see that the men here gathered had stood on the slippery battle-sod, and scorned to flinch. You heard no cries, scarcely a groan; whatever anguish wrung them as they were lifted into their berths, or were turned or raised for comfort, found little outward sign,--a long, gasping breath now and then; a suppressed exclamation; sometimes a laugh, to cover what would else be a cry of mortal agony; almost no swearing; these men had been too near the awful realities of death and eternity, some of them were still too near, to make a mock at either. Having demonstrated themselves heroes in action, they would, one and all, be equally heroes in the hour of suffering, or on the bed of lingering death. Jim, so wounded as to make every movement a pang, had been carefully carried in on a stretcher, and as carefully lifted into a middle berth. "Good," said one of the men, as he eased him down on his pillow. "What's good?" queried Jim. "The berth; middle berth. Put you in as easy as into the lowest one: bad lifting such a leg as yours into the top one, and it's the comfortablest of the three when you're in." "O, that's it, is it? all right; glad I'm here then; getting in didn't hurt more than a flea-bite,"--saying which Jim turned his face away to put his teeth down hard on a lip already bleeding. The wrench to his shattered leg was excruciating, "But then," as he announced to himself, "no snivelling, James; you're not going to make a spooney of yourself." Presently he moved, and lay quietly watching the others they were bringing in. "Why!" he called, "that's Bertie Curtis, ain't it?" as a slight, beautiful-faced boy was carried past him, and raised to his place. "Yes, it is," answered one of the men, shortly, to cover some strong feeling. Jim leaned out of his berth, regardless of his protesting leg, canteen in hand. "Here, Bertie!" he called, "my canteen's full of fresh water, just filled. I know it'll taste good to you." The boy's fine face flushed. "O, thank you, Given, it would taste deliriously, but I can't take it,"--glancing down. Jim followed the look, to see that both arms were gone, close to the graceful, boyish form; seeing which his face twitched painfully,--not with his own suffering,--and for a moment words failed him. Just then came up one of the sanitary nurses with some cooling drink, and fresh, wet bandages for the fevered stumps. Great drops were standing on Bertie's forehead, and ominous gray shadows had already settled about the mouth, and under the long, shut lashes. Looking at the face, so young, so refined, some mother's pride and darling, the nurse brushed back tenderly the fair hair, murmuring, "Poor fellow!" The eyes unclosed quickly: "There are no poor fellows here, sir!" he said. "Well, brave fellow, then!" "I did but do my duty,"--a smile breaking through the gathering mists. Here some poor fellow,--poor indeed,--delirious with fever, called out, "Mother! mother! I want to see my mother!" Tears rushed to the clear, steady eyes, dimmed them, dropped down unchecked upon the face. The nurse, with a sob choking in his throat, softly raised his hand to brush them away. "Mother," Bertie whispered,--"mother!" and was gone where God wipes away the tears from all eyes. For the space of five minutes, as Jim said afterwards, in telling about it, "that boat was like a meeting-house." Used as they were to death in all forms, more than one brave fellow's eye was dim as the silent shape was carried away to make place for the stricken living,--one of whom was directly brought in, and the stretcher put down near Jim. "What's up?" he called, for the man's face was turned from him, and his wounded body so covered as to give no clew to its condition. "What's wrong?" seeing the bearers did not offer to lift him, and that they were anxiously scanning the long rows of berths. "Berth's wrong," one of them answered. "What's the matter with the berth?" "Matter enough! not a middle one nor a lower one empty." "Well," called a wounded boy from the third tier, "plenty of room up here; sky-parlor,--airy lodgings,--all fine,--I see a lot of empty houses that'll take him in." "Like enough,--but he's about blown to pieces," said the bearer in a low voice, "and it'll be aw--ful putting him up there; however,"--commencing to take off the light cover. "Helloa!" cried Jim, "that's a dilapidated-looking leg,"--his head out, looking at it. "Stop a bit!"--body half after the head,--"you just stop that, and come here and catch hold of a fellow; now put me up there. I reckon I'll bear hoisting better'n he will, anyway. Ugh! ah! um! owh! here we are! bully!" If Jim had been of the fainting or praying order he would certainly have fainted or prayed; as it was, he said "Bully!" but lay for a while thereafter still as a mouse. "Given, you're a brick!" one of the boys was apostrophizing him. Jim took no notice. "And your man's in, safe and sound"; he turned at that, and leaned forward, as well as he could, to look at the occupant of his late bed. "Jemime!" he cried, when he saw the face. "I say, boys! it's Ercildoune--Robert--flag--Wagner--hurray--let's give three cheers for the color-sergeant,--long may he wave!" The men, propped up or lying down, gave the three cheers with a will, and then three more; and then, delighted with their performance, three more after that, Jim winding up the whole with an "a-a-ah,--Tiger!" that made them all laugh; then relapsing into silence and a hard battle with pain. A weary voyage,--a weary journey thereafter to the Northern hospitals,--some dying by the way, and lowered through the shifting, restless waves, or buried with hasty yet kindly hands in alien soil,--accounted strangers and foemen in the land of their birth. God grant that no tread of rebellion in the years to come, nor thunder of contending armies, may disturb their peace! Some stopped in the heat and dust of Washington to be nursed and tended in the great barracks of hospitals,--uncomfortable-looking without, clean and spacious and admirable within; some to their homes, on long-desired and eagerly welcomed furloughs, there to be cured speedily, the body swayed by the mind; some to suffer and die; some to struggle against winds and tides of mortality and conquer,--yet scarred and maimed; some to go out, as giants refreshed with new wine, to take their places once more in the great conflict, and fight there faithfully to the end. Among these last was Jim; but not till after many a hard battle, and buffet, and back-set did life triumph and strength prevail. One thing which sadly retarded his recovery was his incessant anxiety about Sallie, and his longing to see her once more. He had himself, after his first hurt, written her that he was slightly wounded; but when he reached Washington, and the surgeon, looking at his shattered leg, talked about amputation and death, Jim decided that Sallie should not know a word of all this till something definite was pronounced. "She oughtn't to have an ugly, one-legged fellow," he said, "to drag round with her; and, if she knows how bad it is, she'll post straight down here, to nurse and look after me,--I know her! and she'll have me in the end, out of sheer pity; and I ain't going to take any such mean advantage of her: no, sir-ee, not if I know myself. If I get well, safe and sound, I'll go to her; and, if I'm going to die, I'll send for her; so I'll wait,"--which he did. He found, however, that it was a great deal easier making the decision, than keeping it when made. Sallie, hearing nothing from him,--supposing him still in the South,--fearful as she had all along been that she stood on uncertain ground,--Mrs. Surrey away in New York,--and Robert Ercildoune, as the papers asserted in their published lists, mortally wounded,--having no indirect means of communication with him, and fearing to write again without some sign from him,--was sorrowing in silence at home. The silence reacted on him; not realizing its cause he grew fretful and impatient, and the fretfulness and impatience told on his leg, intensified his fever, and put the day of recovery--if recovery it was to be--farther into the future. "See here, my man,"--said the quick little surgeon one day, "you're worrying about something. This'll never do; if you don't stop it, you'll die, as sure as fate; and you might as well make up your mind to it at once,--so, now!" "Well, sir," answered Jim, "it's as good a time to die now, I reckon, as often happens; but I ain't dead yet, not by a long shot; and I ain't going to die neither; so, now, yourself!" The doctor laughed. "All right; if you'll get up that spirit, and keep it, I'll bet my pile on your recovery,--but you'll have to stop fretting. You've got something on your mind that's troubling you; and the sooner you get rid of it, if you can, the better. That's all I've got to say." And he marched off. "Get rid of it," mused Jim, "how in thunder'll I get rid of it if I don't hear from Sallie? Let me see--ah! I have it!" and looking more cheerful on the instant he lay still, watching for the doctor to come down the ward once more. "Helloa!" he called, then. "Helloa!" responded the doctor, coming over to him, "what's the go now? you're improved already." "Got any objection to telling a lie?"--this might be called coming to the point. "That depends--" said the doctor. "Well, all's fair in love and war, they say. This is for love. Help a fellow?" "Of course,--if I can,--and the fellow's a good one, like Jim Given. What is it you want?" "Well, I want a letter written, and I can't do it myself, you know,"--looking down at his still bandaged arm,--"likewise I want a lie told in it, and these ladies here are all angels, and of course you can't ask an angel to tell a lie,--no offence to you; so if you can take the time, and'll do it, I'll stand your everlasting debtor, and shoulder the responsibility if you're afraid of the weight." "What sort of a lie?" "A capital one; listen. I want a young lady to know that I'm wounded in the arm,--you see? not bad; nor nothing over which she need worry, and nothing that hurts me much; and I ain't damaged in any other way; legs not mentioned in this concern,--you understand?" The doctor nodded. "But it's tied up my hand, so that I have to get you to say all this for me. I'll be well pretty soon; and, if I can get a furlough, I'll be up in Philadelphia in a jiffy,--so she can just prepare for the infliction, &c. Comprendy? And'll you do it?" "Of course I will, if you don't want the truth told, and the fib'll do you any good; and, upon my word, the way you're looking I really think it will. So now for it." Thus the letter was written, and read, and re-read, to make sure that there was nothing in it to alarm Sallie; and, being satisfactory on that head, was finally sent away, to rejoice the poor girl who had waited, and watched, and hoped for it through such a weary time. When she answered it, her letter was so full of happiness and solicitude, and a love that, in spite of herself, spoke out in every line, that Jim furtively kissed it, and read it into tatters in the first few hours of its possession; then tucking it away in his hospital shirt, over his heart, proceeded to get well as fast as fast could be. "Well," said the doctor, a few weeks afterwards, as Jim was going home on his coveted sick-leave, "Mr. Thomas Carlyle calls fibs wind-bags. If that singular remedy would work to such a charm with all my men, I'd tell lies with impunity. Good by, Jim, and the best of good luck to you." "The same to you, Doctor, and I hope you may always find a friend in need, to lie for you. Good by, and God bless you!" wringing his hand hard,--"and now, hurrah for home!" "Hurrah it is!" cried the little surgeon after him, as, happy and proud, he limped down the ward, and turned his face towards home. CHAPTER XXI "_Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm._" Gray Jim scarcely felt the jolting of the ambulance over the city stones, and his impatience and eagerness to get across the intervening space made dust, and heat, and weariness of travel seem but as feather weights, not to be cared for, nor indeed considered at all; though, in fact, his arm complained, and his leg ached distressingly, and he was faint and weak without confessing it long before the tiresome journey reached its end. "No matter," he said to himself; "it'll be all well, or forgotten, at least, when I see Sallie once more; and so, what odds?" The end was gained at last, and he would have gone to her fast as certain Rosinantes, yclept hackhorses, could carry him, but, stopping for a moment to consider, he thought, "No, that will never do! Go to her looking like such a guy? Nary time. I'll get scrubbed, and put on a clean shirt, and make myself decent, before she sees me. She always used to look nice as a new pin, and she liked me to look so too; so I'd better put my best foot foremost when she hasn't laid eyes on me for such an age. I'm fright enough, anyway, goodness knows, with my thinness, and my old lame leg; so--" sticking his head out of the window, and using his lungs with astonishing vigor--"Driver! streak like lightning, will you, to the 'Merchants'? and you shall have extra fare." "Hold your blab there," growled the driver; "I ain't such a pig yet as to take double fare from a wounded soldier. You'll pay me well at half-price,--when we get where you want to go,"--which they did soon. "No!" said Jehu, thrusting back part of the money, "I ain't agoin' to take it, so you needn't poke it out at me. I'm all right; or, if I ain't, I'll make it up on the next broadcloth or officer I carry; never you fear! us fellows knows how to take care of ourselves, you'd better believe!" which statement Jim would have known to be truth, without the necessity of repetition, had he been one of the aforesaid "broadcloths," or "officers," and thus better acquainted with the genus hack-driver in the ordinary exercise of its profession. As it was; he shook hands with the fellow, pocketed the surplus change, made his way into the hotel, was in his room, in his bath, under the barber's hands, cleaned, shaved, brushed, polished, shining,--as he himself would have declared, "in a jiffy" Then, deciding himself to be presentable to the lady of his heart, took his crutch and sallied forth, as good-looking a young fellow, spite of the wooden appendage, as any the sun shone upon in all the big city, and as happy, as it was bright. He knew where to go, and, by help of street-cars and other legs than his own, he was there speedily. He knew the very room towards which to turn; and, reaching it, paused to look in through the half-open door,--delighted thus to watch and listen for a little space unseen. Sallie was sitting, her handsome head bent over her sewing,--Frankie gambolling about the floor. "O sis, _don't_ you wish Jim would come home?" queried the youngster. "I do,--I wish he'd come right straight away." "Right straight away? What do _you_ want to see Jim for?" "O, 'cause he's nice; and 'cause he'll take me to the Theayter; and 'cause he'll treat,--apples, and peanuts, and candy, you know, and--and--ice-cream," wiping the beads from his little red face,--the last desideratum evidently suggested by the fiery summer heat. "I say, Sallie!"--a pause--"won't you get me some ice-cream this evening?" "Yes, Bobbity, if you'll be a good boy." Frankie looked dubious over that proposition. Jim never made any such stipulations: so, after another pause, in which he was probably considering the whole subject with due and becoming gravity,--evidently desiring to hear his own wish propped up by somebody else's seconding,--he broke out again, "Now, Sallie, don't you just wish Jim would come home?" "O Frankie, don't I?" cried the girl, dropping her work, and stretching out her empty arms as though she would clasp some shape in the air. Frankie, poor child! innocently imagining the proffered embrace was for him, ran forward, for he was an affectionate little soul, to give Sallie a good hug, but found himself literally left out in the cold; no arms to meet, and no Sallie, indeed, to touch him. Something big, burly, and blue loomed up on his sight,--something that was doing its best to crush Sallie bodily, and to devour what was not crushed; something that could say nothing by reason of its lips being so much more pleasantly engaged, and whose face was invisible through its extraordinary proximity to somebody else's face and hair. Frankie, finding he could gain neither sight nor sound of notice, began to howl. But as neither of the hard-hearted creatures seemed to care for the poor little chap's howling, he fell upon the coat-tails of the big blue obstruction, and pulled at them lustily,--not to say viciously,--till their owner turned, and beheld him panting and fiery. "Helloa, youngster! what's to pay now?" "Wow! if 'tain't Jim. Hooray!" screeched the youngster, first embracing the blue legs, and then proceeding to execute a dance upon his head. "Te, te, di di, idde i-dum," he sang, coming feet down, finally. Evidently the bad boy's language had been corrupted by his street _confrères_; it was a missionary ground upon which Sallie entered, more or less faithfully, every day to hoe and weed; but of this last specimen-plant she took no notice, save to laugh as Jim, catching him up, first kissed him, then gave him a shake and a small spank, and, thrusting a piece of currency into his hand, whisked him outside the door with a "Come, shaver, decamp, and treat yourself to-day," and had it shut and fastened in a twinkling. "O Jim!" she cried then, her soul in her handsome eyes. "O Sallie!"--and he had her fast and tight once more. An ineffable blank, punctuated liberally with sounding exclamation points, and strongly marked periods,--though how or why a blank should be punctuated at all, only blissful lovers could possibly define. "Jim, dear Jim!" whispering it, and snuggling her blushing face closer to the faded blue, "can you love me after all that has happened?" "Come now! _can_ I love you, my beauty? Slightly, I should think. O, te, te, di di, idde i-dum,"--singing Frank's little song with his big, gay voice,--"I'm happy as a king." Happy as a king, that was plain enough. And what shall be said of her, as he sat down, and, resting the wounded leg--stiff and sore yet,--held Sallie on his other knee,--then fell to admiring her while she stroked his mustache and his crisp, curling hair, looking at both and at him altogether with an expression of contented adoration in her eyes. Frank, tired of prowling round the door, candy in hand, here thrust his head in at the window, and, unfortunately for his plans, sneezed. "Mutual-admiration society!" he cried at that, seeing that he was detected in any case, and running away,--his run spoiled as soon as it began. "We are a handsome couple," laughed Jim, holding back her face between both hands,--"ain't we, now?" Yes, they were,--no mistake about that, handsome as pictures. And merry as birds, through all of his short stay. They would see no danger in the future: Jim had been scathed in time past so often, yet come out safe and sound, that they would have no fear for what was to befall him in time to come. If they had, neither showed it to the other. Jim thought, "Sallie would break her heart, if she knew just what is down there,--so it would be a pity to talk about it"; and Sallie thought, "It's right for Jim to go, and I won't say a word to keep him back, no matter how I feel." The furlough was soon--ah! how soon--out, the days of happiness over; and Jim, holding her in a last close embrace, said his farewell: "Come, Sallie, you're not to cry now, and make me a coward. It'll only be for a little while; the Rebs _can't_ stand it much longer, and then--" "Ah, Jim! but if you should--" "Yes, but I sha'n't, you see; not a bit of it; don't you go to think it. 'I bear'--what is it? O--'a charmed life,' as Mr. Macbeth says, and you'll see me back right and tight, and up to time. One kiss more, dear. God bless you! good by!" and he was gone. She leaned out of the window,--she smiled after him, kissed her hand, waved her handkerchief, so long as he could see them,--till he had turned a corner way down the street,--and smile, and hand, and handkerchief were lost to his sight; then flung herself on the floor, and cried as though her very heart would break. "God send him home,--send him safe and soon home!" she implored; entreaty made for how many loved ones, by how many aching hearts, that speedily lost the need of saying amen to any such petition,--the prayer for the living lost in mourning for the dead. Heaven grant that no soul that reads this ever may have the like cause to offer such prayer again! CHAPTER XXII "_When we see the dishonor of a thing, then it is time to renounce it._" Plutarch A letter which Sallie wrote to Jim a few weeks after his departure tells its own story, and hence shall be repeated here. * * * * * Philadelphia, October 29, 1863. Dear Jim:-- I take my pen in hand this morning to write you a letter, and to tell you the news, though I don't know much of the last except about Frankie and myself. However, I suppose you will care more to hear that than any other, so I will begin. Maybe you will be surprised to hear that Frankie and I are at Mr. Ercildoune's. Well, we are,--and I will tell you how it came about. Not long after you went away, Frank began to pine, and look droopy. There wasn't any use in giving him medicine, for it didn't do him a bit of good. He couldn't eat, and he didn't sleep, and I was at my wits' ends to know what to do for him. One day Mrs. Lee,--that Mr. Ercildoune's housekeeper,--an old English lady she is, and she's lived with him ever since he was married, and before he came here,--a real lady, too,--came in with some sewing, some fine shirts for Mr. Robert Ercildoune. I asked after him, and you'll be glad to know that he's recovering. He didn't have to lose his leg, as they feared; and his arm is healing; and the wound in his breast getting well. Mrs. Lee says she's very sorry the stump isn't longer, so that he could wear a Palmer arm,--but she's got no complaints to make; they're only too glad and thankful to have him living at all, after such a dreadful time. While I was talking with her, Frankie called me from the next room, and began to cry. You wouldn't have known him,--he cried at everything, and was so fretful and cross I could scarcely get along at all. When I got him quiet, and came back, Mrs. Lee says, "What's the matter with Frank?" so I told her I didn't know,--but would she see him? Well, she saw him, and shook her head in a bad sort of way that scared me awfully, and I suppose she saw I was frightened, for she said, "All he wants is plenty of fresh air, and good, wholesome country food and exercise." I can tell you, spite of that, she went away, leaving me with heavy enough a heart. The next day Mr. Ercildoune came in. How he is changed! I haven't seen him before since Mrs. Surrey died, and that of itself was enough to kill him, without this dreadful time about Mr. Robert. "Good morning, Miss Sallie," says he, "how are you? and I'm glad to see you looking so well." So I told him I was well, and then he asked for Frankie. "Mrs. Lee tells me," he said, "that your little brother is quite ill, and that he needs country air and exercise. He can have them both at The Oaks; so if you'll get him ready, the carriage will come for you at whatever time you appoint. Mrs. Lee can find you plenty of work as long as you care to stay." He looked as if he wanted to say something more, but didn't; and I was just as sure as sure could be that it was something about Miss Francesca, probably about her having me out there so much; for his face looked so sad, and his lips trembled so, I knew that must be in his mind. And when I thought of it, and of such an awful fate as it was for her, so young, and handsome, and happy, like the great baby I am, I just threw my apron over my head, and burst out crying. "Don't!" he said,--"don't!" in O, such a voice! It was like a knife going through me; and he went quick out of the room, and downstairs, without even saying good by. Well, we came out the next day,--and I have plenty to do, and Frankie is getting real bright and strong. I can see Mr. Ercildoune likes to have us here, because of the connection with Miss Francesca. She was so interested in us, and so kind to us, and he knows I loved her so very dearly,--and if it's any comfort to him I'm sure I'm glad to be here, without taking Frankie into the account,--for the poor gentleman looks so bowed and heart-broken that it makes one's heart ache just to see him. Mr. Robert isn't well enough to be about yet, but he sits up for a while every day, and is getting on--the doctor says--nicely. They both talk about you often; and Mr. Ercildoune, I can see, thinks everything of you for that good, kind deed of yours, when you and Mr. Robert were on the transport together. Dear Jim, he don't know you as well as I do, or he'd know that you couldn't help doing such things,--not if you tried. I hope you'll like the box that comes with this. Mr. Robert had it packed for you in his own room, to see that everything went in that you'd like. Of course, as he's been a soldier himself, he knows better what they want than anybody else can. Dear Jim, do take care of yourself; don't go and get wounded; and don't get sick; and, whatever you do, don't let the rebels take you prisoner, unless you want to drive me frantic. I think about you pretty much all the time, and pray for you, as well as I know how, every night when I go to bed, and am always Your own loving Sallie. * * * * * "Wow!" said Jim, as he read, "she's in a good berth there." So she was,--and so she stayed. Frankie got quite well once more, and Sallie began to think of going, but Mr. Ercildoune evidently clung to her and to the sunshine which the bright little fellow cast through the house. Sallie was quite right in her supposition. Francesca had cared for this girl, had been kind to her and helped her,--and his heart went out to everything that reminded him of his dear, dead child. So it happened that autumn passed, and winter, and spring,--and still they stayed. In fact, she was domesticated in the house, and, for the first time in years, enjoyed the delightful sense of a home. Here, then, she set up her rest, and remained; here, when the "cruel war was over," the armies disbanded, the last regiments discharged, and Jimmy "came marching home," brown, handsome, and a captain, here he found her,--and from here he married and carried her away. It was a happy little wedding, though nobody was there beside the essentials, save the family and a dear friend of Robert's, who was with him at the time, as he had been before and would be often again,--none other than William Surrey's favorite cousin and friend, Tom Russell. The letter which Surrey had written never reached his hand till he lay almost dying from the effects of wounds and exposure, after he had been brought in safety to our lines by his faithful black friends, at Morris Island. Surrey had not mistaken his temper; gay, reckless fellow, as he was, he was a thorough gentleman, in whom could harbor no small spite, nor petty prejudice,--and without a mean fibre in his being. At a glance he took in the whole situation, and insisting upon being propped up in bed, with his own hand--though slowly, and as a work of magnitude--succeeded in writing a cordial letter of congratulation and affection, that would have been to Surrey like the grasp of a brother's hand in a strange and foreign country, had it ever reached his touch and eyes. But even while Tom lay writing his letter, occasionally muttering, "They'll have a devilish hard time of it!" or "Poor young un!" or "She's one in a million!" or some such sentence which marked his feeling and care,--these two of whom he thought, to whose future he looked with such loving anxiety, were beyond the reach of human help or hindrance,--done alike with the sorrows and joys of time. From a distance, with the help of a glass, and absorbing interest, he had followed the movements of the flag and its bearer, and had cheered, till he fainted from weakness and exhaustion, as he saw them safe at last. It was with delight that he found himself on the same transport with Ercildoune, and discovered in him the brother of the young girl for whom, in the past, he had had so pleasing and deep a regard, and whose present and future were so full of interest for him, in their new and nearer relations. These two young men, unlike as they were in most particulars, were drawn together by an irresistible attraction. They had that common bond, always felt and recognized by those who possess it, of the gentle blood,--tastes and instincts in common, and a fine, chivalrous sentiment which each felt and thoroughly appreciated in the other. The friendship thus begun grew with the passing years, and was intensified a hundred fold by a portion of the past to which they rarely referred, but which lay always at the bottom of their hearts. They had each for those two who had lain dead together in the streets of New York the strongest and tenderest love,--and though it was not a tie about which they could talk, it bound them together as with chains of steel. Russell was with Ercildoune at the time of the wedding, and entered into it heartily, as they all did. The result was, as has been written, the gayest and merriest of times. Sallies dress, which Robert had given her, was a sight to behold; and the pretty jewels, which were a part of his gift, and the long veil, made her look, as Jim declared, "so handsome he didn't know her,"--though that must have been one of Jim's stories, or else he was in the habit of making love to strange ladies with extraordinary ease and effrontery. The breakfast was another sight to behold. As Mary the cook said to Jane the housemaid, "If they'd been born kings and queens, Mrs. Lee couldn't have laid herself out more; it's grand, so it is,--just you go and see;" which Jane proceeded to do, and forthwith thereafter corroborated Mary's enthusiastic statement. There were plenty of presents, too: and when it was all over, and they were in the carriage, to be sent to the station, Mr. Ercildoune, holding Sallie's hand in farewell, left there a bit of paper, "which is for you," he said. "God protect, and keep you happy, my child!" Then they were gone, with many kind adieus and good wishes called and sent after them. When they were seated in the cars, Sallie looked at her bit of paper, and read on its outer covering, "A wedding-gift to Sallie Howard from my dear daughter Francesca," and found within the deed of a beautiful little home. God bless her! say we, with Mr. Ercildoune. God bless them both, and may they live long to enjoy it! That afternoon, as Tom and Robert were driving, Russell, noting the unwonted look of life and activity, and the gay flags flung to the breeze, demanded what it all meant. "Why," said he, "it is like a field day." "It is so," answered Robert, "or what is the same; it is election day." "Bless my soul! so it is; and a soldier to be elected. Have you voted?" "No!" "No? Here's a nice state of affairs! a fellow that'll get his arm blown off for a flag, but won't take the trouble to drop a scrap of paper for it. Come, I'll drive you over." "You forget, Russell!" "Forget? Nonsense! This isn't 1860, but 1865. I don't forget; I remember. It is after the war now,--come." "As you please," said Robert. He knew the disappointment that awaited his friend, but he would not thwart him now. There was a great crowd about the polling-office, and they all looked on with curious interest as the two young men came up. No demonstration was made, though a half-dozen brutal fellows uttered some coarse remarks. "Hear the damned Rebs talk!" said a man in the army blue, who, with keen eyes, was observing the scene. "They're the same sort of stuff we licked in Carolina." "Ay," said another, "but with a difference; blue led there; but gray'll come off winner here, or I'm mistaken." Robert stood leaning upon his cane; a support which he would need for life, one empty sleeve pinned across his breast, over the scar from a deep and yet unhealed wound. The clear October sun shone down upon his form and face, upon the broad folds of the flag that waved in triumph above him, upon a country where wars and rumors of wars had ceased. "Courage, man! what ails you?" whispered Russell, as he felt his comrade tremble; "it's a ballot in place of a bayonet, and all for the same cause; lay it down." Robert put out his hand. "Challenge the vote!" "Challenge the vote!" "No niggers here!" sounded from all sides. The bit of paper which Ercildoune had placed on the window-ledge fluttered to the ground on the outer side, and, looking at Tom, Robert said quietly, "1860 or 1865?--is the war ended?" "No!" answered Tom, taking his arm, and walking away. "No, my friend! so you and I will continue in the service." "Not ended;--it is true! how and when will it be closed?" "That is for the loyal people of America to decide," said Russell, as they turned their faces towards home. How and when will it be closed? a question asked by the living and the dead,--to which America must respond. Among the living is a vast army: black and white,--shattered and maimed, and blind: and these say, "Here we stand, shattered and maimed, that the body politic might be perfect! blind forever, that the glorious sun of liberty might shine abroad throughout the land, for all people, through all coming time." And the dead speak too. From their crowded graves come voices of thrilling and persistent pathos, whispering, "Finish the work that has fallen from our nerveless hands. Let no weight of tyranny, nor taint of oppression, nor stain of wrong, cumber the soil nor darken the land we died to save." NOTE Since it is impossible for any one memory to carry the entire record of the war, it is well to state, that almost every scene in this book is copied from life, and that the incidents of battle and camp are part of the history of the great contest. The story of Fort Wagner is one that needs no such emphasis, it is too thoroughly known; that of the Color-Sergeant, whose proper name is W.H. Carney, is taken from a letter written by General M.S. Littlefield to Colonel A.G. Browne, Secretary to Governor Andrew. From the _New York Tribune_ and the _Providence Journal_ were taken the accounts of the finding of Hunt, the coming of the slaves into a South Carolina camp, and the voluntary carrying, by black men, ere they were enlisted, of a schooner into the fight at Newbern. Than these two papers, none were considered more reliable and trustworthy in their war record. Almost every paper in the North published the narrative of the black man pushing off the boat, for which an official report is responsible. The boat was a flat-boat, with a company of soldiers on board; and the battery under the fire of which it fell was at Rodman's Point, North Carolina. In drawing the outlines of this, as of the others, I have necessarily used a somewhat free pencil, but the main incident of each has been faithfully preserved. The disabled black soldier my own eyes saw thrust from a car in Philadelphia. The portraits of Ercildoune and his children may seem to some exaggerated; those who have, as I, the rare pleasure of knowing the originals, will say, "the half has not been told." Every leading New York paper, Democratic and Republican, was gone over, ere the summary of the Riots was made; and I think the record will be found historically accurate. The _Anglo-African_ gives the story of poor Abram Franklin; and the assault on Surrey has its likeness in the death of Colonel O'Brien. In a conversation between Surrey and Francesca, allusion is made to an act the existence of which I have frequently heard doubted. I therefore copy here a part of the "Retaliatory Act," passed by the Rebel Government at Richmond, and approved by its head, May 1, 1863:-- "Sec. 4. Every white person, being a commissioned officer, or acting as such, who, during the present war, shall command negroes or mulattoes in arms against the Confederate States, or who shall arm, train, organize, or prepare negroes or mulattoes for military service against the Confederate States, or who shall voluntarily aid negroes or mulattoes in any military enterprise, attack, or conflict in such service, shall be deemed as inciting servile insurrection; and shall, if captured, be put to death." I have written this book, and send it to the consciences and the hearts of the American people. May God, for whose "little ones" I have here spoken, vivify its words. 
15454	----	IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO A STUDY OF THE NEGRO RACE PROBLEM A NOVEL Sutton E. Griggs 1899 CONTENTS. CHAPTER. PAGE. Berl Trout's Declaration 1 I A Small Beginning 3 II The School 8 III The Parson's Advice 15 IV The Turning of a Worm 24 V Belton Finds a Friend 38 VI A Young Rebel 48 VII A Sermon, a Sock, And a Fight 64 VIII Many Mysteries Cleared Up 83 IX Love and Politics 95 X Cupid Again at Work 111 XI No Befitting Name 125 XII On the Dissecting Board 139 XIII Married and yet not Married 161 XIV " " " " " (Continued) 171 XV Weighty Matters 177 XVI Unwritten History 188 XVII Crossing the Rubicon 200 XVIII The Storm's Master 223 XIX The Parting of Ways 249 XX Personal (Berl Trout) 262 TO THE PUBLIC. The papers which are herewith submitted to you for your perusal and consideration, were delivered into my hands by Mr. Berl Trout. The papers will speak for themselves, but Mr. Trout now being dead I feel called upon to say a word concerning him. Mr. Berl Trout was Secretary of State in the Imperium In Imperio, from the day of its organization until the hour of his sad death. He was, therefore, thoroughly conversant with all of the details of that great organization. He was a warm personal friend of both Bernard and Belton, and learned from their own lips the stories of their eventful lives. Mr. Trout was a man noted for his strict veracity and for the absolute control that his conscience exercised over him. Though unacquainted with the Imperium In Imperio I was well acquainted with Berl, as we fondly called him. I will vouch for his truthfulness anywhere. Having perfect faith in the truthfulness of his narrative I have not hesitated to fulfil his dying request by editing his Ms., and giving it to the public. There are other documents in my possession tending to confirm the assertions made in his narrative. These documents were given me by Mr. Trout, so that, in case an attempt is made to pronounce him a liar, I might defend his name by coming forward with indisputable proofs of every important statement. Very respectfully, Sutton E. Griggs, March 1, 1899. Berkley, Va. IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO. BERL TROUT'S DYING DECLARATION. I am a traitor. I have violated an oath that was as solemn and binding as any ever taken by man on earth. I have trampled under my feet the sacred trust of a loving people, and have betrayed secrets which were dearer to them than life itself. For this offence, regarded the world over as the most detestable of horrors, I shall be slain. Those who shall be detailed to escort my foul body to its grave are required to walk backwards with heads averted. On to-morrow night, the time of my burial, the clouds should gather thick about the queenly moon to hide my funeral procession from her view, for fear that she might refuse to longer reign over a land capable of producing such a wretch as I. In the bottom of some old forsaken well, so reads _our_ law, I shall be buried, face downward, without a coffin; and my body, lying thus, will be transfixed with a wooden stave. Fifty feet from the well into which my body is lowered, a red flag is to be hoisted and kept floating there for time unending, to warn all generations of men to come not near the air polluted by the rotting carcass of a vile traitor. Such is my fate. I seek not to shun it. I have walked into odium with every sense alert, fully conscious of every step taken. While I acknowledge that I am a traitor, I also pronounce myself a patriot. It is true that I have betrayed the immediate plans of the race to which I belong; but I have done this in the interest of the whole human family--of which my race is but a part. My race may, for the time being, shower curses upon me; but eventually all races, including my own, shall call me blessed. The earth, in anger, may belch forth my putrid flesh with volcanic fury, but the out-stretched arms of God will receive my spirit as a token of approval of what I have done. With my soul feasting on this happy thought, I send this revelation to mankind and yield my body to the executioner to be shot until I am dead. Though death stands just before me, holding before my eyes my intended shroud woven of the cloth of infamy itself, I shrink not back. Yours, doomed to die, BERL TROUT. IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO CHAPTER I A SMALL BEGINNING. "Cum er long hunny an' let yer mammy fix yer 'spectabul, so yer ken go to skule. Yer mammy is 'tarmined ter gib yer all de book larning dar is ter be had eben ef she has ter lib on bred an' herrin's, an' die en de a'ms house." These words came from the lips of a poor, ignorant negro woman, and yet the determined course of action which they reveal vitally affected the destiny of a nation and saved the sun of the Nineteenth Century, proud and glorious, from passing through, near its setting, the blackest and thickest and ugliest clouds of all its journey; saved it from ending the most brilliant of brilliant careers by setting, with a shudder of horror, in a sea of human blood. Those who doubt that such power could emanate from such weakness; or, to change the figure, that such a tiny star could have dimensions greater than those of earth, may have every vestige of doubt removed by a perusal of this simple narrative. Let us now acquaint ourselves with the circumstances under which the opening words of our story were spoken. To do this, we must need lead our readers into humble and commonplace surroundings, a fact that will not come in the nature of a surprise to those who have traced the proud, rushing, swelling river to the mountain whence it comes trickling forth, meekly and humbly enough. The place was Winchester, an antiquated town, located near the northwestern corner of the State of Virginia. In October of the year 1867, the year in which our story begins, a white man by the name of Tiberius Gracchus Leonard had arrived in Winchester, and was employed as teacher of the school for colored children. Mrs. Hannah Piedmont, the colored woman whom we have presented to our readers as addressing her little boy, was the mother of five children,--three girls and two boys. In the order of their ages, the names of her children were: James Henry, aged fifteen, Amanda Ann, aged thirteen, Eliza Jane, aged eleven, Belton, aged eight, and Celestine, aged five. Several years previous to the opening of our history, Mr. Piedmont had abandoned his wife and left her to rear the children alone. School opened in October, and as fast as she could get books and clothing Mrs. Piedmont sent her children to school. James Henry, Amanda Ann, and Eliza Jane were sent at about a week's interval. Belton and Celestine were then left--Celestine being regarded as too young to go. This morning we find Belton's mother preparing him for school, and we shall stand by and watch the preparations. The house was low and squatty and was built of rock. It consisted of one room only, and over this there was a loft, the hole to climb into which was in plain view of any one in the room. There was only one window to the house and that one was only four feet square. Two panes of this were broken out and the holes were stuffed with rags. In one corner of the room there stood a bed in which Mrs. Piedmont and Amanda Ann slept. Under this was a trundle bed in which Eliza Jane and Celestine slept at the head, while Belton slept at the foot. James Henry climbed into the loft and slept there on a pallet of straw. The cooking was done in a fireplace which was on the side of the house opposite the window. Three chairs, two of which had no backs to them, completed the articles in the room. In one of these chairs Mrs. Piedmont was sitting, while Belton stood before her all dressed and ready to go to school, excepting that his face was not washed. It might be interesting to note his costume. The white lady for whom Mrs. Piedmont washed each week had given her two much-torn pairs of trousers, discarded by her young son. One pair was of linen and the other of navy blue. A leg from each pair was missing; so Mrs. Piedmont simply transferred the good leg of the linen pair to the suit of the navy blue, and dressed the happy Belton in that suit thus amended. His coat was literally a conglomeration of patches of varying sizes and colors. If you attempted to describe the coat by calling it by the name of the color that you thought predominated, at least a half dozen aspirants could present equal claims to the honor. One of Belton's feet was encased in a wornout slipper from the dainty foot of some young woman, while the other wore a turned over boot left in town by some farmer lad who had gotten himself a new pair. His hat was in good condition, being the summer straw last worn by a little white playfellow (when fall came on, this little fellow kindly willed his hat to Belton, who, in return for this favor, was to black the boy's shoes each morning during the winter). Belton's mother now held in her hand a wet cloth with which she wished to cleanse his face, the bacon skin which he gnawed at the conclusion of his meal having left a circle of grease around his lips. Belton did not relish the face washing part of the programme (of course hair combing was not even considered). Belton had one characteristic similar to that of oil. He did not like to mix with water, especially cold water, such as was on that wet cloth in his mother's hand. However, a hint in reference to a certain well-known leather strap, combined with the offer of a lump of sugar, brought him to terms. His face being washed, he and his mother marched forth to school, where he laid the foundation of the education that served him so well in after life. A man of tact, intelligence, and superior education moving in the midst of a mass of ignorant people, ofttimes has a sway more absolute than that of monarchs. Belton now entered the school-room, which in his case proves to be the royal court, whence he emerges an uncrowned king. CHAPTER II. THE SCHOOL. The house in which the colored school was held was, in former times, a house of worship for the white Baptists of Winchester. It was a long, plain, frame structure, painted white. Many years prior to the opening of the colored school it had been condemned as unsafe by the town authorities, whereupon the white Baptists had abandoned it for a more beautiful modern structure. The church tendered the use of the building to the town for a public school for the colored children. The roof was patched and iron rods were used to hold together the twisting walls. These improvements being made, school was in due time opened. The building was located on the outskirts of the town, and a large open field surrounded it on all sides. As Mrs. Piedmont and her son drew near to this building the teacher was standing on the door-steps ringing his little hand bell, calling the children in from their recess. They came running at full speed, helter skelter. By the time they were all in Mrs. Piedmont and Belton had arrived at the step. When Mr. Leonard saw them about to enter the building an angry scowl passed over his face, and he muttered half aloud: "Another black nigger brat for me to teach." The steps were about four feet high and he was standing on the top step. To emphasize his disgust, he drew back so that Mrs. Piedmont would pass him with no danger of brushing him. He drew back rather too far and began falling off the end of the steps. He clutched at the door and made such a scrambling noise that the children turned in their seats just in time to see his body rapidly disappearing in a manner to leave his feet where his head ought to be. Such a yell of laughter as went up from the throats of the children! It had in it a universal, spontaneous ring of savage delight which plainly told that the teacher was not beloved by his pupils. The back of the teacher's head struck the edge of a stone, and when he clambered up from his rather undignified position his back was covered with blood. Deep silence reigned in the school-room as he walked down the aisle, glaring fiercely right and left. Getting his hat he left the school-room and went to a near-by drug store to have his wounds dressed. While he was gone, the children took charge of the school-room and played pranks of every description. Abe Lincoln took the teacher's chair and played "'fessor." "Sallie Ann ain't yer got wax in yer mouf?" "Yes sar." "Den take dis stick and prop yer mouf opun fur half hour. Dat'll teach yer a lesson." "Billy Smith, yer didn't know yer lessun," says teacher Abe. "Yer may stan' on one leg de ballunce ob de ebenning." "Henry Jones, yer sassed a white boy ter day. Pull off yer jacket. I'll gib yer a lessun dat yer'll not furgit soon. Neber buck up to yer s'periors." "John Jones, yer black, nappy head rascal, I'll crack yer skull if yer doan keep quiut." "Cum year, yer black, cross-eyed little wench, yer. I'll teach yer to go to sleep in here." Annie Moore was the little girl thus addressed. After each sally from Abe there was a hearty roar of laughter, he imitated the absent teacher so perfectly in look, voice, manner, sentiment, and method of punishment. Taking down the cowhide used for flogging purposes Abe left his seat and was passing to and fro, pretending to flog those who most frequently fell heir to the teacher's wrath. While he was doing this Billy Smith stealthily crept to the teacher's chair and placed a crooked pin in it in order to catch Abe when he returned to sit down. Before Abe had gone much further the teacher's face appeared at the door, and all scrambled to get into their right places and to assume studious attitudes. Billy Smith thought of his crooked pin and had the "cold sweats." Those who had seen Billy put the pin in the chair were torn between two conflicting emotions. They wanted the pin to do its work, and therefore hoped. They feared Billy's detection and therefore despaired. However, the teacher did not proceed at once to take his seat. He approached Mrs. Piedmont and Belton, who had taken seats midway the room and were interested spectators of all that had been going on. Speaking to Mrs. Piedmont, he said: "What is your name?" She replied: "Hannah Lizabeth Piedmont." "Well, Hannah, what is your brat's name?" "His name am Belton Piedmont, arter his grandaddy." "Well, Hannah, I am very pleased to receive your brat. He shall not want for attention," he added, in a tone accompanied by a lurking look of hate that made Mrs. Piedmont shudder and long to have her boy at home again. Her desire for his training was so great that she surmounted her misgivings and carried out her purposes to have him enrolled. As the teacher was turning to go to his desk, hearing a rustling noise toward the door, he turned to look. He was, so to speak, petrified with astonishment. There stood on the threshold of the door a woman whose beauty was such as he had never seen surpassed. She held a boy by the hand. She was a mulatto woman, tall and graceful. Her hair was raven black and was combed away from as beautiful a forehead as nature could chisel. Her eyes were a brown hazel, large and intelligent, tinged with a slight look of melancholy. Her complexion was a rich olive, and seemed especially adapted to her face, that revealed not a flaw. The teacher quickly pulled off his hat, which he had not up to that time removed since his return from the drug store. As the lady moved up the aisle toward him, he was taken with stage fright. He recovered self-possession enough to escort her and the boy to the front and give them seats. The whole school divided its attention between the beautiful woman and the discomfitted teacher. They had not known that he was so full of smiles and smirks. "What is your name?" he enquired in his most suave manner. "Fairfax Belgrave," replied the visitor. "May I be of any service to you, madam?" At the mention of the word madam, she colored slightly. "I desire to have my son enter your school and I trust that you may see your way clear to admit him." "Most assuredly madam, most assuredly." Saying this, he hastened to his desk, opened it and took out his register. He then sat down, but the next instant leapt several feet into the air, knocking over his desk. He danced around the floor, reaching toward the rear of his pants, yelling: "Pull it out! pull it out! pull it out!" The children hid their faces behind their books and chuckled most gleefully. Billy Smith was struck dumb with terror. Abe was rolling on the floor, bellowing with uncontrollable laughter. The teacher finally succeeded in extricating the offending steel and stood scratching his head in chagrin at the spectacle he had made of himself before his charming visitor. He took an internal oath to get his revenge out of Mrs. Piedmont and her son, who had been the innocent means of his double downfall that day. His desk was arranged in a proper manner and the teacher took his pen and wrote two names, now famous the world over. "Bernard Belgrave, age 9 years." "Belton Piedmont, age 8 years." Under such circumstances Belton began his school career. CHAPTER III. THE PARSON'S ADVICE. With heavy heart and with eyes cast upon the ground, Mrs. Piedmont walked back home after leaving Belton with his teacher. She had intended to make a special plea for her boy, who had all along displayed such precociousness as to fill her bosom with the liveliest hopes. But the teacher was so repulsive in manner that she did not have the heart to speak to him as she had intended. She saw that the happenings of the morning had had the effect of deepening a contemptuous prejudice into hatred, and she felt that her child's school life was to be embittered by the harshest of maltreatment. No restraint was put upon the flogging of colored children by their white teachers, and in Belton's case his mother expected the worst. During the whole week she revolved the matter in her mind. There was a conflict in her bosom between her love and her ambition. Love prompted her to return and take her son away from school. Ambition bade her to let him stay. She finally decided to submit the whole matter to her parson, whom she would invite to dinner on the coming Sunday. The Sabbath came and Mrs. Piedmont aroused her family bright and early, for the coming of the parson to take dinner was a great event in any negro household. The house was swept as clean as a broom of weeds tied together could make it. Along with the family breakfast, a skillet of biscuits was cooked and a young chicken nicely baked. Belton was very active in helping his mother that morning, and she promised to give him a biscuit and a piece of chicken as a reward after the preacher was through eating his dinner. The thought of this coming happiness buoyed Belton up, and often he fancied himself munching that biscuit and biting that piece of chicken. These were items of food rarely found in that household. Breakfast over, the whole family made preparations for going to Sunday school. Preparations always went on peacefully until it came to combing hair. The older members of the family endured the ordeal very well; but little "Lessie" always screamed as if she was being tortured, and James Henry received many kicks and scratches from Belton before he was through combing Belton's hair. The Sunday school and church were always held in the day-school building. The Sunday school scholars were all in one class and recited out of the "blue back spelling book." When that was over, members of the school were allowed to ask general questions on the Bible, which were answered by anyone volunteering to do so. Everyone who had in any way caught a new light on a passage of scripture endeavored, by questioning, to find out as to whether others were as wise as he, and if such was not the case, he gladly enlightened the rest. The Sunday school being over, the people stood in groups on the ground surrounding the church waiting for the arrival of the parson from his home, Berryville, a town twelve miles distant. He was pastor of three other churches besides the one at Winchester, and he preached at each one Sunday in the month. After awhile he put in his appearance. He was rather small in stature, and held his head somewhat to one side and looked at you with that knowing look of the parrot. He wore a pair of trousers that had been black, but were now sleet from much wear. They lacked two inches of reaching down to the feet of his high-heeled boots. He had on a long linen cluster that reached below his knees. Beneath this was a faded Prince Albert coat and a vest much too small. On his head there sat, slightly tipped, a high-topped beaver that seemed to have been hidden between two mattresses all the week and taken out and straightened for Sunday wear. In his hand he held a walking cane. Thus clad he came toward the church, his body thrown slightly back, walking leisurely with the air of quiet dignity possessed by the man sure of his standing, and not under the necessity of asserting it overmuch in his carriage. The brothers pulled off their hats and the sisters put on their best smiles as the parson approached. After a cordial handshake all around, the preacher entered the church to begin the services. After singing a hymn and praying, he took for his text the following "passige of scripter:" "It air harder fur a camel to git through de eye of a cambric needle den fur a rich man to enter de kingdom of heben." This was one of the parson's favorite texts, and the members all settled themselves back to have a good "speritual" time. The preacher began his sermon in a somewhat quiet way, but the members knew that he would "warm up bye and bye." He pictured all rich men as trying to get into heaven, but, he asserted, they invariably found themselves with Dives. He exhorted his hearers to stick to Jesus. Here he pulled off his collar, and the sisters stirred and looked about them. A little later on, the preacher getting "warmer," pulled off his cuffs. The brethren laughed with a sort of joyous jumping up and down all the while--one crying "Gib me Jesus," another "Oh I am gwine home," and so on. One sister who had a white lady's baby in her arms got happy and flung it entirely across the room, it falling into Mrs. Piedmont's lap, while the frenzied woman who threw the child climbed over benches, rushed into the pulpit, and swung to the preacher's neck, crying--"Glory! Glory! Glory!" In the meanwhile Belton had dropped down under one of the benches and was watching the proceedings with an eye of terror. The sermon over and quiet restored, a collection was taken and given to the pastor. Mrs. Piedmont went forward to put some money on the table and took occasion to step to the pulpit and invite the pastor to dinner. Knowing that this meant chicken, the pastor unhesitatingly accepted the invitation, and when church was over accompanied Mrs. Piedmont and her family home. The preacher caught hold of Belton's hand as they walked along. This mark of attention, esteemed by Belton as a signal honor, filled his little soul with joy. As he thought of the manner in which the preacher stirred up the people, the amount of the collection that had been given him, and the biscuits and chicken that now awaited him, Belton decided that he, too, would like to become a preacher. Just before reaching home, according to a preconcerted plan, Belton and James Henry broke from the group and ran into the house. When the others appeared a little later on, these two were not to be seen. However, no question was asked and no search made. All things were ready and the parson sat down to eat, while the three girls stood about, glancing now and then at the table. The preacher was very voracious and began his meal as though he "meant business." We can now reveal the whereabouts of Belton and James Henry. They had clambered into the loft for the purpose of watching the progress of the preacher's meal, calculating at each step how much he would probably leave. James Henry found a little hole in the loft directly over the table, and through this hole he did his spying. Belton took his position at the larger entrance hole, lying flat on his stomach. He poked his head down far enough to see the preacher, but held it in readiness to be snatched back, if the preacher's eyes seemed to be about to wander his way. He was kept in a state of feverish excitement, on the one hand, by fear of detection, and on the other, by a desire to watch the meal. When about half of the biscuits were gone, and the preacher seemed as fresh as ever, Belton began to be afraid for his promised biscuit and piece of chicken. He crawled to James Henry and said hastily--"James, dees haf gone," and hurriedly resumed his watch. A moment later he called out in a whisper, "He's tuck anudder." Down goes Belton's head to resume his watch. Every time the preacher took another biscuit Belton called out the fact to James. All of the chicken was at last destroyed and only one biscuit remained; and Belton's whole soul was now centered on that biscuit. In his eagerness to watch he leaned a good distance out, and when the preacher reached forth his hand to take the last one Belton was so overcome that he lost his balance and tumbled out of his hole on the floor, kicking, and crying over and over again: "I knowed I wuzunt goin' to git naren dem biscuits." The startled preacher hastily arose from the table and gazed on the little fellow in bewilderment. As soon as it dawned upon him what the trouble was, he hastily got the remaining biscuit and gave it to Belton. He also discovered that his voracity had made enemies of the rest of the children, and he very adroitly passed a five cent piece around to each. James Henry, forgetting his altitude and anxious not to lose his recompense, cried out loudly from the loft: "Amanda Ann you git mine fur me." The preacher looked up but saw no one. Seeing that his request did not have the desired effect, James Henry soon tumbled down full of dust, straw and cobwebs, and came into possession of his appeasing money. The preacher laughed heartily and seemed to enjoy his experience highly. The table was cleared, and the preacher and Mrs. Piedmont dismissed the children in order to discuss unmolested the subject which had prompted her to extend an invitation to the parson. In view of the intense dislike the teacher had conceived for Belton, she desired to know if it were not best to withdraw him from school altogether, rather than to subject him to the harsh treatment sure to come. "Let me gib yer my advis, sistah Hannah. De greatest t'ing in de wul is edification. Ef our race ken git dat we ken git ebery t'ing else. Dat is de key. Git de key an' yer ken go in de house to go whare you please. As fur his beatin' de brat, yer musn't kick agin dat. He'll beat de brat to make him larn, and won't dat be a blessed t'ing? See dis scar on side my head? Old marse Sampson knocked me down wid a single-tree tryin' to make me stop larning, and God is so fixed it dat white folks is knocking es down ef we don't larn. Ef yer take Belton out of school yer'll be fighting 'genst de providence of God." Being thus advised by her shepherd, Mrs. Piedmont decided to keep Belton in school. So on Monday Belton went back to his brutal teacher, and thither we follow him. CHAPTER IV. THE TURNING OF A WORM. As to who Mr. Tiberius Gracchus Leonard was, or as to where he came from, nobody in Winchester, save himself, knew. Immediately following the close of the Civil War, Rev. Samuel Christian, a poor but honorable retired minister of the M.E. Church, South, was the first teacher employed to instruct the colored children of the town. He was one of those Southerners who had never believed in the morality of slavery, but regarded it as a deep rooted evil beyond human power to uproot. When the manacles fell from the hands of the Negroes he gladly accepted the task of removing the scales of ignorance from the blinded eyes of the race. Tenderly he labored, valiantly he toiled in the midst of the mass of ignorance that came surging around him. But only one brief year was given to this saintly soul to endeavor to blast the mountains of stupidity which centuries of oppression had reared. He fell asleep. The white men who were trustees of the colored school, were sorely puzzled as to what to do for a successor. A Negro, capable of teaching a school, was nowhere near. White young men of the South, generally, looked upon the work of teaching "niggers" with the utmost contempt; and any man who suggested the name of a white young lady of Southern birth as a teacher for the colored children was actually in danger of being shot by any member of the insulted family who could handle a pistol. An advertisement was inserted in the Washington Post to the effect that a teacher was wanted. In answer to this advertisement Mr. Leonard came. He was a man above the medium height, and possessed a frame not large but compactly built. His forehead was low and narrow; while the back of his head looked exceedingly intellectual. Looking at him from the front you would involuntarily exclaim: "What an infamous scoundrel." Looking at him from the rear you would say: "There certainly is brain power in that head." The glance of Mr. Leonard's eye was furtive, and his face was sour looking indeed. At times when he felt that no one was watching him, his whole countenance and attitude betokened the rage of despair. Most people who looked at him felt that he carried in his bosom a dark secret. As to scholarship, he was unquestionably proficient. No white man in all the neighboring section, ranked with him intellectually. Despite the lack of all knowledge of his moral character and previous life, he was pronounced as much too good a man to fritter away his time on "niggers." Such was the character of the man into whose hands was committed the destiny of the colored children of Winchester. As his mother foresaw would be the case, Belton was singled out by the teacher as a special object on which he might expend his spleen. For a man to be as spiteful as he was, there must have been something gnawing at his heart. But toward Bernard none of this evil spirit was manifested. He seemed to have chosen Bernard for his pet, and Belton for his "pet aversion." To the one he was all kindness; while to the other he was cruel in the extreme. Often he would purchase flowers from the florist and give to Bernard to bear home to his mother. On these days he would seemingly take pains to give Belton fresh bruises to take home to _his_ mother. When he had a particularly good dinner he would invite Bernard to dine with him, and would be sure to find some pretext for forbidding Belton to partake of his own common meal. Belton was by no means insensible to all these acts of discrimination. Nor did Bernard fail to perceive that he, himself, was the teacher's pet. He clambered on to the teacher's knees, played with his mustache, and often took his watch and wore it. The teacher seemed to be truly fond of him. The children all ascribed this partiality to the color of Bernard's skin, and they all, except Belton, began to envy and despise Bernard. Of course they told their parents of the teacher's partiality and their parents thus became embittered against the teacher. But however much they might object to him and desire his removal, their united protests would not have had the weight of a feather. So the teacher remained at Winchester for twelve years. During all these years he instructed our young friends Belton and Bernard. Strangely enough, his ardent love for Bernard and his bitter hatred of Belton accomplished the very same result in respect to their acquirements. The teacher soon discovered that both boys were talented far beyond the ordinary, and that both were ambitious. He saw that the way to wound and humiliate Belton was to make Bernard excel him. Thus he bent all of his energies to improve Bernard's mind. Whenever he heard Belton recite he brought all of his talents to bear to point out his failures, hoping thus to exalt Bernard, out of whose work he strove to keep all blemishes. Thus Belton became accustomed to the closest scrutiny, and prepared himself accordingly. The result was that Bernard did not gain an inch on him. The teacher introduced the two boys into every needed field of knowledge, as they grew older, hoping always to find some branch in which Bernard might display unquestioned superiority. There were two studies in which the two rivals dug deep to see which could bring forth the richest treasures; and these gave coloring to the whole of their afterlives. One, was the History of the United States, and the other, Rhetoric. In history, that portion that charmed them most was the story of the rebellion against the yoke of England. Far and wide they went in search of everything that would throw light on this epoch. They became immersed in the spirit of that heroic age. As a part of their rhetorical training they were taught to declaim. Thanks to their absorption in the history of the Revolution, their minds ran to the sublime in literature; and they strove to secure pieces to declaim that recited the most heroic deeds of man, of whatever nationality. Leonidas, Marco Bozarris, Arnold Winklereid, Louis Kossuth, Robert Emmett, Martin Luther, Patrick Henry and such characters furnished the pieces almost invariably declaimed. They threw their whole souls into these, and the only natural thing resulted. No human soul can breathe the atmosphere of heroes and read with bated breath their deeds of daring without craving for the opportunity to do the like. Thus the education of these two young men went on. At the expiration of twelve years they had acquired an academic education that could not be surpassed anywhere in the land. Their reputation as brilliant students and eloquent speakers had spread over the whole surrounding country. The teacher decided to graduate the young men; and he thought to utilize the occasion as a lasting humiliation of Belton and exaltation of his favorite, Bernard Belgrave. Belton felt this. In the first part of this last school year of the boys, he had told them to prepare for a grand commencement exercise, and they acted accordingly. Each one chose his subject and began the preparation of his oration early in the session, each keeping his subject and treatment secret from the other. The teacher had announced that numerous white citizens would be present; among them the congressman from the district and the mayor of the town. Belton determined upon two things, away down in his soul. He determined to win in the oratorical contest, and to get his revenge on his teacher on the day that the teacher had planned for his--(Belton's) humiliation. Bernard did not have the incentive that Belton did; but defeat was ever galling to him, and he, too, had determined to win. The teacher often reviewed the progress made by Bernard on his oration, but did not notice Belton's at all. He strove to make Bernard's oration as nearly perfect as labor and skill could make it. But Belton was not asleep as to either of the resolutions he had formed. Some nights he could be seen stealing away from the congressman's residence. On others he could be seen leaving the neighborhood of the school, with a spade in one hand and a few carpenter's tools in the other. He went to the congressman, who was a polished orator with a national reputation, in order that he might purge his oration from its impurities of speech. As the congressman read the oration and perceived the depth of thought, the logical arrangement, the beauty and rhythm of language, and the wide research displayed, he opened his eyes wide with astonishment. He was amazed that a young man of such uncommon talents could have grown up in his town and he not know it. Belton's marvelous talents won his respect and admiration, and he gave him access to his library and criticized his oration whenever needed. Secretly and silently preparations went on for the grand conflict. At last the day came. The colored men and women of the place laid aside all work to attend the exercises. The forward section of seats was reserved for the white people. The congressman, the mayor, the school trustees and various other men of standing came, accompanied by their wives and daughters. Scholars of various grades had parts to perform on the programme, but the eyes of all sought the bottom of the page where were printed the names of the two oratorical gladiators: "BELTON PIEDMONT. BERNARD BELGRAVE." The teacher had given Bernard the last place, deeming that the more advantageous. He appointed the congressman, the mayor, and one of the school trustees to act as judges, to decide to whom he should award a beautiful gold medal for the more excellent oration. The congressman politely declined and named another trustee in his stead. Then the contest began. As Belton walked up on the platform the children greeted him with applause. He announced as his subject: "The Contribution of the Anglo-Saxon to the Cause of Human Liberty." In his strong, earnest voice, he began to roll off his well turned periods. The whole audience seemed as if in a trance. His words made their hearts burn, and time and again he made them burst forth in applause. The white people who sat and listened to his speech looked upon it as a very revelation to them, they themselves not having had as clear a conception of the glory of their race as this Negro now revealed. When he had finished, white men and women crowded to the front to congratulate him upon his effort, and it was many minutes before quiet was restored sufficiently to allow the programme to proceed. Bernard took his position on the platform, announcing as his subject: "Robert Emmett." His voice was sweet and well modulated and never failed to charm. Admiration was plainly depicted on every face as he proceeded. He brought to bear all the graces of a polished orator, and more than once tears came into the eyes of his listeners. Particularly affecting was his description of Emmett's death. At the conclusion it was evident that his audience felt that it would have been difficult to have handled that subject better. The judges now retired to deliberate as to whom to give the prize. While they are out, let us examine Belton's plans for carrying out the second thing, upon the accomplishment of which he was determined; viz., revenge. In the rear of the schoolhouse, there stood an old wood-shed. For some slight offence the teacher had, two or three years back, made Belton the fire-maker for the balance of his school life instead of passing the task around according to custom. Thus the care of the wood-house had fallen permanently to Belton's lot. During the last year Belton had dug a large hole running from the floor of the wood-shed to a point under the platform of the school room. The dirt from this underground channel he cast into a deep old unused well, not far distant. Once under the platform, he kept on digging, making the hole larger by far. Numerous rocks abounded in the neighborhood, and these he used to wall up his underground room, so that it would hold water. Just in the middle of the school-room platform he cut, from beneath, a square hole, taking in the spot where the teacher invariably stood when addressing the school. He cut the boards until they lacked but a very little, indeed, of being cut through. All looked well above, but a baby would not be safe standing thereon. Belton contrived a kind of prop with a weight attached. This prop would serve to keep the cut section from breaking through. The attached weight was at rest in a hole left in the wall of the cavity near its top. If you dislocated the weight, the momentum that it would gather in the fall would pull down the prop to which it was attached. Finally, Belton fastened a strong rope to the weight, and ran the rope under the schoolhouse floor until it was immediately beneath his seat. With an auger he made a hole in the floor and brought the end through. He managed to keep this bit of rope concealed, while at the same time he had perfect command of his trap door. For two or three nights previous to commencement day Belton had worked until nearly morning filling this cistern with water. Now when through delivering his oration, he had returned to his seat to await the proper moment for the payment of his teacher. The judges were out debating the question as to who had won. They seemed to be unable to decide who was victorious and beckoned for the teacher to step outside. They said: "That black nigger has beat the yellow one all to pieces this time, but we don't like to see nigger blood triumph over any Anglo-Saxon blood. Ain't there any loop-hole where we can give it to Bernard, anyhow?" "Well, yes," said the teacher eagerly, "on the ground of good behavior." "There you hit it," said the Mayor. "So we all decide." The judges filed in, and the Mayor arose to announce their decision. "We award," said he to the breathless audience, "the prize to Bernard Belgrave." "No! no! no!" burst forth from persons all over the house. The congressman arose and went up to Belton and congratulated him upon his triumph over oratory, and lamented his defeat by prejudice. This action caused a perceptible stir in the entire audience. The teacher went to his desk and produced a large gold medal. He took his accustomed place on the platform and began thus: "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the proudest moment of my life." He got no further. Belton had pulled the rope, the rope had caused the weight to fall, and the weight had pulled the prop and down had gone the teacher into a well of water. "Murder! Murder! Murder!" he cried "Help! Help! Help! I am drowning. Take me out, it is cold." The audience rushed forward expecting to find the teacher in a dangerous situation; but they found him standing, apparently unharmed, in a cistern, the water being a little more than waist deep. Their fright gave way to humor and a merry shout went up from the throats of the scholars. The colored men and women laughed to one side, while the white people smiled as though they had admired the feat as a fine specimen of falling from the sublime to the ridiculous. Bending down over the well, the larger students caught hold of the teacher's arms and lifted him out. He stood before the audience wet and shivering, his clothes sticking to him, and water dripping from his hair. The medal was gone. The teacher dismissed the audience, drew his last month's pay and left that night for parts unknown. Sometimes, even a worm will turn when trodden upon. CHAPTER V. BELTON FINDS A FRIEND. Long before the rifle ball, the cannon shot, and the exploding shell were through their fiendish task of covering the earth with mortals slain; while the startled air was yet busy in hurrying to Heaven the groans of the dying soldier, accompanied as they were by the despairing shrieks of his loved ones behind; while horrid War, in frenzied joy, yet waved his bloody sword over the nation's head, and sought with eager eagle eyes every drop of clotted gore over which he might exult; in the midst of such direful days as these, there were those at the North whom the love of God and the eye of faith taught to leap over the scene of strife to prepare the trembling negro for the day of freedom, which, refusing to have a dawn, had burst in meridian splendor upon his dazzled gaze. Into the southland there came rushing consecrated Christians, men and women, eager to provide for the negro a Christian education. Those who stayed behind gathered up hoarded treasures and gladly poured them into the lap of the South for the same laudable purpose. As a result of the coming of this army of workers, bearing in their arms millions of money, ere many years had sped, well nigh every southern state could proudly boast of one or more colleges where the aspiring negro might quench has thirst for knowledge. So when Bernard and Belton had finished their careers at the Winchester public school, colleges abounded in the South beckoning them to enter. Bernard preferred to go to a northern institution, and his mother sent him to enter Harvard University. Belton was poor and had no means of his own with which to pursue his education; but by the hand of providence a most unexpected door was opened to him. The Winchester correspondent of the _Richmond Daily Temps_ reported the commencement exercises of the Winchester public school of the day that Belton graduated. The congressman present at the exercises spoke so highly of Belton's speech that the correspondent secured a copy from Belton and sent it to the editor of _The Temps_. This was printed in _The Temps_ and created a great sensation in political and literary circles in every section of the country. Every newspaper of any consequence reproduced the oration in full. It was published and commented upon by the leading journals of England. The President of the United States wrote a letter of congratulation to Belton. Everywhere the piece was hailed as a classic. After reading the oration, Mr. V.M. King, editor of _The Temps_, decided to take it home with him and read it to his wife. She met him at the door and as he kissed her she noticed that there was a sober look in his eye. Tenderly he brushed back a few stray locks of his wife's hair, saying as he did so, in a somewhat troubled tone: "Wife, it has come at last. May the good Lord cease not to watch over our beloved but erring land." She inquired as to what he meant. He led her to his study and read to her Belton's oration. In order to understand the words which we have just quoted as being spoken by him to his wife, let us, while he reads, become a little better acquainted with Mr. King and his paper, _The Temps_. Mr. King was born and reared in Virginia, was educated at a Northern University, and had sojourned for several years in England. He was a man of the broadest culture. For several years he had given the negro problem most profound study. His views on the subject were regarded by the white people of the South as ultra-liberal. These views he exploited through his paper, _The Temps_, with a boldness and vigor, gaining thereby great notoriety. Though a democrat in politics, he was most bitterly opposed to the practice, almost universal in the South, of cheating the negro out of his right to vote. He preached that it was unjust to the negro and fatal to the morals of the whites. On every possible occasion he viciously assaulted the practice of lynching, denouncing it in most scathing terms. In short, he was an outspoken advocate of giving the negro every right accorded him by the Constitution of the United States. He saw the South leading the young negro boy and girl to school, where, at the expense of the state, they were taught to read history and learn what real liberty was, and the glorious struggles through which the human race had come in order to possess it. He foresaw that the rising, educated negro would allow his eye to linger long on this bloody but glorious page until that most contagious of diseases, devotion to liberty, infected his soul. He reasoned that the negro who had endured the hardships of slavery might spend his time looking back and thanking God for that from which he had made his escape; but the young negro, knowing nothing of physical slavery, would be peering into the future, measuring the distance that he had yet to go before he was truly free, and would be asking God and his own right arm for the power to secure whatever rights were still withheld. He argued that, living as the negro did beneath the American flag, known as the flag of freedom, studying American history, and listening on the outer edge of great Fourth of July crowds to eloquent orators discourse on freedom, it was only a matter of a few years before the negro would deify liberty as the Anglo-Saxon race had done, and count it a joy to perish on her altar. In order that the Republic might ever stand, he knew that the principles of liberty would have to be continually taught with all the eloquence and astuteness at command; and if this teaching had the desired effect upon the white man it would also be powerful enough to awaken the negro standing by his side. So, his ear was to the ground, expecting every moment to hear the far off sounds of awakened negroes coming to ask for liberty, and if refused, to slay or be slain. When he read Belton's oration he saw that the flame of liberty was in his heart, her sword in his hand, and the disdain of death stamped on his brow. He felt that Belton was the morning star which told by its presence that dawn was near at hand. Thus it was that he said to his wife: "Wife, it has come at last. May the good Lord cease not to watch over our beloved land." This expression was not the offspring of fear as to the outcome of a possible conflict, for, Anglo-Saxon like, that was with him a foregone conclusion in favor of his own race. But he shuddered at the awful carnage that would of necessity ensue if two races, living house to house, street to street, should be equally determined upon a question at issue, equally disdainful of life, fighting with the rancor always attendant upon a struggle between two races that mutually despise and detest each other. He knew that it was more humane, more in accordance with right, more acceptable with God, to admit to the negro that Anglo-Saxon doctrine of the equality of man was true, rather than to murder the negro for accepting him at his word, though spoken to others. Feeling thus, he pleaded with his people to grant to the negro his rights, though he never hinted at a possible rebellion, for fear that the mention of it might hasten the birth of the idea in the brain of the negro. That evening, after he had read the oration to his wife and told her of his forebodings, he sat with his face buried in his hands, brooding over the situation. Late in the night he retired to rest, and the next morning, when he awoke, his wife was standing by his bed, calling him. She saw that his sleep was restless and thought that he was having troubled dreams. And so he was. He dreamed that a large drove of fatted swine were munching acorns in a very dense forest of oaks, both tall and large. The oaks were sending the acorns down in showers, and the hogs were greedily consuming them. The hogs ate so many that they burst open, and from their rotting carcasses fresh oaks sprang and grew with surprising rapidity. A dark cloud arose and a terrible hurricane swept over the forest; and the old and new oaks fought furiously in the storm, until a loud voice, like unto that of a God, cried out above all the din of the hurricane, saying in tones of thunder: "Know ye not that ye are parents and children? Parents, recognize your children. Children, be proud of the parents from whom you spring." The hurricane ceased, the clouds sped away as if in terror, and the oaks grew up together under a clear sky of the purest blue, and beautiful birds of all kinds built their nests in the trees, and carolled forth the sweetest songs. He placed upon the dream the following interpretation: The swine were the negroes. The oak trees were the white people. The acorns were the doctrine of human liberty, everywhere preached by Anglo-Saxons. The negroes, feasting off of the same thought, had become the same kind of being as the white man, and grew up to a point of equality. The hurricane was the contest between the two races over the question of equality. The voice was intended to inform the whites that they had brought about these aspirations in the bosom of the negro, and that the liberty-loving negro was their legitimate offspring, and not a bastard. The whites should recognize their own doings. On the other hand, the negro should not be over boastful, and should recognize that the lofty conception of the dignity of man and value and true character of liberty were taught him by the Anglo-Saxon. The birds betokened a happy adjustment of all differences; and the dream that began in the gloom of night ended in the dawn of day. Mr. King was very cheerful, therefore, and decided to send to Winchester for Belton, thinking that it might be a wise thing to keep an eye and a friendly hand on a young negro of such promise. In the course of a couple of days, Belton, in response to his request, arrived in Richmond. He called at the office of _The Temps_ and was ushered into Mr. King's office. Mr. King had him take a seat. He enquired of Belton his history, training, etc. He also asked as to his plans for the future. Finding that Belton was desirous of securing a college education, but was destitute of funds, Mr. King gladly embraced the opportunity of displaying his kind interest. He offered to pay Belton's way through college, and the offer was gladly accepted. He told Belton to call at his home that evening at seven o'clock to receive a check for his entire college course. At the appointed hour Belton appeared at Mr. King's residence. Mr. King was sitting on his front porch, between his wife and aged mother, while his two children, a girl and boy, were playing on the lawn. Belton was invited to take a seat, much to his surprise. Seeing a stranger, the children left their play and came to their father, one on each side. They looked with questioning eyes from father to Belton, as if seeking to know the purpose of the visit. Mr. King took the check from his pocket and extended it toward Belton, and said: "Mr. Piedmont, this will carry you through college. I have only one favor to ask of you. In all your dealings with my people recognize the fact that there are two widely separated classes of us, and that there is a good side to the character of the worst class. Always seek for and appeal to that side of their nature." Belton very feelingly thanked Mr. King, and assured him that he would treasure his words. He was true to his promise, and decided from that moment to never class all white men together, whatever might be the provocation, and to never regard any class as totally depraved. This is one of the keys to his future life. Remember it. CHAPTER VI. A YOUNG REBEL. In the city of Nashville, Tennessee, there is a far famed institution of learning called Stowe University, in honor of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." This institution was one of the many scores of its kind, established in the South by Northern philanthropy, for the higher education of the Negro. Though called a university, it was scarcely more than a normal school with a college department attached. It was situated just on the outskirts of the city, on a beautiful ten-acre plot of ground. The buildings were five in number, consisting of a dormitory for young men, two for young ladies, a building for recitations, and another, called the teachers' mansion; for the teachers resided there. These buildings were very handsome, and were so arranged upon the level campus as to present a very attractive sight. With the money which had been so generously given him by Mr. King, Belton entered this school. That was a proud day in his life when he stepped out of the carriage and opened the University gate, feeling that he, a Negro, was privileged to enter college. Julius Cæsar, on entering Rome in triumph, with the world securely chained to his chariot wheels; Napoleon, bowing to receive the diadem of the Cæsars' won by the most notable victories ever known to earth; General Grant, on his triumphal tour around the globe, when kings and queens were eager rivals to secure from this man of humble birth the sweeter smile; none of these were more full of pleasurable emotion than this poor Negro lad, who now with elastic step and beating heart marched with head erect beneath the arch of the doorway leading into Stowe University. Belton arrived on the Saturday preceding the Monday on which school would open for that session. He found about three hundred and sixty students there from all parts of the South, the young women outnumbering the young men in about the proportion of two to one. On the Sunday night following his arrival the students all assembled in the general assembly room of the recitation building, which room, in the absence of a chapel, was used as the place for religious worship. The president of the school, a venerable white minister from the North, had charge of the service that evening. He did not on this occasion preach a sermon, but devoted the hour to discoursing upon the philanthropic work done by the white people of the North for the freedmen of the South. A map of the United States was hanging on the wall, facing the assembled school. On this map there were black dots indicating all places where a school of learning had been planted for the colored people by their white friends of the North. Belton sat closely scrutinizing the map. His eyes swept from one end to the other. Persons were allowed to ask any questions desired, and Belton was very inquisitive. When the hour of the lecture was over he was deeply impressed with three thoughts: First, his heart went out in love to those who had given so freely of their means and to those who had dedicated their lives to the work of uplifting his people. Secondly, he saw an immense army of young men and women being trained in the very best manner in every section of the South, to go forth to grapple with the great problems before them. He felt proud of being a member of so promising an army, and felt that they were to determine the future of the race. In fact, this thought was reiterated time and again by the president. Thirdly, Belton was impressed that it was the duty of those receiving such great blessings to accomplish achievements worthy of the care bestowed. He felt that the eyes of the North and of the civilized world were upon them to see the fruits of the great labor and money spent upon them. Before he retired to rest that night, he besought God to enable him and his people, as a mark of appreciation of what had been done for the race, to rise to the full measure of just expectation and prove worthy of all the care bestowed. He went through school, therefore, as though the eyes of the world were looking at the race enquiringly; the eyes of the North expectantly; and the eyes of God lovingly,--three grand incentives to his soul. When these schools were first projected, the White South that then was, fought them with every weapon at its command. Ridicule, villification, ostracism, violence, arson, murder were all employed to hinder the progress of the work. Outsiders looked on and thought it strange that they should do this. But, just as a snake, though a venomous animal, by instinct knows its enemy and fights for its life with desperation, just so the Old South instinctively foresaw danger to its social fabric as then constituted, and therefore despised and fought the agencies that were training and inspiring the future leaders of the Negro race in such a manner as to render a conflict inevitable and of doubtful termination. The errors in the South, anxious for eternal life, rightfully feared these schools more than they would have feared factories making powder, moulding balls and fashioning cannons. But the New South, the South that, in the providence of God, is yet to be, could not have been formed in the womb of time had it not been for these schools. And so the receding murmurs of the scowling South that was, are lost in the gladsome shouts of the South which, please God, is yet to be. But lest we linger too long, let us enter school here with Belton. On the Monday following the Sunday night previously indicated, Belton walked into the general assembly room to take his seat with the other three hundred and sixty pupils. It was the custom for the school to thus assemble for devotional exercises. The teachers sat in a row across the platform, facing the pupils. The president sat immediately in front of the desk, in the center of the platform, and the teachers sat on either side of him. To Belton's surprise, he saw a colored man sitting on the right side of and next to the president. He was sitting there calmly, self-possessed, exactly like the rest. He crossed his legs and stroked his beard in a most matter of fact way. Belton stared at this colored man, with his lips apart and his body bent forward. He let his eyes scan the faces of all the white teachers, male and female, but would end up with a stare at the colored man sitting there. Finally, he hunched his seat-mate with his elbow and asked what man that was. He was told that it was the colored teacher of the faculty. Belton knew that there was a colored teacher in the school but he had no idea that he would be thus honored with a seat with the rest of the teachers. A broad, happy smile spread over his face, and his eyes danced with delight. He had, in his boyish heart, dreamed of the equality of the races and sighed and hoped for it; but here, he beheld it in reality. Though he, as a rule, shut his eyes when prayer was being offered, he kept them open that morning, and peeped through his fingers at that thrilling sight,--a colored man on equal terms with the white college professors. Just before the classes were dismissed to their respective class rooms, the teachers came together in a group to discuss some matter, in an informal way. The colored teacher was in the center of the group and discussed the matter as freely as any; and he was listened to with every mark of respect. Belton kept a keen watch on the conference and began rubbing his hands and chuckling to himself with delight at seeing the colored teacher participating on equal terms with the other teachers. The colored teacher's views seemed about to prevail, and as one after another the teachers seemed to fall in line with him Belton could not contain himself longer, but clapped his hands and gave a loud, joyful, "Ha! ha!" The eyes of the whole school were on him in an instant, and the faculty turned around to discover the source and cause of the disorder. But Belton had come to himself as soon as he made the noise, and in a twinkling was as quiet and solemn looking as a mouse. The faculty resumed its conference and the students passed the query around as to what was the matter with the "newcomer." A number tapped their heads significantly, saying: "Wrong here." How far wrong were they! They should have put their hands over their hearts and said: "The fire of patriotism here;" for Belton had here on a small scale, the gratification of the deepest passion of his soul, viz., Equality of the races. And what pleased him as much as anything else was the dignified, matter of fact way in which the teacher bore his honors. Belton afterwards discovered that this colored man was vice-president of the faculty. On a morning, later in the session, the president announced that the faculty would hold its regular weekly meeting that evening, but that he would have to be in the city to attend to other masters. Belton's heart bounded at the announcement. Knowing that the colored teacher was vice-president of the faculty, he saw that he would preside. Belton determined to see that meeting of the faculty if it cost him no end of trouble. He could not afford, under any circumstances, to fail to see that colored man preside over those white men and women. That night, about 8:30 o'clock, when the faculty meeting had progressed about half way, Belton made a rope of his bed clothes and let himself down to the ground from the window of his room on the second floor of the building. About twenty yards distant was the "mansion," in one room of which the teachers held their faculty meetings. The room in which the meeting was held was on the side of the "mansion" furthest from the dormitory from which Belton had just come. The "mansion" dog was Belton's friend, and a soft whistle quieted his bark. Belton stole around to the side of the house, where the meeting was being held. The weather was mild and the window was hoisted. Belton fell on his knees and crawled to the window, and pulling it up cautiously peeped in. He saw the colored teacher in the chair in the center of the room and others sitting about here and there. He gazed with rapture on the sight. He watched, unmolested, for a long while. One of the lady teachers was tearing up a piece of paper and arose to come to the window to throw it out. Belton was listening, just at that time, to what the colored teacher was saying, and did not see the lady coming in his direction. Nor did the lady see the form of a man until she was near at hand. At the sight she threw up her hands and screamed loudly from fright. Belton turned and fled precipitately. The chicken-coop door had been accidentally left open and Belton, unthinkingly, jumped into the chicken house. The chickens set up a lively cackle, much to his chagrin. He grasped an old rooster to stop him, but missing the rooster's throat, the rooster gave the alarm all the more vociferously. Teachers had now crowded to the window and were peering out. Some of the men started to the door to come out. Belton saw this movement and decided that the best way for him to do was to play chicken thief and run. Grasping a hen with his other hand, he darted out of the chicken house and fled from the college ground, the chickens squalling all the while. He leapt the college fence at a bound and wrung off the heads of the chickens to stop the noise. The teachers decided that they had been visited by a Negro, hunting for chickens; laughed heartily at their fright and resumed deliberations. Thus again a patriot was mistaken for a chicken thief; and in the South to-day a race that dreams of freedom, equality, and empire, far more than is imagined, is put down as a race of chicken thieves. As in Belton's case, this conception diverts attention from places where startling things would otherwise be discovered. In due time Belton crept back to the dormitory, and by a signal agreed upon, roused his room-mate, who let down the rope, by means of which he ascended; and when seated gave his room-mate an account of his adventure. Sometime later on, Belton in company with another student was sent over to a sister University in Nashville to carry a note for the president. This University also had a colored teacher who was one point in advance of Belton's. This teacher ate at the same table with the white teachers, while Belton's teacher ate with the students. Belton passed by the dining room of the teachers of this sister University and saw the colored teacher enjoying a meal with the white teachers. He could not enjoy the sight as much as he would have liked, from thinking about the treatment his teacher was receiving. He had not, prior to this, thought of that discrimination, but now it burned him. He returned to his school and before many days had passed he had called together all the male students. He informed them that they ought to perfect a secret organization and have a password. They all agreed to secrecy and Belton gave this as the pass word: "Equality or Death." He then told them that it was his ambition and purpose to coerce the white teachers into allowing the colored teacher to eat with them. They all very readily agreed; for the matter of his eating had been thoroughly canvassed for a number of sessions, but it seemed as though no one dared to suggest a combination. During slavery all combinations of slaves were sedulously guarded against, and a fear of combinations seems to have been injected into the Negro's very blood. The very boldness of Belton's idea swept the students away from the lethargic harbor in which they had been anchored, and they were eager for action. Belton was instructed to prepare the complaint, which they all agreed to sign. They decided that it was to be presented to the president just before devotional exercises and an answer was to be demanded forthwith. One of the young men had a sister among the young lady students, and, through her Belton's rebellion was organized among the girls and their signatures secured. The eventful morning came. The teachers glanced over the assembled students, and were surprised to see them dressed in their best clothes as though it was the Sabbath. There was a quiet satisfied look on their faces that the teachers did not understand. The president arrived a little late and found an official envelope on his desk. He hurriedly broke the seal and began to read. His color came and went. The teachers looked at him wonderingly. The president laid the document aside and began the devotional exercises. He was nervous throughout, and made several blunders. He held his hymn book upside down while they were singing, much to the amusement of the school. It took him some time to find the passage of scripture which he desired to read, and after reading forgot for some seconds to call on some one to pray. When the exercises were through he arose and took the document nervously in hand. He said; "I have in my hands a paper from the students of this institution concerning a matter with which they have nothing to do. This is my answer. The classes will please retire." Here he gave three strokes to the gong, the signal for dispersion. But not a student moved. The president was amazed. He could not believe his own eyes. He rang the gong a second time and yet no one moved. He then in nervous tones repeated his former assertions and then pulled the gong nervously many times in succession. All remained still. At a signal from Belton, all the students lifted their right hands, each bearing a small white board on which was printed in clear type: "Equality or Death." The president fell back, aghast, and the white teachers were all struck dumb with fear. They had not dreamed that a combination of their pupils was possible, and they knew not what it foreboded. A number grasped the paper that was giving so much trouble and read it. They all then held a hurried consultation and assured the students that the matter should receive due attention. The president then rang the gong again but the students yet remained. Belton then arose and stated that it was the determination of the students to not move an inch unless the matter was adjusted then and there. And that faculty of white teachers beat a hasty retreat and held up the white flag! They agreed that the colored teacher should eat with them. The students broke forth into cheering, and flaunted a black flag on which was painted in white letters; "Victory." They rose and marched out of doors two by two, singing "John Brown's Body lies mouldering in the grave, and we go marching on." The confused and bewildered teachers remained behind, busy with their thoughts. They felt like hens who had lost their broods. The cringing, fawning, sniffling, cowardly Negro which slavery left, had disappeared, and a new Negro, self-respecting, fearless, and determined in the assertion of his rights was at hand. Ye who chronicle history and mark epochs in the career of races and nations must put here a towering, gigantic, century stone, as marking the passing of one and the ushering in of another great era in the history of the colored people of the United States. Rebellions, for one cause or another, broke out in almost every one of these schools presided over by white faculties, and as a rule, the Negro students triumphed. These men who engineered and participated in these rebellions were the future leaders of their race. In these rebellions, they learned the power of combinations, and that white men could be made to capitulate to colored men under certain circumstances. In these schools, probably one hundred thousand students had these thoughts instilled in them. These one hundred thousand went to their respective homes and told of their prowess to their playmates who could not follow them to the college walls. In the light of these facts the great events yet to be recorded are fully accounted for. Remember that this was Belton's first taste of rebellion against the whites for the securing of rights denied simply because of color. In after life he is the moving, controlling, guiding spirit in one on a far larger scale; it need not come as a surprise. His teachers and school-mates predicted this of him. CHAPTER VII. A SERMON, A SOCK AND A FIGHT. Belton remained at Stowe University, acquiring fame as an orator and scholar. His intellect was pronounced by all to be marvelously bright. We now pass over all his school career until we come to the closing days of the session in which he graduated. School was to close on Thursday, and the Sunday night previous had been designated as the time for the Baccalaureate sermon. On this occasion the entire school assembled in the general assembly room,--the graduating class occupying the row of front seats stretching across the room. The class, this year, numbered twenty-five; and they presented an appearance that caused the hearts of the people to swell with pride. Dr. Lovejoy, president of the University, was to preach the sermon. He chose for his text, "The Kingdom of God is within us." We shall choose from his discourse just such thoughts as may throw light upon some events yet to be recorded, which might not otherwise be accounted for: "Young men, we shall soon push you forth into the midst of a turbulent world, to play such a part as the voice of God may assign you. You go forth, amid the shouts and huzzahs of cheering friends, and the anxious prayers of the faithful of God. The part that you play, the character of your return journey, triumphant or inglorious, will depend largely upon how well you have learned the lesson of this text. Remember that the kingdom of God is within you. Do not go forth into the world to demand favors of the world, but go forth to give unto the world. Be strong in your own hearts. "The world is like unto a wounded animal that has run a long way and now lies stretched upon the ground, the blood oozing forth from gaping wounds and pains darting through its entire frame. The huntsman, who comes along to secure and drink the feverish milk of this animal that is all but a rotting carcass, seriously endangers his own well being. So, young men, do not look upon this dying, decaying world to feed and support you. You must feed and support it. Carry fresh, warm, invigorating blood in your veins to inject into the veins of the world. This is far safer and nobler than sticking the lance into the swollen veins of the world, to draw forth its putrid blood for your own use. I not only exhort you but I warn you. You may go to this dying animal as a surgeon, and proceed to cut off the sound portions for your own use. You may deceive the world for awhile, but it will, ere long, discover whether you are a vandal or a surgeon; and if it finds you to be the former, when you are closest to its bosom, it will squeeze you tightly and tear your face to shreds. "I wish now to apply these thoughts to your immediate circumstances. "You shall be called upon to play a part in the adjusting of positions between the negro and Anglo-Saxon races of the South. The present status of affairs cannot possibly remain. The Anglo-Saxon race must surrender some of its outposts, and the negro will occupy these. To bring about this evacuation on the part of the Anglo-Saxon, and the forward march of the negro, will be your task. This is a grave and delicate task, fraught with much good or evil, weal or woe. Let us urge you to undertake it in the spirit to benefit the world, and not merely to advance your own glory. "The passions of men will soon be running high, and by feeding these passions with the food for which they clamor you may attain the designation of a hero. But, with all the energy of my soul, I exhort you to not play with fire, merely for the sake of the glare that it may cast upon you. Use no crisis for self-aggrandizement. Be so full of your own soul's wealth that these temptations may not appeal to you. When your vessel is ploughing the roughest seas and encountering the fiercest gales, consult as your chart the welfare of the ship and crew, though you may temporarily lose fame as a captain. "Young men, you are highly favored of God. A glorious destiny awaits your people. The gates of the beautiful land of the future are flung wide. Your people stand before these gates peering eagerly within. They are ready to march. They are waiting for their commanders and the command to move forward. You are the commanders who must give the command. I urge, I exhort, I beseech you, my dear boys, to think not of yourselves. Let your kingdom be within. Lead them as they ought to be led, taking no thought to your own glory. "If you heed my voice you shall become true patriots. If you disregard it, you will become time-serving demagogues, playing upon the passions of the people for the sake of short-lived notoriety. Such men would corral all the tigers in the forest and organize them into marauding regiments simply for the honor of being in the lead. Be ye none of these, my boys. May your Alma Mater never feel called upon to cry to God in anguish to paralyze the hand that she herself has trained. "Be not a burrowing parasite, feasting off of the world's raw blood. Let the world draw life from you. Use not the misfortunes of your people as stones of a monument erected to your name. If you do, the iron fist of time will knock it over on your grave to crumble your decaying bones to further dust. "Always serve the world as the voice of good conscience, instructed by a righteous God, may direct. Do this and thou shalt live; live in the sweetened memory of your countrymen; live in the heart of your Alma Mater; live when the earth is floating dust, when the stars are dead, when the sun is a charred and blackened ruin; live on the bosom of your Savior, by the throne of his God, in the eternal Heavens." The teacher's soul was truly in his discourse and his thoughts sank deep into the hearts of his hearers. None listened more attentively than Belton. None were more deeply impressed than he. None more readily incorporated the principles enumerated as a part of their living lives. When the preacher sat down he bowed his head in his hands. His frame shook. His white locks fluttered in the gentle spring breeze. In silence he prayed. He earnestly implored God to not allow his work and words to be in vain. The same fervent prayer was on Belton's lips, rising from the center of his soul. Somewhere, these prayers met, locked arms and went before God together. In due time the answer came. This sermon had much to do with Belton's subsequent career. But an incident apparently trivial in itself was the occasion of a private discourse that had even greater influence over him. It occurred on Thursday following the night of the delivery of the sermon just reported. It was on this wise: Belton had, in everything, excelled his entire class, and was, according to the custom, made valedictorian. His room-mate was insanely jealous of him, and sought every way possible to humiliate him. He had racked his brain for a scheme to play on Belton on commencement day, and he at last found one that gave him satisfaction. There was a student in Stowe University who was noted for his immense height and for the size and scent of his feet. His feet perspired freely, summer and winter, and the smell was exceedingly offensive. On this account he roomed to himself. Whenever other students called to see him he had a very effective way of getting rid of them, when he judged that they had stayed long enough. He would complain of a corn and forthwith pull off a shoe. If his room was crowded, this act invariably caused it to be empty. The fame of these feet spread to the teachers and young ladies, and, in fact, to the city. And the huge Mississippian seemed to relish the distinction. Whenever Belton was to deliver an oration he always arranged his clothes the night beforehand. So, on the Wednesday night of the week in question, he carefully brushed and arranged his clothes for the next day. In the valedictory there were many really touching things, and in rehearsing it before his room-mate Belton had often shed tears. Fearing that he might he so touched that tears would come to his eyes in the final delivery, he had bought a most beautiful and costly silk handkerchief. He carefully stowed this away in the tail pocket of his handsome Prince Albert suit of lovely black. He hung his coat in the wardrobe, very carefully, so that he would merely have to take it down and put it on the next day. His room-mate watched his movements closely, but slyly. He arose when he saw Belton hang his coat up. He went down the corridor until he arrived at the room occupied by the Mississippian. He knocked, and after some little delay, was allowed to enter. The Mississippian was busy rehearsing his oration and did not care to be bothered. But he sat down to entertain Belton's room-mate for a while. He did not care to rehearse his oration before him and he felt able to rout him at any time. They conversed on various things for a while, when Belton's room-mate took up a book and soon appeared absorbed in reading. He was sitting on one side of a study table in the center of the room while the Mississippian was on the other. Thinking that his visitor had now stayed about long enough, the Mississippian stooped down quietly and removed one shoe. He slyly watched Belton's room-mate, chuckling inwardly. But his fun died away into a feeling of surprise when he saw that his shoeless foot was not even attracting attention. He stooped down and pulled off the other shoe, and his surprise developed into amazement when he saw that the combined attack produced no result. Belton's room-mate seemed absorbed in reading. The Mississippian next pulled off his coat and pretending to yawn and stretch, lifted his arms just so that the junction of his arm with his shoulder was on a direct line with his visitor's nose. Belton's room-mate made a slight grimace, but kept on reading. The Mississippian was dumbfounded. He then signified his intention of retiring to bed and undressed, eyeing his visitor all the while, hoping that the scent of his whole body would succeed. He got into bed and was soon snoring loudly enough to be heard two or three rooms away; but Belton's room-mate seemed to pay no attention to the snoring. The Mississippian gave up the battle in disgust, saying to himself: "That fellow regards scents and noises just as though he was a buzzard, hatched in a cleft of the roaring Niagara Falls." So saying, he fell asleep in reality and the snoring increased in volume and speed. Belton's room-mate now took a pair of large new socks out of his pocket and put them into the Mississippian's shoes, from which he took the dirty socks already there. Having these dirty socks, he quietly tips out of the room and returns to his and Belton's room. Belton desired to make the speech of his life the next day, and had retired to rest early so as to be in prime nervous condition for the effort. His room-mate stole to the wardrobe and stealthily extracted the silk handkerchief and put these dirty socks in its stead. Belton was then asleep, perhaps dreaming of the glories of the morrow. Thursday dawned and Belton arose, fresh and vigorous. He was cheerful and buoyant that day; he was to graduate bedecked with all the honors of his class. Mr. King, his benefactor, was to be present. His mother had saved up her scant earnings and had come to see her son wind up the career on which she had sent him forth, years ago. The assembly room was decorated with choice flowers and presented the appearance of the Garden of Eden. On one side of the room sat the young lady pupils, while on the other the young men sat. Visitors from the city came in droves and men of distinction sat on the platform. The programme was a good one, but all eyes dropped to the bottom in quest of Belton's name; for his fame as an orator was great, indeed. The programme passed off as arranged, giving satisfaction and whetting the appetite for Belton's oration. The president announced Belton's name amid a thundering of applause. He stepped forth and cast a tender look in the direction of the fair maiden who had contrived to send him that tiny white bud that showed up so well on his black coat. He moved to the center of the platform and was lustily cheered, he walked with such superb grace and dignity. He began his oration, capturing his audience with his first sentence and bearing them along on the powerful pinions of his masterly oratory; and when his peroration was over the audience drew its breath and cheered wildly for many, many minutes. He then proceeded to deliver the valedictory to the class. After he had been speaking for some time, his voice began to break with emotion. As he drew near to the most affecting portion he reached to his coat tail pocket to secure his silk handkerchief to brush away the gathering tears. As his hand left his pocket a smile was on well-nigh every face in the audience, but Belton did not see this, but with bowed head, proceeded with his pathetic utterances. The audience of course was struggling between the pathos of his remarks and the humor of those dirty socks. Belton's sweetheart began to cry from chagrin and his mother grew restless, anxious to tell him or let him know in some way. Belton's head continued bowed in sadness, as he spoke parting words to his beloved classmates, and lifted his supposed handkerchief to his eyes to wipe away the tears that were now coming freely. The socks had thus come close to Belton's nose and he stopped of a sudden and held them at arm's length to gaze at that terrible, terrible scent producer. When he saw what he held in his hand he flung them in front of him, they falling on some students, who hastily brushed them off. The house, by this time, was in an uproar of laughter; and the astonished Belton gazed blankly at the socks lying before him. His mind was a mass of confusion. He hardly knew where he was or what he was doing. Self-possession, in a measure, returned to him, and he said: "Ladies and gentlemen, these socks are from Mississippi. I am from Virginia." This reference to the Mississippian was greeted by an even louder outburst of laughter. Belton bowed and left the platform, murmuring that he would find and kill the rascal who had played that trick on him. The people saw the terrible frown on his face, and the president heard the revengeful words, and all feared that the incident was not closed. Belton hurried out of the speakers' room and hastily ran to the city to purchase a pistol. Having secured it, he came walking back at a furious pace. By this time the exercises were over and friends were returning to town. They desired to approach Belton and compliment him, and urge him to look lightly on his humorous finale; but he looked so desperate that none dared to approach him. The president was on the lookout for Belton and met him at the door of the boys' dormitory. He accosted Belton tenderly and placed his hand on his shoulder. Belton roughly pushed him aside and strode into the building and roamed through it, in search of his room-mate, whom he now felt assured did him the trick. But his room-mate, foreseeing the consequences of detection, had made beforehand every preparation for leaving and was now gone. No one could quiet Belton during that whole day, and he spent the night meditating plans for wreaking vengeance. The next morning the president came over early, and entering Belton's room, was more kindly received. He took Belton's hand in his and sat down near his side. He talked to Belton long and earnestly, showing him what an unholy passion revenge was. He showed that such a passion would mar any life that yielded to it. Belton, he urged, was about to allow a pair of dirty socks to wreck his whole life. He drew a picture of the suffering Savior, crying out between darting pains the words of the sentence, the most sublime ever uttered: "Lord forgive them for they know not what they do." Belton was melted to tears of repentance for his unholy passion. Before the president left Belton's side he felt sure that henceforth a cardinal principle of his life would be to allow God to avenge all his wrongs. It was a narrow escape for Belton; but he thanked God for the lesson, severe as it was, to the day of his death. The world will also see how much it owes to God for planting that lesson in Belton's heart. Let us relate just one more incident that happened at the winding up of Belton's school life. As we have intimated, one young lady, a student of the school, was very near to Belton. Though he did not love her, his regard for her was very deep and his respect very great. School closed on Thursday, and the students were allowed to remain in the buildings until the following Monday, when, ordinarily, they left. The young men were allowed to provide conveyances for the young ladies to get to the various depots. They esteemed that a very great privilege. Belton, as you know, was a very poor lad and had but little money. After paying his expenses incident to his graduation, and purchasing a ticket home, he now had just one dollar and a quarter left. Out of this one dollar and a quarter he was to pay for a carriage ride of this young lady friend to the railway station. This, ordinarily, cost one dollar, and Belton calculated on having a margin of twenty-five cents. But you would have judged him the happy possessor of a large fortune, merely to look at him. The carriage rolled up to the girls' dormitory and Belton's friend stood on the steps, with her trunks, three in number. When Belton saw that his friend had three trunks, his heart sank. In order to be sure against exorbitant charges the drivers were always made to announce their prices before the journey was commenced. A crowd of girls was standing around to bid the young lady adieu. In an off-hand way Belton said: "Driver what is your fee?" He replied: "For you and the young lady and the trunks, two dollars, sir." Belton almost froze in his tracks, but, by the most heroic struggling, showed no signs of discomfiture on his face. Endeavoring to affect an air of indifference, he said: "What is the price for the young lady and the trunks?" "One dollar and fifty cents." Belton's eyes were apparently fixed on some spot in the immensity of space. The driver, thinking that he was meditating getting another hackman to do the work, added: "You can call any hackman you choose and you won't find one who will do it for a cent less." Belton's last prop went with this statement. He turned to his friend smilingly and told her to enter, with apparently as much indifference as a millionaire. He got in and sat by her side; but knew not how on earth he was to get out of his predicament. The young lady chatted gayly and wondered at Belton's dullness. Belton, poor fellow, was having a tough wrestle with poverty and was trying to coin something out of nothing. Now and then, at some humorous remark, he would smile a faint, sickly smile. Thus it went on until they arrived at the station. Belton by this time decided upon a plan of campaign. They alighted from the carriage and Belton escorted his friend into the coach. He then came back to speak to the driver. He got around the corner of the station house, out of sight of the train and beckoned for the driver to come to him. The driver came and Belton said: "Friend, here is one dollar and a quarter. It is all I have. Trust me for the balance until tomorrow." "Oh! no," replied the driver. "I must have my money to-day. I have to report to-night and my money must go in. Just fork over the balance, please." "Well," said Belton rather independently--for he felt that he now had the upper hand,--"I have given you all the money that I have. And you have got to trust me for the balance. You can't take us back," and Belton started to walk away. The driver said: "May be that girl has some money. I'll see her." Terror immediately seized Belton, and he clutched at the man eagerly, saying: "Ah, no, now, don't resort to any such foolishness. Can't you trust a fellow?" Belton was now talking very persuasively. The driver replied: "I don't do business that way. If I had known that you did not have the money I would not have brought you. I am going to the young lady." Belton was now thoroughly frightened and very angry; and he planted himself squarely in front of the driver and said: "You shall do no such thing!" The driver heard the train blow and endeavored to pass. Belton grasped him by the collar and putting a leg quickly behind him, tripped him to the ground, falling on top of him. The driver struggled, but Belton succeeded in getting astride of him and holding him down. The train shortly pulled out, and Belton jumped up and ran to wave a good-bye to his girl friend. Later in the day, the driver had him arrested and the police justice fined him ten dollars. A crowd of white men who heard Belton's story, admired his respect for the girl, and paid the fine for him and made up a purse. At Stowe University, Belton had learned to respect women. It was in these schools that the work of slavery in robbing the colored women of respect, was undone. Woman now occupied the same position in Belton's eye as she did in the eye of the Anglo-Saxon. There is hope for that race or nation that respects its women. It was for the smile of a woman that the armored knight of old rode forth to deeds of daring. It is for the smile of women that the soldier of to-day endures the hardships of the camp and braves the dangers of the field of battle. The heart of man will joyfully consent to be torn to pieces if the lovely hand of woman will only agree to bind the parts together again and heal the painful wounds. The Negro race had left the last relic of barbarism behind, and this young negro, fighting to keep that cab driver from approaching the girl for a fee, was but a forerunner of the negro, who, at the voice of a woman, will fight for freedom until he dies, fully satisfied if the hand that he worships will only drop a flower on his grave. Belton's education was now complete, as far as the school-room goes. What will he do with it? CHAPTER VIII. MANY MYSTERIES CLEARED UP. On the day prior to the one on which Bernard first entered the public school of Winchester, Fairfax Belgrave had just arrived in the town. A costly residence, beautifully located and furnished in the most luxurious manner, was on the eve of being sold. Mrs. Belgrave purchased this house and installed herself as mistress thereof. Here she lived in isolation with her boy, receiving no callers and paying no visits. Being a devoted Catholic, she attended all the services of her church and reared Bernard in that faith. For a time white and colored people speculated much as to who Mrs. Belgrave was, and as to what was the source of her revenue; for she was evidently a woman of wealth. She employed many servants and these were plied with thousands of questions by people of both races. But the life of Mrs. Belgrave was so circumspect, so far removed from anything suspicious, and her bearing was so evidently that of a woman of pure character and high ideals that speculation died out after a year or two, and the people gave up the finding out of her history as a thing impossible of achievement. With seemingly unlimited money at her command, all of Bernard's needs were supplied and his lightest wishes gratified. Mrs. Belgrave was a woman with very superior education. The range of her reading was truly remarkable. She possessed the finest library ever seen in the northern section of Virginia, and all the best of the latest books were constantly arriving at her home. Magazines and newspapers arrived by every mail. Thus she was thoroughly abreast with the times. As Bernard grew up, he learned to value associating with his mother above every other pleasure. She superintended his literary training and cultivated in him a yearning for literature of the highest and purest type. Politics, science, art, religion, sociology, and, in fact, the whole realm of human knowledge was invaded and explored. Such home training was an invaluable supplement to what Bernard received in school. When, therefore, he entered Harvard, he at once moved to the front rank in every particular. Many white young men of wealth and high social standing, attracted by his brilliancy, drew near him and became his fast friends. In his graduating year, he was so popular as to be elected president of his class, and so scholarly as to be made valedictorian. These achievements on his part were so remarkable that the Associated Press telegraphed the news over the country, and many were the laudatory notices that he received. The night of his graduation, when he had finished delivering his oration that swept all before it as does the whirlwind and the hurricane, as he stepped out of the door to take his carriage for home, a tall man with a broad face and long flowing beard stepped up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. Bernard turned and the man handed him a note. Tearing the envelope open he saw in his mother's well known handwriting the following: "Dear Bernie: "Follow this man and trust him as you would your loving mother. "Fairfax Belgrave." Bernard dismissed his carriage, ordered to take him to his lodging, and spoke to the man who had accosted him, saying that he was at his service. They walked a distance and soon were at the railroad station. They boarded the train and in due time arrived in Washington, D.C., Bernard asking no questions, knowing that a woman as habitually careful as his mother did not send that message without due care and grave purpose. In Washington they took a carriage and were driven to one of the most fashionable portions of the city, and stopped before a mansion of splendid appearance. Bernard's escort led the way into the house, having a key to which all of the doors responded. Bernard was left in the parlor and told to remain until some one called for him. The tall man with long flowing beard went to his room and removed his disguise. In a few minutes a negro servant, sent by this man, appeared and led Bernard to a room in the rear of the house on the second floor. It was a large room having two windows, one facing the east and the other the north. As he stepped into the room he saw sitting directly facing him a white man, tall and of a commanding appearance. His hair, and for that matter his whole noble looking head and handsome face bore a striking resemblance to Bernard's own. The latter perceived the likeness and halted in astonishment. The man arose and handed Bernard a note. Bernard opened it and found it exactly resembling the one handed him just prior to his journey to Washington. The man eyed Bernard from head to foot with a look that betrayed the keenest interest. Opening one of the drawers of his desk he drew forth a paper. It was a marriage certificate, certifying to a marriage between Fairfax Belgrave and ------. "I am your mother's lawful husband, and you are my legitimate child." Bernard knew not what to say, think, or feel. His mother had so carefully avoided any mention of her family affairs that he regarded them as among things sacred, and he never allowed even his thoughts to wander in that direction. "I am Senator ------ from the state of ------, chairman of ------ committee." The information contained in that sentence made Bernard rise from his seat with a bound. The man's name was a household word throughout the nation, and his reputation was international. "Be seated, Bernard, I have much to say to you. I have a long story to tell. I have been married twice. My first wife's brother was Governor of ------ and lived and died a bachelor. He was, however, the father of a child, whose mother was a servant connected with his father's household. The child was given to my wife to rear, and she accepted the charge. The child bloomed into a perfect beauty, possessed a charming voice, could perform with extraordinary skill on the piano, and seemed to have inherited the mind of her father, whose praises have been sung in all the land. "When this child was seventeen years of age my wife died. This girl remained in our house. I was yet a young man. Now that my wife was gone, attending to this girl fell entirely into my hands. I undertook her education. As her mind unfolded, so many beauteous qualities appeared that she excited my warm admiration. "By chance, I discovered that the girl loved me; not as a father, but as she would a lover. She does not know to this day that I made the discovery when I did. As for myself, I had for some time been madly in love with her. When I discovered, that my affections were returned, I made proposals, at that time regarded as honorable enough by the majority of white men of the South. "It seemed as though my proposition did not take her by surprise. She gently, but most firmly rejected my proposal. She told me that the proposal was of a nature to occasion deep and lasting repugnance, but that in my case she blamed circumstances and conditions more than she did me. The quiet, loving manner in which she resented insult and left no tinge of doubt as to her virtue, if possible, intensified my love. A few days later she came to me and said: 'Let us go to Canada and get married secretly. I will return South with you. No one shall ever know what we have done, and for the sake of your political and social future I will let the people apply whatever name they wish to our relationship.' "I gladly embraced the proposal, knowing that she would keep faith even unto death; although I realized how keenly her pure soul felt at being regarded as living with me dishonorably. Yet, love and interest bade her bow her head and receive the public mark of shame. "Heroic soul! That is the marriage certificate which I showed you. You were born. When you were four years old your mother told me that she must leave, as she could not bear to see her child grow up esteeming her an adulteress. "The war broke out, and I entered the army, and your mother took you to Europe, where she lived until the war was over, when she returned to Winchester, Virginia. Her father was a man of wealth, and you own two millions of dollars through your mother. At my death you shall have eight millions more. "So much for the past. Let me tell you of my plans and hopes for your future. This infernal race prejudice has been the curse of my life. Think of my pure-hearted, noble-minded wife, branded as a harlot, and you, my own son, stigmatized as a bastard, because it would be suicide for me to let the world know that you both are mine, though you both are the direct descendants of a governor, and a long line of heroes whose names are ornaments to our nation's history. "I want you to break down this prejudice. It is the wish of your mother and your father. You must move in the front, but all that money and quiet influence can do shall be done by me for your advancement. I paid Mr. Tiberius Gracchus Leonard two thousand dollars a year to teach you at Winchester. His is a master mind. One rash deed robbed the world of seeing a colossal intellect in high station. I shall tell you his history presently. "I desire you to go to Norfolk County, Virginia, and hang up your sign as an attorney at law. I wish you to run for congress from that district. Leonard is down there. As you will find out, he will be of inestimable service to you. "Now let me give you his history. Leonard was the most brilliant student that ever entered ------ University in the state of ------. Just prior to the time when he would have finished his education at school, the war broke out and he enlisted in the Confederate Army, and was made a colonel of a regiment. I was also a colonel, and when our ranks became depleted the two regiments were thrown into one. Though he was the ranking officer, our commander, as gallant and intrepid an officer as ever trod a battle field, was put in command. This deeply humilitated Leonard and he swore to be avenged. "One evening, when night had just lowered her black wings over the earth, we were engaging the enemy. Our commander was in advance of his men. Suddenly the commander fell, wounded. At first it was thought that the enemy bad shot him, but investigation showed that the ball had entered his back. It was presumed, then, that some of his own men had mistook him for an enemy and had shot him through mistake. Leonard had performed the nefarious deed knowingly. By some skillful detective work, I secured incontestible evidence of his guilt. I went to him with my proof and informed him of my intentions to lay it before a superior officer. His answer was: 'If you do, I will let the whole world know about your nigger wife.' I fell back as if stunned. Terror seized me. If he knew of my marriage might not others know it? Might not it be already generally known? These were the thoughts that coursed through my brain. However, with an effort I suppressed my alarm. Seeing that each possessed a secret that meant death and disgrace to the other (for I shall certainly kill myself if I am ever exposed) I entered into an agreement with him. "On the condition that he would prepare a statement confessing his guilt and detailing the circumstances of the crime and put this paper in my hand, I would show him my marriage certificate; and after that, each was to regard the other's secret as inviolate. "We thus held each other securely tied. His conscience, however, disturbed him beyond measure; and every evening, just after dusk, he fancied that he saw the form of his departed commander. It made him cowardly in battle and he at last deserted. "He informed me as to how my secret came into his possession. Soon after he committed his crime he felt sure that I was in possession of his secret, and he thought to steal into my tent and murder me. He stole in there one night to perpetrate the crime. I was talking in my sleep. In my slumber I told the story of my secret marriage in such circumstantial detail that it impressed him as being true. Feeling that he could hold me with that, he spared my life, determined to wound me deeper than death if I struck at him. "You see that he is a cowardly villain; but we sometimes have to use such. "Now, my son, go forth; labor hard and climb high. Scale the high wall of prejudice. Make it possible, dear boy, for me to own you ere I pass out of life. Let your mother have the veil of slander torn from her pure form ere she closes her eyes on earth forever." Bernard, handsome, brilliant, eloquent, the grandson of a governor, the son of a senator, a man of wealth, to whom defeat was a word unknown, steps out to battle for the freedom of his race; urged to put his whole soul into the fight because of his own burning desire for glory, and because out of the gloom of night he heard his grief stricken parents bidding him to climb where the cruel world would be compelled to give its sanction to the union that produced such a man as he. Bernard's training was over. He now had a tremendous incentive. Into life he plunges. CHAPTER IX. LOVE AND POLITICS. Acting on his father's advice Bernard arrived in Norfolk in the course of a few days. He realized that he was now a politician and decided to make a diligent study of the art of pleasing the populace and to sacrifice everything to the goddess of fame. Knowing that whom the people loved they honored, he decided to win their love at all hazards. He decided to become the obedient servant of the people that he might thus make all the people his servants. He took up hie abode at Hotel Douglass, a colored hotel at which the colored leaders would often congregate. Bernard mingled with these men freely and soon had the name among them of being a jovial good fellow. While at Harvard, Bernard had studied law simultaneously with his other studies and graduated from both the law and classical departments the same year. Near the city court house, in a row of somewhat dilapidated old buildings, he rented a law office. The rowdy and criminal element infested this neighborhood. Whenever any of these got into difficulties, Bernard was always ready to defend them. If they were destitute of funds he would serve them free of charge and would often pay their fines for them. He was ever ready to go on bonds of any who got into trouble. He gave money freely to those who begged of him. In this manner he became the very ideal of the vicious element, though not accounted by them as one of their number. Bernard was also equally successful in winning favor with the better element of citizens. Though a good Catholic at heart, he divided his time among all denominations, thus solving the most difficult problem for a Negro leader to solve; for the religious feeling was so intense that it was carried into almost every branch of human activity. Having won the criminal and religious circles, he thought to go forth and conquer the social world and secure its support. He decided to enter society and pay marked attention to that young lady that would most increase his popularity. We shall soon see how this would-be conqueror stood the very first fire. His life had been one of such isolation that he had not at all moved in social circles before this, and no young woman had ever made more than a passing impression on him. There was in Norfolk a reading circle composed of the brightest, most talented young men and women of the city. Upon taking a short vacation, this circle always gave a reception which was attended by persons of the highest culture in the city. Bernard received an invitation to this reception, and, in company with a fellow lawyer attended. The reception was held at the residence of a Miss Evangeline Leslie, a member of the circle. The house was full of guests when Bernard and his friend arrived. They rang the door bell and a young lady came to the door to receive them. She was a small, beautifully formed girl with a luxuriant growth of coal black hair that was arranged in such a way as to impart a queenly look to her shapely head. Her skin was dark brown, tender and smooth in appearance. A pair of laughing hazel eyes, a nose of the prettiest possible size and shape, and a chin that tapered with the most exquisite beauty made her face the Mecca of all eyes. Bernard was so struck with the girl's beauty that he did not greet her when she opened the door. He stared at her with a blank look. They were invited in. Bernard pulled off his hat and walked in, not saying a word but eyeing that pretty girl all the while. Even when his back was turned toward her, as he walked, his head was turned over his shoulders and his eye surveyed all the graceful curves of her perfect form and scanned those features that could but charm those who admire nature's work. When he had taken a seat in the corner of a room by the side of his friend he said: "Pray, who is that girl that met you at the door? I really did not know that a dark woman could look so beautiful." "You are not the only one that thinks that she is surpassingly beautiful," said his friend. "Her picture is the only Negro's picture that is allowed to hang in the show glasses of the white photographers down town. White and colored pay homage to her beauty." "Well," said Bernard, "that man who denies that girl's beauty should be sent to the asylum for the cure of a perverted and abnormal taste." "I see you are rather enthusiastic. Is it wise to admire mortgaged property?" remarked his friend. "What's that?" asked Bernard, quickly. "Is any body in my way?" "In your way?" laughed his friend. "Pray what do you mean? I don't understand you." "Come," said Bernard, "I am on pins. Is she married or about to be?" "Well, not exactly that, but she has told me that she cares a good bit for me." Bernard saw that his friend was in a mood to tease him and he arose and left his side. His friend chuckled gleefully to himself and said: "The would-be catcher is caught. I thought Viola Martin would duck him if anybody could. Tell me about these smile-proof bachelors. When once they are struck, they fall all to pieces at once." Bernard sought his landlady, who was present as a guest, and through her secured an introduction to Miss Viola Martin. He found her even more beautiful, if possible, in mind than in form and he sat conversing with her all the evening as if enchanted. The people present were not at all surprised; for as soon as Bernard's brilliancy and worth were known in the town and people began to love him, it was generally hoped and believed that Miss Martin would take him captive at first sight. Miss Viola Martin was a universal favorite. She was highly educated and an elocutionist of no mean ability. She sang sweetly and was the most accomplished pianist in town. She was bubbling over with good humor and her wit and funny stories were the very life of any circle where she happened to be. She was most remarkably well-informed on all leading questions of the day, and men of brain always enjoyed a chat with her. And the children and older people fairly worshipped her; for she paid especial attention to these. In all religious movements among the women she was the leading spirit. With all these points in her favor she was unassuming and bowed her head so low that the darts of jealousy, so universally hurled at the brilliant and popular, never came her way. No one in Norfolk was considered worthy of her heart and hand and the community was tenderly solicitous as to who should wed her. Bernard had made such rapid strides in their affections and esteem that they had already assigned him to their pet, Viola, or Vie as she was popularly called. When the time for the departure of the guests arrived, Bernard with great regret bade Miss Martin adieu. She ran upstairs to get her cloak, and a half dozen girls went tripping up stairs behind her; when once in the room set apart for the ladies' cloaks they began to gleefully pound Viola with pillows and smother her with kisses. "You have made a catch, Vie. Hold him," said one. "He'll hold himself," said another. To all of which Viola answered with a sigh. A mulatto girl stepped up to Viola and with a merry twinkle in her eye said: "Theory is theory and practice is practice, eh, Vie? Well, we would hardly blame you in this case." Viola earnestly replied: "I shall ask for no mercy. Theory and practice are one with me in this case." "Bah, bah, girl, two weeks will change that tune. And I, for one, won't blame you," replied the mulatto still in a whisper. The girls seeing that Viola did not care to be teased about Bernard soon ceased, and she came down stairs to be escorted home by the young man who had accompanied her there. This young man was, thus early, jealous of Bernard and angry at Viola for receiving his attentions, and as a consequence he was silent all the way home. This gave Viola time to think of that handsome, talented lawyer whom she had just met. She had to confess to herself that he had aroused considerable interest in her bosom and she looked forward to a promised visit with pleasure. But every now and then a sigh would escape her, such as she made when the girls were teasing her. Her escort bade her good-night at her father's gate in a most sullen manner, but Viola was so lost in thought that she did not notice it. She entered the house feeling lively and cheerful, but when she entered her room she burst into crying. She would laugh a while and cry a while as though she had a foretaste of coming bliss mixed with bitterness. Bernard at once took the place left vacant by the dropping away of the jealous young man and became Viola's faithful attendant, accompanying her wherever he could. The more he met Viola, the more beautiful she appeared to him and the more admirable he found her mind. Bernard almost forgot his political aspirations, and began to ponder that passage of scripture that said man should not be alone. But he did not make such progress with Viola as was satisfactory to him. Sometimes she would appear delighted to see him and was all life and gayety. Again she was scarcely more than polite and seemed perfectly indifferent to him. After a long while Bernard decided that Viola, who seemed to be very ambitious, treated him thus because he had not done anything worthy of special note. He somewhat slacked up in his attentions and began to devote himself to acquiring wide spread popularity with a view to entering Congress and reaching Viola in this way. The more he drew off from Viola the more friendly she would seem to him, and he began to feel that seeming indifference was perhaps the way to win her. Thus the matter moved along for a couple of years. In the mean time, Mr. Tiberius Gracchus Leonard, Bernard's old teacher, was busy in Norfolk looking after Bernard's political interests, acting under instructions from Bernard's father, Senator ------. About this stage of Bernard's courtship Mr. Leonard called on him and told him that the time was ripe for Bernard to announce himself for Congress. Bernard threw his whole soul into the project. He had another great incentive to cause him to wish to succeed, Viola Martin's hand and heart. In order to understand what followed we must now give a bit of Virginia political history. In the year ---- there was a split in the democratic party of Virginia on the question of paying Virginia's debt to England. The bolting section of the party joined hands with the republicans and whipped the regular democrats at the polls. This coalition thus formed was eventually made the Republican party of Virginia. The democrats, however, rallied and swept this coalition from power and determined to forever hold the state government if they had to resort to fraud. They resorted to ballot box stuffing and various other means to maintain control. At last, they passed a law creating a state electoral commission. This commission was composed of three democrats. These three democrats were given the power to appoint three persons in each county as an Electoral Board. These county electoral boards would appoint judges for each precinct or voting place in the county. They would also appoint a special constable at each voting booth to assist the illiterate voters. With rare exceptions, the officials were democrats, and with the entire state's election machinery in their hands the democrats could manage elections according to their "own sweet will." It goes without saying that the democrats always carried any and every precinct that they decided, and elections were mere farces. Such was the condition of affairs when Bernard came forward as a candidate from the Second Congressional District. The district was overwhelmingly republican, but the democrats always secured the office. It was regarded as downright foolhardy to attempt to get elected to Congress from the District as a republican; so the nomination was merely passed around as an honor, empty enough. It was such a feeling that inspired the republicans to nominate Bernard; but Bernard entered the canvass in dead earnest and conducted a brilliant campaign. The masses of colored people rallied around his flag. Ministers of colored churches came to his support. Seeing that the colored people were so determined to elect Bernard, the white republicans, leaders and followers, fell into line. Viola Martin organized patriotic clubs among the women and aroused whatever voters seemed lethargic. The day of election came and Bernard was elected by a majority of 11,823 votes; but the electoral boards gave the certificate of election to his opponent, alleging his opponent's majority to be 4,162. Bernard decided to contest the election in Congress, and here is where Leonard's fine work was shown. He had, for sometime, made it appear in Norfolk that he was a democrat of the most radical school. The leading democrats made his acquaintance and Leonard very often composed speeches for them. He thus became a favorite with certain prominent democrats and they let him into the secret workings of the electoral machinery. Thus informed, Leonard went to headquarters of the Democratic party at Richmond with a view to bribing the clerks to give him inside facts. He found the following to be the character of the work done at headquarters. A poll of all the voters in the state was made. The number of white and the number of colored voters in each voting precinct was secured. The number of illiterate voters of both races was ascertained. With these facts in their possession, they had conducted all the campaign necessary for them to carry on an election. Of course speakers were sent out as a sham, but they were not needed for anything more than appearances. Having the figures indicated above before them, they proceeded to assign to each district, each county, each city, each precinct just such majorities as they desired, taking pains to make the figures appear reasonable and differ somewhat from figures of previous years. Whenever it would do no harm, a precinct was granted to the republicans for the sake of appearances. Ballot boxes of varied patterns were secured and filled with ballots marked just as they desired. Some ballots were for republicans, some for democrats, and some marked wrong so as to indicate the votes of illiterates. The majorities, of course, were invariably such as suited the democrats. The ballots were all carefully counted and arranged; and tabulated statements of the votes cast put in. A sheet for the returns was put in, only awaiting the signatures of the officials at the various precincts in order to be complete. These boxes were carried by trusted messengers to their destinations. On election day, not these boxes, but boxes similar to them were used to receive the ballots. On the night of the election, the ballot boxes that actually received the votes were burned with all their contents and the boxes and ballots from Richmond were substituted. The judges of election took out the return sheet, already prepared, signed it and returned it to Richmond forthwith. Thus it could always be known thirty days ahead just what the exact vote in detail was to be throughout the entire state. In fact a tabulated statement was prepared and printed long before election day. Leonard paid a clerk at headquarters five thousand dollars for one of these tabulated statements. With this he hurried on to Washington and secretly placed it before the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, with the understanding that it was to be used after election day as a basis for possible contest. Fifteen of the most distinguished clergymen in the nation were summoned to Washington and made affidavits, stating that they had seen this tabulated statement twenty days before the election took place. When Virginia's returns came in they were found to correspond in every detail to this tabulated report. As nothing but a prophet, direct from God, could have foreseen the results exactly as they did occur, this tabulated statement was proof positive of fraud on a gigantic scale. With this and a mass of other indisputable evidence at his back, secured by the shrewd Leonard, Bernard entered the contest for his seat. The House of Representatives was democratic by a small majority. The contest was a long and bitter one. The republicans were solidly for Bernard. The struggle was eagerly watched from day to day. It was commonly believed that the democrats would vote against Bernard, despite the clear case in his favor. The day to vote on the contest at last arrived and the news was flashed over the country that Bernard had triumphed. A handful of democrats had deserted their party and voted with the republicans. Bernard's father had redeemed his promise of secret support. Bernard's triumph in a democratic house caused the nation to rub its eyes and look again in wonder. The colored people hailed Bernard as the coming Moses. "Belgrave, Belgrave, Belgrave," was on every Negro tongue. Poems were addressed to him. Babies were named after him. Honorary titles were showered upon him. He was in much demand at fairs and gatherings of notable people. He accepted every invitation of consequence, whenever possible, and traveled far and wide winning friends by his bewitching eloquence and his pleasing personality. The democrats, after that defeat, always passed the second district by and Bernard held his seat in Congress from year to year unmolested. He made application and was admitted to plead law before the Supreme Court of the United States. And when we shall see him again it will be there, pleading in one of the most remarkable cases known to jurisprudence. CHAPTER X. CUPID AGAIN AT WORK. Belton, after graduating from Stowe University, returned with his mother to their humble home at Winchester. He had been away at school for four years and now desired to see his home again before going forth into the world. He remained at Winchester several days visiting all the spots where he had toiled or played, mourned or sung, wept or laughed as a child. He entered the old school house and gazed with eyes of love on its twisting walls, decaying floor and benches sadly in need of repair. A somewhat mournful smile played upon his lips as he thought of the revengeful act that he had perpetrated upon his first teacher, Mr. Leonard, and this smile died away into a more sober expression as he remembered how his act of revenge had, like chickens, come home to roost, when those dirty socks had made him an object of laughter at Stowe University on commencement day. Revenge was dead in his bosom. And it was well for the world that this young negro had been trained in a school where there was a friendly lance to open his veins and let out this most virulent of poisons. Belton lingered about home, thinking of the great problem of human life. He would walk out of town near sunset and, taking his seat on some grassy knoll would gaze on the Blue Ridge mountains. The light would fade out of the sky and the gloom of evening gather, but the mountains would maintain their same bold appearance. Whenever he cast his eyes in their direction, there they stood firm and immovable. His pure and lofty soul had an affinity for all things grand and he was always happy, even from childhood, when he could sit undisturbed and gaze at the mountains, huge and lofty, rising in such unconquerable grandeur, upward toward the sky. Belton chose the mountain as the emblem of his life and he besought God to make him such in the moral world. At length he tore himself loose from the scenes of his childhood, and embracing his fond mother, left Winchester to begin life in the city of Richmond, the capital of the old Confederacy. Through the influence of Mr. King, his benefactor, he secured a position as a teacher in one of the colored schools of that city. The principal of the school to which Belton was assigned was white, but all the rest of the teachers were young colored women. On the morning of his arrival at the school building Belton was taken in charge by the principal, and by him was carried around to be introduced to the various teachers. Before he reaches a certain room, let us give you a slight introduction to the occupant thereof. Antoinette Nermal was famed throughout the city for her beauty, intelligence and virtue. Her color was what is termed a light brown skin. We assure you that it was charming enough. She was of medium height, and for grace and symmetry her form was fit for a sculptor's model. Her pretty face bore the stamp of intellectuality, but the intellectuality of a beautiful woman, who was still every inch a woman despite her intellectuality. Her thin well-formed lips seemed arranged by nature in such a manner as to be incomplete without a kiss, and that lovely face seemed to reinforce the invitation. Her eyes were black, and when you gazed in them the tenderness therein seemed to be about to draw you out of yourself. They concealed and yet revealed a heart capable of passionate love. Those who could read her and wished her well were much concerned that she should love wisely; for it could be seen that she was to love with her whole heart, and to wreck her love was to wreck her life. She had passed through all her life thus far without seriously noticing any young man, thus giving some the impression that she was incapable of love, being so intellectual. Others who read her better knew that she despised the butterfly, flitting from flower to flower, and was preserving her heart to give it whole into the keeping of some worthy man. She neither sang nor played, but her soul was intensely musical and she had the most refined and cultivated taste in the musical circles in which she moved. She was amiable in disposition, but her amiability was not of the kind to lead her in quest of you; but if you came across her, she would treat you so pleasantly that you would desire to pass that way again. Belton and the principal are now on the way to her room. As they entered the door her back was to them, as she was gazing out of the window. Belton's eyes surveyed her graceful form and he was so impressed with its loveliness that he was sorry when she began to turn around. But when she was turned full around Belton forgot all about her form, and his eyes did not know which to contemplate longest, that rich complexion, those charming eyes, or those seductive lips. On the other hand, Miss Nermal was struck with Belton's personal appearance and as she contemplated the noble, dignified yet genial appearance which he presented, her lips came slightly apart, rendering her all the more beautiful. The principal said: "Miss Nermal, allow me to present to you our newly arrived associate in the work, Mr. Belton Piedmont." Miss Nermal smiled to Belton and said: "Mr. Piedmont, we are glad to have a man of your acknowledged talents in our midst and we anticipate much of you." Belton felt much flattered, surprised, overjoyed. He wished that he could find the person who had been so very kind as to give that marvelously beautiful girl such a good opinion of himself. But when he opened his mouth to reply he was afraid of saying something that would shatter this good opinion; so he bowed politely and merely said, "Thank you." "I trust that you will find our association agreeable," said Miss Nermal, smiling and walking toward him. This remark turned Belton's mind to thoughts that stimulated him to a brisk reply. "Oh assuredly, Miss Nermal. I am already more than satisfied that I shall expect much joy and pleasure from my association with you--I--I--I mean the teachers." Belton felt that he had made a bad break and looked around a little uneasily at the principal, violently condemning in his heart that rule which led principals to escort young men around; especially when there was a likelihood of meeting with such a lovely girl. If you had consulted Belton's wishes at that moment, school would have been adjourned immediately, the principal excused, and himself allowed to look at and talk to Miss Nermal as much as he desired. However, this was not to be. The principal moved to the door to continue his tour. Belton reluctantly followed. He didn't see the need of getting acquainted with all the teachers in one day. He thought that there were too many teachers in that building, anyhow. These were Belton's rebellious thoughts as he left Miss Nermal's room. Nevertheless, he finished his journey around to the various rooms and afterwards assumed charge of his own room. Some might ascribe his awkwardness in his room that day to the fact that the work was new to him. But we prefer to think that certain new and pleasing sensations in his bosom were responsible. When the young lady teachers got together at noon that day, the question was passed around as to what was thought of Mr. Piedmont. Those teachers whom Belton met before he entered Miss Nermal's room thought him "very nice." Those whom he met after he left her room thought him rather dull. Miss Nermal herself pronounced him "just grand." All of the girls looked at Miss Nermal rather inquiringly when she said this, for she was understood to usually pass young men by unnoticed. Each of the other girls, previous to seeing Belton, had secretly determined to capture the rising young orator in case his personal appearance kept pace with his acknowledged talents. In debating the matter they had calculated their chances of success and had thought of all possible rivals. Miss Nermal was habitually so indifferent to young men that they had not considered her as a possibility. They were quite surprised, to say the least, to hear her speak more enthusiastically of Belton than any of the rest had done. If Miss Nermal was to be their rival they were ready to abandon the field at once, for the charms of her face, form, and mind were irresistible when in repose; and what would they be if she became interested in winning the heart of a young man? When school was dismissed that afternoon Belton saw a group of teachers walking homeward and Miss Nermal was in the group. Belton joined them and somehow contrived to get by Miss Nermal's side. How much she aided him by unobserved shifting of positions is not known. All of the rest of the group lived nearer the school than did Miss Nermal and so, when they had all dropped off at respective gates, Miss Nermal yet had some distance to go. When Belton saw this, he was a happy fellow. He felt that the parents of the teachers had shown such excellent judgment in choosing places to reside. He would not have them change for the world. He figured that he would have five evenings of undisturbed bliss in each week walking home with Miss Nermal after the other teachers had left. Belton contrived to walk home with the same group each evening. The teachers soon noticed that Miss Nermal and Belton invariably walked together, and they managed by means of various excuses to break up the group; and Belton had the unalloyed pleasure of escorting Miss Nermal from the school-house door to her own front yard. Belton secured the privilege of calling to see Miss Nermal at her residence and he confined his social visits to her house solely. They did not talk of love to one another, but any one who saw the couple together could tell at a glance what was in each heart. Belton, however, did not have the courage to approach the subject. His passion was so intense and absorbing and filled him with so much delight that he feared to talk on the subject so dear to his heart, for fear of a repulse and the shattering of all the beautiful castles which his glowing imagination, with love as the supervising architect, had constructed. Thus matters moved along for some time; Miss Nermal thoroughly in love with Belton, but Belton prizing that love too highly to deem it possible for him to be the happy possessor thereof. Belton was anxious for some indirect test. He would often contrive little devices to test Miss Nermal's feelings towards him and in each case the result was all that he could wish, yet he doubted. Miss Nermal thoroughly understood Belton and was anxious for him to find some way out of his dilemma. Of course it was out of the question for her to volunteer to tell him that she loved him--loved him madly, passionately; loved him in every fibre of her soul. At last the opportunity that Belton was hoping for came. Miss Nermal and Belton were invited out to a social gathering of young people one night. He was Miss Nermal's escort. At this gathering the young men and women played games such as pinning on the donkey's tail, going to Jerusalem, menagerie, and various other parlor games. In former days, these social gatherings played some games that called for kissing by the young ladies and gentlemen, but Miss Nermal had opposed such games so vigorously that they had long since been dismissed from the best circles. Belton had posted two or three young men to suggest a play involving kissing, that play being called, "In the well." The suggestion was made and just for the fun of having an old time game played, they accepted the suggestion. The game was played as follows. Young men and young women would move their chairs as close back to the walls as possible. This would leave the center of the room clear. A young man would take his place in the middle of the floor and say, "I am in the well." A questioner would then ask, "How many feet?" The party in the well would then say, for instance, "Three feet." The questioner would then ask, "Whom will you have to take you out?" Whosoever was named by the party in the well was required by the rules of the game to go to him and kiss him the number of times equivalent to the number of feet he was in the well. The party thus called would then be in the well. The young men would kiss the ladies out and vice versa. Miss Nermal's views on kissing games were well known and the young men all passed her by. Finally, a young lady called Belton to the well to kiss her out. Belton now felt that his chance had came. He was so excited that when he went to the well he forgot to kiss her. Belton was not conscious of the omission but it pleased Antoinette immensely. Belton said, "I am in the well." The questioner asked, "How many feet?" Belton replied, "ONLY one." "Whom will you have to take you out?" queried the questioner. Belton was in a dazed condition. He was astounded at his own temerity in having deliberately planned to call Miss Nermal to kiss him before that crowd or for that matter to kiss him at all. However he decided to make a bold dash. He averted his head and said, "Miss Antoinette Nermal." All eyes were directed to Miss Nermal to see her refuse. But she cast a look of defiance around the room and calmly walked to where Belton stood. Their eyes met. They understood each other. Belton pressed those sweet lips that had been taunting him all those many days and sat down, the happiest of mortals. Miss Nermal was now left in the well to call for some one to take her out. For the first time, it dawned upon Belton that in working to secure a kiss for himself, he was about to secure one for some one else also. He glared around the room furiously and wondered who would be base enough to dare to go and kiss that angel. Miss Nermal was proceeding with her part of the game and Belton began to feel that she did not mind it even if she did have to kiss some one else. After all, he thought, his test would not hold good as she was, he felt sure, about to kiss another. While Belton was in agony over such thoughts Miss Nermal came to the point where she had to name her deliverer. She said, "The person who put me in here will have to take me out." Belton bounded from his seat and, if the fervor of a kiss could keep the young lady in the well from drowning, Miss Nermal was certainly henceforth in no more danger. Miss Nermal's act broke up that game. On the way home that night, neither Antoinette nor Belton spoke a word. Their hearts were too full for utterance. When they reached Miss Nermal's gate, she opened it and entering stood on the other side, facing Belton. Belton looked down into her beautiful face and she looked up at Belton. He felt her eyes pulling at the cords of his heart. He stooped down and in silence pressed a lingering kiss on Miss Nermal's lips. She did not move. Belton said, "I am in the well." Miss Nermal whispered, "I am too." Belton said, "I shall always be in the well." Miss Nermal said, "So shall I." Belton hastily plucked open the gate and clasped Antoinette to his bosom. He led her to a double seat in the middle of the lawn, and there with the pure-eyed stars gazing down upon them they poured out their love to each other. Two hours later Belton left her and at that late hour roused every intimate friend that he had in the city to tell them of his good fortune. Miss Nermal was no less reserved in her joy. She told the good news everywhere to all her associates. Love had transformed this modest, reserved young woman into a being that would not have hesitated to declare her love upon a house-top. CHAPTER XI. NO BEFITTING NAME. Happy Belton now began to give serious thought to the question of getting married. He desired to lead Antoinette to the altar as soon as possible and then he would be sure of possessing the richest treasure known to earth. And when he would speak of an early marriage she would look happy and say nothing in discouragement of the idea. She was Belton's, and she did not care how soon he claimed her as his own. His poverty was his only barrier. His salary was small, being only fifty dollars a month. He had not held his position long enough to save up very much money. He decided to start up an enterprise that would enable him to make money a great deal faster. The colored people of Richmond at that time had no newspaper or printing office. Belton organized a joint stock company and started a weekly journal and conducted a job printing establishment. This paper took well and was fast forging to the front as a decided success. It began to lift up its voice against frauds at the polls and to champion the cause of honest elections. It contended that practicing frauds was debauching the young men, the flower of the Anglo-Saxon race. One particularly meritorious article was copied in _The Temps_ and commented upon editorially. This article created a great stir in political circles. A search was instituted as to the authorship. It was traced to Belton, and the politicians gave the school board orders to dump Belton forthwith, on the ground that they could not afford to feed and clothe a man who would so vigorously "attack Southern Institutions," meaning by this phrase the universal practice of thievery and fraud at the ballot box. Belton was summarily dismissed. His marriage was of necessity indefinitely postponed. The other teachers were warned to give no further support to Belton's paper on pain of losing their positions. They withdrew their influence from Belton and he was, by this means, forced to give up the enterprise. He was now completely without an occupation, and began to look around for employment. He decided to make a trial of politics. A campaign came on and he vigorously espoused the cause of the Republicans. A congressional and presidential campaign was being conducted at the same time, and Belton did yeoman service. Owing to frauds in the elections the Democrats carried the district in which Belton labored, but the vote was closer than was ever known before. The Republicans, however, carried the nation and the President appointed a white republican as post-master of Richmond. In recognition of his great service to his party, Belton was appointed stamping clerk in the Post Office at a salary of sixty dollars per month. As a rule, the most prominent and lucrative places went to those who were most influential with the voters. Measured by this standard and by the standard of real ability, Belton was entitled to the best place in the district in the gift of the government; but the color of his skin was against him, and he had to content himself with a clerkship. At the expiration of one year, Belton proudly led the charming Antoinette Nermal to the marriage altar, where they became man and wife. Their marriage was the most notable social event that had ever been known among the colored people of Richmond. All of the colored people and many of the white people of prominence were at the wedding reception, and costly presents poured in upon them. This brilliant couple were predicted to have a glorious future before them. So all hearts hoped and felt. About two years from Belton's appointment as stamping clerk and one year from the date of his marriage, a congressional convention was held for the purpose of nominating a candidate for Congress. Belton's chief, the postmaster, desired a personal friend to have the honor. This personal friend was known to be prejudiced against colored people and Belton could not, therefore, see his way clear to support him for the nomination. He supported another candidate and won for him the nomination; but the postmaster dismissed him from his position as clerk. Crushed in spirit, Belton came home to tell his wife of their misfortune. Although he was entitled to the postmastership, according to the ethics of the existing political condition, he had been given a commonplace clerkship. And now, because he would not play the puppet, he was summarily dismissed from that humble position. His wife cheered him up and bade him to not be despondent, telling him that a man of his talents would beyond all question be sure to succeed in life. Belton began to cast around for another occupation, but, in whatever direction he looked, he saw no hope. He possessed a first class college education, but that was all. He knew no trade nor was he equipped to enter any of the professions. It is true that there were positions around by the thousands which he could fill, but his color debarred him. He would have made an excellent drummer, salesman, clerk, cashier, government official (county, city, state, or national) telegraph operator, conductor, or any thing of such a nature. But the color of his skin shut the doors so tight that he could not even peep in. The white people would not employ him in these positions, and the colored people did not have any enterprises in which they could employ him. It is true that such positions as street laborer, hod-carrier, cart driver, factory hand, railroad hand, were open to him; but such menial tasks were uncongenial to a man of his education and polish. And, again, society positively forbade him doing such labor. If a man of education among the colored people did such manual labor, he was looked upon as an eternal disgrace to the race. He was looked upon as throwing his education away and lowering its value in the eyes of the children who were to come after him. So, here was proud, brilliant Belton, the husband of a woman whom he fairly worshipped, surrounded in a manner that precluded his earning a livelihood for her. This set Belton to studying the labor situation and the race question from this point of view. He found scores of young men just in his predicament. The schools were all supplied with teachers. All other doors were effectually barred. Society's stern edict forbade these young men resorting to lower forms of labor. And instead of the matter growing better, it was growing worse, year by year. Colleges were rushing class after class forth with just his kind of education, and there was no employment for them. These young men, having no employment, would get together in groups and discuss their respective conditions. Some were in love and desired to marry. Others were married and desired to support their wives in a creditable way. Others desired to acquire a competence. Some had aged parents who had toiled hard to educate them and were looking to them for support. They were willing to work but the opportunity was denied them. And the sole charge against them was the color of their skins. They grew to hate a flag that would float in an undisturbed manner over such a condition of affairs. They began to abuse and execrate a national government that would not protect them against color prejudice, but on the contrary actually practiced it itself. Beginning with passively hating the flag, they began to think of rebelling against it and would wish for some foreign power to come in and bury it in the dirt. They signified their willingness to participate in such a proceeding. It is true that it was only a class that had thought and spoke of this, but it was an educated class, turned loose with an idle brain and plenty of time to devise mischief. The toiling, unthinking masses went quietly to their labors, day by day, but the educated malcontents moved in and out among them, convincing them that they could not afford to see their men of brains ignored because of color. Belton viewed this state of affairs with alarm and asked himself, whither was the nation drifting. He might have joined this army of malcontents and insurrection breeders, but that a very remarkable and novel idea occurred to him. He decided to endeavor to find out just what view the white people were taking of the Negro and of the existing conditions. He saw that the nation was drifting toward a terrible cataract and he wished to find out what precautionary steps the white people were going to take. So he left Richmond, giving the people to understand that he was gone to get a place to labor to support his wife. The people thought it strange that he did not tell where he was going and what he was to do. Speculation was rife. Many thought that it was an attempt at deserting his wife, whom he seemed unable to support. He arranged to visit his wife twice a month. He went to New York and completely disguised himself. He bought a wig representing the hair on the head of a colored woman. He had this wig made especially to his order. He bought an outfit of well fitting dresses and other garments worn by women. He clad himself and reappeared in Richmond. His wife and most intimate friends failed to recognize him. He of course revealed his identity to his wife but to no one else. He now had the appearance of a healthy, handsome, robust colored girl, with features rather large for a woman but attractive just the same. In this guise Belton applied for a position as nurse and was successful in securing a place in the family of a leading white man. He loitered near the family circle as much as he could. His ear was constantly at the key holes, listening. Sometimes he would engage in conversation for the purpose of drawing them out on the question of the Negro. He found out that the white man was utterly ignorant of the nature of the Negro of to-day with whom he has to deal. And more than that, he was not bothering his brain thinking about the Negro. He felt that the Negro was easily ruled and was not an object for serious thought. The barbers, the nurses, cooks and washerwomen, the police column of the newspapers, comic stories and minstrels were the sources through which the white people gained their conception of the Negro. But the real controling power of the race that was shaping its life and thought and preparing the race for action, was unnoticed and in fact unseen by them. The element most bitterly antagonistic to the whites avoided them, through intense hatred; and the whites never dreamed of this powerful inner circle that was gradually but persistently working its way in every direction, solidifying the race for the momentous conflict of securing all the rights due them according to the will of their heavenly Father. Belton also stumbled upon another misconception, which caused him eventually to lose his job as nurse. The young men in the families in which Belton worked seemed to have a poor opinion of the virtue of colored women. Time and again they tried to kiss Belton, and he would sometimes have to exert his full strength to keep them at a distance. He thought that while he was a nurse, he would do what he could to exalt the character of the colored women. So, at every chance he got, he talked to the men who approached him, of virtue and integrity. He soon got the name of being a "virtuous prude" and the white men decided to corrupt him at all hazards. Midnight carriage rides were offered and refused. Trips to distant cities were proposed but declined. Money was offered freely and lavishly but to no avail. Belton did not yield to them. He became the cynosure of all eyes. He seemed so hard to reach, that they began to doubt his sex. A number of them decided to satisfy themselves at all hazards. They resorted to the bold and daring plan of kidnapping and overpowering Belton. After that eventful night Belton did no more nursing. But fortunately they did not recognize who he was. He secretly left, had it announced that Belton Piedmont would in a short time return to Richmond, and throwing off his disguise, he appeared in Richmond as Belton Piedmont of old. The town was agog with excitement over the male nurse, but none suspected him. He was now again without employment, and another most grievous burden was about to be put on his shoulders. May God enable him to bear it. During all the period of their poverty stricken condition, Antoinette bore her deprivations like a heroine. Though accustomed from her childhood to plenty, she bore her poverty smilingly and cheerfully. Not one sigh of regret, not one word of complaint escaped her lips. She taught Belton to hope and have faith in himself. But everything seemed to grow darker and darker for him. In the whole of his school life, he had never encountered a student who could surpass him in intellectual ability; and yet, here he was with all his conceded worth, unable to find a fit place to earn his daily bread, all because of the color of his skin. And now the Lord was about to bless him with an offspring. He hardly knew whether to be thankful or sorrowful over this prospective gift from heaven. On the one hand, an infant in the home would be a source of unbounded joy; but over against this pleasing picture there stood cruel want pointing its wicked, mocking finger at him, anxious for another victim. As the time for the expected gift drew near, Belton grew more moody and despondent. Day by day he grew more and more nervous. One evening the nurse called him into his wife's room, bidding him come and look at his son. The nurse stood in the door and looked hard at Belton as he drew near to the side of his wife's bed. He lifted the lamp from the dresser and approached. Antoinette turned toward the wall and hid her head under the cover. Eagerly, tremblingly, Belton pulled the cover from the little child's face, the nurse all the while watching him as though her eyes would pop out of her head. Belton bent forward to look at his infant son. A terrible shriek broke from his lips. He dropped the lamp upon the floor and fled out of the house and rushed madly through the city. The color of Antoinette was brown. The color of Belton was dark. But the child was white! What pen can describe the tumult that raged in Belton's bosom for months and months! Sadly, disconsolately, broken in spirit, thoroughly dejected, Belton dragged himself to his mother's cottage at Winchester. Like a ship that had started on a voyage, on a bright day, with fair winds, but had been overtaken and overwhelmed in an ocean storm, and had been put back to shore, so Belton now brought his battered bark into harbor again. His brothers and sisters had all married and had left the maternal roof. Belton would sleep in the loft from which in his childhood he tumbled down, when disturbed about the disappearing biscuits. How he longed and sighed for childhood's happy days to come again. He felt that life was too awful for him to bear. His feelings toward his wife were more of pity than reproach. Like the multitude, he supposed that his failure to properly support her had tempted her to ruin. He loved her still if anything, more passionately than ever. But ah! what were his feelings in those days toward the flag which he had loved so dearly, which had floated proudly and undisturbed, while color prejudice, upheld by it, sent, as he thought, cruel want with drawn sword to stab his family honor to death. Belton had now lost all hope of personal happiness in this life, and as he grew more and more composed he found himself better prepared than ever to give his life wholly to the righting of the wrongs of his people. Tenderly he laid the image of Antoinette to rest in a grave in the very center of his heart. He covered her grave with fragrant flowers; and though he acknowledged the presence of a corpse in his heart, 'twas the corpse of one he loved. We must leave our beautiful heroine under a cloud just here, but God is with her and will bring her forth conqueror in the sight of men and angels. CHAPTER XII. ON THE DISSECTING BOARD. About this time the Legislature of Louisiana passed a law designed to prevent white people from teaching in schools conducted in the interest of Negroes. A college for Negroes had been located at Cadeville for many years, presided over by a white minister from the North. Under the operations of the law mentioned, he was forced to resign his position. The colored people were, therefore, under the necessity of casting about for a successor. They wrote to the president of Stowe University requesting him to recommend a man competent to take charge of the college. The president decided that Belton was an ideal man for the place and recommended him to the proper authorities. Belton was duly elected. He again bade home adieu and boarded the train for Cadeville, Louisiana. Belton's journey was devoid of special interest until he arrived within the borders of the state. At that time the law providing separate coaches for colored and white people had not been enacted by any of the Southern States. But in some of them the whites had an unwritten but inexorable law, to the effect that no Negro should be allowed to ride in a first-class coach. Louisiana was one of these states, but Belton did not know this. So, being in a first-class coach when he entered Louisiana, he did not get up and go into a second-class coach. The train was speeding along and Belton was quietly reading a newspaper. Now and then he would look out of a window at the pine tree forest near the track. The bed of the railway had been elevated some two or three feet above the ground, and to get the dirt necessary to elevate it a sort of trench had been dug, and ran along beside the track. The rain had been falling very copiously for the two or three days previous, and the ditch was full of muddy water. Belton's eyes would now and then fall on this water as they sped along. In the meanwhile the train began to get full, passengers getting on at each station. At length the coach was nearly filled. A white lady entered, and not at once seeing a vacant seat, paused a few seconds to look about for one. She soon espied an unoccupied seat. She proceeded to it, but her slight difficulty had been noted by the white passengers. Belton happened to glance around and saw a group of white men in an eager, animated conversation, and looking in his direction now and then as they talked. He paid no especial attention to this, however, and kept on reading. Before he was aware of what was going on, he was surrounded by a group of angry men. He stood up in surprise to discover its meaning. "Get out of this coach. We don't allow niggers in first-class coaches. Get out at once," said their spokesman. "Show me your authority to order me out, sir," said Belton firmly. "We are our own authority, as you will soon find out if you don't get out of here." "I propose," said Belton, "to stay right in this coach as long----" He did not finish the sentence, for rough fingers were clutching his throat. The whole group was upon him in an instant and he was soon overpowered. They dragged him into the aisle, and, some at his head and others at his feet, lifted him and bore him to the door. The train was speeding along at a rapid rate. Belton grew somewhat quiet in his struggling, thinking to renew it in the second-class coach, whither he supposed they were carrying him. But when they got to the platform, instead of carrying him across they tossed him off the train into that muddy ditch at which Belton had been looking. His body and feet fell into the water while his head buried itself in the soft clay bed. The train was speeding on and Belton eventually succeeded in extricating himself from his bed of mud and water. Covered from head to foot with red clay, the president-elect of Cadeville College walked down to the next station, two miles away. There he found his satchel, left by the conductor of the train. He remained at this station until the afternoon, when another train passed. This time he entered the second-class coach and rode unmolested to Monroe, Louisiana. There he was to have changed cars for Cadeville. The morning train, the one from which he was thrown, made connection with the Cadeville train, but the afternoon train did not. So he was under the necessity of remaining over night in the city of Monroe, a place of some twenty thousand inhabitants. Being hungry, he went forth in quest of a meal. He entered a restaurant and asked the white man whom he saw behind the counter for a meal. The white man stepped into a small adjoining room to fill the order, and Belton eat down on a high stool at the eating counter. The white man soon returned with some articles of food in a paper bag. Seeing Belton sitting down, he cried out: "Get up from there, you nigger. It would cost me a hundred dollars for you to be seen sitting there." Belton looked up in astonishment, "Do you mean to say that I must stand up here and eat?" he asked. "No, I don't mean any such thing. You must go out of here to eat." "Then," replied Belton, "I shall politely leave your food on your hands if I cannot be allowed to eat in here." "I guess you won't," the man replied. "I have cut this ham off for you and you have got to take it." Belton, remembering his experience earlier in the day, began to move toward the door to leave. The man seized a whistle and in an instant two or three policemen came running, followed by a crowd. Belton stood still to await developments. The clerk said to the policeman: "This high-toned nigger bought a meal of me and because I would not let him sit down and eat like white people he refused to pay me." The officers turned to Belton and said: "Pay that man what you owe him." Belton replied: "I owe him nothing. He refuses to accommodate me, and I therefore owe him nothing." "Come along with me, sir. Consider yourself under arrest." Wondering what kind of a country he had entered, Belton followed the officer and incredible as it may seem, was locked up in jail for the night. The next morning he was arraigned before the mayor, whom the officer had evidently posted before the opening of court. Belton was fined five dollars for vagrancy and was ordered to leave town within five hours. He paid his fine and boarded the train for Cadeville. As the train pulled in for Cadeville, a group of white men were seen standing on the platform. One of them was a thin, scrawny looking man with a long beard, very, very white. His body was slightly stooping forward, and whenever he looked at you he had the appearance of bending as if to see you better. When Belton stepped on to the platform this man, who was the village doctor, looked at him keenly. Belton was a fine specimen of physical manhood. His limbs were well formed, well proportioned and seemed as strong as oak. His manly appearance always excited interest wherever he was seen. The doctor's eyes followed him cadaverously. He went up to the postmaster, a short man with a large head. The postmaster was president of the band of "Nigger Rulers" of that section. The doctor said to the postmaster: "I'll be durned if that ain't the finest lookin' darkey I ever put my eye on. If I could get his body to dissect, I'd give one of the finest kegs of whiskey in my cellar." The postmaster looked at Belton and said: "Zakeland," for such was the doctor's name, "you are right. He is a fine looking chap, and he looks a little tony. If we 'nigger rulers' are ever called in to attend to him we will not burn him nor shoot him to pieces. We will kill him kinder decent and let you have him to dissect. I shall not fail to call for that whiskey to treat the boys." So saying they parted. Belton did not hear this murderous conversation respecting himself. He was joyfully received by the colored people of Cadeville, to whom he related his experiences. They looked at him as though he was a superior being bearing a charmed life, having escaped being killed. It did not come to their minds to be surprised at the treatment accorded him for what he had done. Their wonder was as to how he got off so easily. Belton took charge of the school and began the faithful performance of his duties. He decided to add an industrial department to his school and traveled over the state and secured the funds for the work. He sent to New Orleans for a colored architect and contractor who drew the plans and accepted the contract for erecting the building. They decided to have colored men erect the building and gathered a force for that purpose. The white brick-masons of Monroe heard of this. They organized a mob, came to Cadeville and ordered the men to quit work. They took charge of the work themselves, letting the colored brick-masons act as hod carriers for them. They employed a white man to supervise the work. The colored people knew that it meant death to resist and they paid the men as though nothing unusual had happened. Belton had learned to observe and wait. These outrages sank like molten lead into his heart, but he bore them all. The time for the presidential election was drawing near and he arose in the chapel one morning to lecture to the young men on their duty to vote. One of the village girls told her father of Belton's speech. The old man was shaving his face and had just shaved off one side of his beard when his daughter told him. He did not stop to pull the towel from around his neck nor to put down his razor. He rushed over to the house where Belton boarded and burst into his room. Belton threw up his hands in alarm at seeing this man come, razor in hand, towel around his neck and beard half off and half on. The man sat down to catch his breath. He began: "Mr. Piedmont, I learn that you are advising our young men to vote. I am sure you don't know in what danger you stand. I have come to give you the political history of this section of Louisiana. The colored people of this region far outnumber the white people, and years ago had absolute control of everything. The whites of course did not tamely submit, but armed themselves to overthrow us. We armed ourselves, and every night patrolled this road all night long looking for the whites to come and attack us. My oldest brother is a very cowardly and sycophantic man. The white people made a spy and traitor out of him. When the people found out that there was treachery in our ranks it demoralized them, and our organization went to pieces. "We had not the authority nor disposition to kill a traitor, and consequently we had no effective remedy against a betrayal. When the news of our demoralized condition reached the whites it gave them fresh courage, and they have dominated us ever since. They carry on the elections. We stay in our fields all day long on election day and scarcely know what is going on. Not long since a white man came through here and distributed republican ballots. The white people captured him and cut his body into four pieces and threw it in the Ouachita River. Since then you can't get any man to venture here to distribute ballots. "Just before the last presidential campaign, two brothers, Samuel and John Bowser, colored, happened to go down to New Orleans. Things are not so bad down there as they are up here in Northern Louisiana. These two brothers each secured a republican party ballot, and on election day somewhat boastfully cast them into the ballot box. There is, as you have perhaps heard, a society here known as 'Nigger Rulers.' The postmaster of this place is president of the society, and the teacher of the white public school is the captain of the army thereof. "They sent word to the Bowser brothers that they would soon be there to whip them. The brothers prepared to meet them. They cut a hole in the front side of the house, through which they could poke a gun. Night came on, and true to their word the 'Nigger Rulers' came. Samuel Bowser fired when they were near the house and one man fell dead. All of the rest fled to the cover of the neighboring woods. Soon they cautiously returned and bore away their dead comrade. They made no further attack that night. "The brothers hid out in the woods. Hearing of this and fearing that the men would make their escape the whites gathered in force and hemmed in the entire settlement on all sides. For three days the men hid in the woods, unable to escape because of the guard kept by the whites. The third night a great rain came up and the whites sought the shelter of their homes. "The brothers thus had a chance to escape. John escaped into Arkansas, but Samuel, poor fool, went only forty miles, remaining in Louisiana. The mob forced one of our number, who escorted him on horseback, to inform them of the road that Samuel took. In this way they traced and found him. They tied him on a horse and brought him back here with them. They kept him in the woods three days, torturing him. On the third day we heard the loud report of a gun which we supposed ended his life. None of us know where he lies buried. You can judge from this why we neglect voting." This speech wound up Belton's political career in Cadeville. He thanked the man for the information, assuring him that it would be of great value to him in knowing how to shape his course. After Belton had been at Cadeville a few years, he had a number of young men and women to graduate from the various departments of his school. He invited the pastor of a leading white church of Monroe to deliver an oration on the day of commencement exercises. The preacher came and was most favorably impressed with Belton's work, as exhibited in the students then graduating. He esteemed Belton as a man of great intellectual power and invited him to call at his church and house if he ever came to Monroe. Belton was naturally greatly elated over this invitation from a Southerner and felt highly complimented. One Sabbath morning, shortly thereafter, Belton happened to be in Monroe, and thinking of the preacher's kind invitation, went to his church to attend the morning service. He entered and took a seat near the middle of the church. During the opening exercises a young white lady who sat by his side experienced some trouble in finding the hymn. Belton had remembered the number given out and kindly took the book to find it. In an instant the whole church was in an uproar. A crowd of men gathered around Belton and led him out of doors. A few leaders went off to one side and held a short consultation. They decided that as it was Sunday, they would not lynch him. They returned to the body of men yet holding Belton and ordered him released. This evidently did not please the majority, but he was allowed to go. That afternoon Belton called at the residence of the minister in order to offer an explanation. The minister opened the door, and seeing who it was, slammed it in his face. Belton turned away with many misgivings as to what was yet to come. Dr. Zackland always spent his Sundays at Monroe and was a witness of the entire scene in which Belton had figured so prominently. He hastened out of church, and as soon as he saw Belton turned loose, hurried to the station and boarded the train for Cadeville, leaving his hymn book and Bible on his seat in the church. His face seemed lighted up with joy. "I've got him at last. Careful as he has been I've got him," he kept repeating over and over to himself. He left the train at Cadeville and ran to the postmaster's house, president of the "Nigger Rulers," and he was out of breath when he arrived there. He sat down, fanned himself with his hat, and when sufficiently recovered, said: "Well, we will have to fix that nigger, Piedmont. He is getting too high." "What's that he has been doing now? I have looked upon him as being an uncommonly good nigger. I have kept a good eye on him but haven't even had to hint at him," said the postmaster." "Well, he has shown his true nature at last. He had the gall to enter a white church in Monroe this morning and actually took a seat down stairs with the white folks; he did not even look at the gallery where he belonged." "Is that so?" burst out the postmaster incredulously. "I should say he did, and that's not all. A white girl who sat by him and could not read very well, failed to find the hymn at once. That nigger actually had the impudence to take her book and find the place for her." "The infernal scoundrel. By golly, he shall hang," broke in the postmaster. Dr. Zackland continued: "Naturally the congregation was infuriated and soon hustled the impudent scoundrel out. If services had not been going on, and if it had not been Sunday, there is no telling what would have happened. As it was they turned him loose. I came here to tell you, as he is our 'Nigger' living here at Cadeville, and the 'Nigger Rulers' of Cadeville will be disrespected if they let such presumptuous niggers go about to disturb religious services." "You are right about that, and we must soon put him out of the way. To-night will be his last night on earth," replied the postmaster. "Do you remember our bargain that we made about that nigger when he came about here?" asked Dr. Zackland. "No," answered the postmaster. "Well, I do. I have been all along itching for a chance to carry it out. You were to give me the nigger's body for dissecting purposes, in return for which I was to give you a keg of my best whiskey," said Dr. Zackland. "Ha, ha, ha," laughed the postmaster, "I do remember it now." "Well, I'll certainly stick up to my part of the program if you will stick to yours." "You can bet on me," returned Dr. Zackland. "I have a suggestion to make about the taking off of the nigger. Don't have any burning or riddling with bullets. Just hang him and fire one shot in the back of his head. I want him whole in the interest of society. That whiskey will be the finest that you will ever have and I want a good bargain for it." "I'll follow your instructions to the letter," answered the postmaster. "I'll just tell the boys that he, being a kind of decent nigger, we will give him a decent hanging. Meantime, Doctor, I must get out. To-day is Sunday and we must do our work to-morrow night. I must get a meeting of the boys to-night." So saying, the two arose, left the house and parted, one going to gather up his gang and the other to search up and examine his dissecting appliances. Monday night about 9 o'clock a mob came and took Belton out into the neighboring woods. He was given five minutes to pray, at the expiration of which time he was to be hanged. Belton seemed to have foreseen the coming of the mob, but felt somehow that God was at work to deliver him. Therefore he made no resistance, having unshaken faith in God. The rope was adjusted around his neck and thrown over the limb of a tree and Belton was swinging up. The postmaster then slipped forward and fired his pistol at the base of his skull and the blood came oozing forth. He then ordered the men to retire, as he did not care for them to remain to shoot holes in the body, as was their custom. As soon as they retired, three men sent by Dr. Zackland stole out of hiding and cut Belton's body down. Belton was not then dead, for he had only been hanging for seven minutes, and the bullet had not entered the skull but had simply ploughed its way under the skin. He was, however, unconscious, and to all appearances dead. The three men bore him to Dr. Zackland's residence, and entered a rear door. They laid him on a dissecting table in the rear room, the room in which the doctor performed all surgical operations. Dr. Zackland came to the table and looked down on Belton with a happy smile. To have such a robust, well-formed, handsome nigger to dissect and examine he regarded as one of the greatest boons of his medical career. The three men started to retire. "Wait," said Dr. Zackland, "let us see if he is dead." Belton had now returned to consciousness but kept his eyes closed, thinking it best to feign death. Dr. Zackland cut off the hair in the neighborhood of the wound in the rear of Belton's head and began cutting the skin, trying to trace the bullet. Belton did not wince. "The nigger is dead or else he would show some sign of life. But I will try pricking his palm." This was done, but while the pain was exceedingly excruciating, Belton showed no sign of feeling. "You may go now," said the doctor to his three attendants, "he is certainly dead." The men left. Dr. Zackland pulled out his watch and said: "It is now 10 o'clock. Those doctors from Monroe will be here by twelve. I can have everything exactly ready by that time." A bright ray of hope passed into Belton's bosom. He had two hours more of life, two hours more in which to plan an escape. Dr. Zackland was busy stirring about over the room. He took a long, sharp knife and gazed at its keen edge. He placed this on the dissecting table near Belton's feet. He then passed out of doors to get a pail of water, and left the door ajar. He went to his cabinet to get out more surgical instruments, and his back was now turned to Belton and he was absorbed in what he was doing. Belton's eyes had followed every movement, but in order to escape attention his eyelids were only slightly open. He now raised himself up, seized the knife that was near his feet and at a bound was at the doctor's side. The doctor turned around and was in dread alarm at the sight of the dead man returned to life. At that instant he was too terrified to act or scream, and before he could recover his self-possession Belton plunged the knife through his throat. Seizing the dying man he laid him on the dissecting board and covered him over with a sheet. He went to the writing desk and quickly scrawled the following note. "DOCTORS: "I have stepped out for a short while. Don't touch the nigger until I come. "Zackland." He pinned this note on that portion of the sheet where it would attract attention at once if one should begin to uncover the corpse. He did this to delay discovery and thus get a good start on those who might pursue him. Having done this he crept cautiously out of the room, leapt the back fence and made his way to his boarding place. He here changed his clothes and disappeared in the woods. He made his way to Baton Rouge and sought a conference with the Governor. The Governor ordered him under arrest and told him that the best and only thing he could do was to send him back to Cadeville under military escort to be tried for murder. This was accordingly done. The community was aroused over the death of Dr. Zackland at the hands of a negro. The sending of the military further incensed them. At the trial which followed, all evidence respecting the mob was excluded as irrelevant. Robbery was the motive assigned for the deed. The whole family with which Belton lived were arraigned as accomplices, because his bloody clothes were found in his room in their house. During the trial, the jury were allowed to walk about and mingle freely with the people and be thus influenced by the bitter public sentiment against Belton. Men who were in the mob that attempted Belton's murder were on the jury. In fact, the postmaster was the foreman. Without leaving their seats the jury returned a verdict of guilty in each case and all were sentenced to be hanged. The prisoners were taken to the New Orleans jail for safe keeping. While incarcerated here awaiting the day of execution, a newspaper reporter of a liberal New Orleans paper called on the prisoners. He was impressed with Belton's personality and promised to publish any statement that Belton would write. Belton then gave a thorough detailed account of every happening. The story was telegraphed broadcast and aroused sympathetic interest everywhere. Bernard read an account of it and hastened to his friend's side in New Orleans. In response to a telegram from Bernard a certain influential democratic senator came to New Orleans. Influence was brought to bear, and though all precedent was violated, the case was manoeuvred to the Supreme Court of the United States. Before this tribunal Bernard made the speech of his life and added to his fame as an orator. Competent judges said that the like of it had not been heard since the days of Daniel Webster. As he pleaded for his friend and the others accused the judges of the Supreme Court wept scalding tears. Bernard told of Belton's noble life, his unassuming ways, his pure Christianity. The decision of the lower court was reversed, a change of venue granted, a new trial held and an acquittal secured. Thus ended the tragic experience that burned all the remaining dross out of Belton's nature and prepared him for the even more terrible ordeal to follow in after years. CHAPTER XIII. MARRIED AND YET NOT MARRIED. Bernard was now at the very acme of fame. He had succeeded in becoming the most noted negro of his day. He felt that the time was not ripe for him to gather up his wealth and honors and lay them, with his heart, at Viola's feet. One afternoon he invited Viola to go out buggy riding with him, and decided to lay bare his heart to her before their return home. They drove out of Norfolk over Campostella bridge and went far into the country, chatting pleasantly, oblivious of the farm hands preparing the soil for seed sowing; for it was in balmy spring. About eight o'clock they were returning to the city and Bernard felt his veins throbbing; for he had determined to know his fate before he reached Viola's home. When midway the bridge he pulled his reins and the horse stood still. The dark waters of the small river swept on beneath them. Night had just begun to spread out her sombre wings, bedecked with silent stars. Just in front of them, as they looked out upon the center of the river, the river took a bend which brought a shore directly facing them. A green lawn began from the shore and ran back to be lost in the shadows of the evening. Amid a group of trees, there stood a little hut that looked to be the hut of an old widower, for it appeared neglected, forsaken, sad. Bernard gazed at this lonesome cottage and said: "Viola, I feel to-night that all my honors are empty. They feel to me like a load crushing me down rather than a pedestal raising me up. I am not happy. I long for the solitude of those trees. That decaying old house calls eloquently unto something within me. How I would like to enter there and lay me down to sleep, free from the cares and divested of the gewgaws of the world." Viola was startled by these sombre reflections coming from Bernard. She decided that something must be wrong. She was, by nature, exceedingly tender of heart, and she turned her pretty eyes in astonished grief at Bernard, handsome, melancholy, musing. "Ah, Mr. Belgrave, something terrible is gnawing at your heart for one so young, so brilliant, so prosperous as you are to talk thus. Make a confidante of me and let me help to remove the load, if I can." Bernard was silent and eat gazing out on the quiet flowing waters. Viola's eyes eagerly scanned his face as if to divine his secret. Bernard resumed speaking: "I have gone forth into life to win certain honors and snatch from fame a wreath, and now that I have succeeded, I behold this evening, as never before, that it is not worthy of the purpose for which I designed it. My work is all in vain." "Mr. Belgrave, you must not talk so sadly," said Viola, almost ready to cry. Bernard turned and suddenly grasped Viola's hands and said in passionate tones: "Viola, I love you. I have nothing to offer you worthy of you. I can find nothing worthy, attain nothing worthy. I love you to desperation. Will you give yourself to a wretch like me? Say no! don't throw away your beauty, your love on so common a piece of clay." Viola uttered a loud, piercing scream that dispersed all Bernard's thoughts and frightened the horse. He went dashing across the bridge, Bernard endeavoring to grasp the reins. When he at last succeeded, Viola had fainted. Bernard drove hurriedly towards Viola's home, puzzled beyond measure. He had never heard of a marriage proposal frightening a girl into a faint and he thought that there was surely something in the matter of which he knew nothing. Then, too, he was racking his brain for an excuse to give Viola's parents. But happily the cool air revived Viola and she awoke trembling violently and begged Bernard to take her home at once. This he did and drove away, much puzzled in mind. He revived the whole matter in his mind, and thoughts and opinions came and went. Perhaps she deemed him utterly unworthy of her. There was one good reason for this last opinion and one good one against it. He felt himself to be unworthy of such a girl, but on the other hand Viola had frequently sung his praises in his own ears and in the ears of others. He decided to go early in the morning and know definitely his doom. That night he did not sleep. He paced up and down the room glancing at the clock every five minutes or so. He would now and then hoist the window and strain his eyes to see if there were any sign of approaching dawn. After what seemed to him at least a century, the sun at last arose and ushered in the day. As soon as he thought Miss Martin was astir and unengaged, he was standing at the door. They each looked sad and forlorn. Viola knew and Bernard felt that some dark shadow was to come between them. Viola caught hold of Bernard's hand and led him silently into the parlor. Bernard sat down on the divan and Viola took a seat thereon close by his side. She turned her charming face, sweet in its sadness, up to Bernard's and whispered "kiss me, Bernard." Bernard seized her and kissed her rapturously. She then arose and sat in a chair facing him, at a distance. She then said calmly, determinedly, almost icily, looking Bernard squarely in the face: "Bernard, you know that I love you. It was I that asked you to kiss me. Always remember that. But as much as I love you I shall never be your wife. Never, never." Bernard arose and started toward Viola. He paused and gazed down upon that beautiful image that sat before him and said in anguish: "Oh God! Is all my labor in vain, my honors common dirt, my future one dreary waste? Shall I lose that which has been an ever shining, never setting sun to me? Viola! If you love me you shall be my wife." Viola bowed her head and shook it sadly, saying: "A power higher than either you or I has decreed it otherwise." "Who is he? Tell me who he is that dare separate us and I swear I will kill him," cried Bernard in a frenzy of rage. Viola looked up, her eyes swimming in tears, and said: "Would you kill God?" This question brought Bernard to his senses and he returned to his seat and sat down suddenly. He then said: "Viola Martin, you are making a fool of me. Tell me plainly why we cannot be man and wife, if you love me as you say you do?" "Bernard, call here to-morrow at 10 o'clock and I will tell you all. If you can then remove my objections all will be well." Bernard leaped up eager to get away, feeling that that would somewhat hasten the time for him to return. Viola did not seem to share his feelings of elation. But he did not mind that. He felt himself fully able to demolish any and all objections that Viola could bring. He went home and spent the day perusing his text-book on logic. He would conjure up imaginary objections and would proceed to demolish them in short order. He slept somewhat that night, anticipating a decisive victory on the morrow. When Bernard left Viola that morning, she threw herself prostrate on the floor, moaning and sobbing. After a while she arose and went to the dining room door. She looked in upon her mother, quietly sewing, and tried to say in a cheerful manner: "Mamma, I shall be busy writing all day in my room. Let no one disturb me." Her mother looked at her gently and lovingly and assured her that no one should disturb her. Her mother surmised that all had not gone well with her and Bernard, and that Viola was wrestling with her grief. Knowing that spats were common to young people in love she supposed it would soon be over. Viola went upstairs and entered her room. This room, thanks to Viola's industry and exquisite taste, was the beauty spot of the whole house. Pictures of her own painting adorned the walls, and scattered here and there in proper places were articles of fancy work put together in most lovely manner by her delicate fingers. Viola was fond of flowers and her room was alive with the scent of pretty flowers and beautiful roses. This room was a fitting scene for what was to follow. She opened her tiny writing desk. She wrote a letter to her father, one to her mother and one to Bernard. Her letter to Bernard had to be torn up and re-written time and again, for fast falling tears spoiled it almost as fast as she wrote. At last she succeeded in finishing his letter to her satisfaction. At eventide she came down stairs and with her mother, sat on the rear porch and saw the sun glide gently out of sight, without a struggle, without a murmur. Her eye lingered long on the spot where the sun had set and watched the hidden sun gradually steal all of his rays from the skies to use them in another world. Drawing a heavy sigh, she lovingly caught her mother around the waist and led her into the parlor. Viola now became all gayety, but her mother could see that it was forced. She took a seat at the piano and played and sang. Her rich soprano voice rang out clear and sweet and passers by paused to listen to the glorious strains. Those who paused to hear her sing passed on feeling sad at heart. Beginning in somewhat low tones, her voice gradually swelled and the full, round tones full of melody and pathos seemed to lift up and bear one irresistibly away. Viola's mother sat by and looked with tender solicitude on her daughter singing and playing as she had never before in her life. "What did it mean?" she asked herself. When Viola's father came from the postoffice, where he was a clerk, Viola ran to him joyously. She pulled him into the parlor and sat on his knee stroking his chin and nestling her head on his bosom. She made him tell her tales as he did when she was a child and she would laugh, but her laugh did not have its accustomed clear, golden ring. Kissing them good night, she started up to her bed room. When at the head of the stairway she returned and without saying a word kissed her parents again. When she was gone, the parents looked at each other and shook their heads. They knew that Viola was feeling keenly on account of something but felt that her cheerful nature would soon throw it off. But the blade was in her heart deeper than they knew. Viola entered her room, fastening the door behind her. She went to her desk, secured the three letters that she had written and placed them on the floor a few inches apart in a position where they would attract immediate attention upon entering the room. She then lay down upon her bed and put one arm across her bosom. With her other hand she turned on the gas jet by the head of her bed. She then placed this other hand across her bosom and ere long fell asleep to wake no more. The moon arose and shed its sad, quiet light through the half turned shutters, through the window pane. It seemed to force its way in in order to linger and weep over such queenly beauty, such worth, meeting with such an accursed end. Thus in this forbidden path Viola Martin had gone to him who said: "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." CHAPTER XIV MARRIED AND YET NOT MARRIED. (Continued.) At ten o'clock on the next day, Bernard called at Viola's residence. Viola's mother invited him in and informed him that Viola had not arisen. Thinking that her daughter had spent much of the night in meditating on whatever was troubling her, She had thought not to awaken her so early. Bernard informed her that Viola had made an engagement with him for that morning at ten o'clock. Mrs. Martin looked alarmed. She knew that Viola was invariably punctual to an appointment and something unusual must be the matter. She left the room hurriedly and her knees smote together as she fancied she discovered the scent of escaping gas. She clung to the banisters for support and dragged her way to Viola's door. As she drew near, the smell of gas became unmistakable, and she fell forward, uttering a loud scream. Bernard had noticed the anxious look on Viola's mother's face and was listening eagerly. He beard her scream and dashed out of the parlor and up the stairs. He rushed past Mrs. Martin and burst open the door to Viola's door. He drew back aghast at the sight that met his gaze. The next instant he had seized her lifeless form, beautiful in death, and smothered those silent lips with kisses. Mrs. Martin regained sufficient strength to rush into the room, and when she saw her child was dead uttered a succession of piercing shrieks and fell to the floor in a swoon. This somewhat called Bernard's mind from his own grief. He lay Viola down upon her own bed most tenderly and set about to restore Mrs. Martin to consciousness. By this time the room was full of anxious neighbors. While they are making inquiry let us peruse the letters which the poor girl left behind. "MY DEAR, DEAR, HEART-BROKEN MAMA:-- "I am in the hands of God. Whatever He does is just, is right, is the only thing to be done. Knowing this, do not grieve after me. Take poor Bernard for your son and love him as you did me. I make that as my sole dying request of you. One long sweet clinging kiss ere I drop into the ocean of death to be lost in its tossing waves. "Viola." "BELOVED PAPA:-- "Your little daughter is gone. Her heart, though torn, bleeding, dead, gave, as it were, an after throb of pain as it thought of you. In life you never denied me a request. I have one to make from my grave, knowing that you will not deny me. Love Bernard as your son; draw him to you, so that, when in your old age you go tottering to your tomb in quest of me, you may have a son to bear you up. Take my lifeless body on your knee and kiss me as you did of old. It will help me to rest sweetly in my grave. "Your little Vie." "DEAR BERNARD:-- "Viola has loved and left you. Unto you, above all others, I owe a full explanation of the deed which I have committed; and I shall therefore lay bare my heart to you. My father was a colonel in the Civil War and when I was very young he would make my little heart thrill with patriotic fervor as he told me of the deeds of daring of the gallant Negro soldiers. As a result, when nothing but a tiny girl, I determined to be a heroine and find some outlet for my patriotic feeling. This became a consuming passion. In 18-- just two years prior to my meeting you, a book entitled, 'White Supremacy and Negro Subordination,' by the merest accident came into my possession. That book made a revelation to me of a most startling nature. "While I lived I could not tell you what I am about to tell you. Death has brought me the privilege. That book proved to me that the intermingling of the races in sexual relationship was sapping the vitality of the Negro race and, in fact, was slowly but surely exterminating the race. It demonstrated that the fourth generation of the children born of intermarrying mulattoes were invariably sterile or woefully lacking in vital force. It asserted that only in the most rare instances were children born of this fourth generation and in no case did such children reach maturity. This is a startling revelation. While this intermingling was impairing the vital force of our race and exterminating it, it was having no such effect on the white race for the following reason. Every half-breed, or for that, every person having a tinge of Negro blood, the white people cast off. We receive the cast off with open arms and he comes to us with his devitalizing power. Thus, the white man was slowly exterminating us and our total extinction was but a short period of time distant. I looked out upon our strong, tender hearted, manly race being swept from the face of the earth by immorality, and the very marrow in my bones seemed chilled at the thought thereof. I determined to spend my life fighting the evil. My first step was to solemnly pledge God to never marry a mulatto man. My next resolve was to part in every honorable way all courting couples of mulatto people that I could. My other and greatest task was to persuade the evil women of my race to cease their criminal conduct with white men and I went about pleading with them upon my knees to desist. I pointed out that such a course was wrong before God and was rapidly destroying the Negro race. I told them of my resolve to never marry a mulatto man. Many had faith in me and I was the means of redeeming numbers of these erring ones. When you came, I loved you. I struggled hard against that love. God, alone, knows how I battled against it. I prayed Him to take it from me, as it was eating my heart away. Sometimes I would appear indifferent to you with the hope of driving you away, but then my love would come surging with all the more violence and sweep me from my feet. At last, you seemed to draw away from me and I was happy. I felt free to you. But you at last proposed to me when I thought all such notions were dead. At once I foresaw my tragic end. My heart shed bloody tears, weeping over my own sad end, weeping for my beloved parents, weeping for my noble Bernard who was so true, so noble, so great in all things. "Bernard, how happy would I have been, how deliriously happy, could I but have stood beside you at the altar and sworn fidelity to you. Ours would have been an ideal home. But it was not to be. I had to choose between you and my race. Your noble heart, in its sober moments will sanction my choice, I would not have died if I could have lived without proving false to my race. Had I lived, my love and your agony, which I cannot bear, would have made me prove false to every vow. "Dear Bernard, I have a favor to ask of you. Secure the book of which I spoke to you. Study the question of the intermingling of the races. If miscegenation is in reality destroying us, dedicate your soul to the work of separating the white and colored races. Do not let them intermingle. Erect moral barriers to separate them. If you fail in this, make the separation physical; lead our people forth from this accursed land. Do this and I shall not have died in vain. Visit my grave now and then to drop thereon a flower and a flag, but no tears. If in the shadowy beyond, whose mists I feel gathering about me, there is a place where kindred spirits meet, you and I shall surely meet again. Though I could not in life, I will in death sign myself, "Your loving wife, "Viola Belgrave." Let us not enter this saddened home when the seals of those letters were broken. Let us not break the solemn silence of those who bowed their heads and bore the grief, too poignant for words. Dropping a tear of regret on the little darling who failed to remember that we have one atonement for all mankind and that further sacrifice was therefore needless, we pass out and leave the loving ones alone with their dead. But, we may gaze on Bernard Belgrave as he emerges from the room where his sun has set to rise no more. His eyes flash, his nostrils dilate, his bosom heaves, he lifts his proud head and turns his face so that the light of the sky may fall full upon it. And lifting up his hands, trembling with emotion as though supplicating for the strength of a god, he cries out; "By the eternal heavens these abominable horrors shall cease. The races, whose union has been fraught with every curse known to earth and hell, must separate. Viola demands it and Bernard obeys." It was this that sent him forth to where kings were eager to court his favor. CHAPTER XV. WEIGHTY MATTERS. With his hands thrust into his pockets, and his hat pulled over his grief stricken eyes, Bernard slowly wended his way to his boarding place. He locked himself in his room and denied himself to all callers. He paced to and fro, his heart a cataract of violent, tossing, whirling emotions. He sat down and leaned his head upon the bed, pressing his hand to his forehead as if to restore order there. While thus employed his landlady knocked at the door and called through the key hole, informing him that there was a telegram for him. Bernard arose, came out, signed for and received the telegram, tore it open and read as follows: Waco, Texas, ----l8---- "HON. BERNARD BELGRAVE, M.C., "Come to Waco at once. If you fail to come you will make the mistake of your life. Come. "BELTON PIEDMONT." "Yes, I'll go," shouted Bernard, "anywhere, for anything." He seemed to feel grateful for something to divert his thoughts and call him away from the scene where his hopes had died. He sent Viola's family a note truthfully stating that he was unequal to the task of attending Viola's funeral, and that for his part she was not dead and never should be. The parents had read Bernard's letter left by Viola and knew the whole story. They, too, felt that it was best for Bernard to go. Bernard took the train that afternoon and after a journey of four days arrived at Waco. Belton being apprised by telegram of the hour of his arrival, was at the station to meet him. Belton was actually shocked at the haggard appearance of his old play-fellow. It was such a contrast from the brilliant, glowing, handsome Bernard of former days. After the exchange of greetings, they entered a carriage and drove through the city. They passed out, leaving the city behind. After going about five miles, they came in sight of a high stone wall enclosure. In the middle of the enclosed place, upon a slight elevation, stood a building four stories high and about two hundred feet long and one hundred and eighty feet wide. In the center of the front side arose a round tower, half of it bulging out. This extended from the ground to a point about twenty feet above the roof of the building. The entrance to the building was through a wide door in this tower. Off a few paces was a small white cottage. Here and there trees abounded in patches in the enclosure, which seemed to comprise about twenty acres. The carriage drove over a wide, gravel driveway which curved so as to pass the tower door, and on out to another gate. Belton and Bernard alighted and proceeded to enter. Carved in large letters on the top of the stone steps were these words: "Thomas Jefferson College." They entered the tower and found themselves on the floor of an elevator, and on this they ascended to the fourth story. The whole of this story was one huge room, devoid of all kinds of furniture save a table and two chairs in a corner. In the center was an elevated platform about ten feet square, and on this stood what might have passed for either a gallows or an acting pole. Belton led Bernard to the spot where the two chairs and table stood and they sat down. Belton informed Bernard that he had brought him there so that there would be no possibility of anyone hearing what, he had to say. Bernard instantly became all attention. Belton began his recital: "I have been so fortunate as to unearth a foul conspiracy that is being hatched by our people. I have decided to expose them and see every one of them hung," "Pray tell me, Belton, what is the motive that prompts you to be so zealous in the work of ferreting out conspirators among your people to be hanged by the whites?" "It is this," said Belton: "you know as it is, the Negro has a hard time in this country. If we begin to develop traitors and conspirators we shall fare even worse. It is necessary, therefore, that we kill these vipers that come, lest we all be slain as vipers." "That may be true, but I don't like to see you in that kind of business," said Bernard. "Don't talk that way," said Belton, "for I counted upon your aid. I desire to secure you as prosecuting attorney in the case. When we thus expose the traitors, we shall earn the gratitude of the government and our race will be treated with more consideration in the future. We will add another page to the glorious record of our people's devotion by thus spurning these traitors." "Belton, I tell you frankly that my share in that kind of business will be infinitessimally small. But go on. Let me know the whole story, that I may know better what to think and do," replied Bernard. "Well, it is this," began Belton; "you know that there is one serious flaw in the Constitution of the United States, which has already caused a world of trouble, and there is evidently a great deal more to come. You know that a ship's boilers, engines, rigging, and so forth may be in perfect condition, but a serious leak in her bottom will sink the proudest vessel afloat. This flaw or defect in the Constitution of the United States is the relation of the General Government to the individual state. The vague, unsettled state of the relationship furnished the pretext for the Civil War. The General Government says to the citizen: 'I am your sovereign. You are my citizen and not the citizen of only one state. If I call on you to defend my sovereignty, you must do so even if you have to fight against your own state. But while I am your supreme earthly sovereign I am powerless to protect you against crimes, injustices, outrages against you. Your state may disfranchise you with or without law, may mob you; but my hands are so tied that I can't help you at all, although I shall force you to defend my sovereignty with your lives. If you are beset by Klu Klux, White Cappers, Bulldozers, Lynchers, do not turn your dying eyes on me for I am unable to help you.' Such is what the Federal Government has to say to the Negro. The Negro must therefore fight to keep afloat a flag that can afford him no more protection than could a helpless baby. The weakness of the General Government in this particular was revealed with startling clearness in connection with the murder of those Italians in New Orleans, a few years ago. This government had promised Italy to afford protection to the property and lives of her citizens sojourning in our midst. But when these men were murdered the General Government could not even bring the murderers to trial for their crime. Its treaty had been broken by a handfull of its own citizens and it was powerless to punish them. It had to confess its impotence to the world, and paid Italy a specified sum of money. The Negro finds himself an unprotected foreigner in his own home. Whatever outrages may be perpetrated upon him by the people of the state in which he lives, he cannot expect any character of redress from the General Government. So in order to supply this needed protection, this conspiracy of which I have spoken has been formed to attempt to unite all Negroes in a body to do that which the whimpering government childishly but truthfully says it cannot do. "These men are determined to secure protection for their lives and the full enjoyment of all rights and privileges due American citizens. They take a solemn oath, offering their very blood for the cause. I see that this will lead, eventually, to a clash of arms, and I wish to expose the conspiracy before it is too late. Cooperate with me and glory and honor shall attend us all of our days. Now, Bernard, tell me candidly what you think of the whole matter. May I not rely on you?" "Well, let me tell you just exactly what I think and just what I shall do," thundered Bernard, rising as he spoke. Pointing his finger at Belton, he said: "I think, sir, that you are the most infernal scoundrel that I ever saw, and those whom you call conspirators are a set of sublime patriots; and further," hissed Bernard in rage through his teeth, "if you betray those men, I will kill you." To Bernard's surprise Belton did not seem enraged as Bernard thought he would be. Knowing Belton's spirit he had expected an encounter after such words as he had just spoken. Belton looked indifferent and unconcerned, and arose, as if to yawn, when suddenly he threw himself on Bernard with the agility of a tiger and knocked him to the floor. From secret closets in the room sprang six able bodied men. They soon had Bernard securely bound. Belton then told Bernard that he must retract what he had said and agree to keep his revealed purpose a secret or he would never leave that room alive. "Then I shall die, and my only regret will be that I shall die at the hands of such an abominable wretch as you are," was Bernard's answer. Bernard was stood against the wall. The six men retired to their closets and returned with rifles. Bernard gazed at the men unflinchingly. They formed a line, ten paces in front of him. Belton gave Bernard one last chance, as he said, to save his life, by silence as to his plans. Bernard said: "If I live I shall surely proclaim your infamy to our people and slay you besides. The curse of our doomed race is just such white folks' niggers as you are. Shoot, shoot, shoot, you whelps." They took aim and, at a command from Belton, fired. When the smoke had lifted, Belton said: "Bernard, those were blank cartridges. I desired to give you another chance. If you consent to leave me unmolested to ferret out those conspirators I will take your word as your bond and spare your life. Will you accept your life at such a low price?" "Come here and let me give you my answer," said Bernard. "Let me whisper something in your ear." Belton drew near and Bernard spat in his face and said, "Take that, you knave." Belton ordered Bernard seized and carried to the center of the room where stood what appeared to be an acting pole, but what was in reality a complete gallows. A black cap was adjusted over Bernard's head and a rope tied to his hands. He was told that a horrible death awaited him. He was informed that the platform on which he stood was a trap door that concealed an opening in the center of the building, that extended to the first floor. He was told that he would be dropped far enough to have his arms torn from his body and would be left to die. Bernard perceptibly shuddered at the fate before him but he had determined long since to be true to every higher aspiration of his people, and he would die a death however horrible rather than stand by and see aspiring souls slaughtered for organizing to secure their rights at all hazards. He muttered a prayer to God, closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and nerved himself for the ordeal, refusing to answer Belton's last appeal. Belton gave command to spring the trap door after he had counted three. In order to give Bernard a chance to weaken he put one minute between each count. "One----Two----Three----" he called out. Bernard felt the floor give way beneath his feet and he shot down with terrific speed. He nerved himself for the shock that was to tear his limbs from his body, but, strange to say, he felt the speed lessening as he fell and his feet eventually struck a floor with not sufficient force to even jar him severely. "Was this death? Was he dead or alive?" he was thinking within himself, when suddenly the mask was snatched from his face and he found himself in a large room containing desks arranged in a semi-circular form. There were one hundred and forty-five desks, and at each a person was seated. "Where was he? What did that assemblage mean? What did his strange experiences mean?" he asked himself. He stood there, his hands tied, his eye wandering from face to face. Within a few minutes Belton entered and the assemblage broke forth into cheers. Bernard had alighted on a platform directly facing the assemblage. Belton walked to his side and spread out his hands and said: "Behold the Chiefs of the conspirators whom you would not betray. Behold me, whom they have called the arch conspirator. You have nobly stood the test. Come, your reward awaits you. You are worthy of it and I assure you it is worthy of you." Bernard had not been killed in his fall because of a parachute which had been so arranged, unknown to him, to save him in the descent. CHAPTER XVI. UNWRITTEN HISTORY. Belton, smiling, locked his arm in Bernard's and said: "Come with me. I will explain it all to you." They walked down the aisle together. At the sight of these two most conspicuous representatives of all that was good and great in the race, moving down the aisle side by side, the audience began to cheer wildly and a band of musicians began playing "Hail to the Chief." All of this was inexplicable to Bernard; but he was soon to learn what and how much it meant. Belton escorted him across the campus to the small but remarkably pretty white cottage with green vines clinging to trellis work all around it. Here they entered. The rooms were furnished with rare and antique furniture and were so tastefully arranged as to astonish and please even Bernard, who had been accustomed from childhood to choice, luxuriant magnificence. They entered a side room, overlooking a beautiful lawn which could boast of lovely flowers and rose bushes scattered here and there. They sat down, facing each other. Bernard was a bundle of expectancy. He had passed through enough to make him so. Belton said: "Bernard, I am now about to put the keeping of the property, the liberty, and the very lives of over seven million five hundred thousand people into your hands." Bernard opened his eyes wide in astonishment and waited for Belton to further explain himself. "Realize," said Belton, "that I am carefully weighing each remark I make and am fully conscious of how much my statement involves." Bernard bowed his head in solemn thought. Viola's recent death, the blood-curdling experiences of the day, and now Belton's impressive words all united to make that a sober moment with him; as sober as any that he had ever had in his life. He looked Belton in the face and said: "May revengeful lightning transfix me with her fiercest bolts; may hell's most fiery pillars roll in fury around me; may I be despised of man and forgotten of my God, if I ever knowingly, in the slightest way, do aught to betray this solemn, this most sacred trust." Belton gazed fondly on the handsome features of his noble friend and sighed to think that only the coloring of his skin prevented him from being enrolled upon the scroll containing the names of the very noblest sons of earth. Arousing himself as from a reverie he drew near to Bernard and said: "I must begin. Another government, complete in every detail, exercising the sovereign right of life and death over its subjects, has been organized and maintained within the United States for many years. This government has a population of seven million two hundred and fifty thousand." "Do you mean all that you say, Belton?" asked Bernard eagerly. "I shall in a short time submit to you positive proofs of my assertion. You shall find that I have not overstated anything." "But, Belton, how in the world can such a thing be when I, who am thoroughly conversant with every movement of any consequence, have not even dreamed of such a thing." "All of that shall be made perfectly clear to you in the course of the narrative which I shall now relate." Bernard leaned forward, anxious to hear what purported to be one of the most remarkable and at the same time one of the most important things connected with modern civilization. Belton began: "You will remember, Bernard, that there lived, in the early days of the American Republic, a negro scientist who won an international reputation by his skill and erudition. In our school days, we spoke of him often. Because of his learning and consequent usefulness, this negro enjoyed the association of the moving spirits of the revolutionary period. By the publication of a book of science which outranked any other book of the day that treated of the same subject, this negro became a very wealthy man. Of course the book is now obsolete, science having made such great strides since his day. This wealthy negro secretly gathered other free negroes together and organized a society that had a two-fold object. The first object was to endeavor to secure for the free negroes all the rights and privileges of men, according to the teachings of Thomas Jefferson. Its other object was to secure the freedom of the enslaved negroes the world over. All work was done by this organization with the sole stipulation that it should be used for the furtherance of the two above named objects of the society, and for those objects alone. "During slavery this organization confined its membership principally to free negroes, as those who were yet in physical bondage were supposed to have aspirations for nothing higher than being released from chains, and were, therefore, not prepared to eagerly aspire to the enjoyment of the highest privileges of freedom. When the War of Secession was over and all negroes were free, the society began to cautiously spread its membership among the emancipated. They conducted a campaign of education, which in every case preceded an attempt at securing members. This campaign of education had for its object the instruction of the negro as to what real freedom was. He was taught that being released from chains was but the lowest form of liberty, and that he was no more than a common cur if he was satisfied with simply that. That much was all, they taught, that a dog howled for. They made use of Jefferson's writings, educating the negro to feel that he was not in the full enjoyment of his rights until he was on terms of equality with any other human being that was alive or had ever lived. This society used its influence secretly to have appointed over Southern schools of all kinds for negroes such teachers as would take especial pains to teach the negro to aspire for equality with all other races of men. "They were instructed to pay especial attention to the history of the United States during the revolutionary period. Thus, the campaign of education moved forward. The negroes gained political ascendancy in many Southern states, but were soon hurled from power, by force in some quarters, and by fraud in others. The negroes turned their eyes to the federal government for redress and a guarantee of their rights. The federal government said: 'Take care of yourselves, we are powerless to help you.' The 'Civil Rights Bill,' was declared null and void, by the Supreme Court. An 'honest election bill' was defeated in Congress by James G. Blaine and others. Separate coach laws were declared by the Supreme Court to be constitutional. State Constitutions were revised and so amended as to nullify the amendment of the Federal Constitution, giving the negro the right to vote. More than sixty thousand defenseless negroes were unlawfully slain. Governors would announce publicly that they favored lynching. The Federal Government would get elected to power by condemning these outrages, and when there, would confess its utter helplessness. One President plainly declared, what was already well known, 'that the only thing that they could do, would be to create a healthy sentiment.' This secret organization of which we have been speaking decided that some means must be found to do what the General Government could not do, because of a defect in the Constitution. They decided to organize a General Government that would protect the negro in his rights. This course of action decided upon, the question was as to how this could be done the most quickly and successfully. You well know that the negro has been a marvelous success since the war, as a builder of secret societies. "One member of this patriotic secret society, of which we have been speaking, conceived the idea of making use of all of these secret orders already formed by negroes. The idea met with instant approval. A house was found already to hand. These secret orders were all approached and asked to add one more degree and let this added degree be the same in every negro society. This proposition was accepted, and the Government formed at once. Each order remained, save in this last degree where all were one. This last degree was nothing more nor less than a compact government exercising all the functions of a nation. The grand purpose of the government was so apparent, and so needful of attention, that men rushed into this last degree pledging their lives to the New Government. "All differences between the race were to be settled by this Government, as it had a well organized judiciary. Negroes, members of this Government, were to be no longer seen fighting negroes before prejudiced white courts. An army was organized and every able-bodied citizen enlisted. After the adjournment of the lodge sessions, army drills were always executed. A Congress was duly elected, one member for every fifty thousand citizens. Branch legislatures were formed in each state. Except in a few, but important particulars, the constitution was modeled after that of the United States. "There is only one branch to our Congress, the members of which are elected by a majority vote, for an indefinite length of time, and may be recalled at any time by a majority vote. "This Congress passes laws relating to the general welfare of our people, and whenever a bill is introduced in the Congress of the United States affecting our race it is also introduced and debated here. "Every race question submitted to the United States judiciary, is also submitted to our own. A record of our decisions is kept side by side with the decisions of the United States. "The money which the scientist left was wisely invested, and at the conclusion of the civil war amounted to many millions. Good land at the South was offered after the war for twenty-five cents an acre. These millions were expended in the purchase of such lands, and our treasury is now good for $500,000,000. Our citizens own about $350,000,000. And all of this is pledged to our government in case it is needed. "We have at our disposal, therefore, $850,000,000. This money can he used by the Government in any way that it sees fit, so long as it is used to secure the recognition of the rights of our people. They are determined to be free and will give their lives, as freely as they have given their property. "This place is known as Jefferson College, but it is in reality the Capitol of our Government, and those whom you have just left are the Congressmen." "But, Belton," broke in Bernard, "how does it happen that I have been excluded from all this?" "That is explained in this way. The relation of your mother to the Anglo-Saxon race has not been clearly understood, and you and she have been under surveillance for many years. "It was not until recently deemed advisable to let you in, your loyalty to the race never having fully been tested. I have been a member for years. While I was at Stowe University, though a young man, I was chairman of the bureau of education and had charge of the work of educating the race upon the doctrine of human liberty. "While I was at Cadeville, La., that was my work. Though not attracting public attention, I was sowing seed broadcast. After my famous case I was elected to Congress here and soon thereafter chosen speaker, which position I now hold. "I shall now come to matters that concern you. Our constitution expressly stipulates that the first President of our Government should be a man whom the people unanimously desired. Each Congressman had to be instructed to vote for the same man, else there would be no election. This was done because it was felt that the responsibility of the first President would be so great, and have such a formative influence that he should be the selection of the best judgment of the entire nation. "In the second place, this would ensure his having a united nation at his back. Again, this forcing the people to be unanimous would have a tendency to heal dissensions within their ranks. In other words, we needed a George Washington. "Various men have been put forward for this honor and vigorous campaigns have been waged in their behalf. But these all failed of the necessary unanimous vote. At last, one young man arose, who was brilliant and sound, genial and true, great and good. On every tongue was his name and in every heart his image. Unsolicited by him, unknown to him, the nation by its unanimous voice has chosen him the President of our beloved Government. This day he has unflinchingly met the test that our Congress decreed and has come out of the furnace, purer than gold. He feared death no more than the caress of his mother, when he felt that that death was to be suffered in behalf of his oppressed people. I have the great honor, on this the proudest occasion of my life, to announce that I am commissioned to inform you that the name of our President is Bernard Belgrave. You, sir, are President of the Imperium In Imperio, the name of our Government, and to you we devote our property, our lives, our all, promising to follow your banner into every post of danger until it is planted on freedom's hill. You are given three months in which to verify all of my claims, and give us answer as to whether you will serve us." * * * * * Bernard took three months to examine into the reality and stability of the Imperium. He found it well nigh perfect in every part and presented a form of government unexcelled by that of any other nation. CHAPTER XVII. CROSSING THE RUBICON. Bernard assumed the Presidency of the Imperium and was duly inaugurated in a manner in keeping with the importance of his high office. He began the direction of its affairs with such energy and tactful discretion as betokened great achievements. He familiarized himself with every detail of his great work and was thoroughly posted as to all the resources at his command. He devoted much time to assuaging jealousies and healing breaches wherever such existed in the ranks of the Imperium. He was so gentle, so loving, yet so firm and impartial, that all factional differences disappeared at his approach. Added to his great popularity because of his talents, there sprang up for him personal attachments, marvelous in depth. He rose to the full measure of the responsibilities of his commanding position, and more than justified the fondest anticipations of his friends and admirers. In the meanwhile he kept an observant eye upon the trend of events in the United States, and his fingers were ever on the pulse of the Imperium. All of the evils complained of by the Imperium continued unabated; in fact, they seemed to multiply and grow instead of diminishing. Bernard started a secret newspaper whose business it was to chronicle every fresh discrimination, every new act of oppression, every additional unlawful assault upon the property, the liberty or the lives of any of the members of the Imperium. This was an illustrated journal, and pictures of horrors, commented upon in burning words, spread fire-brands everywhere in the ranks of the Imperium. Only members of the Imperium had access to this fiery journal. At length an insurrection broke out in Cuba, and the whole Imperium watched this struggle with keenest interest, as the Cubans were in a large measure negroes. In proportion as the Cubans drew near to their freedom, the fever of hope correspondingly rose in the veins of the Imperium. The United States of America sent a war ship to Cuba. One night while the sailors slept in fancied security, some powerful engine of destruction demolished the vessel and ended the lives of some 266 American seamen. A board of inquiry was sent by the United States Government to the scene of the disaster, and, after a careful investigation of a most thorough character, decided that the explosion was not internal and accidental but external and by design. This finding made war between the United States and Spain practically inevitable. While the whole nation was in the throes of war excitement, a terrible tragedy occurred. President McKinley had appointed Mr. Felix A. Cook, a colored man of ability, culture and refinement as postmaster of Lake City, South Carolina. The white citizens of this place made no protest against the appointment and all was deemed satisfactory. One morning the country awoke to be horrified with the news that Mr. Cook's home had been assaulted at night by a mob of white demons in human form. The mob set fire to the house while the occupants slept, and when Mr. Cook with his family endeavored to escape from the flames he was riddled with bullets and killed, and his wife and children were wounded. And the sole offense for which this dastardly crime was perpetrated, was that he decided to accept the honor which the government conferred upon him in appointing him postmaster of a village of 300 inhabitants. It was the color of his skin that made this acceptance odious in the eyes of his Anglo-Saxon neighbors! This incident naturally aroused as much indignation among the members of the Imperium as did the destruction of the war ship in the bosoms of the Anglo-Saxons of the United States. All things considered, Bernard regarded this as the most opportune moment for the Imperium to meet and act upon the whole question of the relationship of the negro race to the Anglo-Saxons. The Congress of the Imperium was called and assembled in special session at the Capitol building just outside of Waco. The session began on the morning of April--the same day on which the Congress of the United States had under consideration the resolutions, the adoption of which meant war with Spain. These two congresses on this same day had under consideration questions of vital import to civilization. The proceedings of the Anglo-Saxons have been told to the world in minute detail, but the secret deliberations of the Imperium are herein disclosed for the first time. The exterior of the Capitol at Waco was decorated with American flags, and red, white and blue bunting. Passers-by commented on the patriotism of Jefferson College. But, enveloped in this decoration there was cloth of the color of mourning. The huge weeping willows stood, one on each side of the speaker's desk. To the right of the desk, there was a group of women in widow's weeds, sitting on an elevated platform. There were fifty of these, their husbands having been made the victims of mobs since the first day of January just gone. To the left of the speaker's desk, there were huddled one hundred children whose garments were in tatters and whose looks bespoke lives of hardship. These were the offsprings robbed of their parents by the brutish cruelty of unthinking mobs. Postmaster Cook, while alive, was a member of the Imperium and his seat was now empty and draped in mourning. In the seat was a golden casket containing his heart, which had been raked from the burning embers on the morning following the night of the murderous assault. It was amid such surrounding as these that the already aroused and determined members of the Congress assembled. Promptly at 11 o'clock, Speaker Belton Piedmont took the chair. He rapped for order, and the chaplain offered a prayer, in which he invoked the blessings of God upon the negro race at the most important crisis in its history. Word was sent, by proper committee, across the campus informing the president that Congress was in session awaiting his further pleasure. According to custom, the president came in person to orally deliver his message. He entered in the rear of the building and marched forward. The Congress arose and stood with bowed heads as he passed through. The speaker's desk was moved back as a sign of the president's superior position, and directly in the center of the platform the president stood to speak. He was dressed in a Prince Albert suit of finest black. He wore a standing collar and a necktie snowy white. The hair was combed away from that noble brow of his, and his handsome face showed that he was nerved for what he regarded as the effort of his life. In his fierce, determined glance you could discover that latent fires, hitherto unsuspected even in his warm bosom, had been aroused. The whole man was to speak that day. And he spoke. We can give you his words but not his speech. Man can photograph the body, but in the photograph you can only glimpse the soul. Words can portray the form of a speech, but the spirit, the life, are missing and we turn away disappointed. That sweet, well modulated voice, full of tender pathos, of biting sarcasm, of withering irony, of swelling rage, of glowing fervor, according as the occasion demanded, was a most faithful vehicle to Bernard; conveying fully every delicate shade of thought. The following gives you but a faint idea of his masterly effort. In proportion as you can throw yourself into his surroundings, and feel, as he had felt, the iron in his soul, to that extent will you be able to realize how much power there was in what is now to follow: THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE. "Two terrible and discordant sounds have burst forth upon the erstwhile quiet air and now fill your bosom with turbulent emotions. One is the blast of the bugle, fierce and loud, calling us to arms against a foreign nation to avenge the death of American seamen and to carry the cup of liberty to a people perishing for its healing draught. The other is the crackling of a burning house in the night's dead hours, the piteous cries of pain and terror from the lips of wounded babes; the despairing, heart-rending, maddening shrieks of the wife and mother; the harrowing groans of the dying husband and father, and the gladsome shout of the fiendish mob of white American citizens, who have wrought the havoc just described, a deed sufficiently horrible to make Satan blush and hell hastily hide her face in shame. "I deem this, my fellow countrymen, as an appropriate time for us to consider what shall be our attitude, immediate and future, to this Anglo-Saxon race, which calls upon us to defend the fatherland and at the same moment treats us in a manner to make us execrate it. Let us, then, this day decide what shall be the relations that shall henceforth exist between us and the Anglo-Saxon race of the United States of America. "Seven million eyes are riveted upon you, hoping that you will be brave and wise enough to take such action as will fully atone for all the horrors of the past and secure for us every right due to all honorable, loyal, law-abiding citizens of the United States. Pleadingly they look to you to extract the arrow of shame which hangs quivering in every bosom, shame at continued humiliation, unavenged. "In order to arrive at a proper conclusion as to what the duty of the hour is, it would be well to review our treatment received at the hands of the Anglo-Saxon race and note the position that we are now sternly commanded by them to accept. "When this is done, to my mind, the path of duty will be as plain before our eyes as the path of the sun across the heavens. I shall, therefore, proceed to review our treatment and analyze our present condition, in so far as it is traceable to the treatment which we now receive from the Anglo-Saxon. "When in 1619 our forefathers landed on the American shore, the music of welcome with which they were greeted, was the clanking of iron chains ready to fetter them; the crack of the whip to be used to plow furrows in their backs; and the yelp of the blood-hound who was to bury his fangs deep into their flesh, in case they sought for liberty. Such was the music with which the Anglo-Saxon came down to the shore to extend a hearty welcome to the forlorn children of night, brought from a benighted heathen land to a community of _Christians!_ "The negro was seized and forced to labor hard that the Anglo-Saxon might enjoy rest and ease. While he sat in his cushioned chair, in his luxurious home, and dreamed of the blessedness of freedom, the enforced labor of slaves felled the forest trees, cleared away the rubbish, planted the seed and garnered the ripened grain, receiving therefor no manner of pay, no token of gratitude, no word of coldest thanks. "That same hammer and anvil that forged the steel sword of the Anglo-Saxon, with which he fought for freedom from England's yoke, also forged the chain that the Anglo-Saxon used to bind the negro more securely in the thralldom of slavery. For two hundred and forty-four years the Anglo-Saxon imposed upon the hapless, helpless negro, the bondage of abject slavery, robbed him of the just recompense of his unceasing toil, treated him with the utmost cruelty, kept his mind shrouded in the dense fog of ignorance, denied his poor sinful soul access to the healing word of God, and, while the world rolled on to joy and light, the negro was driven cowering and trembling, back, back into the darkest corners of night's deepest gloom. And when, at last, the negro was allowed to come forth and gaze with the eyes of a freeman on the glories of the sky, even this holy act, the freeing of the negro, was a matter of compulsion and has but little, if anything, in it demanding gratitude, except such gratitude as is due to be given unto God. For the Emancipation Proclamation, as we all know, came not so much as a message of love for the slave as a message of love for the Union; its primary object was to save the Union, its incident, to liberate the slave. Such was the act which brought to a close two hundred and forty-four years of barbarous maltreatment and inhuman oppression! After all these years of unremitting toil, the negro was pushed out into the world without one morsel of food, one cent of money, one foot of land. Naked and unarmed he was pushed forward into a dark cavern and told to beard the lion in his den. In childlike simplicity he undertook the task. Soon the air was filled with his agonizing cries; for the claws and teeth of the lion were ripping open every vein and crushing every bone. In this hour of dire distress the negro lifted up his voice in loud, long piteous wails calling upon those for help at whose instance and partially for whose sake he had dared to encounter the deadly foe. These whilom friends rushed with a loud shout to the cavern's mouth. But when they saw the fierce eyes of the lion gleaming in the dark and heard his fearful growl, this loud shout suddenly died away into a feeble, cowardly whimper, and these boastful creatures at the crackling of a dry twig turned and scampered away like so many jack-rabbits. "Having thus briefly reviewed our past treatment at the hand of the Anglo-Saxon, we now proceed to consider the treatment which we receive at his hands to-day. THE INDUSTRIAL SITUATION. "During the long period of slavery the Negro race was not allowed to use the mind as a weapon in the great 'battle for bread.' "The Anglo-Saxon said to the negro, in most haughty tones: 'In this great "battle for bread," you must supply the brute force while I will supply the brain. If you attempt to use your brain I will kill you; and before I will stoop so low as to use my own physical power to earn my daily bread I will kill myself.' "This edict of the Anglo-Saxon race, issued in the days of slavery, is yet in force in a slightly modified form. "He yet flees from physical exertion as though it were the leprosy itself, and yet, violently pushes the negro into that from which he has so precipitately fled, crying in a loud voice, 'unclean, unclean.' "If forced by circumstances to resort to manual labor, he chooses the higher forms of this, where skill is the main factor. But he will not labor even here with the negro, but drives him out and bars the door. "He will contribute the public funds to educate the negro and then exert every possible influence to keep the negro from earning a livelihood by means of that education. "It is true, that in the goodness of his heart he will allow the negro community to have a negro preacher, teacher, doctor, pharmacist and jackleg lawyer, but further than this he will not go. Practically all of the other higher forms of labor are hermetically sealed so far as the negro is concerned. "Thus, like Tantalus of old, we are placed in streams of water up to our necks, but when we stoop down to drink thereof the waters recede; luscious fruit, tempting to the eye and pleasing to the taste, is placed above our heads, only to be wafted away by the winds of prejudice, when, like Tantalus we reach up to grasp and eat. OUR CIVIL RIGHTS. "An Italian, a Frenchman, a German, a Russian, a Chinaman and a Swede come, let us suppose, on a visit to our country. "As they draw near our public parks they look up and see placards forbidding somebody to enter these places. They pause to read the signs to see who it is that is forbidden to enter. "Unable to understand our language, they see a negro child returning from school and they call the child to read and interpret the placard. It reads thus: 'Negroes and dogs not allowed in here.' "The little negro child, whose father's sweaty, unrequited toil cleared the spot whereon the park now stands, loiters outside of the wicker gate in company with the dogs of the foreigners and gazes wistfully through the cracks at the children of these strangers sporting on the lawn. "This is but a fair sample of the treatment which our race receives everywhere in the South. "If we enter a place where a sign tells us that the public is served, we do not know whether we are to be waited upon or driven out like dogs. "And the most shameful and hopeless feature connected with the question of our civil rights is that the Supreme Court has lent its official sanction to all such acts of discrimination. The highest court in the land is the chief bulwark of caste prejudice in democratic America. EDUCATION. "The race that thinks of us and treats us as we have just indicated has absolute charge of the education of our children. "They pay our teachers poorer salaries than they do their own; they give us fewer and inferior school buildings and they make us crawl in the dust before the very eyes of our children in order to secure the slightest concessions. "They attempt to muzzle the mouths of negro teachers, and he who proclaims too loudly the doctrine of equality as taught by Thomas Jefferson, will soon be in search of other employment. "Thus, they attempt to cripple our guides so that we may go forward at a feeble pace. "Our children, early in life, learn of our maltreatment, and having confidence in the unused strength of their parents, urge us to right our wrongs. "We listen to their fiery words and gaze in fondness on their little clinched fists. We then bow our heads in shame and lay bare to them the chains that yet hold our ankles, though the world has pronounced us free. "In school, they are taught to bow down and worship at the shrine of the men who died for the sake of liberty, and day by day they grow to disrespect us, their parents who have made no blow for freedom. But it will not always be thus! COURTS OF JUSTICE. "Colored men are excluded from the jury box; colored lawyers are discriminated against at the bar; and negroes, with the highest legal attainments, are not allowed to even dream of mounting the seat of a judge. "Before a court that has been lifted into power by the very hands of prejudice, justice need not be expected. The creature will, presumably, serve its creator; this much the creator demands. "We shall mention just one fact that plainly illustrates the character of the justice to be found in our courts. "If a negro murders an Anglo-Saxon, however justifiably, let him tremble for his life if he is to be tried in our courts. On the other hand, if an Anglo-Saxon murders a negro in cold blood, without the slightest provocation, he will, if left to the pleasure of our courts, die of old age and go down to his grave in perfect peace. "A court that will thus carelessly dabble and play in puddles of human blood needs no further comment at my hands. MOB LAW. "The courts of the land are the facile instruments of the Anglo-Saxon race. They register its will as faithfully as the thermometer does the slightest caprice of the weather. And yet, the poor boon of a trial in even such courts as these is denied the negro, even when his character is being painted with hell's black ink and charges that threaten his life are being laid at his door. He is allowed no chance to clear his name; no opportunity to bid a friend good bye; no time to formulate a prayer to God. "About this way of dealing with criminals there are three horrible features: First, innocent men are often slain and forced to sleep eternally in dishonored graves. Secondly, when men who are innocent are thus slain the real culprits are left behind to repeat their deeds and thus continue to bring reproach upon the race to which they belong. Thirdly, illegal execution always begets sympathy in the hearts of our people for a criminal, however dastardly may be his crime. Thus the execution loses all of its moral force as a deterrent. That wrath, that eloquence, which would all be used in abuse of the criminal is divided between him and his lynchers. Thus the crime for which the man suffers, is not dwelt upon with that unanimity to make it sufficiently odious, and, as a consequence, lynching increases crime. And, too, under the operation of the lynch-law the criminal knows that any old tramp is just as liable as himself to be seized and hanged. "This accursed practice, instead of decreasing, grows in extent year by year. Since the close of the civil war no less than sixty thousand of our comrades, innocent of all crime, have been hurried to their graves by angry mobs, and to-day their widows and orphans and their own departed spirits cry out to you to avenge their wrongs. "Woe unto that race, whom the tears of the widows, the cries of starving orphans, the groans of the innocent dying, and the gaping wounds of those unjustly slain, accuse before a righteous God! POLITICS. "'Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed!' "These words were penned by the man whom the South has taught us to revere as the greatest and noblest American statesman, whether those who are now alive or those who are dead. We speak of Thomas Jefferson. They have taught us that he was too wise to err and that his sayings are truth incarnate. They are ready to anathematize any man in their own ranks who will decry the self-evident truths which he uttered. "The Bible which the white people gave us, teaches us that we are men. The Declaration of Independence, which we behold them wearing over their hearts, tells us that all men are created equal. If, as the Bible says, we are men; if, as Jefferson says, all men are equal; if, as he further states, governments derive all just powers from the consent of the governed, then it follows that the American government is in duty bound to seek to know our will as respects the laws and the men who are to govern us. "But instead of seeking to know our will, they employ every device that human ingenuity can contrive to prevent us from expressing our opinion. The monarchial trait seems not to have left their blood. They have apparently chosen our race as an empire, and each Anglo-Saxon regards himself as a petty king, and some gang or community of negroes as his subjects. "Thus our voice is not heard in the General Government. Our kings, the Anglo-Saxons, speak for us, their slaves. In some states we are deprived of our right to vote by frauds, in others by violence, and in yet others by statutory enactment. But in all cases it is most effectually done. "Burdens may be put upon our shoulders that are weighing us down, but we have no means of protesting. Men who administer the laws may discriminate against us to an outrageous degree, but we have no power to remove or to punish them. "Like lean, hungry dogs, we must crouch beneath our master's table and snap eagerly at the crumbs that fall. If in our scramble for these crumbs we make too much noise, we are violently kicked and driven out of doors, where, in the sleet and snow, we must whimper and whine until late the next morning when the cook opens the door and we can then crouch down in the corner of the kitchen. "Oh! my Comrades, we cannot longer endure our shame and misery! "We can no longer lay supinely down upon our backs and let oppression dig his iron heel in our upturned pleading face until, perchance, the pity of a bystander may meekly request him to desist. "Fellow Countrymen, we must be free. The sun that bathes our land in light yet rises and sets upon a race of slaves. "The question remaining before us, then, is, How we are to obtain this freedom? In olden times, revolutions were effected by the sword and spear. In modern times the ballot has been used for that purpose. But the ballot has been snatched from our hands. The modern implement of revolutions has been denied us. I need not say more. Your minds will lead you to the only gate left open. "But this much I will say: let not so light, so common, so universal a thing as that which we call death be allowed to frighten you from the path that leads to true liberty and absolute equality. Let that which under any circumstances must come to one and all be no terror to you. "To the martyr, who perishes in freedom's cause, death comes with a beauteous smile and with most tender touch. But to the man whose blood is nothing but sour swill; who prefers to stay like fattening swine until pronounced fit for the butcher's knife; to such, death comes with a most horrifying visage, and seizing the victim with cold and clammy hands hurries with his disgusting load to some far away dumping ground. "How glad am I that I can glance over this audience and see written upon your faces utter disdain of death. "In concluding let me say, I congratulate you that after years of suffering and disunion our faces are now _all_ turned toward the golden shores of liberty's lovely land. "Some tell us that a sea is in our way, so deep that we cannot cross. Let us answer back in joyful tones as our vessels push out from the shore, that our clotted blood, shed in the middle of the sea, will float to the other side, even if we do not reach there ourselves. "Others tell us that towering, snow-capped mountains enclose the land. To this we answer, if we die on the mountain-side, we shall be shrouded in sheets of whitest snow, and all generations of men yet to come upon the earth will have to gaze upward in order to see our whitened forms. "Let us then, at all hazards, strike a blow for freedom. If it calls for a Thermopylæ, be free. If it calls for a Valley Forge, be free. If contending for our rights, given unto us by God, causes us to be slain, let us perish on the field of battle, singing as we pass out of the world, 'Sweet Freedom's song,' though every word of this soul-inspiring hymn must come forth wrapped in our hearts' warm blood. "Gentlemen of the Imperium in Imperio, I await your pleasure." CHAPTER XVIII. THE STORM'S MASTER. When Bernard ceased speaking and took his seat the house was as silent as a graveyard. All felt that the time for words had passed and the next and only thing in order was a deed. Each man seemed determined to keep his seat and remain silent until he had some definite plan to suggest. At length one man, somewhat aged, arose and spoke as follows: "Fellow citizens, our condition is indeed past enduring and we must find a remedy. I have spent the major portion of my life in close study of this subject, searching for a solution. My impression is that the negro will never leave this country. The day for the wholesale exodus of nations is past. We must, then, remain here. As long as we remain here as a separate and distinct race we shall continue to be oppressed. We must lose our identity. I, therefore, urge that we abandon the idea of becoming anything noteworthy as a separate and distinct race and send the word forth that we amalgamate." When the word "amalgamate" escaped his lips a storm of hisses and jeers drowned further speech and he quickly crouched down in his seat. Another arose and advocated emigration to the African Congo Free State. He pointed out that this State, great in area and rich in resources, was in the hands of the weak kingdom of Belgium and could be wrested from Belgium with the greatest ease. In fact, it might be possible to purchase it, as it was the personal property of King Leopold. He further stated that one of his chief reasons for suggesting emigration was that it would be a terrible blow to the South. The proud Southerner would then have his own forests to fell and fields to tend. He pictured the haughty Southern lady at last the queen of her own kitchen. He then called attention to the loss of influence and prestige which the South would sustain in the nation. By losing nearly one half of its population the South's representation in Congress would be reduced to such a point that the South would have no appreciable influence on legislation for one half a century to come. He called attention to the business depression that would ensue when the southern supply merchant lost such an extensive consumer as the negro. He wound up by urging the Imperium to go where they would enjoy all the rights of free men, and by picturing the demoralization and ruin of the South when they thus went forth. His suggestion met with much favor but he did not make clear the practicability of his scheme. At length a bold speaker arose who was courageous enough to stick a match to the powder magazine which Bernard had left uncovered in all their bosoms. His first declaration was: "I am for war!" and it was cheered to the echo. It was many minutes before the applause died away. He then began an impassioned invective against the South and recited in detail horror after horror, for which the South was answerable. He described hangings, revolting in their brutality; he drew vivid word pictures of various burnings, mentioning one where a white woman struck the match and ignited the pile of wood that was to consume the trembling negro. He told of the Texas horror, when a colored man named Smith was tortured with a red hot poker, and his eyes gouged out; after which he was slowly roasted to death. He then had Mrs. Cook arise and gather her children about her, and tell her sorrowful story. As she proceeded the entire assembly broke down in tears, and men fell on each other's necks and wept like babes. And oh! Their hearts swelled, their bosoms heaved, their breath came quick with choking passion, and there burst from all their throats the one hoarse cry: "War! war! war!" Bernard turned his head away from this affecting sight and in his soul swore a terrible oath to avenge the wrongs of his people. When quiet was sufficiently restored, the man with the match arose and offered the following resolutions: "WHEREAS, the history of our treatment by the Anglo-Saxon race is but the history of oppression, and whereas, our patient endurance of evil has not served to decrease this cruelty, but seems rather to increase it; and whereas, the ballot box, the means of peaceful revolution is denied us, therefore; "_Be it Resolved_: That the hour for wreaking vengeance for our multiplied wrongs has come. "_Resolved_ secondly: That we at once proceed to war for the purpose of accomplishing the end just named, and for the further purpose of obtaining all our rights due us as men. "_Resolved_ thirdly: That no soldier of the Imperium leave the field of battle until the ends for which this war was inaugurated are fully achieved." A dozen men were on their feet at once to move the adoption of these resolutions. The motion was duly seconded and put before the house. The Chairman asked: "Are you ready to vote?" "Ready!" was the unanimous, vociferous response. The chairman, Belton Piedmont, quietly said: "Not ready." All eyes were then pointed eagerly and inquiringly to him. He called the senior member of the house to the chair and came down upon the floor to speak. We are now about to record one of the most remarkable feats of oratory known to history. Belton stood with his massive, intellectual head thrown back and a look of determined defiance shot forth from his eyes. His power in debate was well known and the members settled themselves back for a powerful onslaught of some kind; but exactly what to expect they did not know. Fortunately for Belton's purpose, surprise, wonder, expectancy, had, for the time being, pushed into the background the more violent emotions surging a moment before. Belton turned his head slowly, letting his eye sweep the entire circle of faces before him, and there seemed to be a force and an influence emanating from the look. He began: "I call upon you all to bear me witness that I have ever in word and deed been zealous in the work of building up this Imperium, whose holy mission it is to grapple with our enemy and wrest from him our stolen rights, given to us by nature and nature's God. If there be one of you that knowest aught against my patriotism, I challenge him to declare it now; and if there be anything to even cast a suspicion upon me, I shall gladly court a traitor's ignoble doom." He paused here. No one accepted the challenge, for Belton was the acknowledged guiding star that had led the Imperium to the high point of efficiency where Bernard found it. "By your silence," Belton continued, "I judge that my patriotism is above suspicion; and this question being settled, I shall feel free to speak all that is within me on the subject now before me. I have a word to say in defence of the south--" "No! No! No! No!" burst from a score of throats. Friends crowded around Belton and begged him to desist. They told him that the current was so strong that it was death to all future usefulness to try to breast it. Belton waved them away and cried out in impassioned tones: "On her soil I was born; on her bosom I was reared; into her arms I hope to fall in death; and I shall not from fear of losing popular favor desist from pointing out the natural sources from which her sins arise, so that when judgment is pronounced justice will not hesitate to stamp it with her righteous seal." "Remember your scars!" shouted one. "Yes, I am scarred," returned Belton. "I have been in the hands of an angry mob; I have dangled from a tree at the end of a rope; I have felt the murderous pistol drive cold lead into my flesh; I have been accounted dead and placed upon the dissecting table; I have felt the sharp surgical knife ripping my flesh apart when I was supposed to be dead; all of these hardships and more besides I have received at the hands of the South; but she has not and cannot drive truth from my bosom, and the truth shall I declare this day." Seeing that it was useless to attempt to deter him, Belton continued his speech without interruption: "There are many things in the message of our most worthy President that demand attention. It was indeed an awful sin for the Anglo-Saxon to enslave the negro. But in judging a people we must judge them according to the age in which they lived, and the influence that surrounded them. "If David were on earth alive to-day and the ruler of an enlightened kingdom, he would be impeached forthwith, fined for adultery, imprisoned for bigamy, and hanged for murder. Yet while not measuring up to the standard of morality of to-day, he was the man after God's own heart in his day and generation. "If Abraham were here to-day he would be expelled from any church that had any regard for decency; and yet, he was the father of the faithful, for he walked according to the little light that struggled through the clouds and reached him. "When slavery was introduced into America, it was the universal practice of mankind to enslave. Knowing how quick we all are to heed the universal voice of mankind, we should be lenient toward others who are thus tempted and fall. "It has appeared strange to some that the Americans could fight for their own freedom from England and yet not think of those whom they then held in slavery. It should be remembered that the two kinds of slavery were by no means identical. The Americans fought for a theory and abstract principle. The negro did not even discern the points at issue; and the Anglo-Saxon naturally did not concern himself at that time with any one so gross as not to know anything of a principle for which he, (the Anglo-Saxon) was ready to offer up his life. "Our President alluded to the fact that the negro was unpaid for all his years of toil. It is true that he was not paid in coin, but he received that from the Anglo-Saxons which far outweighs in value all the gold coin on earth. He received instruction in the arts of civilization, a knowledge of the English language, and a conception of the one true God and his Christ. "While all of the other races of men were behind the ball of progress rolling it up the steep hill of time, the negro was asleep in the jungles of Africa. Newton dug for the law of gravitation; Herschel swept the starry sky in search of other worlds; Columbus stood upon the prow of the ship and braved the waves of the ocean and the fiercer ridicule of men; Martin Luther, single handed and alone, fought the Pope, the religious guide of the world; and all of this was done while the negro slept. After others had toiled so hard to give the bright light of civilization to the world, it was hardly to be expected that a race that slept while others worked could step up and at once enjoy all the fruits of others' toil. "Allow me to note this great fact; that by enslavement in America the negro has come into possession of the great English language. He is thus made heir to all the richest thoughts of earth. Had he retained his mother tongue, it would perhaps have been centuries untold before the masterpieces of earth were given him. As it is we can now enjoy the companionship of Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Bunyan, together with the favorite sons of other nations adopted into the English language, such as Dante, Hugo, Goethe, Dumas and hosts of others. Nor must we ever forget that it was the Anglo-Saxon who snatched from our idolatrous grasp the deaf images to which we prayed, and the Anglo-Saxon who pointed us to the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. "So, beloved fellow citizens, when we calmly survey the evil and the good that came to us through American slavery, it is my opinion that we find more good for which to thank God than we find evil for which to curse man. "Our President truly says that Abraham Lincoln was in such a position that he was forced to set the negro free. But let us remember that it was Abraham Lincoln and those who labored with him that created this position, from which he could turn neither to the right nor to the left. "If, in his patriotic soul, we see love for the flag of his country overshadowing every other love, let us not ignorantly deny that other loves were there, deep, strong, and incapable of eradication; and let us be grateful for that. THE LABOR QUESTION. "Prejudice, pride, self-interest, prompt the whites to oppose our leaving in too large numbers the lower forms of labor for the higher; and they resort to any extreme to carry out their purpose. But this opposition is not an unmixed evil. The prejudice and pride that prompt them to exclude the Negro from the higher forms of labor, also exclude themselves from the lower forms, thus leaving the Negro in undisputed possession of a whole kingdom of labor. "Furthermore, by denying us clerical positions, and other higher types of labor we shall be forced into enterprises of our own to furnish labor for our own talent. Let us accept the lesson so plainly taught and provide enterprises to supply our own needs and employ our own talents. "If there is any one thing, more than another, that will push the Negro forth to build enterprises of his own, it will be this refusal of the whites to employ the higher order of labor that the race from time to time produces. This refusal will prove a blessing if we accept the lesson that it teaches. And, too, in considering this subject let us not feel that we are the only people who have a labor problem on hand to be solved. The Anglo-Saxon race is divided into two hostile camps--labor and capital. These two forces are gradually drawing together for a tremendous conflict, a momentous battle. The riots at Homestead, at Chicago, at Lattimer are but skirmishes between the picket lines, informing us that a general conflict is imminent. Let us thank God that we are not in the struggle. Let us thank Him that our labor problem is no worse than it is. OUR CIVIL RIGHTS. "For our civil rights we are struggling and we must secure them. But if they had all come to us when they first belonged to us, we must frankly admit that we would have been unprepared for them. "Our grotesque dress, our broken language, our ignorant curiosity, and, on the part of many our boorish manners, would have been nauseating in the extreme to men and women accustomed to refined association. Of course these failings are passing away: but the polished among you have often been made ashamed at the uncouth antics of some ignorant Negroes, courting the attention of the whites in their presence. Let us see to it, then, that we as a people, not a small minority of us, are prepared to use and not abuse the privileges that must come to us. "Let us reduce the question of our rejection to a question pure and simple of the color of our skins, and by the help of that God who gave us that color we shall win. "On the question of education much might be said in blame of the South, but far more may be said in her praise. "The evils of which our president spoke are grave and must be righted, but let us not fail to see the bright side. "The Anglo-Saxon child virtually pays for the education of the Negro child. You might hold that he might do more. It is equally true that he might do less. When we contrast the Anglo-Saxon, opening his purse and pouring out his money for the education of the Negro, with the Anglo-Saxon plaiting a scourge to flog the Negro aspiring to learn, the progress is marvelous indeed. "And, let us not complain too bitterly of the school maintained by the Southerner, for it was there that we learned what true freedom was. It was in school that our hearts grew warm as we read of Washington, of Jefferson, of Henry, apostles of human liberty. It was the school of the Southerner that has builded the Imperium which now lifts its hand in power and might to strike a last grand blow for liberty. COURTS OF JUSTICE. "As for the courts of justice, I have not one word to say in palliation of the way in which they pander to the prejudices of the people. If the courts be corrupt; if the arbitrator between man and man be unjust; if the wretched victim of persecution is to be stabbed to death in the house of refuge; then, indeed, has mortal man sunk to the lowest level. Though every other branch of organized society may reek with filth and slime, let the ermine on the shoulders of the goddess of justice ever be clean and spotless. "But remember this, that the Court of last resort has set the example which the lower courts have followed. The Supreme Court of the United States, it seems, may be relied upon to sustain any law born of prejudice against the Negro, and to demolish any law constructed in his interest. Witness the Dred Scott decision, and, in keeping with this, the decision on the Civil Rights Bill and Separate Coach Law. "If this court, commonly accepted as being constituted with our friends, sets such a terrible example of injustice, it is not surprising that its filthy waters corrupt the various streams of justice in all their ramifications. MOB LAW. "Of all the curses that have befallen the South, this is the greatest. It cannot be too vehemently declaimed against. But let us look well and see if we, as a people, do not bear some share of the responsibility for the prevalence of this curse. "Our race has furnished some brutes lower than the beasts of the field, who have stirred the passions of the Anglo-Saxon as nothing in all of human history has before stirred them. The shibboleth of the Anglo-Saxon race is the courage of man and the virtue of woman: and when, by violence, a member of a despised race assails a defenseless woman; robs her of her virtue, her crown of glory; and sends her back to society broken and crushed in spirit, longing, sighing, praying for the oblivion of the grave, it is not to be wondered at that hell is scoured by the Southern white man in search of plans to vent his rage. The lesson for him to learn is that passion is ever a blind guide and the more violent the more blind. Let him not cease to resent with all the intensity of his proud soul the accursed crime; but let this resentment pursue such a channel as will ensure the execution of the guilty and the escape of the innocent. As for us, let us cease to furnish the inhuman brutes whose deeds suggest inhuman punishments. "But, I am aware that in a large majority of cases where lynchings occur, outrages upon women are not even mentioned. This fact but serves as an argument against all lynchings; for when lawlessness breaks forth, no man can set a limit where it will stop. It also warns us as a race to furnish no crime that provokes lynching; for when lynching once gets started, guilty and innocent alike will suffer, and crimes both great and small will be punished alike. "In regard to the lynching of our Comrade Cook, I have this to say. Every feature connected with that crime but emphasizes its heinousness. Cook was a quiet, unassuming, gentlemanly being, enjoying the respect of all in a remarkable degree. Having wronged no one he was unconscious of having enemies. His wife and loving little ones had retired to rest and were enjoying the deep sleep of the innocent. A band of whites crept to his house under the cover of darkness, and thought to roast all alive. In endeavoring to make their escape the family was pursued by a shower of bullets and Cook fell to the ground, a corpse, leaving his loved ones behind, pursued by a fiendish mob. And the color of Cook's skin was the only crime laid at his door. "If ye who speculate and doubt as to the existence of a hell but peer into the hearts of those vile creatures who slew poor Cook, you will draw back in terror; for hell, black hell is there. To give birth to a deed of such infamy, their hearts must be hells in miniature. But there is one redeeming feature about this crime. Unlike others, it found no defense anywhere. The condemnation of the crime was universal. And the entire South cried out in bitter tones against the demons who had at last succeeded in putting the crown of infamy of all the ages upon her brow. POLITICS. "The South has defrauded us out of the ballot and she must restore it. But in judging her crime let us take an impartial view of its occasion. The ballot is supposed to be an expression of opinion. It is a means employed to record men's ideas. It is not designed as a vehicle of prejudice or gratitude, but of thought, opinion. When the Negro was first given the ballot he used it to convey expression of love and gratitude to the North, while it bore to the South a message of hate and revenge. No Negro, on pain of being ostracised or probably murdered, was allowed to exercise the ballot in any other way than that just mentioned. They voted in a mass, according to the dictates of love and hate. "The ballot was never designed for such a purpose. The white man snatched the ballot from the Negro. His only crime was, in not snatching it from him also, for he was voting on the same principle. Neither race was thinking. They were both simply feeling, and ballots are not meant to convey feelings. "But happily that day has passed and both races are thinking and are better prepared to vote. But the white man is still holding on to the stolen ballot box and he must surrender it. If we can secure possession of that right again, we shall use it to correct the many grievous wrongs under which we suffer. That is the one point on which all of our efforts are focused. Here is the storm center. Let us carry this point and our flag will soon have all of our rights inscribed thereon. The struggle is on, and my beloved Congress, let me urge one thing upon you. Leave out revenge as one of the things at which to aim. "In His Holy Word our most high God has said: 'Vengeance is mine.' Great as is this Imperium, let it not mount God's throne and attempt by violence to rob Him of his prerogatives. In this battle, we want Him on our side and let us war as becometh men who fear and reverence Him. Hitherto, we have seen vengeance terrible in his hands. "While we, the oppressed, stayed upon the plantation in peace, our oppressors were upon the field of battle engaged in mortal combat; and it was the blood of our oppressor, not our own, that was paid as the price of our freedom. And that same God is alive to-day; and let us trust Him for vengeance, and if we pray let our prayer be for mercy on those who have wronged us, for direful shall be their woes. "And now, I have a substitute proposition. Fellow Comrades, I am not for internecine war. O! Eternal God, lend unto these, my Comrades, the departed spirit of Dante, faithful artist of the horrors of hell, for we feel that he alone can paint the shudder-making, soul-sickening scenes that follow in the wake of fast moving internecine war. "Now, hear my solution of the race problem. The Anglo-Saxon does not yet know that we have caught the fire of liberty. He does not yet know that we have learned what a glorious thing it is to die for a principle, and especially when that principle is liberty. He does not yet know how the genius of his institutions has taken hold of our very souls. In the days of our enslavement we did not seem to him to be much disturbed about physical freedom. During the whole period of our enslavement we made only two slight insurrections. "When at last the war came to set us free we stayed in the field and fed the men who were reddening the soil with their blood in a deadly struggle to keep us in bondage forever. We remained at home and defended the helpless wives and children of men, who if they had been at home would have counted it no crime to have ignored all our family ties and scattered husbands and wives, mothers and children as ruthlessly as the autumn winds do the falling leaves. "The Anglo-Saxon has seen the eyes of the Negro following the American eagle in its glorious flight. The eagle has alighted on some mountain top and the poor Negro has been seen climbing up the rugged mountain side, eager to caress the eagle. When he has attempted to do this, the eagle has clawed at his eyes and dug his beak into his heart and has flown away in disdain; and yet, so majestic was its flight that the Negro, with tears in his eyes, and blood dripping from his heart has smiled and shouted: 'God save the eagle.' "These things have caused us to be misunderstood. We know that our patient submission in slavery was due to our consciousness of weakness; we know that our silence and inaction during the civil war was due to a belief that God was speaking for us and fighting our battle; we know that our devotion to the flag will not survive one moment after our hope is dead; but we must not be content with knowing these things ourselves. We must change the conception which the Anglo-Saxon has formed of our character. We should let him know that patience has a limit; that strength brings confidence; that faith in God will demand the exercise of our own right arm; that hope and despair are each equipped with swords, the latter more dreadful than the former. Before we make a forward move, let us pull the veil from before the eyes of the Anglo-Saxon that he may see the New Negro standing before him humbly, but firmly demanding every right granted him by his maker and wrested from him by man. "If, however, the revelation of our character and the full knowledge of our determined attitude does not procure our rights, my proposition, which I am about to submit, will still offer a solution. RESOLUTIONS. "1. Be it _Resolved_: That we no longer conceal from the Anglo-Saxon the fact that the Imperium exists, so that he may see that the love of liberty in our bosoms is strong enough to draw us together into this compact government. He will also see that each individual Negro does not stand by himself, but is a link in a great chain that must not be broken with impunity. "2. _Resolved_: That we earnestly strive to convince the Anglo-Saxon that we are now thoroughly wedded to the doctrine of Patrick Henry: 'Give me liberty or give me death,' Let us teach the Anglo-Saxon that we have arrived at the stage of development as a people, where we prefer to die in honor rather than live in disgrace. "3. _Resolved_: That we spend four years in endeavors to impress the Anglo-Saxon that he has a New Negro on his hands and must surrender what belongs to him. In case we fail by these means to secure our rights and privileges we shall all, at once, abandon our several homes in the various other states and emigrate in a body to the State of Texas, broad in domain, rich in soil and salubrious in climate. Having an unquestioned majority of votes we shall secure possession of the State government. "4. _Resolved_: That when once lawfully in control of that great state we shall, every man, die in his shoes before we shall allow vicious frauds or unlawful force to pursue us there and rob us of our acknowledged right. "5. _Resolved_: That we sojourn in the state of Texas, working out our destiny as a separate and distinct race in the United States of America. "Such is the proposition which I present. It is primarily pacific: yet it is firm and unyielding. It courts a peaceable adjustment, yet it does not shirk war, if war is forced. "But in concluding, let me emphasize that my aim, my hope, my labors, my fervent prayer to God is for a peaceable adjustment of all our differences upon the high plane of the equality of man. Our beloved President, in his message to this Congress, made a serious mistake when he stated that there were only two weapons to be used in accomplishing revolutions. He named the sword (and spear) and ballot. There is a weapon mightier than either of these. I speak of the pen. If denied the use of the ballot let us devote our attention to that mightier weapon, the pen. "Other races which have obtained their freedom erect monuments over bloody spots where they slew their fellow men. May God favor us to obtain our freedom without having to dot our land with these relics of barbaric ages. "The Negro is the latest comer upon the scene of modern civilization. It would be the crowning glory of even this marvelous age; it would be the grandest contribution ever made to the cause of human civilization; it would be a worthy theme for the songs of the Holy Angels, if every Negro, away from the land of his nativity, can by means of the pen, force an acknowledgment of equality from the proud lips of the fierce, all conquering Anglo-Saxon, thus eclipsing the record of all other races of men, who without exception have had to wade through blood to achieve their freedom. "Amid all the dense gloom that surrounds us, this transcendent thought now and then finds its way to my heart and warms it like a glorious Sun. Center your minds, beloved Congress, on this sublime hope, and God may grant it to you. But be prepared, if he deems us unfit for so great a boon, to buckle on our swords and go forth to win our freedom with the sword just as has been done by all other nations of men. "My speech is made, my proposition is before you. I have done my duty. Your destiny is in your own hands." Belton's speech had, like dynamite, blasted away all opposition. He was in thorough mastery of the situation. The waves of the sea were now calm, the fierce winds had abated, there was a great rift in the dark clouds. The ship of state was sailing placidly on the bosom of the erstwhile troubled sea, and Belton was at the helm. His propositions were adopted in their entirety without one dissenting voice. When the members left the Congress hall that evening they breathed freely, feeling that the great race problem was, at last, about to be definitely settled. But, alas! how far wrong they were! As Belton was leaving the chamber Bernard approached him and put his hands fondly on his shoulders. Bernard's curly hair was disordered and a strange fire gleamed in his eye. He said: "Come over to the mansion to-night. I wish much to see you. Come about nine P.M." Belton agreed to go. CHAPTER XIX. THE PARTING OF WAYS. At the hour appointed Belton was at the door of the president's mansion and Bernard was there to meet him. They walked in and entered the same room where years before Belton had, in the name of the Congress, offered Bernard the Presidency of the Imperium. The evening was mild, and the window, which ran down to the floor, was hoisted. The moon was shedding her full light and Bernard had not lighted his lamp. Each of them took seats near the window, one on one side and the other on the other, their faces toward the lawn. "Belton," said Bernard, "that was a masterly speech you made to-day. If orations are measured according to difficulties surmounted and results achieved, yours ought to rank as a masterpiece. Aside from that, it was a daring deed. Few men would have attempted to rush in and quell that storm as you did. They would have been afraid of being torn to shreds, so to speak, and all to no purpose. Let me congratulate you." So saying he extended his hand and grasped Belton's feelingly. Belton replied in a somewhat melancholy strain: "Bernard, that speech and its result ended my life's work. I have known long since that a crisis between the two races would come some day and I lived with the hope of being used by God to turn the current the right way. This I have done, and my work is over." "Ah, no, Belton; greater achievements, by far, you shall accomplish. The fact is, I have called you over here to-night to acquaint you with a scheme that means eternal glory and honor to us both." Belton smiled and shook his head. "When I fully reveal my plan to you, you will change your mind." "Well, Bernard, let us hear it." "When you closed your speech to-day, a bright light shot athwart my brain and revealed to me something glorious. I came home determined to work it out in detail. This I have done, and now I hand this plan to you to ascertain your views and secure your cooperation." So saying he handed Belton a foolscap sheet of paper on which the following was written: A PLAN OF ACTION FOR THE IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO. 1. Reconsider our determination to make known the existence of our Imperium, and avoid all mention of an emigration to Texas. 2. Quietly purchase all Texas land contiguous to states and territories of the Union. Build small commonplace huts on these lands and place rapid fire disappearing guns in fortifications dug beneath them. All of this is to be done secretly, the money to be raised by the issuance of bonds by the Imperium. 3. Encourage all Negroes who can possibly do so to enter the United States Navy. 4. Enter into secret negotiations with all of the foreign enemies of the United States, acquainting them of our military strength and men aboard the United States war ships. 5. Secure an appropriation from Congress to hold a fair at Galveston, inviting the Governor of Texas to be present. It will afford an excuse for all Negro families to pour into Texas. It will also be an excuse for having the war ships of nations friendly to us, in the harbor for a rendezvous. 6. While the Governor is away, let the troops proceed quietly to Austin, seize the capitol and hoist the flag of the Imperium. 7. We can then, if need be, wreck the entire navy of the United States in a night; the United States will then be prostrate before us and our allies. 8. We will demand the surrender of Texas and Louisiana to the Imperium. Texas, we will retain. Louisiana, we will cede to our foreign allies in return for their aid. Thus will the Negro have an empire of his own, fertile in soil, capable of sustaining a population of fifty million people. Belton ceased reading the paper and returned it to Bernard. "What is your opinion of the matter, Belton?" "It is treason," was Belton's terse reply. "Are you in favor of it?" asked Bernard. "No. I am not and never shall be. I am no traitor and never shall be one. Our Imperium was organized to secure our rights within the United States and we will make any sacrifice that can be named to attain that end. Our efforts have been to wash the flag free of all blots, not to rend it; to burnish every star in the cluster, but to pluck none out. "Candidly, Bernard, I love the Union and I love the South. Soaked as Old Glory is with my people's tears and stained as it is with their warm blood, I could die as my forefathers did, fighting for its honor and asking no greater boon than Old Glory for my shroud and native soil for my grave. This may appear strange, but love of country is one of the deepest passions in the human bosom, and men in all ages have been known to give their lives for the land in which they had known nothing save cruelty and oppression. I shall never give up my fight for freedom, but I shall never prove false to the flag. I may fight to keep her from floating over cesspools of corruption by removing the cesspool; but I shall never fight to restrict the territory in which she is to float. These are my unalterable opinions." Bernard said: "Well, Belton, we have at last arrived at a point of separation in our lives. I know the Anglo-Saxon race. He will never admit you to equality with him. I am fully determined on my course of action and will persevere." Each knew that further argument was unnecessary, and they arose to part. They stood up, looking each other squarely in the face, and shook hands in silence. Tears were in the eyes of both men. But each felt that he was heeding the call of duty, and neither had ever been known to falter. Belton returned to his room and retired to rest. Bernard called his messenger and sent him for every man of prominence in the Congress of the Imperium. They all slept in the building. The leaders got out of bed and hurried to the president. He laid before them the plan he had shown Belton. They all accepted it and pronounced it good. He then told them that he had submitted it to Belton but that Belton was opposed. This took them somewhat by surprise, and finding that Belton was opposed to it they were sorry that they had spoken so hastily. Bernard knew that such would be their feelings. He produced a written agreement and asked all who favored that plan to sign that paper, as that would be of service in bringing over other members. Ashamed to appear vacillating, they signed. They then left. The Congress assembled next day, and President Belgrave submitted his plan. Belton swept the assembly with his eyes and told at a glance that there was a secret, formidable combination, and he decided that it would be useless to oppose the plan. The President's plan was adopted. Belton alone voted no. Belton then arose and said: "Being no longer able to follow where the Imperium leads, I hereby tender my resignation as a member." The members stood aghast at these words, for death alone removed a member from the ranks of the Imperium, and asking to resign, according to their law was asking to be shot. Bernard and every member of the Congress crowded around Belton and begged him to reconsider, and not be so cruel to his comrades as to make them fire bullets into his noble heart. Belton was obdurate. According to the law of the Imperium, he was allowed thirty days in which to reconsider his request. Ordinarily those under sentence of death were kept in close confinement, but not so with Belton. He was allowed all liberty. In fact, it was the secret wish of every one that he might take advantage of his freedom and escape. But Belton was resolved to die. As he now felt that his days on earth were few, his mind began to turn toward Antoinette. He longed to see her once more and just let her know that he loved her still. He at length decided to steal away to Richmond and have a last interview with her. All the pent up passion of years now burst forth in his soul, and as the train sped toward Virginia, he felt that love would run him mad ere he saw Antoinette once more. While his train goes speeding on, let us learn a little of the woman whom he left years ago. Antoinette Nermal Piedmont had been tried and excluded from her church on the charge of adultery. She did not appear at the trial nor speak a word in her own defense. Society dropped her as you would a poisonous viper, and she was completely ostracised. But, conscious of her innocence and having an abiding faith in the justice of God, she moved along undisturbed by the ostracism. The only person about whom she was concerned was Belton. She yearned, oh! so much, to be able to present to him proofs of her chastity; but there was that white child. But God had the matter in hand. As the child grew, its mother noticed that its hair began to change. She also thought she discovered his skin growing darker by degrees. As his features developed he was seen to be the very image of Belton. Antoinette frequently went out with him and the people began to shake their heads in doubt. At length the child became Antoinette's color, retaining Belton's features. Public sentiment was fast veering around. Her former friends began to speak to her more kindly, and the people began to feel that she was a martyr instead of a criminal. But the child continued to steadily grow darker and darker until he was a shade darker than his father. The church met and rescinded its action of years ago. Every social organization of standing elected Antoinette Nermal Piedmont an honorary member. Society came rushing to her. She gently smiled, but did not seek their company. She was only concerned about Belton. She prayed hourly for God to bring him back to her. And now, unknown to her, he was coming. One morning as she was sitting on her front porch enjoying the morning breeze, she looked toward the gate and saw her husband entering. She screamed loudly, and rushed into her son's room and dragged him out of bed. She did not allow him time to dress, but was dragging him to the door. Belton rushed into the house. Antoinette did not greet him, but cried in anxious, frenzied tones: "Belton! there is your white child! Look at him! Look at him!" The boy looked up at Belton, and if ever one person favored another, this child favored him. Belton was dazed. He looked from child to mother and from mother to child. By and by it began to dawn on him that that child was somehow his child. His wife eyed him eagerly. She rushed to her album and showed him pictures of the child taken at various stages of its growth. Belton discerned the same features in each photograph, but a different shade of color of the skin. His knees began to tremble. He had come, as the most wronged of men, to grant pardon. He now found himself the vilest of men, unfit for pardon. A picture of all that his innocent wife had suffered came before him, and he gasped: "O, God, what crime is this with which my soul is stained?" He put his hands before his face. Antoinette divined his thoughts and sprang toward him. She tore his hands from his face and kissed him passionately, and begged him to kiss and embrace her once more. Belton shook his head sadly and cried: "Unworthy, unworthy." Antoinette now burst forth into weeping. The boy said: "Papa, why don't you kiss Mama?" Hearing the boy's voice, Belton raised his eyes, and seeing his image, which Antoinette had brought into the world, he grasped her in his arms and covered her face with kisses; and there was joy enough in those two souls to almost excite envy in the bosom of angels. Belton was now recalled to life. He again loved the world. The cup of his joy was full. He was proud of his beautiful, noble wife, proud of his promising son. For days he was lost in contemplation of his new found happiness. But at last, a frightful picture arose before him. He remembered that he was doomed to die, and the day of his death came galloping on at a rapid pace. Thus a deep river of sadness went flowing on through his happy Elysian fields. But he remained unshaken in his resolve. He had now learned to put duty to country above everything else. Then, too, he looked upon his boy and he felt that his son would fill his place in the world. But Antoinette was so happy that he could not have the heart to tell her of his fate. She was a girl again. She chatted and laughed and played as though her heart was full of love. In her happiness she freely forgave the world for all the wrongs that it had perpetrated upon her. At length the day drew near for Belton to go to Waco. He took a tender leave of his loved ones. It was so tender that Antoinette was troubled, and pressed him hard for an answer as to when he was to return or send for them. He begged her to be assured of his love and know that he would not stay away one second longer than was necessary. Thus assured, she let him go, after kissing him more than a hundred times. Belton turned his back on this home of happiness and love, to walk into the embrace of death. He arrived in Waco in due time, and the morning of his execution came. In one part of the campus there was a high knoll surrounded on all sides by trees. This knoll had been selected as the spot for the execution. In the early morn while the grass yet glittered with pearls of water, and as the birds began to chirp, Belton was led forth to die. Little did those birds know that they were chirping the funeral march of the world's noblest hero. Little did they dream that they were chanting his requiem. The sun had not yet risen but had reddened the east with his signal of approach. Belton was stationed upon the knoll, his face toward the coming dawn. With his hands folded calmly across his bosom, he stood gazing over the heads of the executioners, at the rosy east. His executioners, five in number, stood facing him, twenty paces away. They were commanded by Bernard, the President of the Imperium. Bernard gazed on Belton with eyes of love and admiration. He loved his friend but he loved his people more. He could not sacrifice his race for his dearest friend. Viola had taught him that lesson. Bernard's eyes swam with tears as he said to Belton in a hoarse whisper: "Belton Piedmont, your last hour has come. Have you anything to say?" "Tell posterity," said Belton, in firm ringing tones that startled the birds into silence, "that I loved the race to which I belonged and the flag that floated over me; and, being unable to see these objects of my love engage in mortal combat, I went to my God, and now look down upon both from my home in the skies to bless them with my spirit." Bernard gave the word of command to fire, and Belton fell forward, a corpse. On the knoll where he fell he was buried, shrouded in an American flag. CHAPTER XX. PERSONAL.--(Berl Trout) I was a member of the Imperium that ordered Belton to be slain. It fell to my lot to be one of the five who fired the fatal shots and I saw him fall. Oh! that I could have died in his stead! When he fell, the spirit of conservatism in the Negro race, fell with him. He was the last of that peculiar type of Negro heroes that could so fondly kiss the smiting hand. His influence, which alone had just snatched us from the edge of the precipice of internecine war, from whose steep heights we had, in our rage, decided to leap into the dark gulf beneath, was now gone; his restraining hand was to be felt no more. Henceforth Bernard Belgrave's influence would be supreme. Born of distinguished parents, reared in luxury, gratified as to every whim, successful in every undertaking, idolized by the people, proud, brilliant, aspiring, deeming nothing impossible of achievement, with Viola's tiny hand protruding from the grave pointing him to move forward, Bernard Belgrave, President of the Imperium In Imperio, was a man to be feared. As Bernard stood by the side of Belton's grave and saw the stiffened form of his dearest friend lowered to its last resting place, his grief was of a kind too galling for tears. He laughed a fearful, wicked laugh like unto that of a maniac, and said: "Float on proud flag, while yet you may. Rejoice, oh! ye Anglo-Saxons, yet a little while. Make my father ashamed to own me, his lawful son; call me a bastard child; look upon my pure mother as a harlot; laugh at Viola in the grave of a self-murderer; exhume Belton's body if you like and tear your flag from around him to keep him from polluting it! Yes, stuff your vile stomachs full of all these horrors. You shall be richer food for the buzzards to whom I have solemnly vowed to give your flesh." These words struck terror to my soul. With Belton gone and this man at our head, our well-organized, thoroughly equipped Imperium was a serious menace to the peace of the world. A chance spark might at any time cause a conflagration, which, unchecked, would spread destruction, devastation and death all around. I felt that beneath the South a mine had been dug and filled with dynamite, and that lighted fuses were lying around in careless profusion, where any irresponsible hand might reach them and ignite the dynamite. I fancied that I saw a man do this very thing in a sudden fit of uncontrollable rage. There was a dull roar as of distant rumbling thunder. Suddenly there was a terrific explosion and houses, fences, trees, pavement stones, and all things on earth were hurled high into the air to come back a mass of ruins such as man never before had seen. The only sound to be heard was a universal groan; those who had not been killed were too badly wounded to cry out. Such were the thoughts that passed through my mind. I was determined to remove the possibility of such a catastrophe. I decided to prove traitor and reveal the existence of the Imperium that it might be broken up or watched. My deed may appear to be the act of a vile wretch, but it is done in the name of humanity. Long ere you shall have come to this line, I shall have met the fate of a traitor. I die for mankind, for humanity, for civilization. If the voice of a poor Negro, who thus gives his life, will be heard, I only ask as a return that all mankind will join hands and help my poor down-trodden people to secure those rights for which they organized the Imperium, which my betrayal has now destroyed. I urge this because love of liberty is such an inventive genius, that if you destroy one device it at once constructs another more powerful. When will all races and classes of men learn that men made in the image of God will not be the slaves of another image? THE END. 
584	----	OUR NIG; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, In A Two-Story White House, North. SHOWING THAT SLAVERY'S SHADOWS FALL EVEN THERE. by "OUR NIG." Dedicated to Pauline Augusta Coleman Gates and Henry Louis Gates, Sr. In Memory of Marguerite Elizabeth Howard Coleman, and Gertrude Helen Redman Gates "I know That care has iron crowns for many brows; That Calvaries are everywhere, whereon Virtue is crucified, and nails and spears Draw guiltless blood; that sorrow sits and drinks At sweetest hearts, till all their life is dry; That gentle spirits on the rack of pain Grow faint or fierce, and pray and curse by turns; That hell's temptations, clad in heavenly guise And armed with might, lie evermore in wait Along life's path, giving assault to all."--HOLLAND. PREFACE. IN offering to the public the following pages, the writer confesses her inability to minister to the refined and cultivated, the pleasure supplied by abler pens. It is not for such these crude narrations appear. Deserted by kindred, disabled by failing health, I am forced to some experiment which shall aid me in maintaining myself and child without extinguishing this feeble life. I would not from these motives even palliate slavery at the South, by disclosures of its appurtenances North. My mistress was wholly imbued with SOUTHERN principles. I do not pretend to divulge every transaction in my own life, which the unprejudiced would declare unfavorable in comparison with treatment of legal bondmen; I have purposely omitted what would most provoke shame in our good anti-slavery friends at home. My humble position and frank confession of errors will, I hope, shield me from severe criticism. Indeed, defects are so apparent it requires no skilful hand to expose them. I sincerely appeal to my colored brethren universally for patronage, hoping they will not condemn this attempt of their sister to be erudite, but rally around me a faithful band of supporters and defenders. H. E. W. OUR NIG. CHAPTER I. MAG SMITH, MY MOTHER. Oh, Grief beyond all other griefs, when fate First leaves the young heart lone and desolate In the wide world, without that only tie For which it loved to live or feared to die; Lorn as the hung-up lute, that ne'er hath spoken Since the sad day its master-chord was broken! MOORE. LONELY MAG SMITH! See her as she walks with downcast eyes and heavy heart. It was not always thus. She HAD a loving, trusting heart. Early deprived of parental guardianship, far removed from relatives, she was left to guide her tiny boat over life's surges alone and inexperienced. As she merged into womanhood, unprotected, uncherished, uncared for, there fell on her ear the music of love, awakening an intensity of emotion long dormant. It whispered of an elevation before unaspired to; of ease and plenty her simple heart had never dreamed of as hers. She knew the voice of her charmer, so ravishing, sounded far above her. It seemed like an angel's, alluring her upward and onward. She thought she could ascend to him and become an equal. She surrendered to him a priceless gem, which he proudly garnered as a trophy, with those of other victims, and left her to her fate. The world seemed full of hateful deceivers and crushing arrogance. Conscious that the great bond of union to her former companions was severed, that the disdain of others would be insupportable, she determined to leave the few friends she possessed, and seek an asylum among strangers. Her offspring came unwelcomed, and before its nativity numbered weeks, it passed from earth, ascending to a purer and better life. "God be thanked," ejaculated Mag, as she saw its breathing cease; "no one can taunt HER with my ruin." Blessed release! may we all respond. How many pure, innocent children not only inherit a wicked heart of their own, claiming life-long scrutiny and restraint, but are heirs also of parental disgrace and calumny, from which only long years of patient endurance in paths of rectitude can disencumber them. Mag's new home was soon contaminated by the publicity of her fall; she had a feeling of degradation oppressing her; but she resolved to be circumspect, and try to regain in a measure what she had lost. Then some foul tongue would jest of her shame, and averted looks and cold greetings disheartened her. She saw she could not bury in forgetfulness her misdeed, so she resolved to leave her home and seek another in the place she at first fled from. Alas, how fearful are we to be first in extending a helping hand to those who stagger in the mires of infamy; to speak the first words of hope and warning to those emerging into the sunlight of morality! Who can tell what numbers, advancing just far enough to hear a cold welcome and join in the reserved converse of professed reformers, disappointed, disheartened, have chosen to dwell in unclean places, rather than encounter these "holier-than-thou" of the great brotherhood of man! Such was Mag's experience; and disdaining to ask favor or friendship from a sneering world, she resolved to shut herself up in a hovel she had often passed in better days, and which she knew to be untenanted. She vowed to ask no favors of familiar faces; to die neglected and forgotten before she would be dependent on any. Removed from the village, she was seldom seen except as upon your introduction, gentle reader, with downcast visage, returning her work to her employer, and thus providing herself with the means of subsistence. In two years many hands craved the same avocation; foreigners who cheapened toil and clamored for a livelihood, competed with her, and she could not thus sustain herself. She was now above no drudgery. Occasionally old acquaintances called to be favored with help of some kind, which she was glad to bestow for the sake of the money it would bring her; but the association with them was such a painful reminder of by-gones, she returned to her hut morose and revengeful, refusing all offers of a better home than she possessed. Thus she lived for years, hugging her wrongs, but making no effort to escape. She had never known plenty, scarcely competency; but the present was beyond comparison with those innocent years when the coronet of virtue was hers. Every year her melancholy increased, her means diminished. At last no one seemed to notice her, save a kind-hearted African, who often called to inquire after her health and to see if she needed any fuel, he having the responsibility of furnishing that article, and she in return mending or making garments. "How much you earn dis week, Mag?" asked he one Saturday evening. "Little enough, Jim. Two or three days without any dinner. I washed for the Reeds, and did a small job for Mrs. Bellmont; that's all. I shall starve soon, unless I can get more to do. Folks seem as afraid to come here as if they expected to get some awful disease. I don't believe there is a person in the world but would be glad to have me dead and out of the way." "No, no, Mag! don't talk so. You shan't starve so long as I have barrels to hoop. Peter Greene boards me cheap. I'll help you, if nobody else will." A tear stood in Mag's faded eye. "I'm glad," she said, with a softer tone than before, "if there is ONE who isn't glad to see me suffer. I b'lieve all Singleton wants to see me punished, and feel as if they could tell when I've been punished long enough. It's a long day ahead they'll set it, I reckon." After the usual supply of fuel was prepared, Jim returned home. Full of pity for Mag, he set about devising measures for her relief. "By golly!" said he to himself one day--for he had become so absorbed in Mag's interest that he had fallen into a habit of musing aloud--"By golly! I wish she'd MARRY me." "Who?" shouted Pete Greene, suddenly starting from an unobserved corner of the rude shop. "Where you come from, you sly nigger!" exclaimed Jim. "Come, tell me, who is't?" said Pete; "Mag Smith, you want to marry?" "Git out, Pete! and when you come in dis shop again, let a nigger know it. Don't steal in like a thief." Pity and love know little severance. One attends the other. Jim acknowledged the presence of the former, and his efforts in Mag's behalf told also of a finer principle. This sudden expedient which he had unintentionally disclosed, roused his thinking and inventive powers to study upon the best method of introducing the subject to Mag. He belted his barrels, with many a scheme revolving in his mind, none of which quite satisfied him, or seemed, on the whole, expedient. He thought of the pleasing contrast between her fair face and his own dark skin; the smooth, straight hair, which he had once, in expression of pity, kindly stroked on her now wrinkled but once fair brow. There was a tempest gathering in his heart, and at last, to ease his pent-up passion, he exclaimed aloud, "By golly!" Recollecting his former exposure, he glanced around to see if Pete was in hearing again. Satisfied on this point, he continued: "She'd be as much of a prize to me as she'd fall short of coming up to the mark with white folks. I don't care for past things. I've done things 'fore now I's 'shamed of. She's good enough for me, any how." One more glance about the premises to be sure Pete was away. The next Saturday night brought Jim to the hovel again. The cold was fast coming to tarry its apportioned time. Mag was nearly despairing of meeting its rigor. "How's the wood, Mag?" asked Jim. "All gone; and no more to cut, any how," was the reply. "Too bad!" Jim said. His truthful reply would have been, I'm glad. "Anything to eat in the house?" continued he. "No," replied Mag. "Too bad!" again, orally, with the same INWARD gratulation as before. "Well, Mag," said Jim, after a short pause, "you's down low enough. I don't see but I've got to take care of ye. 'Sposin' we marry!" Mag raised her eyes, full of amazement, and uttered a sonorous "What?" Jim felt abashed for a moment. He knew well what were her objections. "You's had trial of white folks any how. They run off and left ye, and now none of 'em come near ye to see if you's dead or alive. I's black outside, I know, but I's got a white heart inside. Which you rather have, a black heart in a white skin, or a white heart in a black one?" "Oh, dear!" sighed Mag; "Nobody on earth cares for ME--" "I do," interrupted Jim. "I can do but two things," said she, "beg my living, or get it from you." "Take me, Mag. I can give you a better home than this, and not let you suffer so." He prevailed; they married. You can philosophize, gentle reader, upon the impropriety of such unions, and preach dozens of sermons on the evils of amalgamation. Want is a more powerful philosopher and preacher. Poor Mag. She has sundered another bond which held her to her fellows. She has descended another step down the ladder of infamy. CHAPTER II. MY FATHER'S DEATH. Misery! we have known each other, Like a sister and a brother, Living in the same lone home Many years--we must live some Hours or ages yet to come. SHELLEY. JIM, proud of his treasure,--a white wife,--tried hard to fulfil his promises; and furnished her with a more comfortable dwelling, diet, and apparel. It was comparatively a comfortable winter she passed after her marriage. When Jim could work, all went on well. Industrious, and fond of Mag, he was determined she should not regret her union to him. Time levied an additional charge upon him, in the form of two pretty mulattos, whose infantile pranks amply repaid the additional toil. A few years, and a severe cough and pain in his side compelled him to be an idler for weeks together, and Mag had thus a reminder of by-gones. She cared for him only as a means to subserve her own comfort; yet she nursed him faithfully and true to marriage vows till death released her. He became the victim of consumption. He loved Mag to the last. So long as life continued, he stifled his sensibility to pain, and toiled for her sustenance long after he was able to do so. A few expressive wishes for her welfare; a hope of better days for her; an anxiety lest they should not all go to the "good place;" brief advice about their children; a hope expressed that Mag would not be neglected as she used to be; the manifestation of Christian patience; these were ALL the legacy of miserable Mag. A feeling of cold desolation came over her, as she turned from the grave of one who had been truly faithful to her. She was now expelled from companionship with white people; this last step--her union with a black--was the climax of repulsion. Seth Shipley, a partner in Jim's business, wished her to remain in her present home; but she declined, and returned to her hovel again, with obstacles threefold more insurmountable than before. Seth accompanied her, giving her a weekly allowance which furnished most of the food necessary for the four inmates. After a time, work failed; their means were reduced. How Mag toiled and suffered, yielding to fits of desperation, bursts of anger, and uttering curses too fearful to repeat. When both were supplied with work, they prospered; if idle, they were hungry together. In this way their interests became united; they planned for the future together. Mag had lived an outcast for years. She had ceased to feel the gushings of penitence; she had crushed the sharp agonies of an awakened conscience. She had no longings for a purer heart, a better life. Far easier to descend lower. She entered the darkness of perpetual infamy. She asked not the rite of civilization or Christianity. Her will made her the wife of Seth. Soon followed scenes familiar and trying. "It's no use," said Seth one day; "we must give the children away, and try to get work in some other place." "Who'll take the black devils?" snarled Mag. "They're none of mine," said Seth; "what you growling about?" "Nobody will want any thing of mine, or yours either," she replied. "We'll make 'em, p'r'aps," he said. "There's Frado's six years old, and pretty, if she is yours, and white folks'll say so. She'd be a prize somewhere," he continued, tipping his chair back against the wall, and placing his feet upon the rounds, as if he had much more to say when in the right position. Frado, as they called one of Mag's children, was a beautiful mulatto, with long, curly black hair, and handsome, roguish eyes, sparkling with an exuberance of spirit almost beyond restraint. Hearing her name mentioned, she looked up from her play, to see what Seth had to say of her. "Wouldn't the Bellmonts take her?" asked Seth. "Bellmonts?" shouted Mag. "His wife is a right she-devil! and if--" "Hadn't they better be all together?" interrupted Seth, reminding her of a like epithet used in reference to her little ones. Without seeming to notice him, she continued, "She can't keep a girl in the house over a week; and Mr. Bellmont wants to hire a boy to work for him, but he can't find one that will live in the house with her; she's so ugly, they can't." "Well, we've got to make a move soon," answered Seth; "if you go with me, we shall go right off. Had you rather spare the other one?" asked Seth, after a short pause. "One's as bad as t'other," replied Mag. "Frado is such a wild, frolicky thing, and means to do jest as she's a mind to; she won't go if she don't want to. I don't want to tell her she is to be given away." "I will," said Seth. "Come here, Frado?" The child seemed to have some dim foreshadowing of evil, and declined. "Come here," he continued; "I want to tell you something." She came reluctantly. He took her hand and said: "We're going to move, by-'m-bye; will you go?" "No!" screamed she; and giving a sudden jerk which destroyed Seth's equilibrium, left him sprawling on the floor, while she escaped through the open door. "She's a hard one," said Seth, brushing his patched coat sleeve. "I'd risk her at Bellmont's." They discussed the expediency of a speedy departure. Seth would first seek employment, and then return for Mag. They would take with them what they could carry, and leave the rest with Pete Greene, and come for them when they were wanted. They were long in arranging affairs satisfactorily, and were not a little startled at the close of their conference to find Frado missing. They thought approaching night would bring her. Twilight passed into darkness, and she did not come. They thought she had understood their plans, and had, perhaps, permanently withdrawn. They could not rest without making some effort to ascertain her retreat. Seth went in pursuit, and returned without her. They rallied others when they discovered that another little colored girl was missing, a favorite playmate of Frado's. All effort proved unavailing. Mag felt sure her fears were realized, and that she might never see her again. Before her anxieties became realities, both were safely returned, and from them and their attendant they learned that they went to walk, and not minding the direction soon found themselves lost. They had climbed fences and walls, passed through thickets and marshes, and when night approached selected a thick cluster of shrubbery as a covert for the night. They were discovered by the person who now restored them, chatting of their prospects, Frado attempting to banish the childish fears of her companion. As they were some miles from home, they were kindly cared for until morning. Mag was relieved to know her child was not driven to desperation by their intentions to relieve themselves of her, and she was inclined to think severe restraint would be healthful. The removal was all arranged; the few days necessary for such migrations passed quickly, and one bright summer morning they bade farewell to their Singleton hovel, and with budgets and bundles commenced their weary march. As they neared the village, they heard the merry shouts of children gathered around the school-room, awaiting the coming of their teacher. "Halloo!" screamed one, "Black, white and yeller!" "Black, white and yeller," echoed a dozen voices. It did not grate so harshly on poor Mag as once it would. She did not even turn her head to look at them. She had passed into an insensibility no childish taunt could penetrate, else she would have reproached herself as she passed familiar scenes, for extending the separation once so easily annihilated by steadfast integrity. Two miles beyond lived the Bellmonts, in a large, old fashioned, two-story white house, environed by fruitful acres, and embellished by shrubbery and shade trees. Years ago a youthful couple consecrated it as home; and after many little feet had worn paths to favorite fruit trees, and over its green hills, and mingled at last with brother man in the race which belongs neither to the swift or strong, the sire became grey-haired and decrepit, and went to his last repose. His aged consort soon followed him. The old homestead thus passed into the hands of a son, to whose wife Mag had applied the epithet "she-devil," as may be remembered. John, the son, had not in his family arrangements departed from the example of the father. The pastimes of his boyhood were ever freshly revived by witnessing the games of his own sons as they rallied about the same goal his youthful feet had often won; as well as by the amusements of his daughters in their imitations of maternal duties. At the time we introduce them, however, John is wearing the badge of age. Most of his children were from home; some seeking employment; some were already settled in homes of their own. A maiden sister shared with him the estate on which he resided, and occupied a portion of the house. Within sight of the house, Seth seated himself with his bundles and the child he had been leading, while Mag walked onward to the house leading Frado. A knock at the door brought Mrs. Bellmont, and Mag asked if she would be willing to let that child stop there while she went to the Reed's house to wash, and when she came back she would call and get her. It seemed a novel request, but she consented. Why the impetuous child entered the house, we cannot tell; the door closed, and Mag hastily departed. Frado waited for the close of day, which was to bring back her mother. Alas! it never came. It was the last time she ever saw or heard of her mother. CHAPTER III. A NEW HOME FOR ME. Oh! did we but know of the shadows so nigh, The world would indeed be a prison of gloom; All light would be quenched in youth's eloquent eye, And the prayer-lisping infant would ask for the tomb. For if Hope be a star that may lead us astray, And "deceiveth the heart," as the aged ones preach; Yet 'twas Mercy that gave it, to beacon our way, Though its halo illumes where it never can reach. ELIZA COOK. As the day closed and Mag did not appear, surmises were expressed by the family that she never intended to return. Mr. Bellmont was a kind, humane man, who would not grudge hospitality to the poorest wanderer, nor fail to sympathize with any sufferer, however humble. The child's desertion by her mother appealed to his sympathy, and he felt inclined to succor her. To do this in opposition to Mrs. Bellmont's wishes, would be like encountering a whirlwind charged with fire, daggers and spikes. She was not as susceptible of fine emotions as her spouse. Mag's opinion of her was not without foundation. She was self-willed, haughty, undisciplined, arbitrary and severe. In common parlance, she was a SCOLD, a thorough one. Mr. B. remained silent during the consultation which follows, engaged in by mother, Mary and John, or Jack, as he was familiarly called. "Send her to the County House," said Mary, in reply to the query what should be done with her, in a tone which indicated self-importance in the speaker. She was indeed the idol of her mother, and more nearly resembled her in disposition and manners than the others. Jane, an invalid daughter, the eldest of those at home, was reclining on a sofa apparently uninterested. "Keep her," said Jack. "She's real handsome and bright, and not very black, either." "Yes," rejoined Mary; "that's just like you, Jack. She'll be of no use at all these three years, right under foot all the time." "Poh! Miss Mary; if she should stay, it wouldn't be two days before you would be telling the girls about OUR nig, OUR nig!" retorted Jack. "I don't want a nigger 'round ME, do you, mother?" asked Mary. "I don't mind the nigger in the child. I should like a dozen better than one," replied her mother. "If I could make her do my work in a few years, I would keep her. I have so much trouble with girls I hire, I am almost persuaded if I have one to train up in my way from a child, I shall be able to keep them awhile. I am tired of changing every few months." "Where could she sleep?" asked Mary. "I don't want her near me." "In the L chamber," answered the mother. "How'll she get there?" asked Jack. "She'll be afraid to go through that dark passage, and she can't climb the ladder safely." "She'll have to go there; it's good enough for a nigger," was the reply. Jack was sent on horseback to ascertain if Mag was at her home. He returned with the testimony of Pete Greene that they were fairly departed, and that the child was intentionally thrust upon their family. The imposition was not at all relished by Mrs. B., or the pert, haughty Mary, who had just glided into her teens. "Show the child to bed, Jack," said his mother. "You seem most pleased with the little nigger, so you may introduce her to her room." He went to the kitchen, and, taking Frado gently by the hand, told her he would put her in bed now; perhaps her mother would come the next night after her. It was not yet quite dark, so they ascended the stairs without any light, passing through nicely furnished rooms, which were a source of great amazement to the child. He opened the door which connected with her room by a dark, unfinished passage-way. "Don't bump your head," said Jack, and stepped before to open the door leading into her apartment,--an unfinished chamber over the kitchen, the roof slanting nearly to the floor, so that the bed could stand only in the middle of the room. A small half window furnished light and air. Jack returned to the sitting room with the remark that the child would soon outgrow those quarters. "When she DOES, she'll outgrow the house," remarked the mother. "What can she do to help you?" asked Mary. "She came just in the right time, didn't she? Just the very day after Bridget left," continued she. "I'll see what she can do in the morning," was the answer. While this conversation was passing below, Frado lay, revolving in her little mind whether she would remain or not until her mother's return. She was of wilful, determined nature, a stranger to fear, and would not hesitate to wander away should she decide to. She remembered the conversation of her mother with Seth, the words "given away" which she heard used in reference to herself; and though she did not know their full import, she thought she should, by remaining, be in some relation to white people she was never favored with before. So she resolved to tarry, with the hope that mother would come and get her some time. The hot sun had penetrated her room, and it was long before a cooling breeze reduced the temperature so that she could sleep. Frado was called early in the morning by her new mistress. Her first work was to feed the hens. She was shown how it was ALWAYS to be done, and in no other way; any departure from this rule to be punished by a whipping. She was then accompanied by Jack to drive the cows to pasture, so she might learn the way. Upon her return she was allowed to eat her breakfast, consisting of a bowl of skimmed milk, with brown bread crusts, which she was told to eat, standing, by the kitchen table, and must not be over ten minutes about it. Meanwhile the family were taking their morning meal in the dining-room. This over, she was placed on a cricket to wash the common dishes; she was to be in waiting always to bring wood and chips, to run hither and thither from room to room. A large amount of dish-washing for small hands followed dinner. Then the same after tea and going after the cows finished her first day's work. It was a new discipline to the child. She found some attractions about the place, and she retired to rest at night more willing to remain. The same routine followed day after day, with slight variation; adding a little more work, and spicing the toil with "words that burn," and frequent blows on her head. These were great annoyances to Frado, and had she known where her mother was, she would have gone at once to her. She was often greatly wearied, and silently wept over her sad fate. At first she wept aloud, which Mrs. Bellmont noticed by applying a raw-hide, always at hand in the kitchen. It was a symptom of discontent and complaining which must be "nipped in the bud," she said. Thus passed a year. No intelligence of Mag. It was now certain Frado was to become a permanent member of the family. Her labors were multiplied; she was quite indispensable, although but seven years old. She had never learned to read, never heard of a school until her residence in the family. Mrs. Bellmont was in doubt about the utility of attempting to educate people of color, who were incapable of elevation. This subject occasioned a lengthy discussion in the family. Mr. Bellmont, Jane and Jack arguing for Frado's education; Mary and her mother objecting. At last Mr. Bellmont declared decisively that she SHOULD go to school. He was a man who seldom decided controversies at home. The word once spoken admitted of no appeal; so, notwithstanding Mary's objection that she would have to attend the same school she did, the word became law. It was to be a new scene to Frado, and Jack had many queries and conjectures to answer. He was himself too far advanced to attend the summer school, which Frado regretted, having had too many opportunities of witnessing Miss Mary's temper to feel safe in her company alone. The opening day of school came. Frado sauntered on far in the rear of Mary, who was ashamed to be seen "walking with a nigger." As soon as she appeared, with scanty clothing and bared feet, the children assembled, noisily published her approach: "See that nigger," shouted one. "Look! look!" cried another. "I won't play with her," said one little girl. "Nor I neither," replied another. Mary evidently relished these sharp attacks, and saw a fair prospect of lowering Nig where, according to her views, she belonged. Poor Frado, chagrined and grieved, felt that her anticipations of pleasure at such a place were far from being realized. She was just deciding to return home, and never come there again, when the teacher appeared, and observing the downcast looks of the child, took her by the hand, and led her into the school-room. All followed, and, after the bustle of securing seats was over, Miss Marsh inquired if the children knew "any cause for the sorrow of that little girl?" pointing to Frado. It was soon all told. She then reminded them of their duties to the poor and friendless; their cowardice in attacking a young innocent child; referred them to one who looks not on outward appearances, but on the heart. "She looks like a good girl; I think _I_ shall love her, so lay aside all prejudice, and vie with each other in shewing kindness and good-will to one who seems different from you," were the closing remarks of the kind lady. Those kind words! The most agreeable sound which ever meets the ear of sorrowing, grieving childhood. Example rendered her words efficacious. Day by day there was a manifest change of deportment towards "Nig." Her speeches often drew merriment from the children; no one could do more to enliven their favorite pastimes than Frado. Mary could not endure to see her thus noticed, yet knew not how to prevent it. She could not influence her schoolmates as she wished. She had not gained their affections by winning ways and yielding points of controversy. On the contrary, she was self-willed, domineering; every day reported "mad" by some of her companions. She availed herself of the only alternative, abuse and taunts, as they returned from school. This was not satisfactory; she wanted to use physical force "to subdue her," to "keep her down." There was, on their way home, a field intersected by a stream over which a single plank was placed for a crossing. It occurred to Mary that it would be a punishment to Nig to compel her to cross over; so she dragged her to the edge, and told her authoritatively to go over. Nig hesitated, resisted. Mary placed herself behind the child, and, in the struggle to force her over, lost her footing and plunged into the stream. Some of the larger scholars being in sight, ran, and thus prevented Mary from drowning and Frado from falling. Nig scampered home fast as possible, and Mary went to the nearest house, dripping, to procure a change of garments. She came loitering home, half crying, exclaiming, "Nig pushed me into the stream!" She then related the particulars. Nig was called from the kitchen. Mary stood with anger flashing in her eyes. Mr. Bellmont sat quietly reading his paper. He had witnessed too many of Miss Mary's outbreaks to be startled. Mrs. Bellmont interrogated Nig. "I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" answered Nig, passionately, and then related the occurrence truthfully. The discrepancy greatly enraged Mrs. Bellmont. With loud accusations and angry gestures she approached the child. Turning to her husband, she asked, "Will you sit still, there, and hear that black nigger call Mary a liar?" "How do we know but she has told the truth? I shall not punish her," he replied, and left the house, as he usually did when a tempest threatened to envelop him. No sooner was he out of sight than Mrs. B. and Mary commenced beating her inhumanly; then propping her mouth open with a piece of wood, shut her up in a dark room, without any supper. For employment, while the tempest raged within, Mr. Bellmont went for the cows, a task belonging to Frado, and thus unintentionally prolonged her pain. At dark Jack came in, and seeing Mary, accosted her with, "So you thought you'd vent your spite on Nig, did you? Why can't you let her alone? It was good enough for you to get a ducking, only you did not stay in half long enough." "Stop!" said his mother. "You shall never talk so before me. You would have that little nigger trample on Mary, would you? She came home with a lie; it made Mary's story false." "What was Mary's story?" asked Jack. It was related. "Now," said Jack, sallying into a chair, "the school-children happened to see it all, and they tell the same story Nig does. Which is most likely to be true, what a dozen agree they saw, or the contrary?" "It is very strange you will believe what others say against your sister," retorted his mother, with flashing eye. "I think it is time your father subdued you." "Father is a sensible man," argued Jack. "He would not wrong a dog. Where IS Frado?" he continued. "Mother gave her a good whipping and shut her up," replied Mary. Just then Mr. Bellmont entered, and asked if Frado was "shut up yet." The knowledge of her innocence, the perfidy of his sister, worked fearfully on Jack. He bounded from his chair, searched every room till he found the child; her mouth wedged apart, her face swollen, and full of pain. How Jack pitied her! He relieved her jaws, brought her some supper, took her to her room, comforted her as well as he knew how, sat by her till she fell asleep, and then left for the sitting room. As he passed his mother, he remarked, "If that was the way Frado was to be treated, he hoped she would never wake again!" He then imparted her situation to his father, who seemed untouched, till a glance at Jack exposed a tearful eye. Jack went early to her next morning. She awoke sad, but refreshed. After breakfast Jack took her with him to the field, and kept her through the day. But it could not be so generally. She must return to school, to her household duties. He resolved to do what he could to protect her from Mary and his mother. He bought her a dog, which became a great favorite with both. The invalid, Jane, would gladly befriend her; but she had not the strength to brave the iron will of her mother. Kind words and affectionate glances were the only expressions of sympathy she could safely indulge in. The men employed on the farm were always glad to hear her prattle; she was a great favorite with them. Mrs. Bellmont allowed them the privilege of talking with her in the kitchen. She did not fear but she should have ample opportunity of subduing her when they were away. Three months of schooling, summer and winter, she enjoyed for three years. Her winter over-dress was a cast-off overcoat, once worn by Jack, and a sun-bonnet. It was a source of great merriment to the scholars, but Nig's retorts were so mirthful, and their satisfaction so evident in attributing the selection to "Old Granny Bellmont," that it was not painful to Nig or pleasurable to Mary. Her jollity was not to be quenched by whipping or scolding. In Mrs. Bellmont's presence she was under restraint; but in the kitchen, and among her schoolmates, the pent up fires burst forth. She was ever at some sly prank when unseen by her teacher, in school hours; not unfrequently some outburst of merriment, of which she was the original, was charged upon some innocent mate, and punishment inflicted which she merited. They enjoyed her antics so fully that any of them would suffer wrongfully to keep open the avenues of mirth. She would venture far beyond propriety, thus shielded and countenanced. The teacher's desk was supplied with drawers, in which were stored his books and other et ceteras of the profession. The children observed Nig very busy there one morning before school, as they flitted in occasionally from their play outside. The master came; called the children to order; opened a drawer to take the book the occasion required; when out poured a volume of smoke. "Fire! fire!" screamed he, at the top of his voice. By this time he had become sufficiently acquainted with the peculiar odor, to know he was imposed upon. The scholars shouted with laughter to see the terror of the dupe, who, feeling abashed at the needless fright, made no very strict investigation, and Nig once more escaped punishment. She had provided herself with cigars, and puffing, puffing away at the crack of the drawer, had filled it with smoke, and then closed it tightly to deceive the teacher, and amuse the scholars. The interim of terms was filled up with a variety of duties new and peculiar. At home, no matter how powerful the heat when sent to rake hay or guard the grazing herd, she was never permitted to shield her skin from the sun. She was not many shades darker than Mary now; what a calamity it would be ever to hear the contrast spoken of. Mrs. Bellmont was determined the sun should have full power to darken the shade which nature had first bestowed upon her as best befitting. CHAPTER IV. A FRIEND FOR NIG. "Hours of my youth! when nurtured in my breast, To love a stranger, friendship made me blest:-- Friendship, the dear peculiar bond of youth, When every artless bosom throbs with truth; Untaught by worldly wisdom how to feign; And check each impulse with prudential reign; When all we feel our honest souls disclose-- In love to friends, in open hate to foes; No varnished tales the lips of youth repeat, No dear-bought knowledge purchased by deceit." BYRON. WITH what differing emotions have the denizens of earth awaited the approach of to-day. Some sufferer has counted the vibrations of the pendulum impatient for its dawn, who, now that it has arrived, is anxious for its close. The votary of pleasure, conscious of yesterday's void, wishes for power to arrest time's haste till a few more hours of mirth shall be enjoyed. The unfortunate are yet gazing in vain for goldenedged clouds they fancied would appear in their horizon. The good man feels that he has accomplished too little for the Master, and sighs that another day must so soon close. Innocent childhood, weary of its stay, longs for another morrow; busy manhood cries, hold! hold! and pursues it to another's dawn. All are dissatisfied. All crave some good not yet possessed, which time is expected to bring with all its morrows. Was it strange that, to a disconsolate child, three years should seem a long, long time? During school time she had rest from Mrs. Bellmont's tyranny. She was now nine years old; time, her mistress said, such privileges should cease. She could now read and spell, and knew the elementary steps in grammar, arithmetic, and writing. Her education completed, as SHE said, Mrs. Bellmont felt that her time and person belonged solely to her. She was under her in every sense of the word. What an opportunity to indulge her vixen nature! No matter what occurred to ruffle her, or from what source provocation came, real or fancied, a few blows on Nig seemed to relieve her of a portion of ill-will. These were days when Fido was the entire confidant of Frado. She told him her griefs as though he were human; and he sat so still, and listened so attentively, she really believed he knew her sorrows. All the leisure moments she could gain were used in teaching him some feat of dog-agility, so that Jack pronounced him very knowing, and was truly gratified to know he had furnished her with a gift answering his intentions. Fido was the constant attendant of Frado, when sent from the house on errands, going and returning with the cows, out in the fields, to the village. If ever she forgot her hardships it was in his company. Spring was now retiring. James, one of the absent sons, was expected home on a visit. He had never seen the last acquisition to the family. Jack had written faithfully of all the merits of his colored protege, and hinted plainly that mother did not always treat her just right. Many were the preparations to make the visit pleasant, and as the day approached when he was to arrive, great exertions were made to cook the favorite viands, to prepare the choicest table-fare. The morning of the arrival day was a busy one. Frado knew not who would be of so much importance; her feet were speeding hither and thither so unsparingly. Mrs. Bellmont seemed a trifle fatigued, and her shoes which had, early in the morning, a methodic squeak, altered to an irregular, peevish snap. "Get some little wood to make the fire burn," said Mrs. Bellmont, in a sharp tone. Frado obeyed, bringing the smallest she could find. Mrs. Bellmont approached her, and, giving her a box on her ear, reiterated the command. The first the child brought was the smallest to be found; of course, the second must be a trifle larger. She well knew it was, as she threw it into a box on the hearth. To Mrs. Bellmont it was a greater affront, as well as larger wood, so she "taught her" with the raw-hide, and sent her the third time for "little wood." Nig, weeping, knew not what to do. She had carried the smallest; none left would suit her mistress; of course further punishment awaited her; so she gathered up whatever came first, and threw it down on the hearth. As she expected, Mrs. Bellmont, enraged, approached her, and kicked her so forcibly as to throw her upon the floor. Before she could rise, another foiled the attempt, and then followed kick after kick in quick succession and power, till she reached the door. Mr. Bellmont and Aunt Abby, hearing the noise, rushed in, just in time to see the last of the performance. Nig jumped up, and rushed from the house, out of sight. Aunt Abby returned to her apartment, followed by John, who was muttering to himself. "What were you saying?" asked Aunt Abby. "I said I hoped the child never would come into the house again." "What would become of her? You cannot mean THAT," continued his sister. "I do mean it. The child does as much work as a woman ought to; and just see how she is kicked about!" "Why do you have it so, John?" asked his sister. "How am I to help it? Women rule the earth, and all in it." "I think I should rule my own house, John,"-- "And live in hell meantime," added Mr. Bellmont. John now sauntered out to the barn to await the quieting of the storm. Aunt Abby had a glimpse of Nig as she passed out of the yard; but to arrest her, or shew her that SHE would shelter her, in Mrs. Bellmont's presence, would only bring reserved wrath on her defenceless head. Her sister-inlaw had great prejudices against her. One cause of the alienation was that she did not give her right in the homestead to John, and leave it forever; another was that she was a professor of religion, (so was Mrs. Bellmont;) but Nab, as she called her, did not live according to her profession; another, that she WOULD sometimes give Nig cake and pie, which she was never allowed to have at home. Mary had often noticed and spoken of her inconsistencies. The dinner hour passed. Frado had not appeared. Mrs. B. made no inquiry or search. Aunt Abby looked long, and found her concealed in an outbuilding. "Come into the house with me," implored Aunt Abby. "I ain't going in any more," sobbed the child. "What will you do?" asked Aunt Abby. "I've got to stay out here and die. I ha'n't got no mother, no home. I wish I was dead." "Poor thing," muttered Aunt Abby; and slyly providing her with some dinner, left her to her grief. Jane went to confer with her Aunt about the affair; and learned from her the retreat. She would gladly have concealed her in her own chamber, and ministered to her wants; but she was dependent on Mary and her mother for care, and any displeasure caused by attention to Nig, was seriously felt. Toward night the coach brought James. A time of general greeting, inquiries for absent members of the family, a visit to Aunt Abby's room, undoing a few delicacies for Jane, brought them to the tea hour. "Where's Frado?" asked Mr. Bellmont, observing she was not in her usual place, behind her mistress' chair. "I don't know, and I don't care. If she makes her appearance again, I'll take the skin from her body," replied his wife. James, a fine looking young man, with a pleasant countenance, placid, and yet decidedly serious, yet not stern, looked up confounded. He was no stranger to his mother's nature; but years of absence had erased the occurrences once so familiar, and he asked, "Is this that pretty little Nig, Jack writes to me about, that you are so severe upon, mother?" "I'll not leave much of her beauty to be seen, if she comes in sight; and now, John," said Mrs. B., turning to her husband, "you need not think you are going to learn her to treat me in this way; just see how saucy she was this morning. She shall learn her place." Mr. Bellmont raised his calm, determined eye full upon her, and said, in a decisive manner: "You shall not strike, or scald, or skin her, as you call it, if she comes back again. Remember!" and he brought his hand down upon the table. "I have searched an hour for her now, and she is not to be found on the premises. Do YOU know where she is? Is she YOUR prisoner?" "No! I have just told you I did not know where she was. Nab has her hid somewhere, I suppose. Oh, dear! I did not think it would come to this; that my own husband would treat me so." Then came fast flowing tears, which no one but Mary seemed to notice. Jane crept into Aunt Abby's room; Mr. Bellmont and James went out of doors, and Mary remained to condole with her parent. "Do you know where Frado is?" asked Jane of her aunt. "No," she replied. "I have hunted everywhere. She has left her first hiding-place. I cannot think what has become of her. There comes Jack and Fido; perhaps he knows;" and she walked to a window near, where James and his father were conversing together. The two brothers exchanged a hearty greeting, and then Mr. Bellmont told Jack to eat his supper; afterward he wished to send him away. He immediately went in. Accustomed to all the phases of indoor storms, from a whine to thunder and lightning, he saw at a glance marks of disturbance. He had been absent through the day, with the hired men. "What's the fuss?" asked he, rushing into Aunt Abby's. "Eat your supper," said Jane; "go home, Jack." Back again through the dining-room, and out to his father. "What's the fuss?" again inquired he of his father. "Eat your supper, Jack, and see if you can find Frado. She's not been seen since morning, and then she was kicked out of the house." "I shan't eat my supper till I find her," said Jack, indignantly. "Come, James, and see the little creature mother treats so." They started, calling, searching, coaxing, all their way along. No Frado. They returned to the house to consult. James and Jack declared they would not sleep till she was found. Mrs. Bellmont attempted to dissuade them from the search. "It was a shame a little NIGGER should make so much trouble." Just then Fido came running up, and Jack exclaimed, "Fido knows where she is, I'll bet." "So I believe," said his father; "but we shall not be wiser unless we can outwit him. He will not do what his mistress forbids him." "I know how to fix him," said Jack. Taking a plate from the table, which was still waiting, he called, "Fido! Fido! Frado wants some supper. Come!" Jack started, the dog followed, and soon capered on before, far, far into the fields, over walls and through fences, into a piece of swampy land. Jack followed close, and soon appeared to James, who was quite in the rear, coaxing and forcing Frado along with him. A frail child, driven from shelter by the cruelty of his mother, was an object of interest to James. They persuaded her to go home with them, warmed her by the kitchen fire, gave her a good supper, and took her with them into the sitting-room. "Take that nigger out of my sight," was Mrs. Bellmont's command, before they could be seated. James led her into Aunt Abby's, where he knew they were welcome. They chatted awhile until Frado seemed cheerful; then James led her to her room, and waited until she retired. "Are you glad I've come home?" asked James. "Yes; if you won't let me be whipped tomorrow." "You won't be whipped. You must try to be a good girl," counselled James. "If I do, I get whipped," sobbed the child. "They won't believe what I say. Oh, I wish I had my mother back; then I should not be kicked and whipped so. Who made me so?" "God," answered James. "Did God make you?" "Yes." "Who made Aunt Abby?" "God." "Who made your mother?" "God." "Did the same God that made her make me?" "Yes." "Well, then, I don't like him." "Why not?" "Because he made her white, and me black. Why didn't he make us BOTH white?" "I don't know; try to go to sleep, and you will feel better in the morning," was all the reply he could make to her knotty queries. It was a long time before she fell asleep; and a number of days before James felt in a mood to visit and entertain old associates and friends. CHAPTER V. DEPARTURES. Life is a strange avenue of various trees and flowers; Lightsome at commencement, but darkening to its end in a distant, massy portal. It beginneth as a little path, edged with the violet and primrose, A little path of lawny grass and soft to tiny feet. Soon, spring thistles in the way. TUPPER. JAMES' visit concluded. Frado had become greatly attached to him, and with sorrow she listened and joined in the farewells which preceded his exit. The remembrance of his kindness cheered her through many a weary month, and an occasional word to her in letters to Jack, were like "cold waters to a thirsty soul." Intelligence came that James would soon marry; Frado hoped he would, and remove her from such severe treatment as she was subject to. There had been additional burdens laid on her since his return. She must now MILK the cows, she had then only to drive. Flocks of sheep had been added to the farm, which daily claimed a portion of her time. In the absence of the men, she must harness the horse for Mary and her mother to ride, go to mill, in short, do the work of a boy, could one be procured to endure the tirades of Mrs. Bellmont. She was first up in the morning, doing what she could towards breakfast. Occasionally, she would utter some funny thing for Jack's benefit, while she was waiting on the table, provoking a sharp look from his mother, or expulsion from the room. On one such occasion, they found her on the roof of the barn. Some repairs having been necessary, a staging had been erected, and was not wholly removed. Availing herself of ladders, she was mounted in high glee on the topmost board. Mr. Bellmont called sternly for her to come down; poor Jane nearly fainted from fear. Mrs. B. and Mary did not care if she "broke her neck," while Jack and the men laughed at her fearlessness. Strange, one spark of playfulness could remain amid such constant toil; but her natural temperament was in a high degree mirthful, and the encouragement she received from Jack and the hired men, constantly nurtured the inclination. When she had none of the family around to be merry with, she would amuse herself with the animals. Among the sheep was a willful leader, who always persisted in being first served, and many times in his fury he had thrown down Nig, till, provoked, she resolved to punish him. The pasture in which the sheep grazed was founded on three sides by a wide stream, which flowed on one side at the base of precipitous banks. The first spare moments at her command, she ran to the pasture with a dish in her hand, and mounting the highest point of land nearest the stream, called the flock to their mock repast. Mr. Bellmont, with his laborers, were in sight, though unseen by Frado. They paused to see what she was about to do. Should she by any mishap lose her footing, she must roll into the stream, and, without aid, must drown. They thought of shouting; but they feared an unexpected salute might startle her, and thus ensure what they were anxious to prevent. They watched in breathless silence. The willful sheep came furiously leaping and bounding far in advance of the flock. Just as he leaped for the dish, she suddenly jumped to one side, when down he rolled into the river, and swimming across, remained alone till night. The men lay down, convulsed with laughter at the trick, and guessed at once its object. Mr. Bellmont talked seriously to the child for exposing herself to such danger; but she hopped about on her toes, and with laughable grimaces replied, she knew she was quick enough to "give him a slide." But to return. James married a Baltimorean lady of wealthy parentage, an indispensable requisite, his mother had always taught him. He did not marry her wealth, though; he loved HER, sincerely. She was not unlike his sister Jane, who had a social, gentle, loving nature, rather TOO yielding, her brother thought. His Susan had a firmness which Jane needed to complete her character, but which her ill health may in a measure have failed to produce. Although an invalid, she was not excluded from society. Was it strange SHE should seem a desirable companion, a treasure as a wife? Two young men seemed desirous of possessing her. One was a neighbor, Henry Reed, a tall, spare young man, with sandy hair, and blue, sinister eyes. He seemed to appreciate her wants, and watch with interest her improvement or decay. His kindness she received, and by it was almost won. Her mother wished her to encourage his attentions. She had counted the acres which were to be transmitted to an only son; she knew there was silver in the purse; she would not have Jane too sentimental. The eagerness with which he amassed wealth, was repulsive to Jane; he did not spare his person or beasts in its pursuit. She felt that to such a man she should be considered an incumbrance; she doubted if he would desire her, if he did not know she would bring a handsome patrimony. Her mother, full in favor with the parents of Henry, commanded her to accept him. She engaged herself, yielding to her mother's wishes, because she had not strength to oppose them; and sometimes, when witness of her mother's and Mary's tyranny, she felt any change would be preferable, even such a one as this. She knew her husband should be the man of her own selecting, one she was conscious of preferring before all others. She could not say this of Henry. In this dilemma, a visitor came to Aunt Abby's; one of her boy-favorites, George Means, from an adjoining State. Sensible, plain looking, agreeable, talented, he could not long be a stranger to any one who wished to know him. Jane was accustomed to sit much with Aunt Abby always; her presence now seemed necessary to assist in entertaining this youthful friend. Jane was more pleased with him each day, and silently wished Henry possessed more refinement, and the polished manners of George. She felt dissatisfied with her relation to him. His calls while George was there, brought their opposing qualities vividly before her, and she found it disagreeable to force herself into those attentions belonging to him. She received him apparently only as a neighbor. George returned home, and Jane endeavored to stifle the risings of dissatisfaction, and had nearly succeeded, when a letter came which needed but one glance to assure her of its birthplace; and she retired for its perusal. Well was it for her that her mother's suspicion was not aroused, or her curiosity startled to inquire who it came from. After reading it, she glided into Aunt Abby's, and placed it in her hands, who was no stranger to Jane's trials. George could not rest after his return, he wrote, until he had communicated to Jane the emotions her presence awakened, and his desire to love and possess her as his own. He begged to know if his affections were reciprocated, or could be; if she would permit him to write to her; if she was free from all obligation to another. "What would mother say?" queried Jane, as she received the letter from her aunt. "Not much to comfort you." "Now, aunt, George is just such a man as I could really love, I think, from all I have seen of him; you know I never could say that of Henry"-- "Then don't marry him," interrupted Aunt Abby. "Mother will make me." "Your father won't." "Well, aunt, what can I do? Would you answer the letter, or not?" "Yes, answer it. Tell him your situation." "I shall not tell him all my feelings." Jane answered that she had enjoyed his company much; she had seen nothing offensive in his manner or appearance; that she was under no obligations which forbade her receiving letters from him as a friend and acquaintance. George was puzzled by the reply. He wrote to Aunt Abby, and from her learned all. He could not see Jane thus sacrificed, without making an effort to rescue her. Another visit followed. George heard Jane say she preferred HIM. He then conferred with Henry at his home. It was not a pleasant subject to talk upon. To be thus supplanted, was not to be thought of. He would sacrifice everything but his inheritance to secure his betrothed. "And so you are the cause of her late coldness towards me. Leave! I will talk no more about it; the business is settled between us; there it will remain," said Henry. "Have you no wish to know the real state of Jane's affections towards you?" asked George. "No! Go, I say! go!" and Henry opened the door for him to pass out. He retired to Aunt Abby's. Henry soon followed, and presented his cause to Mrs. Bellmont. Provoked, surprised, indignant, she summoned Jane to her presence, and after a lengthy tirade upon Nab, and her satanic influence, told her she could not break the bonds which held her to Henry; she should not. George Means was rightly named; he was, truly, mean enough; she knew his family of old; his father had four wives, and five times as many children. "Go to your room, Miss Jane," she continued. "Don't let me know of your being in Nab's for one while." The storm was now visible to all beholders. Mr. Bellmont sought Jane. She told him her objections to Henry; showed him George's letter; told her answer, the occasion of his visit. He bade her not make herself sick; he would see that she was not compelled to violate her free choice in so important a transaction. He then sought the two young men; told them he could not as a father see his child compelled to an uncongenial union; a free, voluntary choice was of such importance to one of her health. She must be left free to her own choice. Jane sent Henry a letter of dismission; he her one of a legal bearing, in which he balanced his disappointment by a few hundreds. To brave her mother's fury, nearly overcame her, but the consolation of a kind father and aunt cheered her on. After a suitable interval she was married to George, and removed to his home in Vermont. Thus another light disappeared from Nig's horizon. Another was soon to follow. Jack was anxious to try his skill in providing for his own support; so a situation as clerk in a store was procured in a Western city, and six months after Jane's departure, was Nig abandoned to the tender mercies of Mary and her mother. As if to remove the last vestige of earthly joy, Mrs. Bellmont sold the companion and pet of Frado, the dog Fido. CHAPTER VI. VARIETIES. "Hard are life's early steps; and but that youth is buoyant, confident, and strong in hope, men would behold its threshold and despair." THE sorrow of Frado was very great for her pet, and Mr. Bellmont by great exertion obtained it again, much to the relief of the child. To be thus deprived of all her sources of pleasure was a sure way to exalt their worth, and Fido became, in her estimation, a more valuable presence than the human beings who surrounded her. James had now been married a number of years, and frequent requests for a visit from the family were at last accepted, and Mrs. Bellmont made great preparations for a fall sojourn in Baltimore. Mary was installed housekeeper--in name merely, for Nig was the only moving power in the house. Although suffering from their joint severity, she felt safer than to be thrown wholly upon an ardent, passionate, unrestrained young lady, whom she always hated and felt it hard to be obliged to obey. The trial she must meet. Were Jack or Jane at home she would have some refuge; one only remained; good Aunt Abby was still in the house. She saw the fast receding coach which conveyed her master and mistress with regret, and begged for one favor only, that James would send for her when they returned, a hope she had confidently cherished all these five years. She was now able to do all the washing, ironing, baking, and the common et cetera of household duties, though but fourteen. Mary left all for her to do, though she affected great responsibility. She would show herself in the kitchen long enough to relieve herself of some command, better withheld; or insist upon some compliance to her wishes in some department which she was very imperfectly acquainted with, very much less than the person she was addressing; and so impetuous till her orders were obeyed, that to escape the turmoil, Nig would often go contrary to her own knowledge to gain a respite. Nig was taken sick! What could be done The WORK, certainly, but not by Miss Mary. So Nig would work while she could remain erect, then sink down upon the floor, or a chair, till she could rally for a fresh effort. Mary would look in upon her, chide her for her laziness, threaten to tell mother when she came home, and so forth. "Nig!" screamed Mary, one of her sickest days, "come here, and sweep these threads from the carpet." She attempted to drag her weary limbs along, using the broom as support. Impatient of delay, she called again, but with a different request. "Bring me some wood, you lazy jade, quick." Nig rested the broom against the wall, and started on the fresh behest. Too long gone. Flushed with anger, she rose and greeted her with, "What are you gone so long for? Bring it in quick, I say." "I am coming as quick as I can," she replied, entering the door. "Saucy, impudent nigger, you! is this the way you answer me?" and taking a large carving knife from the table, she hurled it, in her rage, at the defenceless girl. Dodging quickly, it fastened in the ceiling a few inches from where she stood. There rushed on Mary's mental vision a picture of bloodshed, in which she was the perpetrator, and the sad consequences of what was so nearly an actual occurrence. "Tell anybody of this, if you dare. If you tell Aunt Abby, I'll certainly kill you," said she, terrified. She returned to her room, brushed her threads herself; was for a day or two more guarded, and so escaped deserved and merited penalty. Oh, how long the weeks seemed which held Nig in subjection to Mary; but they passed like all earth's sorrows and joys. Mr. and Mrs. B. returned delighted with their visit, and laden with rich presents for Mary. No word of hope for Nig. James was quite unwell, and would come home the next spring for a visit. This, thought Nig, will be my time of release. I shall go back with him. From early dawn until after all were retired, was she toiling, overworked, disheartened, longing for relief. Exposure from heat to cold, or the reverse, often destroyed her health for short intervals. She wore no shoes until after frost, and snow even, appeared; and bared her feet again before the last vestige of winter disappeared. These sudden changes she was so illy guarded against, nearly conquered her physical system. Any word of complaint was severely repulsed or cruelly punished. She was told she had much more than she deserved. So that manual labor was not in reality her only burden; but such an incessant torrent of scolding and boxing and threatening, was enough to deter one of maturer years from remaining within sound of the strife. It is impossible to give an impression of the manifest enjoyment of Mrs. B. in these kitchen scenes. It was her favorite exercise to enter the apartment noisily, vociferate orders, give a few sudden blows to quicken Nig's pace, then return to the sitting room with SUCH a satisfied expression, congratulating herself upon her thorough house-keeping qualities. She usually rose in the morning at the ringing of the bell for breakfast; if she were heard stirring before that time, Nig knew well there was an extra amount of scolding to be borne. No one now stood between herself and Frado, but Aunt Abby. And if SHE dared to interfere in the least, she was ordered back to her "own quarters." Nig would creep slyly into her room, learn what she could of her regarding the absent, and thus gain some light in the thick gloom of care and toil and sorrow in which she was immersed. The first of spring a letter came from James, announcing declining health. He must try northern air as a restorative; so Frado joyfully prepared for this agreeable increase of the family, this addition to her cares. He arrived feeble, lame, from his disease, so changed Frado wept at his appearance, fearing he would be removed from her forever. He kindly greeted her, took her to the parlor to see his wife and child, and said many things to kindle smiles on her sad face. Frado felt so happy in his presence, so safe from maltreatment! He was to her a shelter. He observed, silently, the ways of the house a few days; Nig still took her meals in the same manner as formerly, having the same allowance of food. He, one day, bade her not remove the food, but sit down to the table and eat. "She WILL, mother," said he, calmly, but imperatively; I'm determined; she works hard; I've watched her. Now, while I stay, she is going to sit down HERE, and eat such food as we eat." A few sparks from the mother's black eyes were the only reply; she feared to oppose where she knew she could not prevail. So Nig's standing attitude, and selected diet vanished. Her clothing was yet poor and scanty; she was not blessed with a Sunday attire; for she was never permitted to attend church with her mistress. "Religion was not meant for niggers," SHE said; when the husband and brothers were absent, she would drive Mrs. B. and Mary there, then return, and go for them at the close of the service, but never remain. Aunt Abby would take her to evening meetings, held in the neighborhood, which Mrs. B. never attended; and impart to her lessons of truth and grace as they walked to the place of prayer. Many of less piety would scorn to present so doleful a figure; Mrs. B. had shaved her glossy ringlets; and, in her coarse cloth gown and ancient bonnet, she was anything but an enticing object. But Aunt Abby looked within. She saw a soul to save, an immortality of happiness to secure. These evenings were eagerly anticipated by Nig; it was such a pleasant release from labor. Such perfect contrast in the melody and prayers of these good people to the harsh tones which fell on her ears during the day. Soon she had all their sacred songs at command, and enlivened her toil by accompanying it with this melody. James encouraged his aunt in her efforts. He had found the SAVIOUR, he wished to have Frado's desolate heart gladdened, quieted, sustained, by HIS presence. He felt sure there were elements in her heart which, transformed and purified by the gospel, would make her worthy the esteem and friendship of the world. A kind, affectionate heart, native wit, and common sense, and the pertness she sometimes exhibited, he felt if restrained properly, might become useful in originating a self-reliance which would be of service to her in after years. Yet it was not possible to compass all this, while she remained where she was. He wished to be cautious about pressing too closely her claims on his mother, as it would increase the burdened one he so anxiously wished to relieve. He cheered her on with the hope of returning with his family, when he recovered sufficiently. Nig seemed awakened to new hopes and aspirations, and realized a longing for the future, hitherto unknown. To complete Nig's enjoyment, Jack arrived unexpectedly. His greeting was as hearty to herself as to any of the family. "Where are your curls, Fra?" asked Jack, after the usual salutation. "Your mother cut them off." "Thought you were getting handsome, did she? Same old story, is it; knocks and bumps? Better times coming; never fear, Nig." How different this appellative sounded from him; he said it in such a tone, with such a rogueish look! She laughed, and replied that he had better take her West for a housekeeper. Jack was pleased with James's innovations of table discipline, and would often tarry in the dining-room, to see Nig in her new place at the family table. As he was thus sitting one day, after the family had finished dinner, Frado seated herself in her mistress' chair, and was just reaching for a clean dessert plate which was on the table, when her mistress entered. "Put that plate down; you shall not have a clean one; eat from mine," continued she. Nig hesitated. To eat after James, his wife or Jack, would have been pleasant; but to be commanded to do what was disagreeable by her mistress, BECAUSE it was disagreeable, was trying. Quickly looking about, she took the plate, called Fido to wash it, which he did to the best of his ability; then, wiping her knife and fork on the cloth, she proceeded to eat her dinner. Nig never looked toward her mistress during the process. She had Jack near; she did not fear her now. Insulted, full of rage, Mrs. Bellmont rushed to her husband, and commanded him to notice this insult; to whip that child; if he would not do it, James ought. James came to hear the kitchen version of the affair. Jack was boiling over with laughter. He related all the circumstances to James, and pulling a bright, silver half-dollar from his pocket, he threw it at Nig, saying, "There, take that; 'twas worth paying for." James sought his mother; told her he "would not excuse or palliate Nig's impudence; but she should not be whipped or be punished at all. You have not treated her, mother, so as to gain her love; she is only exhibiting your remissness in this matter." She only smothered her resentment until a convenient opportunity offered. The first time she was left alone with Nig, she gave her a thorough beating, to bring up arrearages; and threatened, if she ever exposed her to James, she would "cut her tongue out." James found her, upon his return, sobbing; but fearful of revenge, she dared not answer his queries. He guessed their cause, and longed for returning health to take her under his protection. CHAPTER VII. SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF NIG. "What are our joys but dreams? and what our hopes But goodly shadows in the summer cloud?" H. K. W. JAMES did not improve as was hoped. Month after month passed away, and brought no prospect of returning health. He could not walk far from the house for want of strength; but he loved to sit with Aunt Abby in her quiet room, talking of unseen glories, and heart-experiences, while planning for the spiritual benefit of those around them. In these confidential interviews, Frado was never omitted. They would discuss the prevalent opinion of the public, that people of color are really inferior; incapable of cultivation and refinement. They would glance at the qualities of Nig, which promised so much if rightly directed. "I wish you would take her, James, when you are well, home with YOU," said Aunt Abby, in one of these seasons. "Just what I am longing to do, Aunt Abby. Susan is just of my mind, and we intend to take her; I have been wishing to do so for years." "She seems much affected by what she hears at the evening meetings, and asks me many questions on serious things; seems to love to read the Bible; I feel hopes of her." "I hope she IS thoughtful; no one has a kinder heart, one capable of loving more devotedly. But to think how prejudiced the world are towards her people; that she must be reared in such ignorance as to drown all the finer feelings. When I think of what she might be, of what she will be, I feel like grasping time till opinions change, and thousands like her rise into a noble freedom. I have seen Frado's grief, because she is black, amount to agony. It makes me sick to recall these scenes. Mother pretends to think she don't know enough to sorrow for anything; but if she could see her as I have, when she supposed herself entirely alone, except her little dog Fido, lamenting her loneliness and complexion, I think, if she is not past feeling, she would retract. In the summer I was walking near the barn, and as I stood I heard sobs. 'Oh! oh!' I heard, 'why was I made? why can't I die? Oh, what have I to live for? No one cares for me only to get my work. And I feel sick; who cares for that? Work as long as I can stand, and then fall down and lay there till I can get up. No mother, father, brother or sister to care for me, and then it is, You lazy nigger, lazy nigger--all because I am black! Oh, if I could die!' "I stepped into the barn, where I could see her. She was crouched down by the hay with her faithful friend Fido, and as she ceased speaking, buried her face in her hands, and cried bitterly; then, patting Fido, she kissed him, saying, 'You love me, Fido, don't you? but we must go work in the field.' She started on her mission; I called her to me, and told her she need not go, the hay was doing well. "She has such confidence in me that she will do just as I tell her; so we found a seat under a shady tree, and there I took the opportunity to combat the notions she seemed to entertain respecting the loneliness of her condition and want of sympathizing friends. I assured her that mother's views were by no means general; that in our part of the country there were thousands upon thousands who favored the elevation of her race, disapproving of oppression in all its forms; that she was not unpitied, friendless, and utterly despised; that she might hope for better things in the future. Having spoken these words of comfort, I rose with the resolution that if I recovered my health I would take her home with me, whether mother was willing or not." "I don't know what your mother would do without her; still, I wish she was away." Susan now came for her long absent husband, and they returned home to their room. The month of November was one of great anxiety on James's account. He was rapidly wasting away. A celebrated physician was called, and performed a surgical operation, as a last means. Should this fail, there was no hope. Of course he was confined wholly to his room, mostly to his bed. With all his bodily suffering, all his anxiety for his family, whom he might not live to protect, he did not forget Frado. He shielded her from many beatings, and every day imparted religious instructions. No one, but his wife, could move him so easily as Frado; so that in addition to her daily toil she was often deprived of her rest at night. Yet she insisted on being called; she wished to show her love for one who had been such a friend to her. Her anxiety and grief increased as the probabilities of his recovery became doubtful. Mrs. Bellmont found her weeping on his account, shut her up, and whipped her with the raw-hide, adding an injunction never to be seen snivelling again because she had a little work to do. She was very careful never to shed tears on his account, in her presence, afterwards. CHAPTER VIII. VISITOR AND DEPARTURE. --"Other cares engross me, and my tired soul with emulative haste, Looks to its God." THE brother associated with James in business, in Baltimore, was sent for to confer with one who might never be able to see him there. James began to speak of life as closing; of heaven, as of a place in immediate prospect; of aspirations, which waited for fruition in glory. His brother, Lewis by name, was an especial favorite of sister Mary; more like her, in disposition and preferences than James or Jack. He arrived as soon as possible after the request, and saw with regret the sure indications of fatality in his sick brother, and listened to his admonitions--admonitions to a Christian life--with tears, and uttered some promises of attention to the subject so dear to the heart of James. How gladly he would have extended healing aid. But, alas! it was not in his power; so, after listening to his wishes and arrangements for his family and business, he decided to return home. Anxious for company home, he persuaded his father and mother to permit Mary to attend him. She was not at all needed in the sick room; she did not choose to be useful in the kitchen, and then she was fully determined to go. So all the trunks were assembled and crammed with the best selections from the wardrobe of herself and mother, where the last-mentioned articles could be appropriated. "Nig was never so helpful before," Mary remarked, and wondered what had induced such a change in place of former sullenness. Nig was looking further than the present, and congratulating herself upon some days of peace, for Mary never lost opportunity of informing her mother of Nig's delinquencies, were she otherwise ignorant. Was it strange if she were officious, with such relief in prospect? The parting from the sick brother was tearful and sad. James prayed in their presence for their renewal in holiness; and urged their immediate attention to eternal realities, and gained a promise that Susan and Charlie should share their kindest regards. No sooner were they on their way, than Nig slyly crept round to Aunt Abby's room, and tiptoeing and twisting herself into all shapes, she exclaimed,-- "She's gone, Aunt Abby, she's gone, fairly gone;" and jumped up and down, till Aunt Abby feared she would attract the notice of her mistress by such demonstrations. "Well, she's gone, gone, Aunt Abby. I hope she'll never come back again." "No! no! Frado, that's wrong! you would be wishing her dead; that won't do." "Well, I'll bet she'll never come back again; somehow, I feel as though she wouldn't." "She is James's sister," remonstrated Aunt Abby. "So is our cross sheep just as much, that I ducked in the river; I'd like to try my hand at curing HER too." "But you forget what our good minister told us last week, about doing good to those that hate us." "Didn't I do good, Aunt Abby, when I washed and ironed and packed her old duds to get rid of her, and helped her pack her trunks, and run here and there for her?" "Well, well, Frado; you must go finish your work, or your mistress will be after you, and remind you severely of Miss Mary, and some others beside." Nig went as she was told, and her clear voice was heard as she went, singing in joyous notes the relief she felt at the removal of one of her tormentors. Day by day the quiet of the sick man's room was increased. He was helpless and nervous; and often wished change of position, thereby hoping to gain momentary relief. The calls upon Frado were consequently more frequent, her nights less tranquil. Her health was impaired by lifting the sick man, and by drudgery in the kitchen. Her ill health she endeavored to conceal from James, fearing he might have less repose if there should be a change of attendants; and Mrs. Bellmont, she well knew, would have no sympathy for her. She was at last so much reduced as to be unable to stand erect for any great length of time. She would SIT at the table to wash her dishes; if she heard the well-known step of her mistress, she would rise till she returned to her room, and then sink down for further rest. Of course she was longer than usual in completing the services assigned her. This was a subject of complaint to Mrs. Bellmont; and Frado endeavored to throw off all appearance of sickness in her presence. But it was increasing upon her, and she could no longer hide her indisposition. Her mistress entered one day, and finding her seated, commanded her to go to work. "I am sick," replied Frado, rising and walking slowly to her unfinished task, "and cannot stand long, I feel so bad." Angry that she should venture a reply to her command, she suddenly inflicted a blow which lay the tottering girl prostrate on the floor. Excited by so much indulgence of a dangerous passion, she seemed left to unrestrained malice; and snatching a towel, stuffed the mouth of the sufferer, and beat her cruelly. Frado hoped she would end her misery by whipping her to death. She bore it with the hope of a martyr, that her misery would soon close. Though her mouth was muffled, and the sounds much stifled, there was a sensible commotion, which James' quick ear detected. "Call Frado to come here," he said faintly, "I have not seen her to-day." Susan retired with the request to the kitchen, where it was evident some brutal scene had just been enacted. Mrs. Bellmont replied that she had "some work to do just now; when that was done, she might come." Susan's appearance confirmed her husband's fears, and he requested his father, who sat by the bedside, to go for her. This was a messenger, as James well knew, who could not be denied; and the girl entered the room, sobbing and faint with anguish. James called her to him, and inquired the cause of her sorrow. She was afraid to expose the cruel author of her misery, lest she should provoke new attacks. But after much entreaty, she told him all, much which had escaped his watchful ear. Poor James shut his eyes in silence, as if pained to forgetfulness by the recital. Then turning to Susan, he asked her to take Charlie, and walk out; "she needed the fresh air," he said. "And say to mother I wish Frado to sit by me till you return. I think you are fading, from staying so long in this sick room." Mr. B. also left, and Frado was thus left alone with her friend. Aunt Abby came in to make her daily visit, and seeing the sick countenance of the attendant, took her home with her to administer some cordial. She soon returned, however, and James kept her with him the rest of the day; and a comfortable night's repose following, she was enabled to continue, as usual, her labors. James insisted on her attending religious meetings in the vicinity with Aunt Abby. Frado, under the instructions of Aunt Abby and the minister, became a believer in a future existence--one of happiness or misery. Her doubt was, IS there a heaven for the black? She knew there was one for James, and Aunt Abby, and all good white people; but was there any for blacks? She had listened attentively to all the minister said, and all Aunt Abby had told her; but then it was all for white people. As James approached that blessed world, she felt a strong desire to follow, and be with one who was such a dear, kind friend to her. While she was exercised with these desires and aspirations, she attended an evening meeting with Aunt Abby, and the good man urged all, young or old, to accept the offers of mercy, to receive a compassionate Jesus as their Saviour. "Come to Christ," he urged, "all, young or old, white or black, bond or free, come all to Christ for pardon; repent, believe." This was the message she longed to hear; it seemed to be spoken for her. But he had told them to repent; "what was that?" she asked. She knew she was unfit for any heaven, made for whites or blacks. She would gladly repent, or do anything which would admit her to share the abode of James. Her anxiety increased; her countenance bore marks of solicitude unseen before; and though she said nothing of her inward contest, they all observed a change. James and Aunt Abby hoped it was the springing of good seed sown by the Spirit of God. Her tearful attention at the last meeting encouraged his aunt to hope that her mind was awakened, her conscience aroused. Aunt Abby noticed that she was particularly engaged in reading the Bible; and this strengthened her conviction that a heavenly Messenger was striving with her. The neighbors dropped in to inquire after the sick, and also if Frado was "SERIOUS?" They noticed she seemed very thoughtful and tearful at the meetings. Mrs. Reed was very inquisitive; but Mrs. Bellmont saw no appearance of change for the better. She did not feel responsible for her spiritual culture, and hardly believed she had a soul. Nig was in truth suffering much; her feelings were very intense on any subject, when once aroused. She read her Bible carefully, and as often as an opportunity presented, which was when entirely secluded in her own apartment, or by Aunt Abby's side, who kindly directed her to Christ, and instructed her in the way of salvation. Mrs. Bellmont found her one day quietly reading her Bible. Amazed and half crediting the reports of officious neighbors, she felt it was time to interfere. Here she was, reading and shedding tears over the Bible. She ordered her to put up the book, and go to work, and not be snivelling about the house, or stop to read again. But there was one little spot seldom penetrated by her mistress' watchful eye: this was her room, uninviting and comfortless; but to herself a safe retreat. Here she would listen to the pleadings of a Saviour, and try to penetrate the veil of doubt and sin which clouded her soul, and long to cast off the fetters of sin, and rise to the communion of saints. Mrs. Bellmont, as we before said, did not trouble herself about the future destiny of her servant. If she did what she desired for HER benefit, it was all the responsibility she acknowledged. But she seemed to have great aversion to the notice Nig would attract should she become pious. How could she meet this case? She resolved to make her complaint to John. Strange, when she was always foiled in this direction, she should resort to him. It was time something was done; she had begun to read the Bible openly. The night of this discovery, as they were retiring, Mrs. Bellmont introduced the conversation, by saying: "I want your attention to what I am going to say. I have let Nig go out to evening meetings a few times, and, if you will believe it, I found her reading the Bible to-day, just as though she expected to turn pious nigger, and preach to white folks. So now you see what good comes of sending her to school. If she should get converted she would have to go to meeting: at least, as long as James lives. I wish he had not such queer notions about her. It seems to trouble him to know he must die and leave her. He says if he should get well he would take her home with him, or educate her here. Oh, how awful! What can the child mean? So careful, too, of her! He says we shall ruin her health making her work so hard, and sleep in such a place. O, John! do you think he is in his right mind?" "Yes, yes; she is slender." "Yes, YES!" she repeated sarcastically, "you know these niggers are just like black snakes; you CAN'T kill them. If she wasn't tough she would have been killed long ago. There was never one of my girls could do half the work." "Did they ever try?" interposed her husband. "I think she can do more than all of them together." "What a man!" said she, peevishly. "But I want to know what is going to be done with her about getting pious?" "Let her do just as she has a mind to. If it is a comfort to her, let her enjoy the privilege of being good. I see no objection." "I should think YOU were crazy, sure. Don't you know that every night she will want to go toting off to meeting? and Sundays, too? and you know we have a great deal of company Sundays, and she can't be spared." "I thought you Christians held to going to church," remarked Mr. B. "Yes, but who ever thought of having a nigger go, except to drive others there? Why, according to you and James, we should very soon have her in the parlor, as smart as our own girls. It's of no use talking to you or James. If you should go on as you would like, it would not be six months before she would be leaving me; and that won't do. Just think how much profit she was to us last summer. We had no work hired out; she did the work of two girls--" "And got the whippings for two with it!" remarked Mr. Bellmont. "I'll beat the money out of her, if I can't get her worth any other way," retorted Mrs. B. sharply. While this scene was passing, Frado was trying to utter the prayer of the publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner." CHAPTER IX. DEATH. We have now But a small portion of what men call time, To hold communion. SPRING opened, and James, instead of rallying, as was hoped, grew worse daily. Aunt Abby and Frado were the constant allies of Susan. Mrs. Bellmont dared not lift him. She was not "strong enough," she said. It was very offensive to Mrs. B. to have Nab about James so much. She had thrown out many a hint to detain her from so often visiting the sick-room; but Aunt Abby was too well accustomed to her ways to mind them. After various unsuccessful efforts, she resorted to the following expedient. As she heard her cross the entry below, to ascend the stairs, she slipped out and held the latch of the door which led into the upper entry. "James does not want to see you, or any one else," she said. Aunt Abby hesitated, and returned slowly to her own room; wondering if it were really James' wish not to see her. She did not venture again that day, but still felt disturbed and anxious about him. She inquired of Frado, and learned that he was no worse. She asked her if James did not wish her to come and see him; what could it mean? Quite late next morning, Susan came to see what had become of her aunt. "Your mother said James did not wish to see me, and I was afraid I tired him." "Why, aunt, that is a mistake, I KNOW. What could mother mean?" asked Susan. The next time she went to the sitting-room she asked her mother,-- "Why does not Aunt Abby visit James as she has done? Where is she?" "At home. I hope that she will stay there," was the answer. "I should think she would come in and see James," continued Susan. "I told her he did not want to see her, and to stay out. You need make no stir about it; remember:" she added, with one of her fiery glances. Susan kept silence. It was a day or two before James spoke of her absence. The family were at dinner, and Frado was watching beside him. He inquired the cause of her absence, and SHE told him all. After the family returned he sent his wife for her. When she entered, he took her hand, and said, "Come to me often, Aunt. Come any time,--I am always glad to see you. I have but a little longer to be with you,--come often, Aunt. Now please help lift me up, and see if I can rest a little." Frado was called in, and Susan and Mrs. B. all attempted; Mrs. B. was too weak; she did not feel able to lift so much. So the three succeeded in relieving the sufferer. Frado returned to her work. Mrs. B. followed. Seizing Frado, she said she would "cure her of tale-bearing," and, placing the wedge of wood between her teeth, she beat her cruelly with the raw-hide. Aunt Abby heard the blows, and came to see if she could hinder them. Surprised at her sudden appearance, Mrs. B. suddenly stopped, but forbade her removing the wood till she gave her permission, and commanded Nab to go home. She was thus tortured when Mr. Bellmont came in, and, making inquiries which she did not, because she could not, answer, approached her; and seeing her situation, quickly removed the instrument of torture, and sought his wife. Their conversation we will omit; suffice it to say, a storm raged which required many days to exhaust its strength. Frado was becoming seriously ill. She had no relish for food, and was constantly overworked, and then she had such solicitude about the future. She wished to pray for pardon. She did try to pray. Her mistress had told her it would "do no good for her to attempt prayer; prayer was for whites, not for blacks. If she minded her mistress, and did what she commanded, it was all that was required of her." This did not satisfy her, or appease her longings. She knew her instructions did not harmonize with those of the man of God or Aunt Abby's. She resolved to persevere. She said nothing on the subject, unless asked. It was evident to all her mind was deeply exercised. James longed to speak with her alone on the subject. An opportunity presented soon, while the family were at tea. It was usual to summon Aunt Abby to keep company with her, as his death was expected hourly. As she took her accustomed seat, he asked, "Are you afraid to stay with me alone, Frado?" "No," she replied, and stepped to the window to conceal her emotion. "Come here, and sit by me; I wish to talk with you." She approached him, and, taking her hand, he remarked: "How poor you are, Frado! I want to tell you that I fear I shall never be able to talk with you again. It is the last time, perhaps, I shall EVER talk with you. You are old enough to remember my dying words and profit by them. I have been sick a long time; I shall die pretty soon. My Heavenly Father is calling me home. Had it been his will to let me live I should take you to live with me; but, as it is, I shall go and leave you. But, Frado, if you will be a good girl, and love and serve God, it will be but a short time before we are in a HEAVENLY home together. There will never be any sickness or sorrow there." Frado, overcome with grief, sobbed, and buried her face in his pillow. She expected he would die; but to hear him speak of his departure himself was unexpected. "Bid me good bye, Frado." She kissed him, and sank on her knees by his bedside; his hand rested on her head; his eyes were closed; his lips moved in prayer for this disconsolate child. His wife entered, and interpreting the scene, gave him some restoratives, and withdrew for a short time. It was a great effort for Frado to cease sobbing; but she dared not be seen below in tears; so she choked her grief, and descended to her usual toil. Susan perceived a change in her husband. She felt that death was near. He tenderly looked on her, and said, "Susan, my wife, our farewells are all spoken. I feel prepared to go. I shall meet you in heaven. Death is indeed creeping fast upon me. Let me see them all once more. Teach Charlie the way to heaven; lead him up as you come." The family all assembled. He could not talk as he wished to them. He seemed to sink into unconsciousness. They watched him for hours. He had labored hard for breath some time, when he seemed to awake suddenly, and exclaimed, "Hark! do you hear it?" "Hear what, my son?" asked the father. "Their call. Look, look, at the shining ones! Oh, let me go and be at rest!" As if waiting for this petition, the Angel of Death severed the golden thread, and he was in heaven. At midnight the messenger came. They called Frado to see his last struggle. Sinking on her knees at the foot of his bed, she buried her face in the clothes, and wept like one inconsolable. They led her from the room. She seemed to be too much absorbed to know it was necessary for her to leave. Next day she would steal into the chamber as often as she could, to weep over his remains, and ponder his last words to her. She moved about the house like an automaton. Every duty performed--but an abstraction from all, which shewed her thoughts were busied elsewhere. Susan wished her to attend his burial as one of the family. Lewis and Mary and Jack it was not thought best to send for, as the season would not allow them time for the journey. Susan provided her with a dress for the occasion, which was her first intimation that she would be allowed to mingle her grief with others. The day of the burial she was attired in her mourning dress; but Susan, in her grief, had forgotten a bonnet. She hastily ransacked the closets, and found one of Mary's, trimmed with bright pink ribbon. It was too late to change the ribbon, and she was unwilling to leave Frado at home; she knew it would be the wish of James she should go with her. So tying it on, she said, "Never mind, Frado, you shall see where our dear James is buried." As she passed out, she heard the whispers of the by-standers, "Look there! see there! how that looks,--a black dress and a pink ribbon!" Another time, such remarks would have wounded Frado. She had now a sorrow with which such were small in comparison. As she saw his body lowered in the grave she wished to share it; but she was not fit to die. She could not go where he was if she did. She did not love God; she did not serve him or know how to. She retired at night to mourn over her unfitness for heaven, and gaze out upon the stars, which, she felt, studded the entrance of heaven, above which James reposed in the bosom of Jesus, to which her desires were hastening. She wished she could see God, and ask him for eternal life. Aunt Abby had taught her that He was ever looking upon her. Oh, if she could see him, or hear him speak words of forgiveness. Her anxiety increased; her health seemed impaired, and she felt constrained to go to Aunt Abby and tell her all about her conflicts. She received her like a returning wanderer; seriously urged her to accept of Christ; explained the way; read to her from the Bible, and remarked upon such passages as applied to her state. She warned her against stifling that voice which was calling her to heaven; echoed the farewell words of James, and told her to come to her with her difficulties, and not to delay a duty so important as attention to the truths of religion, and her soul's interests. Mrs. Bellmont would occasionally give instruction, though far different. She would tell her she could not go where James was; she need not try. If she should get to heaven at all, she would never be as high up as he. HE was the attraction. Should she "want to go there if she could not see him?" Mrs. B. seldom mentioned her bereavement, unless in such allusion to Frado. She donned her weeds from custom; kept close her crape veil for so many Sabbaths, and abated nothing of her characteristic harshness. The clergyman called to minister consolation to the afflicted widow and mother. Aunt Abby seeing him approach the dwelling, knew at once the object of his visit, and followed him to the parlor, unasked by Mrs. B! What a daring affront! The good man dispensed the consolations, of which he was steward, to the apparently grief-smitten mother, who talked like one schooled in a heavenly atmosphere. Such resignation expressed, as might have graced the trial of the holiest. Susan, like a mute sufferer, bared her soul to his sympathy and godly counsel, but only replied to his questions in short syllables. When he offered prayer, Frado stole to the door that she might hear of the heavenly bliss of one who was her friend on earth. The prayer caused profuse weeping, as any tender reminder of the heaven-born was sure to. When the good man's voice ceased, she returned to her toil, carefully removing all trace of sorrow. Her mistress soon followed, irritated by Nab's impudence in presenting herself unasked in the parlor, and upbraided her with indolence, and bade her apply herself more diligently. Stung by unmerited rebuke, weak from sorrow and anxiety, the tears rolled down her dark face, soon followed by sobs, and then losing all control of herself, she wept aloud. This was an act of disobedience. Her mistress grasping her raw-hide, caused a longer flow of tears, and wounded a spirit that was craving healing mercies. CHAPTER X. PERPLEXITIES.--ANOTHER DEATH. Neath the billows of the ocean, Hidden treasures wait the hand, That again to light shall raise them With the diver's magic wand. G. W. COOK. THE family, gathered by James' decease, returned to their homes. Susan and Charles returned to Baltimore. Letters were received from the absent, expressing their sympathy and grief. The father bowed like a "bruised reed," under the loss of his beloved son. He felt desirous to die the death of the righteous; also, conscious that he was unprepared, he resolved to start on the narrow way, and some time solicit entrance through the gate which leads to the celestial city. He acknowledged his too ready acquiescence with Mrs. B., in permitting Frado to be deprived of her only religious privileges for weeks together. He accordingly asked his sister to take her to meeting once more, which she was ready at once to do. The first opportunity they once more attended meeting together. The minister conversed faithfully with every person present. He was surprised to find the little colored girl so solicitous, and kindly directed her to the flowing fountain where she might wash and be clean. He inquired of the origin of her anxiety, of her progress up to this time, and endeavored to make Christ, instead of James, the attraction of Heaven. He invited her to come to his house, to speak freely her mind to him, to pray much, to read her Bible often. The neighbors, who were at meeting,--among them Mrs. Reed,--discussed the opinions Mrs. Bellmont would express on the subject. Mrs. Reed called and informed Mrs. B. that her colored girl "related her experience the other night at the meeting." "What experience?" asked she, quickly, as if she expected to hear the number of times she had whipped Frado, and the number of lashes set forth in plain Arabic numbers. "Why, you know she is serious, don't you? She told the minister about it." Mrs. B. made no reply, but changed the subject adroitly. Next morning she told Frado she "should not go out of the house for one while, except on errands; and if she did not stop trying to be religious, she would whip her to death." Frado pondered; her mistress was a professor of religion; was SHE going to heaven? then she did not wish to go. If she should be near James, even, she could not be happy with those fiery eyes watching her ascending path. She resolved to give over all thought of the future world, and strove daily to put her anxiety far from her. Mr. Bellmont found himself unable to do what James or Jack could accomplish for her. He talked with her seriously, told her he had seen her many times punished undeservedly; he did not wish to have her saucy or disrespectful, but when she was SURE she did not deserve a whipping, to avoid it if she could. "You are looking sick," he added, "you cannot endure beating as you once could." It was not long before an opportunity offered of profiting by his advice. She was sent for wood, and not returning as soon as Mrs. B. calculated, she followed her, and, snatching from the pile a stick, raised it over her. "Stop!" shouted Frado, "strike me, and I'll never work a mite more for you;" and throwing down what she had gathered, stood like one who feels the stirring of free and independent thoughts. By this unexpected demonstration, her mistress, in amazement, dropped her weapon, desisting from her purpose of chastisement. Frado walked towards the house, her mistress following with the wood she herself was sent after. She did not know, before, that she had a power to ward off assaults. Her triumph in seeing her enter the door with HER burden, repaid her for much of her former suffering. It was characteristic of Mrs. B. never to rise in her majesty, unless she was sure she should be victorious. This affair never met with an "after clap," like many others. Thus passed a year. The usual amount of scolding, but fewer whippings. Mrs. B. longed once more for Mary's return, who had been absent over a year; and she wrote imperatively for her to come quickly to her. A letter came in reply, announcing that she would comply as soon as she was sufficiently recovered from an illness which detained her. No serious apprehensions were cherished by either parent, who constantly looked for notice of her arrival, by mail. Another letter brought tidings that Mary was seriously ill; her mother's presence was solicited. She started without delay. Before she reached her destination, a letter came to the parents announcing her death. No sooner was the astounding news received, than Frado rushed into Aunt Abby's, exclaiming:-- "She's dead, Aunt Abby!" "Who?" she asked, terrified by the unprefaced announcement. "Mary; they've just had a letter." As Mrs. B. was away, the brother and sister could freely sympathize, and she sought him in this fresh sorrow, to communicate such solace as she could, and to learn particulars of Mary's untimely death, and assist him in his journey thither. It seemed a thanksgiving to Frado. Every hour or two she would pop in into Aunt Abby's room with some strange query: "She got into the RIVER again, Aunt Abby, didn't she; the Jordan is a big one to tumble into, any how. S'posen she goes to hell, she'll be as black as I am. Wouldn't mistress be mad to see her a nigger!" and others of a similar stamp, not at all acceptable to the pious, sympathetic dame; but she could not evade them. The family returned from their sorrowful journey, leaving the dead behind. Nig looked for a change in her tyrant; what could subdue her, if the loss of her idol could not? Never was Mrs. B. known to shed tears so profusely, as when she reiterated to one and another the sad particulars of her darling's sickness and death. There was, indeed, a season of quiet grief; it was the lull of the fiery elements. A few weeks revived the former tempests, and so at variance did they seem with chastisement sanctified, that Frado felt them to be unbearable. She determined to flee. But where? Who would take her? Mrs. B. had always represented her ugly. Perhaps every one thought her so. Then no one would take her. She was black, no one would love her. She might have to return, and then she would be more in her mistress' power than ever. She remembered her victory at the wood-pile. She decided to remain to do as well as she could; to assert her rights when they were trampled on; to return once more to her meeting in the evening, which had been prohibited. She had learned how to conquer; she would not abuse the power while Mr. Bellmont was at home. But had she not better run away? Where? She had never been from the place far enough to decide what course to take. She resolved to speak to Aunt Abby. SHE mapped the dangers of her course, her liability to fail in finding so good friends as John and herself. Frado's mind was busy for days and nights. She contemplated administering poison to her mistress, to rid herself and the house of so detestable a plague. But she was restrained by an overruling Providence; and finally decided to stay contentedly through her period of service, which would expire when she was eighteen years of age. In a few months Jane returned home with her family, to relieve her parents, upon whom years and affliction had left the marks of age. The years intervening since she had left her home, had, in some degree, softened the opposition to her unsanctioned marriage with George. The more Mrs. B. had about her, the more energetic seemed her directing capabilities, and her fault-finding propensities. Her own, she had full power over; and Jane after vain endeavors, became disgusted, weary, and perplexed, and decided that, though her mother might suffer, she could not endure her home. They followed Jack to the West. Thus vanished all hopes of sympathy or relief from this source to Frado. There seemed no one capable of enduring the oppressions of the house but her. She turned to the darkness of the future with the determination previously formed, to remain until she should be eighteen. Jane begged her to follow her so soon as she should be released; but so wearied out was she by her mistress, she felt disposed to flee from any and every one having her similitude of name or feature. CHAPTER XI. MARRIAGE AGAIN. Crucified the hopes that cheered me, All that to the earth endeared me; Love of wealth and fame and power, Love,--all have been crucified. C. E. DARKNESS before day. Jane left, but Jack was now to come again. After Mary's death he visited home, leaving a wife behind. An orphan whose home was with a relative, gentle, loving, the true mate of kind, generous Jack. His mother was a stranger to her, of course, and had perfect right to interrogate: "Is she good looking, Jack?" asked his mother. "Looks well to me," was the laconic reply. "Was her FATHER rich?" "Not worth a copper, as I know of; I never asked him," answered Jack. "Hadn't she any property? What did you marry her for," asked his mother. "Oh, she's WORTH A MILLION dollars, mother, though not a cent of it is in money." "Jack! what do you want to bring such a poor being into the family, for? You'd better stay here, at home, and let your wife go. Why couldn't you try to do better, and not disgrace your parents?" "Don't judge, till you see her," was Jack's reply, and immediately changed the subject. It was no recommendation to his mother, and she did not feel prepared to welcome her cordially now he was to come with his wife. He was indignant at his mother's advice to desert her. It rankled bitterly in his soul, the bare suggestion. He had more to bring. He now came with a child also. He decided to leave the West, but not his family. Upon their arrival, Mrs. B. extended a cold welcome to her new daughter, eyeing her dress with closest scrutiny. Poverty was to her a disgrace, and she could not associate with any thus dishonored. This coldness was felt by Jack's worthy wife, who only strove the harder to recommend herself by her obliging, winning ways. Mrs. B. could never let Jack be with her alone without complaining of this or that deficiency in his wife. He cared not so long as the complaints were piercing his own ears. He would not have Jenny disquieted. He passed his time in seeking employment. A letter came from his brother Lewis, then at the South, soliciting his services. Leaving his wife, he repaired thither. Mrs. B. felt that great restraint was removed, that Jenny was more in her own power. She wished to make her feel her inferiority; to relieve Jack of his burden if he would not do it himself. She watched her incessantly, to catch at some act of Jenny's which might be construed into conjugal unfaithfulness. Near by were a family of cousins, one a young man of Jack's age, who, from love to his cousin, proffered all needful courtesy to his stranger relative. Soon news reached Jack that Jenny was deserting her covenant vows, and had formed an illegal intimacy with his cousin. Meantime Jenny was told by her mother-inlaw that Jack did not marry her untrammelled. He had another love whom he would be glad, even now, if he could, to marry. It was very doubtful if he ever came for her. Jenny would feel pained by her unwelcome gossip, and, glancing at her child, she decided, however true it might be, she had a pledge which would enchain him yet. Ere long, the mother's inveterate hate crept out into some neighbor's enclosure, and, caught up hastily, they passed the secret round till it became none, and Lewis was sent for, the brother by whom Jack was employed. The neighbors saw her fade in health and spirits; they found letters never reached their destination when sent by either. Lewis arrived with the joyful news that he had come to take Jenny home with him. What a relief to her to be freed from the gnawing taunts of her adversary. Jenny retired to prepare for the journey, and Mrs. B. and Henry had a long interview. Next morning he informed Jenny that new clothes would be necessary, in order to make her presentable to Baltimore society, and he should return without her, and she must stay till she was suitably attired. Disheartened, she rushed to her room, and, after relief from weeping, wrote to Jack to come; to have pity on her, and take her to him. No answer came. Mrs. Smith, a neighbor, watchful and friendly, suggested that she write away from home, and employ some one to carry it to the office who would elude Mrs. B., who, they very well knew, had intercepted Jenny's letter, and influenced Lewis to leave her behind. She accepted the offer, and Frado succeeded in managing the affair so that Jack soon came to the rescue, angry, wounded, and forever after alienated from his early home and his mother. Many times would Frado steal up into Jenny's room, when she knew she was tortured by her mistress' malignity, and tell some of her own encounters with her, and tell her she might "be sure it wouldn't kill her, for she should have died long before at the same treatment." Susan and her child succeeded Jenny as visitors. Frado had merged into womanhood, and, retaining what she had learned, in spite of the few privileges enjoyed formerly, was striving to enrich her mind. Her school-books were her constant companions, and every leisure moment was applied to them. Susan was delighted to witness her progress, and some little book from her was a reward sufficient for any task imposed, however difficult. She had her book always fastened open near her, where she could glance from toil to soul refreshment. The approaching spring would close the term of years which Mrs. B. claimed as the period of her servitude. Often as she passed the waymarks of former years did she pause to ponder on her situation, and wonder if she COULD succeed in providing for her own wants. Her health was delicate, yet she resolved to try. Soon she counted the time by days which should release her. Mrs. B. felt that she could not well spare one who could so well adapt herself to all departments--man, boy, housekeeper, domestic, etc. She begged Mrs. Smith to talk with her, to show her how ungrateful it would appear to leave a home of such comfort--how wicked it was to be ungrateful! But Frado replied that she had had enough of such comforts; she wanted some new ones; and as it was so wicked to be ungrateful, she would go from temptation; Aunt Abby said "we mustn't put ourselves in the way of temptation." Poor little Fido! She shed more tears over him than over all beside. The morning for departure dawned. Frado engaged to work for a family a mile distant. Mrs. Bellmont dismissed her with the assurance that she would soon wish herself back again, and a present of a silver half-dollar. Her wardrobe consisted of one decent dress, without any superfluous accompaniments. A Bible from Susan she felt was her greatest treasure. Now was she alone in the world. The past year had been one of suffering resulting from a fall, which had left her lame. The first summer passed pleasantly, and the wages earned were expended in garments necessary for health and cleanliness. Though feeble, she was well satisfied with her progress. Shut up in her room, after her toil was finished, she studied what poor samples of apparel she had, and, for the first time, prepared her own garments. Mrs. Moore, who employed her, was a kind friend to her, and attempted to heal her wounded spirit by sympathy and advice, burying the past in the prospects of the future. But her failing health was a cloud no kindly human hand could dissipate. A little light work was all she could accomplish. A clergyman, whose family was small, sought her, and she was removed there. Her engagement with Mrs. Moore finished in the fall. Frado was anxious to keep up her reputation for efficiency, and often pressed far beyond prudence. In the winter she entirely gave up work, and confessed herself thoroughly sick. Mrs. Hale, soon overcome by additional cares, was taken sick also, and now it became necessary to adopt some measures for Frado's comfort, as well as to relieve Mrs. Hale. Such dark forebodings as visited her as she lay, solitary and sad, no moans or sighs could relieve. The family physician pronounced her case one of doubtful issue. Frado hoped it was final. She could not feel relentings that her former home was abandoned, and yet, should she be in need of succor could she obtain it from one who would now so grudgingly bestow it? The family were applied to, and it was decided to take her there. She was removed to a room built out from the main building, used formerly as a workshop, where cold and rain found unobstructed access, and here she fought with bitter reminiscences and future prospects till she became reckless of her faith and hopes and person, and half wished to end what nature seemed so tardily to take. Aunt Abby made her frequent visits, and at last had her removed to her own apartment, where she might supply her wants, and minister to her once more in heavenly things. Then came the family consultation. "What is to be done with her," asked Mrs. B., "after she is moved there with Nab?" "Send for the Dr., your brother," Mr. B. replied. "When?" "To-night." "To-night! and for her! Wait till morning," she continued. "She has waited too long now; I think something should be done soon." "I doubt if she is much sick," sharply interrupted Mrs. B. "Well, we'll see what our brother thinks." His coming was longed for by Frado, who had known him well during her long sojourn in the family; and his praise of her nice butter and cheese, from which his table was supplied, she knew he felt as well as spoke. "You're sick, very sick," he said, quickly, after a moment's pause. "Take good care of her, Abby, or she'll never get well. All broken down." "Yes, it was at Mrs. Moore's," said Mrs. B., "all this was done. She did but little the latter part of the time she was here." "It was commenced longer ago than last summer. Take good care of her; she may never get well," remarked the Dr. "We sha'n't pay you for doctoring her; you may look to the town for that, sir," said Mrs. B., and abruptly left the room. "Oh dear! oh dear!" exclaimed Frado, and buried her face in the pillow. A few kind words of consolation, and she was once more alone in the darkness which enveloped her previous days. Yet she felt sure they owed her a shelter and attention, when disabled, and she resolved to feel patient, and remain till she could help herself. Mrs. B. would not attend her, nor permit her domestic to stay with her at all. Aunt Abby was her sole comforter. Aunt Abby's nursing had the desired effect, and she slowly improved. As soon as she was able to be moved, the kind Mrs. Moore took her to her home again, and completed what Aunt Abby had so well commenced. Not that she was well, or ever would be; but she had recovered so far as rendered it hopeful she might provide for her own wants. The clergyman at whose house she was taken sick, was now seeking some one to watch his sick children, and as soon as he heard of her recovery, again asked for her services. What seemed so light and easy to others, was too much for Frado; and it became necessary to ask once more where the sick should find an asylum. All felt that the place where her declining health began, should be the place of relief; so they applied once more for a shelter. "No," exclaimed the indignant Mrs. B., "she shall never come under this roof again; never! never!" she repeated, as if each repetition were a bolt to prevent admission. One only resource; the public must pay the expense. So she was removed to the home of two maidens, (old,) who had principle enough to be willing to earn the money a charitable public disburses. Three years of weary sickness wasted her, without extinguishing a life apparently so feeble. Two years had these maidens watched and cared for her, and they began to weary, and finally to request the authorities to remove her. Mrs. Hoggs was a lover of gold and silver, and she asked the favor of filling her coffers by caring for the sick. The removal caused severe sickness. By being bolstered in the bed, after a time she could use her hands, and often would ask for sewing to beguile the tedium. She had become very expert with her needle the first year of her release from Mrs. B., and she had forgotten none of her skill. Mrs. H. praised her, and as she improved in health, was anxious to employ her. She told her she could in this way replace her clothes, and as her board would be paid for, she would thus gain something. Many times her hands wrought when her body was in pain; but the hope that she might yet help herself, impelled her on. Thus she reckoned her store of means by a few dollars, and was hoping soon to come in possession, when she was startled by the announcement that Mrs. Hoggs had reported her to the physician and town officers as an impostor. That she was, in truth, able to get up and go to work. This brought on a severe sickness of two weeks, when Mrs. Moore again sought her, and took her to her home. She had formerly had wealth at her command, but misfortune had deprived her of it, and unlocked her heart to sympathies and favors she had never known while it lasted. Her husband, defrauded of his last means by a branch of the Bellmont family, had supported them by manual labor, gone to the West, and left his wife and four young children. But she felt humanity required her to give a shelter to one she knew to be worthy of a hospitable reception. Mrs. Moore's physician was called, and pronounced her a very sick girl, and encouraged Mrs. M. to keep her and care for her, and he would see that the authorities were informed of Frado's helplessness, and pledged assistance. Here she remained till sufficiently restored to sew again. Then came the old resolution to take care of herself, to cast off the unpleasant charities of the public. She learned that in some towns in Massachusetts, girls make straw bonnets--that it was easy and profitable. But how should SHE, black, feeble and poor, find any one to teach her. But God prepares the way, when human agencies see no path. Here was found a plain, poor, simple woman, who could see merit beneath a dark skin; and when the invalid mulatto told her sorrows, she opened her door and her heart, and took the stranger in. Expert with the needle, Frado soon equalled her instructress; and she sought also to teach her the value of useful books; and while one read aloud to the other of deeds historic and names renowned, Frado experienced a new impulse. She felt herself capable of elevation; she felt that this book information supplied an undefined dissatisfaction she had long felt, but could not express. Every leisure moment was carefully applied to self-improvement, and a devout and Christian exterior invited confidence from the villagers. Thus she passed months of quiet, growing in the confidence of her neighbors and new found friends. CHAPTER XII. THE WINDING UP OF THE MATTER. Nothing new under the sun. SOLOMON. A FEW years ago, within the compass of my narrative, there appeared often in some of our New England villages, professed fugitives from slavery, who recounted their personal experience in homely phrase, and awakened the indignation of non-slaveholders against brother Pro. Such a one appeared in the new home of Frado; and as people of color were rare there, was it strange she should attract her dark brother; that he should inquire her out; succeed in seeing her; feel a strange sensation in his heart towards her; that he should toy with her shining curls, feel proud to provoke her to smile and expose the ivory concealed by thin, ruby lips; that her sparkling eyes should fascinate; that he should propose; that they should marry? A short acquaintance was indeed an objection, but she saw him often, and thought she knew him. He never spoke of his enslavement to her when alone, but she felt that, like her own oppression, it was painful to disturb oftener than was needful. He was a fine, straight negro, whose back showed no marks of the lash, erect as if it never crouched beneath a burden. There was a silent sympathy which Frado felt attracted her, and she opened her heart to the presence of love--that arbitrary and inexorable tyrant. She removed to Singleton, her former residence, and there was married. Here were Frado's first feelings of trust and repose on human arm. She realized, for the first time, the relief of looking to another for comfortable support. Occasionally he would leave her to "lecture." Those tours were prolonged often to weeks. Of course he had little spare money. Frado was again feeling her self-dependence, and was at last compelled to resort alone to that. Samuel was kind to her when at home, but made no provision for his absence, which was at last unprecedented. He left her to her fate--embarked at sea, with the disclosure that he had never seen the South, and that his illiterate harangues were humbugs for hungry abolitionists. Once more alone! Yet not alone. A still newer companionship would soon force itself upon her. No one wanted her with such prospects. Herself was burden enough; who would have an additional one? The horrors of her condition nearly prostrated her, and she was again thrown upon the public for sustenance. Then followed the birth of her child. The long absent Samuel unexpectedly returned, and rescued her from charity. Recovering from her expected illness, she once more commenced toil for herself and child, in a room obtained of a poor woman, but with better fortune. One so well known would not be wholly neglected. Kind friends watched her when Samuel was from home, prevented her from suffering, and when the cold weather pinched the warmly clad, a kind friend took them in, and thus preserved them. At last Samuel's business became very engrossing, and after long desertion, news reached his family that he had become a victim of yellow fever, in New Orleans. So much toil as was necessary to sustain Frado, was more than she could endure. As soon as her babe could be nourished without his mother, she left him in charge of a Mrs. Capon, and procured an agency, hoping to recruit her health, and gain an easier livelihood for herself and child. This afforded her better maintenance than she had yet found. She passed into the various towns of the State she lived in, then into Massachusetts. Strange were some of her adventures. Watched by kidnappers, maltreated by professed abolitionists, who didn't want slaves at the South, nor niggers in their own houses, North. Faugh! to lodge one; to eat with one; to admit one through the front door; to sit next one; awful! Traps slyly laid by the vicious to ensnare her, she resolutely avoided. In one of her tours, Providence favored her with a friend who, pitying her cheerless lot, kindly provided her with a valuable recipe, from which she might herself manufacture a useful article for her maintenance. This proved a more agreeable, and an easier way of sustenance. And thus, to the present time, may you see her busily employed in preparing her merchandise; then sallying forth to encounter many frowns, but some kind friends and purchasers. Nothing turns her from her steadfast purpose of elevating herself. Reposing on God, she has thus far journeyed securely. Still an invalid, she asks your sympathy, gentle reader. Refuse not, because some part of her history is unknown, save by the Omniscient God. Enough has been unrolled to demand your sympathy and aid. Do you ask the destiny of those connected with her EARLY history? A few years only have elapsed since Mr. and Mrs. B. passed into another world. As age increased, Mrs. B. became more irritable, so that no one, even her own children, could remain with her; and she was accompanied by her husband to the home of Lewis, where, after an agony in death unspeakable, she passed away. Only a few months since, Aunt Abby entered heaven. Jack and his wife rest in heaven, disturbed by no intruders; and Susan and her child are yet with the living. Jane has silver locks in place of auburn tresses, but she has the early love of Henry still, and has never regretted her exchange of lovers. Frado has passed from their memories, as Joseph from the butler's, but she will never cease to track them till beyond mortal vision. APPENDIX. "TRUTH is stranger than fiction;" and whoever reads the narrative of Alfrado, will find the assertion verified. About eight years ago I became acquainted with the author of this book, and I feel it a privilege to speak a few words in her behalf. Through the instrumentality of an itinerant colored lecturer, she was brought to W-----, Mass. This is an ancient town, where the mothers and daughters seek, not "wool and flax," but STRAW,--working willingly with their hands! Here she was introduced to the family of Mrs. Walker, who kindly consented to receive her as an inmate of her household, and immediately succeeded in procuring work for her as a "straw sewer." Being very ingenious, she soon acquired the art of making hats; but on account of former hard treatment, her constitution was greatly impaired, and she was subject to seasons of sickness. On this account Mrs. W. gave her a room joining her own chamber, where she could hear her faintest call. Never shall I forget the expression of her "black, but comely" face, as she came to me one day, exclaiming, "O, aunt J-----, I have at last found a HOME,--and not only a home, but a MOTHER. My cup runneth over. What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits?" Months passed on, and she was HAPPY--truly happy. Her health began to improve under the genial sunshine in which she lived, and she even looked forward with HOPE--joyful hope to the future. But, alas, "it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." One beautiful morning in the early spring of 1842, as she was taking her usual walk, she chanced to meet her old friend, the "lecturer," who brought her to W-----, and with him was a fugitive slave. Young, well-formed and very handsome, he said he had been a HOUSE-servant, which seemed to account in some measure for his gentlemanly manners and pleasing address. The meeting was entirely accidental; but it was a sad occurrence for poor Alfrado, as her own sequel tells. Suffice it to say, an acquaintance and attachment was formed, which, in due time, resulted in marriage. In a few days she left W-----, and ALL her home comforts, and took up her abode in New Hampshire. For a while everything went on well, and she dreamed not of danger; but in an evil hour he left his young and trusting wife, and embarked for sea. She knew nothing of all this, and waited for his return. But she waited in vain. Days passed, weeks passed, and he came not; then her heart failed her. She felt herself deserted at a time, when, of all others, she most needed the care and soothing attentions of a devoted husband. For a time she tried to sustain HERSELF, but this was impossible. She had friends, but they were mostly of that class who are poor in the things of earth, but "rich in faith." The charity on which she depended failed at last, and there was nothing to save her from the "County House;" GO SHE MUST. But her feelings on her way thither, and after her arrival, can be given better in her own language; and I trust it will be no breach of confidence if I here insert part of a letter she wrote her mother Walker, concerning the matter. * * * "The evening before I left for my dreaded journey to the 'house' which was to be my abode, I packed my trunk, carefully placing in it every little memento of affection received from YOU and my friends in W-----, among which was the portable inkstand, pens and paper. My beautiful little Bible was laid aside, as a place nearer my heart was reserved for that. I need not tell you I slept not a moment that night. My home, my peaceful, quiet home with you, was before me. I could see my dear little room, with its pleasant eastern window opening to the morning; but more than all, I beheld YOU, my mother, gliding softly in and kneeling by my bed to read, as no one but you CAN read, 'The Lord is my shepherd,--I shall not want.' But I cannot go on, for tears blind me. For a description of the morning, and of the scant breakfast, I must wait until another time. "We started. The man who came for me was kind as he could be,--helped me carefully into the wagon, (for I had no strength,) and drove on. For miles I spoke not a word. Then the silence would be broken by the driver uttering some sort of word the horse seemed to understand; for he invariably quickened his pace. And so, just before nightfall, we halted at the institution, prepared for the HOMELESS. With cold civility the matron received me, and bade one of the inmates shew me my room. She did so; and I followed up two flights of stairs. I crept as I was able; and when she said, 'Go in there,' I obeyed, asking for my trunk, which was soon placed by me. My room was furnished some like the 'prophet's chamber,' except there was no 'candlestick;' so when I could creep down I begged for a light, and it was granted. Then I flung myself on the bed and cried, until I could cry no longer. I rose up and tried to pray; the Saviour seemed near. I opened my precious little Bible, and the first verse that caught my eye was--'I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.' O, my mother, could I tell you the comfort this was to me. I sat down, calm, almost happy, took my pen and wrote on the inspiration of the moment-- "O, holy Father, by thy power, Thus far in life I'm brought; And now in this dark, trying hour, O God, forsake me not. "Dids't thou not nourish and sustain My infancy and youth? Have I not testimonials plain, Of thy unchanging truth? "Though I've no home to call my own, My heart shall not repine; The saint may live on earth unknown, And yet in glory shine. "When my Redeemer dwelt below, He chose a lowly lot; He came unto his own, but lo! His own received him not. "Oft was the mountain his abode, The cold, cold earth his bed; The midnight moon shone softly down On his unsheltered head. "But MY head WAS SHELTERED, and I tried to feel thankful." *** Two or three letters were received after this by her friends in W-----, and then all was silent. No one of us knew whether she still lived or had gone to her home on high. But it seems she remained in this house until after the birth of her babe; then her faithless husband returned, and took her to some town in New Hampshire, where, for a time, he supported her and his little son decently well. But again he left her as before--suddenly and unexpectedly, and she saw him no more. Her efforts were again successful in a measure in securing a meagre maintenance for a time; but her struggles with poverty and sickness were severe. At length, a door of hope was opened. A kind gentleman and lady took her little boy into their own family, and provided everything necessary for his good; and all this without the hope of remuneration. But let them know, they shall be "recompensed at the resurrection of the just." God is not unmindful of this work,--this labor of love. As for the afflicted mother, she too has been remembered. The heart of a stranger was moved with compassion, and bestowed a recipe upon her for restoring gray hair to its former color. She availed herself of this great help, and has been quite successful; but her health is again falling, and she has felt herself obliged to resort to another method of procuring her bread--that of writing an Autobiography. I trust she will find a ready sale for her interesting work; and let all the friends who purchase a volume, remember they are doing good to one of the most worthy, and I had almost said most unfortunate, of the human family. I will only add in conclusion, a few lines, calculated to comfort and strengthen this sorrowful, homeless one. "I will help thee, saith the Lord." "I will help thee," promise kind Made by our High Priest above; Soothing to the troubled mind, Full of tenderness and love. "I will help thee" when the storm Gathers dark on every side; Safely from impending harm, In my sheltering bosom hide. "I will help thee," weary saint, Cast thy burdens ALL ON ME; Oh, how cans't thou tire or faint, While my arm encircles thee. I have pitied every tear, Heard and COUNTED every sigh; Ever lend a gracious ear To thy supplicating cry. What though thy wounded bosom bleed, Pierced by affliction's dart; Do I not all thy sorrows heed, And bear thee on my heart? Soon will the lowly grave become Thy quiet resting place; Thy spirit find a peaceful home In mansions NEAR MY FACE. There are thy robes and glittering crown, Outshining yonder sun; Soon shalt thou lay the body down, And put those glories on. Long has thy golden lyre been strung, Which angels cannot move; No song to this is ever sung, But bleeding, dying Love. ALLIDA. Having known the writer of this book for a number of years, and knowing the many privations and mortifications she has had to pass through, I the more willingly add my testimony to the truth of her assertions. She is one of that class, who by some are considered not only as little lower than the angels, but far beneath them; but I have long since learned that we are not to look at the color of the hair, the eyes, or the skin, for the man or woman; their life is the criterion we are to judge by. The writer of this book has seemed to be a child of misfortune. Early in life she was deprived of her parents, and all those endearing associations to which childhood clings. Indeed, she may be said not to have had that happy period; for, being taken from home so young, and placed where she had nothing to love or cling to, I often wonder she had not grown up a MONSTER; and those very people calling themselves Christians, (the good Lord deliver me from such,) and they likewise ruined her health by hard work, both in the field and house. She was indeed a slave, in every sense of the word; and a lonely one, too. But she has found some friends in this degraded world, that were willing to do by others as they would have others do by them; that were willing she should live, and have an existence on the earth with them. She has never enjoyed any degree of comfortable health since she was eighteen years of age, and a great deal of the time has been confined to her room and bed. She is now trying to write a book; and I hope the public will look favorably on it, and patronize the same, for she is a worthy woman. Her own health being poor, and having a child to care for, (for, by the way, she has been married,) and she wishes to educate him; in her sickness he has been taken from her, and sent to the county farm, because she could not pay his board every week; but as soon as she was able, she took him from that PLACE, and now he has a home where he is contented and happy, and where he is considered as good as those he is with. He is an intelligent, smart boy, and no doubt will make a smart man, if he is rightly managed. He is beloved by his playmates, and by all the friends of the family; for the family do not recognize those as friends who do not include him in their family, or as one of them, and his mother as a daughter--for they treat her as such; and she certainly deserves all the affection and kindness that is bestowed upon her, and they are always happy to have her visit them whenever she will. They are not wealthy, but the latch-string is always out when suffering humanity needs a shelter; the last loaf they are willing to divide with those more needy than themselves, remembering these words, Do good as we have opportunity; and we can always find opportunity, if we have the disposition. And now I would say, I hope those who call themselves friends of our dark-skinned brethren, will lend a helping hand, and assist our sister, not in giving, but in buying a book; the expense is trifling, and the reward of doing good is great. Our duty is to our fellow-beings, and when we let an opportunity pass, we know not what we lose. Therefore we should do with all our might what our hands find to do; and remember the words of Him who went about doing good, that inasmuch as ye have done a good deed to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me; and even a cup of water is not forgotten. Therefore, let us work while the day lasts, and we shall in no wise lose our reward. MARGARETTA THORN. MILFORD, JULY 20th, 1859. Feeling a deep interest in the welfare of the writer of this book, and hoping that its circulation will be extensive, I wish to say a few words in her behalf. I have been acquainted with her for several years, and have always found her worthy the esteem of all friends of humanity; one whose soul is alive to the work to which she puts her hand.. Although her complexion is a little darker than my own, I esteem it a privilege to associate with her, and assist her whenever an opportunity presents itself. It is with this motive that I write these few lines, knowing this book must be interesting to all who have any knowledge of the writer's character, or wish to have. I hope no one will refuse to aid her in her work, as she is worthy the sympathy of all Christians, and those who have a spark of humanity in their breasts. Thinking it unnecessary for me to write a long epistle, I will close by bidding her God speed. C. D. S. * * * * * Note of etext transcriber: joined contractions where separated, e.g., "do n't" has become "don't," and omitted the accent on "protege" on page 42; in addition I have made the following changes to the text: PAGE LINE ORIGINAL CHANGED TO 11 1 uninten uninten 21 22 decrepid decrepit 44 4 Anut Aunt 47 9 Mrs, Mrs. 51 1 whipped;" whipped," 51 5 "God;" "God," 54 25 jumped one jumped to one 62 12 housekeper housekeeper 64 18 long, for? long for? 92 13 Why "Why 92 13 W at What 92 23 did want did not want 99 15 aunt Aunt 121 23 she shall shall 130 7 symyathy, sympathy, 
58893	----	RACE RIOT BY RALPH WILLIAMS _McCullough was not a native lover, nor was he particularly bull-headed. He just felt there was a certain difference between right and wrong and nobody was going to change his mind. Take that Sunday afternoon...._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The riot started late Sunday afternoon, in the alley back of John McCullough's house. McCullough was in at the start of it, and he was in at the end. Sunday is thirty hours long on Centaurus II, as are all the other days of the week, of course; and in summer, at the latitude of Port Knakvik, the afternoons are very long indeed. John McCullough that Sunday had finished hanging the windows in the log house he was building, and now he was relaxing on the back stoop with a bottle of local whiskey. The whiskey was distilled from a native starchy root, and had a peculiar taste, but it was alcoholic, and one got used to it. In the kitchen McCullough's wife was getting Sunday dinner on the new inductor stove, still marvelling at its convenience--back on the farm they had cooked with wood. The two children were playing in and out of the house. His neighbors, Henry Watts from across the street, and Pete Tallant from next door, had been helping him with the windows, and now they were helping him with the bottle. They were discussing the native question. In a way, this was the beginning of the riot. "It's not that I got anything against them, in their place," Henry Watts said. "Their place just ain't in an Earthman's town, that's all. They keep crowding in, first thing you know there'll be more natives than there is Earthmen, then you just watch out. They're snotty enough already in their sly way, you let them get the upper hand once, mark my word, it won't be safe for a woman to walk down the street." "Yeah, I guess so," McCullough said. He was really not much interested. His people were from the flats upriver from Knakvik, a long-settled country where the first colonists had been brought two generations before to form the nucleus of an agricultural community. He had never seen more than half a dozen native Centaurans until he came down to Knakvik to work on the spaceport the new federal colonial government was building, and it was not his nature to worry about problems which did not directly concern him. Mostly, he liked to mind his own business, it was characteristic of McCullough that his friends came to visit him at his house, he did not go to visit them. "What the government ought to do," Watts said, "it ought to take the whole bunch and round them up and put them away on a reservation somewhere. You can't civilize a grayskin, they ain't even human to start with, so why try?" "Nuts," Pete Tallant said. Where Watts was a redneck miner and construction worker; and McCullough a farmer picking up a little easy money on a temporary job; Tallant was an intellectual, a dark restive young Earthman working his way around to see how Earth's far colonies looked. Watts' yapping irritated him, but there was no point in arguing against that sort of brainless conviction, he knew. He stared gloomily off at the mountains across the river, rising clean and snow-capped above the shanties and garbage piles of the transient workers who had overflowed the city to camp on the flats along the river; thinking: Just over a hundred years ago this planet was first discovered by men. Less than sixty years ago the first colonists were brought here. They came to a brand-new planet, almost as naked as the day they were born--two hundred pounds per colonist, including their own weight--with a free hand to build a new world as they pleased. And already the same old pattern, hate and distrust and envy, greed and oppression. How many men on Centaurus II? Perhaps a hundred thousand. How many native Centaurans? Perhaps five million, on a planet larger than Earth. But not enough room for both-- "You think I'm prejudiced," Watts said heavily, the need of the frontiersman to justify his opinions before the cosmopolite rankling in his voice. "Well, I ain't. I just know those buggers, that's all. You greenhorns come out here from Earth, you figure you got an answer to everything, just because we don't have the schooling you got, we're a bunch of fools. Ain't that right, John?" "Yeah, I guess," McCullough said absently. The next thing to do, he thought, now that they had inductor power from the central station, was to get running water in the house. Plastic bubbles and tents and shanties and hauling water from the pump were well enough for bums and single men, but a family man might as well be building a decent home while he was about it. There would always be rental value in a good house here in town, especially with the new spaceport and the government moving here; and later, when the kids had to go to high school, it would be handy. Some day, too, he would be retiring, turning the farm over to Jimmy, he and Mary would need a place to live then. "The old ones ain't so bad," Watts said. "They know their place, and they remember what happened at Artillery Bluff. But some of these young bucks, especially the smart-alecky kind the government has been sending to school--" He shook his head forebodingly. "Nuts," Tallant said wearily. "Let's talk about something we can all be stupid about, huh? Women or baseball or something." Watts flushed. "_I_ know what I'm talking about now, and I didn't get it out of books, either, I've lived with the buggers. You greenhorns read all this sob stuff in the high-brow magazines back on Earth about the noble Centaurans, and you figure we're a bunch of jerks because we don't slobber all over them too. Noble Centaurans! Jesus! Dirty, sneaking non-humans, that's what." He lifted the bottle and drank deeply, tilting back his head and letting his eyes rove. "There," he said abruptly. "There's your noble Centaurans, look at 'em!" A group of natives were coming up the alley--in Port Knakvik, natives did not walk in the street--shuffling along with downcast eyes. They were a small gray-skinned people, roughly humanoid, viviparous but not mammalian. There were five males followed half a dozen steps behind by a female carrying an infant on her hip. "You see that _kish_ there with her _fotin_?" Watts asked. "Lemme show you something, you probably wouldn't believe this if I told you, these grayskins are just like animals, they got no decency at all." He stood up and waved an arm in a beckoning gesture. "Hey, you _kish_, come over here," he called. The female Centauran paused uncertainly, looking at him with frightened eyes out of a small triangular noseless face. "Yes, you," Watts barked. "Come here!" She glanced at the males ahead of her, who had also stopped and were looking at Watts from the corners of their eyes. One mumbled something to her. She began to shuffle slowly across the yard toward Watts, looking at her feet. Watts took a steel five-dollar piece from his pocket and held it out toward her. "Here, you _kish_," he said, "feed baby, _viptiv fotin_, get money." The native took the coin and looked doubtfully at the three men. "_Viptiv?_" she asked in a light high voice. "That's right," Watts said. "_Viptiv fotin._" He grinned at Tallant. "Watch this, kid, you want to see your noble Centauran do something'll really make you gag." "Oh, for Pete's sake," Tallant said. "I _know_ these people feed their young by regurgitation. So it's disgusting to mammals? So what?" He jumped down from the stoop and took the Centauran mother's arm and turned her gently around. "No _viptiv_," he said. "Run along." Watts' face was almost purple now. "What the hell you think you're doing?" he shouted. He grasped the female's other arm. "_Viptiv_," he gritted in her face. "You took my money, now _viptiv_!" "Let go that woman," Tallant said, "or I'll push your face in." He turned toward the group of males, who still stood stupidly staring. "Come on over here," he called. "Take your woman and get out." One of them started reluctantly across the yard. Tallant dropped the native woman's arm and stepped past her to face Watts. "I told you to let go," he said. Watts thrust his face out. "Make me, wise guy." Tallant hit Watts in the face with his fist. Watts was a big man, and tough. He shook his head, wiped his nose, looked incredulously at the blood on his hand, and let out a roar of rage. It was not much of a fight. Watts' first blow dazed Tallant, the second knocked him down, and before he could get up Watts stepped in and kicked him in the head. The Centauran woman still stood where the men had left her, wide-eyed with confusion. She ran awkwardly over to Watts, shoving in between him and Tallant's prostrate body, and pushed the five-dollar piece at him, chattering excitedly in her own tongue. Watts twisted the money from her fingers and shoved her roughly down on top of Tallant. "There, you goddam native-lover," he roared, "get a real good whiff of one once, see how you like it." She was still carrying the baby, she tried to shield it as she fell, but her body twisted and she came down heavily on it. The baby screamed, a high-pitched, nerve-tearing sound. The male who had started back to get her pulled a long sharp knife from somewhere beneath his rags and broke into a trot, his eyes beadily intent on Watts. McCullough had started down off the porch when Watts put the boot to Tallant. He changed his intent and ran in behind the native, and hit him solidly with his fist in the back of the neck. The native went sprawling and his knife flew out of his hand. People were turning to look and popping out of tents and shelters all around now. "Why, that dirty native," Watts bellowed, "he tried to knife me!" He stepped over to the Centauran and kicked him savagely several times. The other four males had been watching open-mouthed. They turned abruptly and started back down the alley the way they had come, but there was a small knot of men there, watching them. The natives paused uncertainly. One broke away and ran toward the street, between McCullough's house and Tallant's tent, and the others followed. Most of the Earthmen had no idea what was happening. The closer ones could see a couple of natives and a man lying on the ground, another man with a bloody face shouting something about knifing, and four natives running. "Head 'em off!" someone called. "They'll get away in the street!" That was how the riot at Port Knakvik started. * * * * * Watts ran off after the mob chasing the natives, perhaps with some idea of explaining, more likely not--he was in a half mindless rage of excitement with the whiskey and the fighting. McCullough was left alone with Tallant and the two natives. The native woman seemed unhurt, she was picking herself up and examining the infant, which still whimpered. Tallant was unconscious. McCullough picked him up and carried him into the house. His wife was standing white-faced at the door. "Get some water," he said. He laid Tallant on a cot and began to wipe off his face. There was a scalp cut where Watts' boot had clipped him, most of the blood was coming from that; but it was high and it did not feel like a fracture. Presently Tallant groaned and shook his head and opened his eyes. The pupils did not look bad. "How do you feel?" McCullough asked. "Rough," Tallant mumbled. "Rough. Side ... hurts...." McCullough pulled up the shirt and looked. There was a swelling purplish bruise on the chest. He touched it gently and drew a gasp of pain. "Looks like maybe you got a cracked rib," he said. "Get me some tape, will you, Mary?" He took the roll of tape and wound it tightly about Tallant's chest. "That'll hold till you get to a doctor," he said. Tallant drew a light experimental breath. "Feels better," he said. "What the hell happened anyway?" McCullough told him. "That's bad," Tallant said. "That fool Watts could touch off a real riot, there's plenty more around here with no more brains than he has, and just spoiling for trouble. Somebody ought to get the marshal's office working on it before things get out of hand." He took the wet rag he had been holding to his head away and examined the cut with squeamish fingers. "Have to get this stitched up too, I guess, before it sets up hard. Look, could you back my truck out into the street? I don't feel up to driving, but if I get it in the street, it can take me in to the dispensary on auto, and I can call Administration from there." There were very few private vehicles in Port Knakvik, or indeed anywhere on Centaurus II; but Tallant, who was an electrician, had a company panel which he drove to and from the job. Though it was chemically powered--the new inductor station was the first nuclear installation on the planet--it had the same cybernetic controls as any Earthside vehicle. They worked fine on paved roads. On Knakvik streets, however-- "I don't know," McCullough said dubiously, "You think you can make it on auto? Suppose you get stalled?" Port Knakvik lay on a silty alluvial plain. In the downtown area, the streets were stabilized, but back along the river where the shanties of the construction workers sprawled, they were simply ruts punctuated at frequent intervals by chuckholes where churning wheels had ripped off the overburden, exposing the bottomless muck beneath. "I'd go with you," McCullough said, "except I kind of hate to leave Mary and the kids right now--I tell you, maybe I could find somebody else. You lay down for a minute, take it easy, I'll look around." Tallant seemed to have guessed right about the riot, there were people running by outside toward a commotion at the lower end of the street where the native shanties clustered. McCullough saw a man he knew from the job. "Hey, George," he called, "you got time to do a little favor?" He explained about Tallant. The man had not yet been in any fighting, he was simply curious about what was going on, and this was part of it. "Sure, John," he said. "Be glad to." They helped Tallant into the truck. George backed it out into the street on manual. "What's the dispensary coordinates?" he asked. "Three-two-three, oh-one-five, local," Tallant told him. George pushed the keys and they started off toward town. McCullough turned to see what he could make out of the excitement at the other end of the street. There were two columns of smoke billowing up now, and scattered shots. Two men came back up the street helping another with his trouser leg split away and a bloody bandage about his thigh. "What's it all about, John?" A man called across the street to him. "Don't know. Fighting with the natives, I guess. Henry Watts and some other fellows chased a couple of them down there. Looks like they mean to clean the whole bunch out." "Dammit, that's not right," the man across the street said. "The natives got a right to live too, they had a village here before we came. Somebody ought to do something about it." "Pete Tallant just went into town to tell the marshal." "Yeah, well, I wouldn't holler copper on my neighbors myself, but I won't have anything to do with killing those poor natives either. They can get along without me." The man went back in his house and closed the door. McCullough walked a few steps out into the street to get a better view. The riot was none of his business, and he had no intention of getting mixed up in it, but the idea of the fighting excited him and made him nervous. He could not see much, except that there was a lot of activity. He shook his head helplessly. My God, he thought, all this from two men with nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon but get half-drunk and start arguing.... * * * * * Someone screamed--Mary's scream, suddenly choked off! McCullough ran back across the yard and up the steps, raging at himself for having left Mary and the children alone in the house. There was no one in the front room, but through the kitchen door he could see a native with his back turned, peering out the kitchen window. McCullough's gun was hanging over the door, on pegs set into the logs, a gun made from the first steel smelted on Centaurus II. He reached down the gun as he stepped in the door. There were two natives in the kitchen; one with a roughed-up look who might have been the one Watts had kicked, watching Mary as she huddled in a corner by the stove with her arms about the two children; the other still looking out the window. Both spun around to face him as McCullough burst into the room. For a moment they eyed each other in silence, the two Centaurans and the Earthman. "You hurt, Mary?" McCullough asked. She was frightened almost speechless, but she managed a squeak and a negative shake of her head. McCullough took his eyes from the natives for a moment and studied her searchingly. "You sure?" he asked. She nodded. Some of the color was coming back in her face again now, and she looked all right. He looked back at the two natives. He should have them arrested, he supposed, but to file a complaint meant going to court and losing a day's work. It did not even occur to him to hold them for the mob. He gestured with the gun muzzle. "OK," he said roughly. "Get out of here, now. Get!" The natives looked at each other. Outside, there was a rattle of shots in the alley, and several high-pitched screams. The native by the window wet his lips and shook his head, and the other turned back toward McCullough. He had a knife in his hand, which he swung menacingly. "No," he said. "No go outside. Kill." It was not clear if he meant the verb passively or actively, but with the knife not six feet from Mary and the children, it did not seem a proper time to discuss fine points of grammar. McCullough shot him in the belly. At that range, the charge almost tore the slight native in half. The other Centauran turned and came lunging toward him, and McCullough fired again. The native stumbled and fell in a heap in the middle of the floor, half across the body of the first. McCullough stepped over them to the back door and glanced out, dropping fresh charges in the gun as he did so. There were no natives in sight but several white men were in the alley, looking around, trying to decide where the shots had come from. Henry Watts was with them. He saw McCullough at the door and called out to him: "You hear those shots? Two of 'em ran back up this alley. You see them?" "They came in my house," McCullough said. "I shot both of them." "Good, by God," Watts yelled. "That's two we don't have to worry about." "There's one more left," another man called from up the alley. "He ducked around through Gordon's lot." The men ran off up the alley on the new scent, and McCullough turned back into the kitchen. Mary had collapsed into a chair and was sobbing with her head in her arms. The two children clung to her, staring wide-eyed at the bodies of the natives. McCullough walked over and patted her on the back. "It's OK now, Mary," he said. "It's OK, nothing to worry about now." His wife went on crying, and he stood there awkwardly, not quite knowing what to do. He noticed that the dark purplish blood of the natives, almost black, was spreading in little rivulets and pools over the kitchen floor. The floor was of sanded white wood, and stained easily. There were some folded tarps in the lean-to where McCullough kept his tools. He got one and rolled the bodies over onto it. As he did so, he saw that one of them, the second one he had shot, was still alive. The shot had gone low and mangled the native's upper leg. He stared up at McCullough with opaque expressionless eyes, slowly bleeding to death. It was an embarrassing situation. McCullough was not any more callous than the next man, but he found himself wishing his aim had been better. He could hardly allow the Centauran to lie there and bleed to death while he watched, but neither did he feel any particular responsibility in the matter. The native had got what he was asking for, and that was that. Finally he took the native's leather belt and tightened it around the leg for a tourniquet, got another tarp and spread it on the cot, and laid the native on it. The corpse he rolled in the first tarp and pushed under the cot. Throughout the injured Centauran said nothing, either in thanks or protest, although the leg must have been painful. He had just finished when he heard voices in the front yard. Henry Watts was there with half a dozen other men carrying guns and clubs, all looking the worse for wear. Two were dragging a Centauran corpse by the pants legs. Watts mopped at his sweaty, blood-stained face with his shirt-tail. "You still got those two grayskins in there?" he asked. McCullough nodded. "Fine, we'll take 'em off your hands now." Watts half-turned to the men behind him. "Come on, give me a hand to drag 'em out." He started up the steps. "Wait a minute," McCullough said. He did not move out of the door, he was not quite sure why, a moment ago he had been wondering what to do with the natives, and here was Watts offering to take them. It may have been the way they were dragging the Centauran, face down in the mud, that bothered him. "What you going to do with them?" he asked. "We got a use for 'em," Watts said with relish. "We're going to drag all the bodies up in front of Dubois' place and string 'em up to poles there, for a warning. We'll learn those grayskins what to expect, they come messing around here any more. Come on, toss 'em out, we'll take these two along with the rest." "Well, I don't know," McCullough said. "One of these is still alive, I didn't kill him, just crippled him." Watts showed his teeth. "That won't be a problem," he said. McCullough shook his head slowly. He had counted Henry Watts as his friend, but he was not so sure now that he liked him. "No," he said. "I think we better just leave them till the cops come." Watts laughed. "Cops? There ain't going to be any cops coming. We're handling this ourselves. Don't worry about the cops, even if they could get an indictment, there ain't a jury in this town would convict for killing a native." "I'm not worrying about that," McCullough said stolidly, "but I don't like what you fellows are doing, I might as well say right now, and I'm not going to be a party to it. Those natives stay right where they are till the law comes and gets them." Watts' grin faded. "John," he said, "we ain't fooling. I know you're no native-lover, but we're going to clean those devils out once for all. If you won't let us in for them, we'll come in anyway and take 'em." McCullough shook his head again. "This is my house. Henry, you've been my friend, but I just shot two people for coming in here without knocking." Watts looked around at the men behind him. Most of them knew McCullough. They did not seem taken with the idea of breaking into his house. Watts swung back to McCullough. "John," he said ominously, "you're just making trouble for yourself, that's all." McCullough simply shook his head and stood blocking the doorway. Watts glanced around at the other men again. One of them shrugged self-consciously and turned away, and after a moment the others trailed after. "All right," Watts growled. He shook his fist under McCullough's nose. "All right, John McCullough, I'll remember this, and I'll be back. Native-lover!" He spat on the step and went off after the others. McCullough watched them go, uneasy under his surface stolidity. He liked to be on good terms with his neighbors, not enough to give in to them on anything he felt strongly about, but he knew this would be held against him, and it worried him, more for the sake of Mary and the kids than for himself. He sensed his wife standing behind him. "What did they want?" she asked. He told her. "But, John, why? Haven't we had enough trouble today? Do you _have_ to get in a fight with your neighbors over a stupid native? What difference does it make to you?" McCullough shook his head helplessly. "I don't know. I just don't like the idea, that's all." His wife stared wordlessly at him for a moment. She went into the kitchen and sat down at the table and began crying again. The children ran to her and began whimpering also. McCullough prowled restlessly about the living-room, stooping now and then to peer out the windows as men shouted and ran by. The native lay silent on the cot, unmoving except for his eyes which followed McCullough. McCullough stopped and studied the Centauran resentfully. Goddam natives, he thought, all they cause is trouble. He bent over and loosened the strap on the leg until fresh blood started to ooze out and then tightened it again. The Centauran winced a little and closed his eyes briefly, but made no other sign. Ought to have morphine, McCullough thought, but would morphine work on a Centauran? He didn't know. He pulled a chair over to the window, where he could watch both doors and the cot, and sat down with the gun across his knees. The riot was apparently still booming along. Men trotted by outside now and then, singly or in little groups, calling to each other. Once several went by with another Centauran corpse slung hand and foot to a pole. There were no women or children in sight, those houses with blinds had them down, the tent-flaps were tightly drawn. There was no indication of any attempt by the authorities to halt the riot. Possibly Tallant had not gotten through, or possibly Watts was right, the Administration was keeping hands off. After a while Mary came in and stood by the chair. Her eyes were still red, but she was no longer crying. "You want something to eat now?" she asked dully. "The roast is done." "Yeah, I guess so," he said. He avoided her eyes. She fixed a plate and brought it to him and sat down to watch him eat. "You think there'll be more trouble?" she asked. "They surely won't bother us again, will they?" McCullough chewed thoughtfully. He thought there would be more trouble, but he did not like to worry his wife unduly. "Well," he hedged, "that Henry's kind of a bull-headed fellow." "Don't you be bull-headed too, John. I know you have to do what you think is right, but please be careful." He reached out and took her hand in his. "Honey, I'm sorry. I know it's mighty tough on women sometimes, but a man just can't give in on some things, that's all." He looked down, pleased as always by the contrast of her small, pale, delicate fingers lying in his large blunt chocolate-brown hand. The contrast seemed especially important today, for reasons he could not quite place. Was there some special significance in a black man married to a white woman, a black man setting his will against white men, not as an enemy, but as an equal? Back a couple of hundred years ago, he knew, on Earth--but the thought eluded him, he was not a very articulate or subtle thinker and he could not pin it down. "Don't you worry, Mary," he said, "it'll turn out all right." * * * * * It was almost sundown when Watts came back. McCullough was checking the tourniquet on the native's leg when he heard a commotion in the street outside. "John McCullough," a voice bellowed. "Come out!" Watts' voice, McCullough thought. He picked up his gun, but then he thought he would not feel right facing the men outside, who were after all his neighbors, with a gun in his hands. He looked around. The double-bitted axe he had been using to trim the logs around his window-frames leaned against the wall by the door. "Get in the bedroom, Mary," he said. "Pull the mattress off the bed and lie down behind it with the kids." He took the axe and walked out the door onto the steps, squinting his eyes against the setting sun. The street was full of men in front of his house, perhaps half a hundred or so. Watts and a short stout man stood halfway up the path to the door. McCullough studied them in silence. "Well?" he said finally. "This man here's a deputy marshal, John," Watts said. "We'll take your prisoner and that body now, if you don't mind." The stout man grinned placatingly. "That's right, Mr. McCullough, I've deputized Mr. Watts here and several others to help restore order. We've rounded up all the rioters except that one you've got in there." "You got a warrant?" McCullough asked. "Well, no, I don't really think--" "Then get off my property. Go on, get!" McCullough came down the steps and began to walk slowly toward Watts and the marshal. "Get out of my yard!" he said. He did not raise his voice. "You're bucking the law now, John McCullough," Watts warned. "Get out of my yard!" McCullough said again. He was about three steps away from Watts. He took another step. Watts had been carrying a pistol in his hand. His arm started to swing up. McCullough let out a wordless bark: "_Haugh!_" and the axe flipped in a short swift arc. He stepped over Watts' body, the axe again dangling limply from his hand with a few thin threads of blood spattering from it. "Get out of my yard!" he said. The nearer men backed away slowly, not really frightened, but uncertain. Single men have faced down mobs many times, but more have been killed by them. In a saner moment, McCullough may have known this, but his ductless glands were in full control now. He did not really care, he rather hoped, if he thought at all, that there _would_ be a fight. He knew he could kill any man who stood against him. Off to one side, a dozen yards away, a man tentatively lifted a pistol. McCullough caught the movement from the corner of his eye and turned and began walking toward the man, head a little forward, bright, slightly unfocussed eyes intent in his expressionless face. The men between the two moved back, leaving a clear path. The man with the pistol glanced to either side and saw he now stood alone, all alone. There is a nightmare some men know--the implacable deadly-eyed enemy coming with the red, wetly gleaming steel while you stand all alone with the pistol that poufs weakly with the bullets dribbling from the muzzle. The man jerked the trigger and spun about and ran without waiting to see where his shot had gone, and the charge snapped two feet over McCullough's head. McCullough turned again toward the main body of the mob and walked slowly forward, his eyes searching the faces around him hungrily. "Get out of my yard!" he said woodenly. The men he faced were not cowards, few men on that world were, and they had been killing natives all afternoon, their blood was up; but this was different, this was one of their own kind they faced now. If they had been able to see him as another outcast, as a traitor aiding the enemy against them, it would have made things easier. In spite of what Watts had said, however, they knew this was not true. McCullough was not a 'native-lover', he was not upholding the Centaurans, what he was upholding was the right of a citizen to hold his own opinion and keep his home as his castle--two rights which are extremely important in any frontier culture. It put them in a very difficult moral position, and the physical pressure of McCullough's steady advance did not give them much time to settle the dilemma. Half a dozen men were elbowing their way back through the press now, the marshal had disappeared, there was no one to start things, and they kept fading back. McCullough never varied his pace, but the distance between him and the nearest man increased steadily. He stopped in the street before his house, but the mob kept moving under its own momentum for another fifty yards, and some still kept moving. A knot of perhaps a dozen stopped at the corner and muttered among themselves for a few minutes. One man started to raise a gun, and another knocked it down. They stood there a little longer, and McCullough leaned on his axe watching them, and then they moved off after the others, men dropping off here and there as they passed their own homes. The riot was over. 
19746	----	+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation and dialect spelling in the | | original document have been preserved. | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this | | text. For a complete list, please see the end of document. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ THE COLONEL'S DREAM A Novel by CHARLES W. CHESNUTT Harlem Moon Broadway Books New York Published in 1905 by Doubleday, New York. THE COLONEL'S DREAM DEDICATION _To the great number of those who are seeking, in whatever manner or degree, from near at hand or far away, to bring the forces of enlightenment to bear upon the vexed problems which harass the South, this volume is inscribed, with the hope that it may contribute to the same good end._ _If there be nothing new between its covers, neither is love new, nor faith, nor hope, nor disappointment, nor sorrow. Yet life is not the less worth living because of any of these, nor has any man truly lived until he has tasted of them all._ LIST OF CHARACTERS _Colonel Henry French_, A RETIRED MERCHANT _Mr. Kirby_, } _Mrs. Jerviss_, } HIS FORMER PARTNERS _Philip French_, THE COLONEL'S SON _Peter French_, HIS OLD SERVANT _Mrs. Treadwell_, AN OLD LADY _Miss Laura Treadwell_, HER DAUGHTER _Graciella Treadwell_, HER GRANDDAUGHTER _Malcolm Dudley_, A TREASURE-SEEKER _Ben Dudley_, HIS NEPHEW _Viney_, HIS HOUSEKEEPER _William Fetters_, A CONVICT LABOUR CONTRACTOR _Barclay Fetters_, HIS SON _Bud Johnson_, A CONVICT LABOURER _Caroline_, HIS WIFE _Henry Taylor_, A NEGRO SCHOOLMASTER _William Nichols_, A MULATTO BARBER _Haynes_, A CONSTABLE One Two gentlemen were seated, one March morning in 189--, in the private office of French and Company, Limited, on lower Broadway. Mr. Kirby, the junior partner--a man of thirty-five, with brown hair and mustache, clean-cut, handsome features, and an alert manner, was smoking cigarettes almost as fast as he could roll them, and at the same time watching the electric clock upon the wall and getting up now and then to stride restlessly back and forth across the room. Mr. French, the senior partner, who sat opposite Kirby, was an older man--a safe guess would have placed him somewhere in the debatable ground between forty and fifty; of a good height, as could be seen even from the seated figure, the upper part of which was held erect with the unconscious ease which one associates with military training. His closely cropped brown hair had the slightest touch of gray. The spacious forehead, deep-set gray eyes, and firm chin, scarcely concealed by a light beard, marked the thoughtful man of affairs. His face indeed might have seemed austere, but for a sensitive mouth, which suggested a reserve of humour and a capacity for deep feeling. A man of well-balanced character, one would have said, not apt to undertake anything lightly, but sure to go far in whatever he took in hand; quickly responsive to a generous impulse, and capable of a righteous indignation; a good friend, a dangerous enemy; more likely to be misled by the heart than by the head; of the salt of the earth, which gives it savour. Mr. French sat on one side, Mr. Kirby on the other, of a handsome, broad-topped mahogany desk, equipped with telephones and push buttons, and piled with papers, account books and letter files in orderly array. In marked contrast to his partner's nervousness, Mr. French scarcely moved a muscle, except now and then to take the cigar from his lips and knock the ashes from the end. "Nine fifty!" ejaculated Mr. Kirby, comparing the clock with his watch. "Only ten minutes more." Mr. French nodded mechanically. Outside, in the main office, the same air of tense expectancy prevailed. For two weeks the office force had been busily at work, preparing inventories and balance sheets. The firm of French and Company, Limited, manufacturers of crashes and burlaps and kindred stuffs, with extensive mills in Connecticut, and central offices in New York, having for a long time resisted the siren voice of the promoter, had finally faced the alternative of selling out, at a sacrifice, to the recently organised bagging trust, or of meeting a disastrous competition. Expecting to yield in the end, they had fought for position--with brilliant results. Negotiations for a sale, upon terms highly favourable to the firm, had been in progress for several weeks; and the two partners were awaiting, in their private office, the final word. Should the sale be completed, they were richer men than they could have hoped to be after ten years more of business stress and struggle; should it fail, they were heavy losers, for their fight had been expensive. They were in much the same position as the player who had staked the bulk of his fortune on the cast of a die. Not meaning to risk so much, they had been drawn into it; but the game was worth the candle. "Nine fifty-five," said Kirby. "Five minutes more!" He strode over to the window and looked out. It was snowing, and the March wind, blowing straight up Broadway from the bay, swept the white flakes northward in long, feathery swirls. Mr. French preserved his rigid attitude, though a close observer might have wondered whether it was quite natural, or merely the result of a supreme effort of will. Work had been practically suspended in the outer office. The clerks were also watching the clock. Every one of them knew that the board of directors of the bagging trust was in session, and that at ten o'clock it was to report the result of its action on the proposition of French and Company, Limited. The clerks were not especially cheerful; the impending change meant for them, at best, a change of masters, and for many of them, the loss of employment. The firm, for relinquishing its business and good will, would receive liberal compensation; the clerks, for their skill, experience, and prospects of advancement, would receive their discharge. What else could be expected? The principal reason for the trust's existence was economy of administration; this was stated, most convincingly, in the prospectus. There was no suggestion, in that model document, that competition would be crushed, or that, monopoly once established, labour must sweat and the public groan in order that a few captains, or chevaliers, of industry, might double their dividends. Mr. French may have known it, or guessed it, but he was between the devil and the deep sea--a victim rather than an accessory--he must take what he could get, or lose what he had. "Nine fifty-nine!" Kirby, as he breathed rather than spoke the words, threw away his scarcely lighted cigarette, and gripped the arms of his chair spasmodically. His partner's attitude had not varied by a hair's breadth; except for the scarcely perceptible rise and fall of his chest he might have been a wax figure. The pallor of his countenance would have strengthened the illusion. Kirby pushed his chair back and sprung to his feet. The clock marked the hour, but nothing happened. Kirby was wont to say, thereafter, that the ten minutes that followed were the longest day of his life. But everything must have an end, and their suspense was terminated by a telephone call. Mr. French took down the receiver and placed it to his ear. "It's all right," he announced, looking toward his partner. "Our figures accepted--resolution adopted--settlement to-morrow. We are----" The receiver fell upon the table with a crash. Mr. French toppled over, and before Kirby had scarcely realised that something was the matter, had sunk unconscious to the floor, which, fortunately, was thickly carpeted. It was but the work of a moment for Kirby to loosen his partner's collar, reach into the recesses of a certain drawer in the big desk, draw out a flask of brandy, and pour a small quantity of the burning liquid down the unconscious man's throat. A push on one of the electric buttons summoned a clerk, with whose aid Mr. French was lifted to a leather-covered couch that stood against the wall. Almost at once the effect of the stimulant was apparent, and he opened his eyes. "I suspect," he said, with a feeble attempt at a smile, "that I must have fainted--like a woman--perfectly ridiculous." "Perfectly natural," replied his partner. "You have scarcely slept for two weeks--between the business and Phil--and you've reached the end of your string. But it's all over now, except the shouting, and you can sleep a week if you like. You'd better go right up home. I'll send for a cab, and call Dr. Moffatt, and ask him to be at the hotel by the time you reach it. I'll take care of things here to-day, and after a good sleep you'll find yourself all right again." "Very well, Kirby," replied Mr. French, "I feel as weak as water, but I'm all here. It might have been much worse. You'll call up Mrs. Jerviss, of course, and let her know about the sale?" When Mr. French, escorted to the cab by his partner, and accompanied by a clerk, had left for home, Kirby rang up the doctor, and requested him to look after Mr. French immediately. He then called for another number, and after the usual delay, first because the exchange girl was busy, and then because the line was busy, found himself in communication with the lady for whom he had asked. "It's all right, Mrs. Jerviss," he announced without preliminaries. "Our terms accepted, and payment to be made, in cash and bonds, as soon as the papers are executed, when you will be twice as rich as you are to-day." "Thank you, Mr. Kirby! And I suppose I shall never have another happy moment until I know what to do with it. Money is a great trial. I often envy the poor." Kirby smiled grimly. She little knew how near she had been to ruin. The active partners had mercifully shielded her, as far as possible, from the knowledge of their common danger. If the worst happened, she must know, of course; if not, then, being a woman whom they both liked--she would be spared needless anxiety. How closely they had skirted the edge of disaster she did not learn until afterward; indeed, Kirby himself had scarcely appreciated the true situation, and even the senior partner, since he had not been present at the meeting of the trust managers, could not know what had been in their minds. But Kirby's voice gave no hint of these reflections. He laughed a cheerful laugh. "If the world only knew," he rejoined, "it would cease to worry about the pains of poverty, and weep for the woes of wealth." "Indeed it would!" she replied, with a seriousness which seemed almost sincere. "Is Mr. French there? I wish to thank him, too." "No, he has just gone home." "At this hour?" she exclaimed, "and at such a time? What can be the matter? Is Phil worse?" "No, I think not. Mr. French himself had a bad turn, for a few minutes, after we learned the news." Faces are not yet visible over the telephone, and Kirby could not see that for a moment the lady's grew white. But when she spoke again the note of concern in her voice was very evident. "It was nothing--serious?" "Oh, no, not at all, merely overwork, and lack of sleep, and the suspense--and the reaction. He recovered almost immediately, and one of the clerks went home with him." "Has Dr. Moffatt been notified?" she asked. "Yes, I called him up at once; he'll be at the Mercedes by the time the patient arrives." There was a little further conversation on matters of business, and Kirby would willingly have prolonged it, but his news about Mr. French had plainly disturbed the lady's equanimity, and Kirby rang off, after arranging to call to see her in person after business hours. Mr. Kirby hung up the receiver with something of a sigh. "A fine woman," he murmured, "I could envy French his chances, though he doesn't seem to see them--that is, if I were capable of envy toward so fine a fellow and so good a friend. It's curious how clearsighted a man can be in some directions, and how blind in others." Mr. French lived at the Mercedes, an uptown apartment hotel overlooking Central Park. He had scarcely reached his apartment, when the doctor arrived--a tall, fair, fat practitioner, and one of the best in New York; a gentleman as well, and a friend, of Mr. French. "My dear fellow," he said, after a brief examination, "you've been burning the candle at both ends, which, at your age won't do at all. No, indeed! No, indeed! You've always worked too hard, and you've been worrying too much about the boy, who'll do very well now, with care. You've got to take a rest--it's all you need. You confess to no bad habits, and show the signs of none; and you have a fine constitution. I'm going to order you and Phil away for three months, to some mild climate, where you'll be free from business cares and where the boy can grow strong without having to fight a raw Eastern spring. You might try the Riviera, but I'm afraid the sea would be too much for Phil just yet; or southern California--but the trip is tiresome. The South is nearer at hand. There's Palm Beach, or Jekyll Island, or Thomasville, Asheville, or Aiken--somewhere down in the pine country. It will be just the thing for the boy's lungs, and just the place for you to rest. Start within a week, if you can get away. In fact, you've _got_ to get away." Mr. French was too weak to resist--both body and mind seemed strangely relaxed--and there was really no reason why he should not go. His work was done. Kirby could attend to the formal transfer of the business. He would take a long journey to some pleasant, quiet spot, where he and Phil could sleep, and dream and ride and drive and grow strong, and enjoy themselves. For the moment he felt as though he would never care to do any more work, nor would he need to, for he was rich enough. He would live for the boy. Phil's education, his health, his happiness, his establishment in life--these would furnish occupation enough for his well-earned retirement. It was a golden moment. He had won a notable victory against greed and craft and highly trained intelligence. And yet, a year later, he was to recall this recent past with envy and regret; for in the meantime he was to fight another battle against the same forces, and others quite as deeply rooted in human nature. But he was to fight upon a new field, and with different weapons, and with results which could not be foreseen. But no premonition of impending struggle disturbed Mr. French's pleasant reverie; it was broken in a much more agreeable manner by the arrival of a visitor, who was admitted by Judson, Mr. French's man. The visitor was a handsome, clear-eyed, fair-haired woman, of thirty or thereabouts, accompanied by another and a plainer woman, evidently a maid or companion. The lady was dressed with the most expensive simplicity, and her graceful movements were attended by the rustle of unseen silks. In passing her upon the street, any man under ninety would have looked at her three times, the first glance instinctively recognising an attractive woman, the second ranking her as a lady; while the third, had there been time and opportunity, would have been the long, lingering look of respectful or regretful admiration. "How is Mr. French, Judson?" she inquired, without dissembling her anxiety. "He's much better, Mrs. Jerviss, thank you, ma'am." "I'm very glad to hear it; and how is Phil?" "Quite bright, ma'am, you'd hardly know that he'd been sick. He's gaining strength rapidly; he sleeps a great deal; he's asleep now, ma'am. But, won't you step into the library? There's a fire in the grate, and I'll let Mr. French know you are here." But Mr. French, who had overheard part of the colloquy, came forward from an adjoining room, in smoking jacket and slippers. "How do you do?" he asked, extending his hand. "It was mighty good of you to come to see me." "And I'm awfully glad to find you better," she returned, giving him her slender, gloved hand with impulsive warmth. "I might have telephoned, but I wanted to see for myself. I felt a part of the blame to be mine, for it is partly for me, you know, that you have been overworking." "It was all in the game," he said, "and we have won. But sit down and stay awhile. I know you'll pardon my smoking jacket. We are partners, you know, and I claim an invalid's privilege as well." The lady's fine eyes beamed, and her fair cheek flushed with pleasure. Had he only realised it, he might have claimed of her any privilege a woman can properly allow, even that of conducting her to the altar. But to him she was only, thus far, as she had been for a long time, a very good friend of his own and of Phil's; a former partner's widow, who had retained her husband's interest in the business; a wholesome, handsome woman, who was always excellent company and at whose table he had often eaten, both before and since her husband's death. Nor, despite Kirby's notions, was he entirely ignorant of the lady's partiality for himself. "Doctor Moffatt has ordered Phil and me away, for three months," he said, after Mrs. Jerviss had inquired particularly concerning his health and Phil's. "Three months!" she exclaimed with an accent of dismay. "But you'll be back," she added, recovering herself quickly, "before the vacation season opens?" "Oh, certainly; we shall not leave the country." "Where are you going?" "The doctor has prescribed the pine woods. I shall visit my old home, where I was born. We shall leave in a day or two." "You must dine with me to-morrow," she said warmly, "and tell me about your old home. I haven't had an opportunity to thank you for making me rich, and I want your advice about what to do with the money; and I'm tiring you now when you ought to be resting." "Do not hurry," he said. "It is almost a pleasure to be weak and helpless, since it gives me the privilege of a visit from you." She lingered a few moments and then went. She was the embodiment of good taste and knew when to come and when to go. Mr. French was conscious that her visit, instead of tiring him, had had an opposite effect; she had come and gone like a pleasant breeze, bearing sweet odours and the echo of distant music. Her shapely hand, when it had touched his own, had been soft but firm; and he had almost wished, as he held it for a moment, that he might feel it resting on his still somewhat fevered brow. When he came back from the South, he would see a good deal of her, either at the seaside, or wherever she might spend the summer. When Mr. French and Phil were ready, a day or two later, to start upon their journey, Kirby was at the Mercedes to see them off. "You're taking Judson with you to look after the boy?" he asked. "No," replied Mr. French, "Judson is in love, and does not wish to leave New York. He will take a vacation until we return. Phil and I can get along very well alone." Kirby went with them across the ferry to the Jersey side, and through the station gates to the waiting train. There was a flurry of snow in the air, and overcoats were comfortable. When Mr. French had turned over his hand luggage to the porter of the Pullman, they walked up and down the station platform. "I'm looking for something to interest us," said Kirby, rolling a cigarette. "There's a mining proposition in Utah, and a trolley railroad in Oklahoma. When things are settled up here, I'll take a run out, and look the ground over, and write to you." "My dear fellow," said his friend, "don't hurry. Why should I make any more money? I have all I shall ever need, and as much as will be good for Phil. If you find a good thing, I can help you finance it; and Mrs. Jerviss will welcome a good investment. But I shall take a long rest, and then travel for a year or two, and after that settle down and take life comfortably." "That's the way you feel now," replied Kirby, lighting another cigarette, "but wait until you are rested, and you'll yearn for the fray; the first million only whets the appetite for more." "All aboard!" The word was passed along the line of cars. Kirby took leave of Phil, into whose hand he had thrust a five-dollar bill, "To buy popcorn on the train," he said, kissed the boy, and wrung his ex-partner's hand warmly. "Good-bye," he said, "and good luck. You'll hear from me soon. We're partners still, you and I and Mrs. Jerviss." And though Mr. French smiled acquiescence, and returned Kirby's hand clasp with equal vigour and sincerity, he felt, as the train rolled away, as one might feel who, after a long sojourn in an alien land, at last takes ship for home. The mere act of leaving New York, after the severance of all compelling ties, seemed to set in motion old currents of feeling, which, moving slowly at the start, gathered momentum as the miles rolled by, until his heart leaped forward to the old Southern town which was his destination, and he soon felt himself chafing impatiently at any delay that threatened to throw the train behind schedule time. "He'll be back in six weeks," declared Kirby, when Mrs. Jerviss and he next met. "I know him well; he can't live without his club and his counting room. It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks." "And I'm sure he'll not stay away longer than three months," said the lady confidently, "for I have invited him to my house party." "A privilege," said Kirby gallantly, "for which many a man would come from the other end of the world." But they were both mistaken. For even as they spoke, he whose future each was planning, was entering upon a new life of his own, from which he was to look back upon his business career as a mere period of preparation for the real end and purpose of his earthly existence. _Two_ The hack which the colonel had taken at the station after a two-days' journey, broken by several long waits for connecting trains, jogged in somewhat leisurely fashion down the main street toward the hotel. The colonel, with his little boy, had left the main line of railroad leading north and south and had taken at a certain way station the one daily train for Clarendon, with which the express made connection. They had completed the forty-mile journey in two or three hours, arriving at Clarendon at noon. It was an auspicious moment for visiting the town. It is true that the grass grew in the street here and there, but the sidewalks were separated from the roadway by rows of oaks and elms and china-trees in early leaf. The travellers had left New York in the midst of a snowstorm, but here the scent of lilac and of jonquil, the song of birds, the breath of spring, were all about them. The occasional stretches of brick sidewalk under their green canopy looked cool and inviting; for while the chill of winter had fled and the sultry heat of summer was not yet at hand, the railroad coach had been close and dusty, and the noonday sun gave some slight foretaste of his coming reign. The colonel looked about him eagerly. It was all so like, and yet so different--shrunken somewhat, and faded, but yet, like a woman one loves, carried into old age something of the charm of youth. The old town, whose ripeness was almost decay, whose quietness was scarcely distinguishable from lethargy, had been the home of his youth, and he saw it, strange to say, less with the eyes of the lad of sixteen who had gone to the war, than with those of the little boy to whom it had been, in his tenderest years, the great wide world, the only world he knew in the years when, with his black boy Peter, whom his father had given to him as a personal attendant, he had gone forth to field and garden, stream and forest, in search of childish adventure. Yonder was the old academy, where he had attended school. The yellow brick of its walls had scaled away in places, leaving the surface mottled with pale splotches; the shingled roof was badly dilapidated, and overgrown here and there with dark green moss. The cedar trees in the yard were in need of pruning, and seemed, from their rusty trunks and scant leafage, to have shared in the general decay. As they drove down the street, cows were grazing in the vacant lot between the bank, which had been built by the colonel's grandfather, and the old red brick building, formerly a store, but now occupied, as could be seen by the row of boxes visible through the open door, by the post-office. The little boy, an unusually handsome lad of five or six, with blue eyes and fair hair, dressed in knickerbockers and a sailor cap, was also keenly interested in the surroundings. It was Saturday, and the little two-wheeled carts, drawn by a steer or a mule; the pigs sleeping in the shadow of the old wooden market-house; the lean and sallow pinelanders and listless negroes dozing on the curbstone, were all objects of novel interest to the boy, as was manifest by the light in his eager eyes and an occasional exclamation, which in a clear childish treble, came from his perfectly chiselled lips. Only a glance was needed to see that the child, though still somewhat pale and delicate from his recent illness, had inherited the characteristics attributed to good blood. Features, expression, bearing, were marked by the signs of race; but a closer scrutiny was required to discover, in the blue-eyed, golden-haired lad, any close resemblance to the shrewd, dark man of affairs who sat beside him, and to whom this little boy was, for the time being, the sole object in life. But for the child the colonel was alone in the world. Many years before, when himself only a boy, he had served in the Southern army, in a regiment which had fought with such desperate valour that the honour of the colonelcy had come to him at nineteen, as the sole survivor of the group of young men who had officered the regiment. His father died during the last year of the Civil War, having lived long enough to see the conflict work ruin to his fortunes. The son had been offered employment in New York by a relative who had sympathised with the South in her struggle; and he had gone away from Clarendon. The old family "mansion"--it was not a very imposing structure, except by comparison with even less pretentious houses--had been sold upon foreclosure, and bought by an ambitious mulatto, who only a few years before had himself been an object of barter and sale. Entering his uncle's office as a clerk, and following his advice, reinforced by a sense of the fitness of things, the youthful colonel had dropped his military title and become plain Mr. French. Putting the past behind him, except as a fading memory, he had thrown himself eagerly into the current of affairs. Fortune favoured one both capable and energetic. In time he won a partnership in the firm, and when death removed his relative, took his place at its head. He had looked forward to the time, not very far in the future, when he might retire from business and devote his leisure to study and travel, tastes which for years he had subordinated to the pursuit of wealth; not entirely, for his life had been many sided; and not so much for the money, as because, being in a game where dollars were the counters, it was his instinct to play it well. He was winning already, and when the bagging trust paid him, for his share of the business, a sum double his investment, he found himself, at some years less than fifty, relieved of business cares and in command of an ample fortune. This change in the colonel's affairs--and we shall henceforth call him the colonel, because the scene of this story is laid in the South, where titles are seldom ignored, and where the colonel could hardly have escaped his own, even had he desired to do so--this change in the colonel's affairs coincided with that climacteric of the mind, from which, without ceasing to look forward, it turns, at times, in wistful retrospect, toward the distant past, which it sees thenceforward through a mellowing glow of sentiment. Emancipated from the counting room, and ordered South by the doctor, the colonel's thoughts turned easily and naturally to the old town that had given him birth; and he felt a twinge of something like remorse at the reflection that never once since leaving it had he set foot within its borders. For years he had been too busy. His wife had never manifested any desire to visit the South, nor was her temperament one to evoke or sympathise with sentimental reminiscence. He had married, rather late in life, a New York woman, much younger than himself; and while he had admired her beauty and they had lived very pleasantly together, there had not existed between them the entire union of souls essential to perfect felicity, and the current of his life had not been greatly altered by her loss. Toward little Phil, however, the child she had borne him, his feeling was very different. His young wife had been, after all, but a sweet and pleasant graft upon a sturdy tree. Little Phil was flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. Upon his only child the colonel lavished all of his affection. Already, to his father's eye, the boy gave promise of a noble manhood. His frame was graceful and active. His hair was even more brightly golden than his mother's had been; his eyes more deeply blue than hers; while his features were a duplicate of his father's at the same age, as was evidenced by a faded daguerreotype among the colonel's few souvenirs of his own childhood. Little Phil had a sweet temper, a loving disposition, and endeared himself to all with whom he came in contact. The hack, after a brief passage down the main street, deposited the passengers at the front of the Clarendon Hotel. The colonel paid the black driver the quarter he demanded--two dollars would have been the New York price--ran the gauntlet of the dozen pairs of eyes in the heads of the men leaning back in the splint-bottomed armchairs under the shade trees on the sidewalk, registered in the book pushed forward by a clerk with curled mustaches and pomatumed hair, and accompanied by Phil, followed the smiling black bellboy along a passage and up one flight of stairs to a spacious, well-lighted and neatly furnished room, looking out upon the main street. _Three_ When the colonel and Phil had removed the dust and disorder of travel from their appearance, they went down to dinner. After they had eaten, the colonel, still accompanied by the child, left the hotel, and following the main street for a short distance, turned into another thoroughfare bordered with ancient elms, and stopped for a moment before an old gray house with high steps and broad piazza--a large, square-built, two-storied house, with a roof sloping down toward the front, broken by dormer windows and buttressed by a massive brick chimney at either end. In spite of the gray monotone to which the paintless years had reduced the once white weatherboarding and green Venetian blinds, the house possessed a certain stateliness of style which was independent of circumstance, and a solidity of construction that resisted sturdily the disintegrating hand of time. Heart-pine and live-oak, mused the colonel, like other things Southern, live long and die hard. The old house had been built of the best materials, and its woodwork dowelled and mortised and tongued and grooved by men who knew their trade and had not learned to scamp their work. For the colonel's grandfather had built the house as a town residence, the family having owned in addition thereto a handsome country place upon a large plantation remote from the town. The colonel had stopped on the opposite side of the street and was looking intently at the home of his ancestors and of his own youth, when a neatly dressed coloured girl came out on the piazza, seated herself in a rocking-chair with an air of proprietorship, and opened what the colonel perceived to be, even across the street, a copy of a woman's magazine whose circulation, as he knew from the advertising rates that French and Co. had paid for the use of its columns, touched the million mark. Not wishing to seem rude, the colonel moved slowly on down the street. When he turned his head, after going a rod or two, and looked back over his shoulder, the girl had risen and was re-entering the house. Her disappearance was promptly followed by the notes of a piano, slightly out of tune, to which some one--presumably the young woman--was singing in a high voice, which might have been better had it been better trained, _"I dreamt that I dwe-elt in ma-arble halls With vassals and serfs at my si-i-ide."_ The colonel had slackened his pace at the sound of the music, but, after the first few bars, started forward with quickened footsteps which he did not relax until little Phil's weight, increasing momentarily, brought home to him the consciousness that his stride was too long for the boy's short legs. Phil, who was a thoroughbred, and would have dropped in his tracks without complaining, was nevertheless relieved when his father's pace returned to the normal. Their walk led down a hill, and, very soon, to a wooden bridge which spanned a creek some twenty feet below. The colonel paused for a moment beside the railing, and looked up and down the stream. It seemed narrower and more sluggish than his memory had pictured it. Above him the water ran between high banks grown thick with underbrush and over-arching trees; below the bridge, to the right of the creek, lay an open meadow, and to the left, a few rods away, the ruins of the old Eureka cotton mill, which in his boyhood had harboured a flourishing industry, but which had remained, since Sherman's army laid waste the country, the melancholy ruin the colonel had seen it last, when twenty-five years or more before, he left Clarendon to seek a wider career in the outer world. The clear water of the creek rippled harmoniously down a gentle slope and over the site where the great dam at the foot had stood, while birds were nesting in the vines with which kindly nature had sought to cloak the dismantled and crumbling walls. Mounting the slope beyond the bridge, the colonel's stride now carefully accommodated to the child's puny step, they skirted a low brick wall, beyond which white headstones gleamed in a mass of verdure. Reaching an iron gate, the colonel lifted the latch, and entered the cemetery which had been the object of their visit. "Is this the place, papa?" asked the little boy. "Yes, Phil, but it is farther on, in the older part." They passed slowly along, under the drooping elms and willows, past the monuments on either hand--here, resting on a low brick wall, a slab of marble, once white, now gray and moss-grown, from which the hand of time had well nigh erased the carved inscription; here a family vault, built into the side of a mound of earth, from which only the barred iron door distinguished it; here a pedestal, with a time-worn angel holding a broken fragment of the resurrection trumpet; here a prostrate headstone, and there another bending to its fall; and among them a profusion of rose bushes, on some of which the early roses were already blooming--scarcely a well-kept cemetery, for in many lots the shrubbery grew in wild unpruned luxuriance; nor yet entirely neglected, since others showed the signs of loving care, and an effort had been made to keep the walks clean and clear. Father and son had traversed half the width of the cemetery, when they came to a spacious lot, surrounded by large trees and containing several monuments. It seemed less neglected than the lots about it, and as they drew nigh they saw among the tombs a very black and seemingly aged Negro engaged in pruning a tangled rose tree. Near him stood a dilapidated basket, partially filled with weeds and leaves, into which he was throwing the dead and superfluous limbs. He seemed very intent upon his occupation, and had not noticed the colonel's and Phil's approach until they had paused at the side of the lot and stood looking at him. When the old man became aware of their presence, he straightened himself up with the slow movement of one stiff with age or rheumatism and threw them a tentatively friendly look out of a pair of faded eyes. "Howdy do, uncle," said the colonel. "Will you tell me whose graves these are that you are caring for?" "Yas, suh," said the old man, removing his battered hat respectfully--the rest of his clothing was in keeping, a picturesque assortment of rags and patches such as only an old Negro can get together, or keep together--"dis hyuh lot, suh, b'longs ter de fambly dat I useter b'long ter--de ol' French fambly, suh, de fines' fambly in Beaver County." "Why, papa!" cried little Phil, "he means----" "Hush, Phil! Go on, uncle." "Yas, suh, de fines' fambly in Cla'endon, suh. Dis hyuh headstone hyuh, suh, an' de little stone at de foot, rep'esents de grave er ol' Gin'al French, w'at fit in de Revolution' Wah, suh; and dis hyuh one nex' to it is de grave er my ol' marster, Majah French, w'at fit in de Mexican Wah, and died endyoin' de wah wid de Yankees, suh." "Papa," urged Phil, "that's my----" "Shut up, Phil! Well, uncle, did this interesting old family die out, or is it represented in the present generation?" "Lawd, no, suh, de fambly did n' die out--'deed dey did n' die out! dey ain't de kind er fambly ter die out! But it's mos' as bad, suh--dey's moved away. Young Mars Henry went ter de Norf, and dey say he's got rich; but he ain't be'n back no mo', suh, an' I don' know whether he's ever comin' er no." "You must have been very fond of them to take such good care of their graves," said the colonel, much moved, but giving no sign. "Well, suh, I b'longed ter de fambly, an' I ain' got no chick ner chile er my own, livin', an' dese hyuh dead folks 'pears mo' closer ter me dan anybody e'se. De cullud folks don' was'e much time wid a ole man w'at ain' got nothin', an' dese hyuh new w'ite folks wa't is come up sence de wah, ain' got no use fer niggers, now dat dey don' b'long ter nobody no mo'; so w'en I ain' got nothin' e'se ter do, I comes roun' hyuh, whar I knows ev'ybody and ev'ybody knows me, an' trims de rose bushes an' pulls up de weeds and keeps de grass down jes' lak I s'pose Mars Henry'd 'a' had it done ef he'd 'a' lived hyuh in de ole home, stidder 'way off yandah in de Norf, whar he so busy makin' money dat he done fergot all 'bout his own folks." "What is your name?" asked the colonel, who had been looking closely at the old man. "Peter, suh--Peter French. Most er de niggers change' dey names after de wah, but I kept de ole fambly name I wuz raise' by. It wuz good 'nuff fer me, suh; dey ain' none better." "Oh, papa," said little Phil, unable to restrain himself longer, "he must be some kin to us; he has the same name, and belongs to the same family, and you know you called him 'Uncle.'" The old Negro had dropped his hat, and was staring at the colonel and the little boy, alternately, with dawning amazement, while a look of recognition crept slowly into his rugged old face. "Look a hyuh, suh," he said tremulously, "is it?--it can't be!--but dere's de eyes, an' de nose, an' de shape er de head--why, it _must_ be my young Mars Henry!" "Yes," said the colonel, extending his hand to the old man, who grasped it with both his own and shook it up and down with unconventional but very affectionate vigour, "and you are my boy Peter; who took care of me when I was no bigger than Phil here!" This meeting touched a tender chord in the colonel's nature, already tuned to sympathy with the dead past of which Peter seemed the only survival. The old man's unfeigned delight at their meeting; his retention of the family name, a living witness of its former standing; his respect for the dead; his "family pride," which to the unsympathetic outsider might have seemed grotesque; were proofs of loyalty that moved the colonel deeply. When he himself had been a child of five or six, his father had given him Peter as his own boy. Peter was really not many years older than the colonel, but prosperity had preserved the one, while hard luck had aged the other prematurely. Peter had taken care of him, and taught him to paddle in the shallow water of the creek and to avoid the suck-holes; had taught him simple woodcraft, how to fish, and how to hunt, first with bow and arrow, and later with a shotgun. Through the golden haze of memory the colonel's happy childhood came back to him with a sudden rush of emotion. "Those were good times, Peter, when we were young," he sighed regretfully, "good times! I have seen none happier." "Yas, suh! yas, suh! 'Deed dem wuz good ole times! Sho' dey wuz, suh, sho' dey wuz! 'Member dem co'n-stalk fiddles we use' ter make, an' dem elderberry-wood whistles?" "Yes, Peter, and the robins we used to shoot and the rabbits we used to trap?" "An' dem watermillions, suh--um-m-m, um-m-m-m!" "_Y-e-s_," returned the colonel, with a shade of pensiveness. There had been two sides to the watermelon question. Peter and he had not always been able to find ripe watermelons, early in the season, and at times there had been painful consequences, the memory of which came back to the colonel with surprising ease. Nor had they always been careful about boundaries in those early days. There had been one occasion when an irate neighbour had complained, and Major French had thrashed Henry and Peter both--Peter because he was older, and knew better, and Henry because it was important that he should have impressed upon him, early in life, that of him to whom much is given, much will be required, and that what might be lightly regarded in Peter's case would be a serious offence in his future master's. The lesson had been well learned, for throughout the course of his life the colonel had never shirked responsibility, but had made the performance of duty his criterion of conduct. To him the line of least resistance had always seemed the refuge of the coward and the weakling. With the twenty years preceding his return to Clarendon, this story has nothing to do; but upon the quiet background of his business career he had lived an active intellectual and emotional life, and had developed into one of those rare natures of whom it may be truly said that they are men, and that they count nothing of what is human foreign to themselves. But the serenity of Peter's retrospect was unmarred by any passing cloud. Those who dwell in darkness find it easier to remember the bright places in their lives. "Yas, suh, yas, suh, dem watermillions," he repeated with unction, "I kin tas'e 'em now! Dey wuz de be's watermillions dat evuh growed, suh--dey doan raise none lack 'em dese days no mo'. An' den dem chinquapin bushes down by de swamp! 'Member dem chinquapin bushes, whar we killt dat water moccasin dat day? He wuz 'bout ten foot long!" "Yes, Peter, he was a whopper! Then there were the bullace vines, in the woods beyond the tanyard!" "Sho' 'nuff, suh! an' de minnows we use' ter ketch in de creek, an' dem perch in de mill pon'?" For years the colonel had belonged to a fishing club, which preserved an ice-cold stream in a Northern forest. For years the choicest fruits of all the earth had been served daily upon his table. Yet as he looked back to-day no shining trout that had ever risen to his fly had stirred his emotions like the diaphanous minnows, caught, with a crooked pin, in the crooked creek; no luscious fruit had ever matched in sweetness the sour grapes and bitter nuts gathered from the native woods--by him and Peter in their far-off youth. "Yas, suh, yas, suh," Peter went on, "an' 'member dat time you an' young Mars Jim Wilson went huntin' and fishin' up de country tergether, an' got ti'ed er waitin' on yo'se'ves an' writ back fer me ter come up ter wait on yer and cook fer yer, an' ole Marster say he did n' dare ter let me go 'way off yander wid two keerliss boys lak you-all, wid guns an' boats fer fear I mought git shot, er drownded?" "It looked, Peter, as though he valued you more than me! more than his own son!" "Yas, suh, yas, suh! sho' he did, sho' he did! old Marse Philip wuz a monstus keerful man, an' _I_ wuz winth somethin', suh, dem times; I wuz wuth five hundred dollahs any day in de yeah. But nobody would n' give five hundred cents fer me now, suh. Dey'd want pay fer takin' me, mos' lakly. Dey ain' none too much room fer a young nigger no mo', let 'lone a' ol' one." "And what have you been doing all these years, Peter?" asked the colonel. Peter's story was not a thrilling one; it was no tale of inordinate ambition, no Odyssey of a perilous search for the prizes of life, but the bald recital of a mere struggle for existence. Peter had stayed by his master until his master's death. Then he had worked for a railroad contractor, until exposure and overwork had laid him up with a fever. After his recovery, he had been employed for some years at cutting turpentine boxes in the pine woods, following the trail of the industry southward, until one day his axe had slipped and wounded him severely. When his wound was healed he was told that he was too old and awkward for the turpentine, and that they needed younger and more active men. "So w'en I got my laig kyo'ed up," said the old man, concluding his story, "I come back hyuh whar I wuz bo'n, suh, and whar my w'ite folks use' ter live, an' whar my frien's use' ter be. But my w'ite folks wuz all in de graveya'd, an' most er my frien's wuz dead er moved away, an' I fin's it kinder lonesome, suh. I goes out an' picks cotton in de fall, an' I does arrants an' little jobs roun' de house fer folks w'at 'll hire me; an' w'en I ain' got nothin' ter eat I kin gor oun' ter de ole house an' wo'k in de gyahden er chop some wood, an' git a meal er vittles f'om ole Mis' Nichols, who's be'n mighty good ter me, suh. She's de barbuh's wife, suh, w'at bought ouah ole house. Dey got mo' dan any yuther colored folks roun' hyuh, but dey he'ps de po', suh, dey he'ps de po'." "Which speaks well for them, Peter. I'm glad that all the virtue has not yet gone out of the old house." The old man's talk rambled on, like a sluggish stream, while the colonel's more active mind busied itself with the problem suggested by this unforeseen meeting. Peter and he had both gone out into the world, and they had both returned. He had come back rich and independent. What good had freedom done for Peter? In the colonel's childhood his father's butler, old Madison, had lived a life which, compared to that of Peter at the same age, was one of ease and luxury. How easy the conclusion that the slave's lot had been the more fortunate! But no, Peter had been better free. There were plenty of poor white men, and no one had suggested slavery as an improvement of their condition. Had Peter remained a slave, then the colonel would have remained a master, which was only another form of slavery. The colonel had been emancipated by the same token that had made Peter free. Peter had returned home poor and broken, not because he had been free, but because nature first, and society next, in distributing their gifts, had been niggardly with old Peter. Had he been better equipped, or had a better chance, he might have made a better showing. The colonel had prospered because, having no Peters to work for him, he had been compelled to work for himself. He would set his own success against Peter's failure; and he would take off his hat to the memory of the immortal statesman, who in freeing one race had emancipated another and struck the shackles from a Nation's mind. _Four_ While the colonel and old Peter were thus discussing reminiscences in which little Phil could have no share, the boy, with childish curiosity, had wandered off, down one of the shaded paths. When, a little later, the colonel looked around for him, he saw Phil seated on a rustic bench, in conversation with a lady. As the boy seemed entirely comfortable, and the lady not at all disturbed, the colonel did not interrupt them for a while. But when the lady at length rose, holding Phil by the hand, the colonel, fearing that the boy, who was a child of strong impulses, prone to sudden friendships, might be proving troublesome, left his seat on the flat-topped tomb of his Revolutionary ancestor and hastened to meet them. "I trust my boy hasn't annoyed you," he said, lifting his hat. "Not at all, sir," returned the lady, in a clear, sweet voice, some haunting tone of which found an answering vibration in the colonel's memory. "On the contrary, he has interested me very much, and in nothing more than in telling me his name. If this and my memory do not deceive me, _you_ are Henry French!" "Yes, and you are--you are Laura Treadwell! How glad I am to meet you! I was coming to call this afternoon." "I'm glad to see you again. We have always remembered you, and knew that you had grown rich and great, and feared that you had forgotten the old town--and your old friends." "Not very rich, nor very great, Laura--Miss Treadwell." "Let it be Laura," she said with a faint colour mounting in her cheek, which had not yet lost its smoothness, as her eyes had not faded, nor her step lost its spring. "And neither have I forgotten the old home nor the old friends--since I am here and knew you the moment I looked at you and heard your voice." "And what a dear little boy!" exclaimed Miss Treadwell, looking down at Phil. "He is named Philip--after his grandfather, I reckon?" "After his grandfather. We have been visiting his grave, and those of all the Frenches; and I found them haunted--by an old retainer, who had come hither, he said, to be with his friends." "Old Peter! I see him, now and then, keeping the lot in order. There are few like him left, and there were never any too many. But how have you been these many years, and where is your wife? Did you bring her with you?" "I buried her," returned the colonel, "a little over a year ago. She left me little Phil." "He must be like her," replied the lady, "and yet he resembles you." "He has her eyes and hair," said his father. "He is a good little boy and a lad of taste. See how he took to you at first sight! I can always trust Phil's instincts. He is a born gentleman." "He came of a race of gentlemen," she said. "I'm glad it is not to die out. There are none too many left--in Clarendon. You are going to like me, aren't you, Phil?" asked the lady. "I like you already," replied Phil gallantly. "You are a very nice lady. What shall I call you?" "Call her Miss Laura, Phil--it is the Southern fashion--a happy union of familiarity and respect. Already they come back to me, Laura--one breathes them with the air--the gentle Southern customs. With all the faults of the old system, Laura--it carried the seeds of decay within itself and was doomed to perish--a few of us, at least, had a good time. An aristocracy is quite endurable, for the aristocrat, and slavery tolerable, for the masters--and the Peters. When we were young, before the rude hand of war had shattered our illusions, we were very happy, Laura." "Yes, we were very happy." They were walking now, very slowly, toward the gate by which the colonel had entered, with little Phil between them, confiding a hand to each. "And how is your mother?" asked the colonel. "She is living yet, I trust?" "Yes, but ailing, as she has been for fifteen years--ever since my father died. It was his grave I came to visit." "You had ever a loving heart, Laura," said the colonel, "given to duty and self-sacrifice. Are you still living in the old place?" "The old place, only it is older, and shows it--like the rest of us." She bit her lip at the words, which she meant in reference to herself, but which she perceived, as soon as she had uttered them, might apply to him with equal force. Despising herself for the weakness which he might have interpreted as a bid for a compliment, she was glad that he seemed unconscious of the remark. The colonel and Phil had entered the cemetery by a side gate and their exit led through the main entrance. Miss Laura pointed out, as they walked slowly along between the elms, the graves of many whom the colonel had known in his younger days. Their names, woven in the tapestry of his memory, needed in most cases but a touch to restore them. For while his intellectual life had ranged far and wide, his business career had run along a single channel, his circle of intimates had not been very large nor very variable, nor was his memory so overlaid that he could not push aside its later impressions in favour of those graven there so deeply in his youth. Nearing the gate, they passed a small open space in which stood a simple marble shaft, erected to the memory of the Confederate Dead. A wealth of fresh flowers lay at its base. The colonel took off his hat as he stood before it for a moment with bowed head. But for the mercy of God, he might have been one of those whose deaths as well as deeds were thus commemorated. Beyond this memorial, impressive in its pure simplicity, and between it and the gate, in an obtrusively conspicuous spot stood a florid monument of granite, marble and bronze, of glaring design and strangely out of keeping with the simple dignity and quiet restfulness of the surroundings; a monument so striking that the colonel paused involuntarily and read the inscription in bronze letters on the marble shaft above the granite base: "'_Sacred to the Memory of Joshua Fetters and Elizabeth Fetters, his Wife._ "'_Life's work well done, Life's race well run, Life's crown well won, Then comes rest._'" "A beautiful sentiment, if somewhat trite," said the colonel, "but an atrocious monument." "Do you think so?" exclaimed the lady. "Most people think the monument fine, but smile at the sentiment." "In matters of taste," returned the colonel, "the majority are always wrong. But why smile at the sentiment? Is it, for some reason, inappropriate to this particular case? Fetters--Fetters--the name seems familiar. Who was Fetters, Laura?" "He was the speculator," she said, "who bought and sold negroes, and kept dogs to chase runaways; old Mr. Fetters--you must remember old Josh Fetters? When I was a child, my coloured mammy used him for a bogeyman for me, as for her own children." "'Look out, honey,' she'd say, 'ef you ain' good, ole Mr. Fettuhs 'll ketch you.'" Yes, he remembered now. Fetters had been a character in Clarendon--not an admirable character, scarcely a good character, almost a bad character; a necessary adjunct of an evil system, and, like other parasites, worse than the body on which he fed; doing the dirty work of slavery, and very naturally despised by those whose instrument he was, but finding consolation by taking it out of the Negroes in the course of his business. The colonel would have expected Fetters to lie in an unmarked grave in his own back lot, or in the potter's field. Had he so far escaped the ruin of the institution on which he lived, as to leave an estate sufficient to satisfy his heirs and also pay for this expensive but vulgar monument? "The memorial was erected, as you see from the rest of the inscription, 'by his beloved and affectionate son.' That either loved the other no one suspected, for Bill was harshly treated, and ran away from home at fifteen. He came back after the war, with money, which he lent out at high rates of interest; everything he touched turned to gold; he has grown rich, and is a great man in the State. He was a large contributor to the soldiers' monument." "But did not choose the design; let us be thankful for that. It might have been like his father's. Bill Fetters rich and great," he mused, "who would have dreamed it? I kicked him once, all the way down Main Street from the schoolhouse to the bank--and dodged his angry mother for a whole month afterward!" "No one," suggested Miss Laura, "would venture to cross him now. Too many owe him money." "He went to school at the academy," the colonel went on, unwinding the thread of his memory, "and the rest of the boys looked down on him and made his life miserable. Well, Laura, in Fetters you see one thing that resulted from the war--the poor white boy was given a chance to grow; and if the product is not as yet altogether admirable, taste and culture may come with another generation." "It is to be hoped they may," said Miss Laura, "and character as well. Mr. Fetters has a son who has gone from college to college, and will graduate from Harvard this summer. They say he is very wild and spends ten thousand dollars a year. I do not see how it can be possible!" The colonel smiled at her simplicity. "I have been," he said, "at a college football game, where the gate receipts were fifty thousand dollars, and half a million was said to have changed hands in bets on the result. It is easy to waste money." "It is a sin," she said, "that some should be made poor, that others may have it to waste." There was a touch of bitterness in her tone, the instinctive resentment (the colonel thought) of the born aristocrat toward the upstart who had pushed his way above those no longer strong enough to resist. It did not occur to him that her feeling might rest upon any personal ground. It was inevitable that, with the incubus of slavery removed, society should readjust itself in due time upon a democratic basis, and that poor white men, first, and black men next, should reach a level representing the true measure of their talents and their ambition. But it was perhaps equally inevitable that for a generation or two those who had suffered most from the readjustment, should chafe under its seeming injustice. The colonel was himself a gentleman, and the descendant of a long line of gentlemen. But he had lived too many years among those who judged the tree by its fruit, to think that blood alone entitled him to any special privileges. The consciousness of honourable ancestry might make one clean of life, gentle of manner, and just in one's dealings. In so far as it did this it was something to be cherished, but scarcely to be boasted of, for democracy is impatient of any excellence not born of personal effort, of any pride save that of achievement. He was glad that Fetters had got on in the world. It justified a fine faith in humanity, that wealth and power should have been attained by the poor white lad, over whom, with a boy's unconscious brutality, he had tyrannised in his childhood. He could have wished for Bill a better taste in monuments, and better luck in sons, if rumour was correct about Fetters's boy. But, these, perhaps, were points where blood _did_ tell. There was something in blood, after all, Nature might make a great man from any sort of material: hence the virtue of democracy, for the world needs great men, and suffers from their lack, and welcomes them from any source. But fine types were a matter of breeding and were perhaps worth the trouble of preserving, if their existence were compatible with the larger good. He wondered if Bill ever recalled that progress down Main Street in which he had played so conspicuous a part, or still bore any resentment toward the other participants? "Could your mother see me," he asked, as they reached the gate, "if I went by the house?" "She would be glad to see you. Mother lives in the past, and you would come to her as part of it. She often speaks of you. It is only a short distance. You have not forgotten the way?" They turned to the right, in a direction opposite to that from which the colonel had reached the cemetery. After a few minutes' walk, in the course of which they crossed another bridge over the same winding creek, they mounted the slope beyond, opened a gate, climbed a short flight of stone steps and found themselves in an enchanted garden, where lilac bush and jessamine vine reared their heads high, tulip and daffodil pushed their way upward, but were all dominated by the intenser fragrance of the violets. Old Peter had followed the party at a respectful distance, but, seeing himself forgotten, he walked past the gate, after they had entered it, and went, somewhat disconsolately, on his way. He had stopped, and was looking back toward the house--Clarendon was a great place for looking back, perhaps because there was little in the town to which to look forward--when a white man, wearing a tinned badge upon his coat, came up, took Peter by the arm and led him away, despite some feeble protests on the old man's part. _Five_ At the end of the garden stood a frame house with a wide, columned porch. It had once been white, and the windows closed with blinds that still retained a faded tint of green. Upon the porch, in a comfortable arm chair, sat an old lady, wearing a white cap, under which her white hair showed at the sides, and holding her hands, upon which she wore black silk mits, crossed upon her lap. On the top step, at opposite ends, sat two young people--one of them a rosy-cheeked girl, in the bloom of early youth, with a head of rebellious brown hair. She had been reading a book held open in her hand. The other was a long-legged, lean, shy young man, of apparently twenty-three or twenty-four, with black hair and eyes and a swarthy complexion. From the jack-knife beside him, and the shavings scattered around, it was clear that he had been whittling out the piece of pine that he was adjusting, with some nicety, to a wooden model of some mechanical contrivance which stood upon the floor beside him. They were a strikingly handsome couple, of ideally contrasting types. "Mother," said Miss Treadwell, "this is Henry French--Colonel French--who has come back from the North to visit his old home and the graves of his ancestors. I found him in the cemetery; and this is his dear little boy, Philip--named after his grandfather." The old lady gave the colonel a slender white hand, thin almost to transparency. "Henry," she said, in a silvery thread of voice, "I am glad to see you. You must excuse my not rising--I can't walk without help. You are like your father, and even more like your grandfather, and your little boy takes after the family." She drew Phil toward her and kissed him. Phil accepted this attention amiably. Meantime the young people had risen. "This," said Miss Treadwell, laying her hand affectionately on the girl's arm, "is my niece Graciella--my brother Tom's child. Tom is dead, you know, these eight years and more, and so is Graciella's mother, and she has lived with us." Graciella gave the colonel her hand with engaging frankness. "I'm sure we're awfully glad to see anybody from the North," she said. "Are you familiar with New York?" "I left there only day before yesterday," replied the colonel. "And this," said Miss Treadwell, introducing the young man, who, when he unfolded his long legs, rose to a rather imposing height, "this is Mr. Ben Dudley." "The son of Malcolm Dudley, of Mink Run, I suppose? I'm glad to meet you," said the colonel, giving the young man's hand a cordial grasp. "His nephew, sir," returned young Dudley. "My uncle never married." "Oh, indeed? I did not know; but he is alive, I trust, and well?" "Alive, sir, but very much broken. He has not been himself for years." "You find things sadly changed, Henry," said Mrs. Treadwell. "They have never been the same since the surrender. Our people are poor now, right poor, most of them, though we ourselves were fortunate enough to have something left." "We have enough left for supper, mother," interposed Miss Laura quickly, "to which we are going to ask Colonel French to stay." "I suppose that in New York every one has dinner at six, and supper after the theatre or the concert?" said Graciella, inquiringly. "The fortunate few," returned the colonel, smiling into her eager face, "who can afford a seat at the opera, and to pay for and digest two meals, all in the same evening." "And now, colonel," said Miss Treadwell, "I'm going to see about the supper. Mother will talk to you while I am gone." "I must be going," said young Dudley. "Won't you stay to supper, Ben?" asked Miss Laura. "No, Miss Laura; I'd like to, but uncle wasn't well to-day and I must stop by the drug store and get some medicine for him. Dr. Price gave me a prescription on my way in. Good-bye, sir," he added, addressing the colonel. "Will you be in town long?" "I really haven't decided. A day or two, perhaps a week. I am not bound, at present, by any business ties--am foot-loose, as we used to say when I was young. I shall follow my inclinations." "Then I hope, sir, that you'll feel inclined to pay us a long visit and that I shall see you many times." As Ben Dudley, after this courteous wish, stepped down from the piazza, Graciella rose and walked with him along the garden path. She was tall as most women, but only reached his shoulder. "Say, Graciella," he asked, "won't you give me an answer." "I'm thinking about it, Ben. If you could take me away from this dead old town, with its lazy white people and its trifling niggers, to a place where there's music and art, and life and society--where there's something going on all the time, I'd _like_ to marry you. But if I did so now, you'd take me out to your rickety old house, with your daffy old uncle and his dumb old housekeeper, and I should lose my own mind in a week or ten days. When you can promise to take me to New York, I'll promise to marry you, Ben. I want to travel, and to see things, to visit the art galleries and libraries, to hear Patti, and to look at the millionaires promenading on Fifth Avenue--and I'll marry the man who'll take me there!" "Uncle Malcolm can't live forever, Graciella--though I wouldn't wish his span shortened by a single day--and I'll get the plantation. And then, you know," he added, hesitating, "we may--we may find the money." Graciella shook her head compassionately. "No, Ben, you'll never find the money. There isn't any; it's all imagination--moonshine. The war unsettled your uncle's brain, and he dreamed the money." "It's as true as I'm standing here, Graciella," replied Ben, earnestly, "that there's money--gold--somewhere about the house. Uncle couldn't imagine paper and ink, and I've seen the letter from my uncle's uncle Ralph--I'll get it and bring it to you. Some day the money will turn up, and then may be I'll be able to take you away. Meantime some one must look after uncle and the place; there's no one else but me to do it. Things must grow better some time--they always do, you know." "They couldn't be much worse," returned Graciella, discontentedly. "Oh, they'll be better--they're bound to be! They'll just have to be. And you'll wait for me, won't you, Graciella?" "Oh, I suppose I'll have to. You're around here so much that every one else is scared away, and there isn't much choice at the best; all the young men worth having are gone away already. But you know my ultimatum--I must get to New York. If you are ready before any one else speaks, you may take me there." "You're hard on a poor devil, Graciella. I don't believe you care a bit for me, or you wouldn't talk like that. Don't you suppose I have any feelings, even if I ain't much account? Ain't I worth as much as a trip up North?" "Why should I waste my time with you, if I didn't care for you?" returned Graciella, begging the question. "Here's a rose, in token of my love." She plucked the flower and thrust it into his hand. "It's full of thorns, like your love," he said ruefully, as he picked the sharp points out of his fingers. "'Faithful are the wounds of a friend,'" returned the girl. "See Psalms, xxvii: 6." "Take care of my cotton press, Graciella; I'll come in to-morrow evening and work on it some more. I'll bring some cotton along to try it with." "You'll probably find some excuse--you always do." "Don't you want me to come?" he asked with a trace of resentment. "I can stay away, if you don't." "Oh, you come so often that I--I suppose I'd miss you, if you didn't! One must have some company, and half a loaf is better than no bread." He went on down the hill, turning at the corner for a lingering backward look at his tyrant. Graciella, bending her head over the wall, followed his movements with a swift tenderness in her sparkling brown eyes. "I love him better than anything on earth," she sighed, "but it would never do to tell him so. He'd get so conceited that I couldn't manage him any longer, and so lazy that he'd never exert himself. I must get away from this town before I'm old and gray--I'll be seventeen next week, and an old maid in next to no time--and Ben must take me away. But I must be his inspiration; he'd never do it by himself. I'll go now and talk to that dear old Colonel French about the North; I can learn a great deal from him. And he doesn't look so old either," she mused, as she went back up the walk to where the colonel sat on the piazza talking to the other ladies. _Six_ The colonel spent a delightful evening in the company of his friends. The supper was typically Southern, and the cook evidently a good one. There was smothered chicken, light biscuit, fresh eggs, poundcake and tea. The tablecloth and napkins were of fine linen. That they were soft and smooth the colonel noticed, but he did not observe closely enough to see that they had been carefully darned in many places. The silver spoons were of fine, old-fashioned patterns, worn very thin--so thin that even the colonel was struck by their fragility. How charming, he thought, to prefer the simple dignity of the past to the vulgar ostentation of a more modern time. He had once dined off a golden dinner service, at the table of a multi-millionaire, and had not enjoyed the meal half so much. The dining-room looked out upon the garden and the perfume of lilac and violet stole in through the open windows. A soft-footed, shapely, well-trained negro maid, in white cap and apron, waited deftly upon the table; a woman of serious countenance--so serious that the colonel wondered if she were a present-day type of her race, and if the responsibilities of freedom had robbed her people of their traditional light-heartedness and gaiety. After supper they sat out upon the piazza. The lights within were turned down low, so that the moths and other insects might not be attracted. Sweet odours from the garden filled the air. Through the elms the stars, brighter than in more northern latitudes, looked out from a sky of darker blue; so bright were they that the colonel, looking around for the moon, was surprised to find that luminary invisible. On the green background of the foliage the fireflies glowed and flickered. There was no strident steam whistle from factory or train to assault the ear, no rumble of passing cabs or street cars. Far away, in some distant part of the straggling town, a sweet-toned bell sounded the hour of an evening church service. "To see you is a breath from the past, Henry," said Mrs. Treadwell. "You are a fine, strong man now, but I can see you as you were, the day you went away to the war, in your new gray uniform, on your fine gray horse, at the head of your company. You were going to take Peter with you, but he had got his feet poisoned with poison ivy, and couldn't walk, and your father gave you another boy, and Peter cried like a baby at being left behind. I can remember how proud you were, and how proud your father was, when he gave you his sword--your grandfather's sword, and told you never to draw it or sheath it, except in honour; and how, when you were gone, the old gentleman shut himself up for two whole days and would speak to no one. He was glad and sorry--glad to send you to fight for your country, and sorry to see you go--for you were his only boy." The colonel thrilled with love and regret. His father had loved him, he knew very well, and he had not visited his tomb for twenty-five years. How far away it seemed too, the time when he had thought of the Confederacy as his country! And the sword, his grandfather's sword, had been for years stored away in a dark closet. His father had kept it displayed upon the drawing-room wall, over the table on which the family Bible had rested. Mrs. Treadwell was silent for a moment. "Times have changed since then, Henry. We have lost a great deal, although we still have enough--yes, we have plenty to live upon, and to hold up our heads among the best." Miss Laura and Graciella, behind the colonel's back, exchanged meaning glances. How well they knew how little they had to live upon! "That is quite evident," said the colonel, glancing through the window at the tasteful interior, "and I am glad to see that you have fared so well. My father lost everything." "We were more fortunate," said Mrs. Treadwell. "We were obliged to let Belleview go when Major Treadwell died--there were debts to be paid, and we were robbed as well--but we have several rentable properties in town, and an estate in the country which brings us in an income. But things are not quite what they used to be!" Mrs. Treadwell sighed, and nodded. Miss Laura sat in silence--a pensive silence. She, too, remembered the time gone by, but unlike her mother's life, her own had only begun as the good times were ending. Her mother, in her youth, had seen something of the world. The daughter of a wealthy planter, she had spent her summers at Saratoga, had visited New York and Philadelphia and New Orleans, and had taken a voyage to Europe. Graciella was young and beautiful. Her prince might come, might be here even now, if this grand gentleman should chance to throw the handkerchief. But she, Laura, had passed her youth in a transition period; the pleasures neither of memory nor of hope had been hers--except such memories as came of duty well performed, and such hopes as had no root in anything earthly or corruptible. Graciella was not in a reflective mood, and took up the burden of the conversation where her grandmother had dropped it. Her thoughts were not of the past, but of the future. She asked many eager questions of New York. Was it true that ladies at the Waldorf-Astoria always went to dinner in low-cut bodices with short sleeves, and was evening dress always required at the theatre? Did the old Knickerbocker families recognise the Vanderbilts? Were the Rockefellers anything at all socially? Did he know Ward McAllister, at that period the Beau Brummel of the metropolitan smart set? Was Fifth Avenue losing its pre-eminence? On what days of the week was the Art Museum free to the public? What was the fare to New York, and the best quarter of the city in which to inquire for a quiet, select boarding house where a Southern lady of refinement and good family might stay at a reasonable price, and meet some nice people? And would he recommend stenography or magazine work, and which did he consider preferable, as a career which such a young lady might follow without injury to her social standing? The colonel, with some amusement, answered these artless inquiries as best he could; they came as a refreshing foil to the sweet but melancholy memories of the past. They were interesting, too, from this very pretty but very ignorant little girl in this backward little Southern town. She was a flash of sunlight through a soft gray cloud; a vigorous shoot from an old moss-covered stump--she was life, young life, the vital principle, breaking through the cumbering envelope, and asserting its right to reach the sun. After a while a couple of very young ladies, friends of Graciella, dropped in. They were introduced to the colonel, who found that he had known their fathers, or their mothers, or their grandfathers, or their grandmothers, and that many of them were more or less distantly related. A little later a couple of young men, friends of Graciella's friends--also very young, and very self-conscious--made their appearance, and were duly introduced, in person and by pedigree. The conversation languished for a moment, and then one of the young ladies said something about music, and one of the young men remarked that he had brought over a new song. Graciella begged the colonel to excuse them, and led the way to the parlour, followed by her young friends. Mrs. Treadwell had fallen asleep, and was leaning comfortably back in her armchair. Miss Laura excused herself, brought a veil, and laid it softly across her mother's face. "The night air is not damp," she said, "and it is pleasanter for her here than in the house. She won't mind the music; she is accustomed to it." Graciella went to the piano and with great boldness of touch struck the bizarre opening chords and then launched into the grotesque words of the latest New York "coon song," one of the first and worst of its kind, and the other young people joined in the chorus. It was the first discordant note. At home, the colonel subscribed to the opera, and enjoyed the music. A plantation song of the olden time, as he remembered it, borne upon the evening air, when sung by the tired slaves at the end of their day of toil, would have been pleasing, with its simple melody, its plaintive minor strains, its notes of vague longing; but to the colonel's senses there was to-night no music in this hackneyed popular favourite. In a metropolitan music hall, gaudily bedecked and brilliantly lighted, it would have been tolerable from the lips of a black-face comedian. But in this quiet place, upon this quiet night, and in the colonel's mood, it seemed like profanation. The song of the coloured girl, who had dreamt that she dwelt in marble halls, and the rest, had been less incongruous; it had at least breathed aspiration. Mrs. Treadwell was still dozing in her armchair. The colonel, beckoning Miss Laura to follow him, moved to the farther end of the piazza, where they might not hear the singers and the song. "It is delightful here, Laura. I seem to have renewed my youth. I yield myself a willing victim to the charm of the old place, the old ways, the old friends." "You see our best side, Henry. Night has a kindly hand, that covers our defects, and the starlight throws a glamour over everything. You see us through a haze of tender memories. When you have been here a week, the town will seem dull, and narrow, and sluggish. You will find us ignorant and backward, worshipping our old idols, and setting up no new ones; our young men leaving us, and none coming in to take their place. Had you, and men like you, remained with us, we might have hoped for better things." "And perhaps not, Laura. Environment controls the making of men. Some rise above it, the majority do not. We might have followed in the well-worn rut. But let us not spoil this delightful evening by speaking of anything sad or gloomy. This is your daily life; to me it is like a scene from a play, over which one sighs to see the curtain fall--all enchantment, all light, all happiness." But even while he spoke of light, a shadow loomed up beside them. The coloured woman who had waited at the table came around the house from the back yard and stood by the piazza railing. "Miss Laura!" she called, softly and appealingly. "Kin you come hyuh a minute?" "What is it, Catherine?" "Kin I speak just a word to you, ma'am? It's somethin' partic'lar--mighty partic'lar, ma'am." "Excuse me a minute, Henry," said Miss Laura, rising with evident reluctance. She stepped down from the piazza, and walked beside the woman down one of the garden paths. The colonel, as he sat there smoking--with Miss Laura's permission he had lighted a cigar--could see the light stuff of the lady's gown against the green background, though she was walking in the shadow of the elms. From the murmur which came to him, he gathered that the black woman was pleading earnestly, passionately, and he could hear Miss Laura's regretful voice, as she closed the interview: "I am sorry, Catherine, but it is simply impossible. I would if I could, but I cannot." The woman came back first, and as she passed by an open window, the light fell upon her face, which showed signs of deep distress, hardening already into resignation or despair. She was probably in trouble of some sort, and her mistress had not been able, doubtless for some good reason, to help her out. This suspicion was borne out by the fact that when Miss Laura came back to him, she too seemed troubled. But since she did not speak of the matter, the colonel gave no sign of his own thoughts. "You have said nothing of yourself, Laura," he said, wishing to divert her mind from anything unpleasant. "Tell me something of your own life--it could only be a cheerful theme, for you have means and leisure, and a perfect environment. Tell me of your occupations, your hopes, your aspirations." "There is little enough to tell, Henry," she returned, with a sudden courage, "but that little shall be the truth. You will find it out, if you stay long in town, and I would rather you learned it from our lips than from others less friendly. My mother is--my mother--a dear, sweet woman to whom I have devoted my life! But we are not well off, Henry. Our parlour carpet has been down for twenty-five years; surely you must have recognised the pattern! The house has not been painted for the same length of time; it is of heart pine, and we train the flowers and vines to cover it as much as may be, and there are many others like it, so it is not conspicuous. Our rentable property is three ramshackle cabins on the alley at the rear of the lot, for which we get four dollars a month each, when we can collect it. Our country estate is a few acres of poor land, which we rent on shares, and from which we get a few bushels of corn, an occasional load of firewood, and a few barrels of potatoes. As for my own life, I husband our small resources; I keep the house, and wait on mother, as I have done since she became helpless, ten years ago. I look after Graciella. I teach in the Sunday School, and I give to those less fortunate such help as the poor can give the poor." "How did you come to lose Belleview?" asked the colonel, after a pause. "I had understood Major Treadwell to be one of the few people around here who weathered the storm of war and emerged financially sound." "He did; and he remained so--until he met Mr. Fetters, who had made money out of the war while all the rest were losing. Father despised the slavetrader's son, but admired his ability to get along. Fetters made his acquaintance, flattered him, told him glowing stories of wealth to be made by speculating in cotton and turpentine. Father was not a business man, but he listened. Fetters lent him money, and father lent Fetters money, and they had transactions back and forth, and jointly. Father lost and gained and we had no inkling that he had suffered greatly, until, at his sudden death, Fetters foreclosed a mortgage he held upon Belleview. Mother has always believed there was something wrong about the transaction, and that father was not indebted to Fetters in any such sum as Fetters claimed. But we could find no papers and we had no proof, and Fetters took the plantation for his debt. He changed its name to Sycamore; he wanted a post-office there, and there were too many Belleviews." "Does he own it still?" "Yes, and runs it--with convict labour! The thought makes me shudder! We were rich when he was poor; we are poor and he is rich. But we trust in God, who has never deserted the widow and the fatherless. By His mercy we have lived and, as mother says, held up our heads, not in pride or haughtiness, but in self-respect, for we cannot forget what we were." "Nor what you are, Laura, for you are wonderful," said the colonel, not unwilling to lighten a situation that bordered on intensity. "You should have married and had children. The South needs such mothers as you would have made. Unless the men of Clarendon have lost their discernment, unless chivalry has vanished and the fire died out of the Southern blood, it has not been for lack of opportunity that your name remains unchanged." Miss Laura's cheek flushed unseen in the shadow of the porch. "Ah, Henry, that would be telling! But to marry me, one must have married the family, for I could not have left them--they have had only me. I have not been unhappy. I do not know that I would have had my life different." Graciella and her friends had finished their song, the piano had ceased to sound, and the visitors were taking their leave. Graciella went with them to the gate, where they stood laughing and talking. The colonel looked at his watch by the light of the open door. "It is not late," he said. "If my memory is true, you too played the piano when you--when I was young." "It is the same piano, Henry, and, like our life here, somewhat thin and weak of tone. But if you think it would give you pleasure, I will play--as well as I know how." She readjusted the veil, which had slipped from her mother's face, and they went into the parlour. From a pile of time-stained music she selected a sheet and seated herself at the piano. The colonel stood at her elbow. She had a pretty back, he thought, and a still youthful turn of the head, and still plentiful, glossy brown hair. Her hands were white, slender and well kept, though he saw on the side of the forefinger of her left hand the telltale marks of the needle. The piece was an arrangement of the well-known air from the opera of _Maritana_: _"Scenes that are brightest, May charm awhile, Hearts which are lightest And eyes that smile. Yet o'er them above us, Though nature beam, With none to love us, How sad they seem!"_ Under her sympathetic touch a gentle stream of melody flowed from the old-time piano, scarcely stronger toned in its decrepitude, than the spinet of a former century. A few moments before, under Graciella's vigorous hands, it had seemed to protest at the dissonances it had been compelled to emit; now it seemed to breathe the notes of the old opera with an almost human love and tenderness. It, too, mused the colonel, had lived and loved and was recalling the memories of a brighter past. The music died into silence. Mrs. Treadwell was awake. "Laura!" she called. Miss Treadwell went to the door. "I must have been nodding for a minute. I hope Colonel French did not observe it--it would scarcely seem polite. He hasn't gone yet?" "No, mother, he is in the parlour." "I must be going," said the colonel, who came to the door. "I had almost forgotten Phil, and it is long past his bedtime." Miss Laura went to wake up Phil, who had fallen asleep after supper. He was still rubbing his eyes when the lady led him out. "Wake up, Phil," said the colonel. "It's time to be going. Tell the ladies good night." Graciella came running up the walk. "Why, Colonel French," she cried, "you are not going already? I made the others leave early so that I might talk to you." "My dear young lady," smiled the colonel, "I have already risen to go, and if I stayed longer I might wear out my welcome, and Phil would surely go to sleep again. But I will come another time--I shall stay in town several days." "Yes, _do_ come, if you _must_ go," rejoined Graciella with emphasis. "I want to hear more about the North, and about New York society and--oh, everything! Good night, Philip. _Good_ night, Colonel French." "Beware of the steps, Henry," said Miss Laura, "the bottom stone is loose." They heard his footsteps in the quiet street, and Phil's light patter beside him. "He's a lovely man, isn't he, Aunt Laura?" said Graciella. "He is a gentleman," replied her aunt, with a pensive look at her young niece. "Of the old school," piped Mrs. Treadwell. "And Philip is a sweet child," said Miss Laura. "A chip of the old block," added Mrs. Treadwell. "I remember----" "Yes, mother, you can tell me when I've shut up the house," interrupted Miss Laura. "Put out the lamps, Graciella--there's not much oil--and when you go to bed hang up your gown carefully, for it takes me nearly half an hour to iron it." "And you are right good to do it! Good night, dear Aunt Laura! Good night, grandma!" Mr. French had left the hotel at noon that day as free as air, and he slept well that night, with no sense of the forces that were to constrain his life. And yet the events of the day had started the growth of a dozen tendrils, which were destined to grow, and reach out, and seize and hold him with ties that do not break. _Seven_ The constable who had arrested old Peter led his prisoner away through alleys and quiet streets--though for that matter all the streets of Clarendon were quiet in midafternoon--to a guardhouse or calaboose, constructed of crumbling red brick, with a rusty, barred iron door secured by a heavy padlock. As they approached this structure, which was sufficiently forbidding in appearance to depress the most lighthearted, the strumming of a banjo became audible, accompanying a mellow Negro voice which was singing, to a very ragged ragtime air, words of which the burden was something like this: _"W'at's de use er my wo'kin' so hahd? I got a' 'oman in de white man's yahd. W'en she cook chicken, she save me a wing; W'en dey 'low I'm wo'kin', I ain' doin' a thing!"_ The grating of the key in the rusty lock interrupted the song. The constable thrust his prisoner into the dimly lighted interior, and locked the door. "Keep over to the right," he said curtly, "that's the niggers' side." "But, Mistah Haines," asked Peter, excitedly, "is I got to stay here all night? I ain' done nuthin'." "No, that's the trouble; you ain't done nuthin' fer a month, but loaf aroun'. You ain't got no visible means of suppo't, so you're took up for vagrancy." "But I does wo'k we'n I kin git any wo'k ter do," the old man expostulated. "An' ef I kin jus' git wo'd ter de right w'ite folks, I'll be outer here in half a' hour; dey'll go my bail." "They can't go yo' bail to-night, fer the squire's gone home. I'll bring you some bread and meat, an' some whiskey if you want it, and you'll be tried to-morrow mornin'." Old Peter still protested. "You niggers are always kickin'," said the constable, who was not without a certain grim sense of humour, and not above talking to a Negro when there were no white folks around to talk to, or to listen. "I never see people so hard to satisfy. You ain' got no home, an' here I've give' you a place to sleep, an' you're kickin'. You doan know from one day to another where you'll git yo' meals, an' I offer you bread and meat and whiskey--an' you're kickin'! You say you can't git nothin' to do, an' yit with the prospect of a reg'lar job befo' you to-morrer--you're kickin'! I never see the beat of it in all my bo'n days." When the constable, chuckling at his own humour, left the guardhouse, he found his way to a nearby barroom, kept by one Clay Jackson, a place with an evil reputation as the resort of white men of a low class. Most crimes of violence in the town could be traced to its influence, and more than one had been committed within its walls. "Has Mr. Turner been in here?" demanded Haines of the man in charge. The bartender, with a backward movement of his thumb, indicated a door opening into a room at the rear. Here the constable found his man--a burly, bearded giant, with a red face, a cunning eye and an overbearing manner. He had a bottle and a glass before him, and was unsociably drinking alone. "Howdy, Haines," said Turner, "How's things? How many have you got this time?" "I've got three rounded up, Mr. Turner, an' I'll take up another befo' night. That'll make fo'--fifty dollars fer me, an' the res' fer the squire." "That's good," rejoined Turner. "Have a glass of liquor. How much do you s'pose the Squire'll fine Bud?" "Well," replied Haines, drinking down the glass of whiskey at a gulp, "I reckon about twenty-five dollars." "You can make it fifty just as easy," said Turner. "Niggers are all just a passell o' black fools. Bud would 'a' b'en out now, if it hadn't be'n for me. I bought him fer six months. I kept close watch of him for the first five, and then along to'ds the middle er the las' month I let on I'd got keerliss, an' he run away. Course I put the dawgs on 'im, an' followed 'im here, where his woman is, an' got you after 'im, and now he's good for six months more." "The woman is a likely gal an' a good cook," said Haines. "_She'd_ be wuth a good 'eal to you out at the stockade." "That's a shore fact," replied the other, "an' I need another good woman to help aroun'. If we'd 'a' thought about it, an' give' her a chance to hide Bud and feed him befo' you took 'im up, we could 'a' filed a charge ag'inst her for harborin' 'im." "Well, I kin do it nex' time, fer he'll run away ag'in--they always do. Bud's got a vile temper." "Yes, but he's a good field-hand, and I'll keep his temper down. Have somethin' mo'?" "I've got to go back now and feed the pris'ners," said Haines, rising after he had taken another drink; "an' I'll stir Bud up so he'll raise h--ll, an' to-morrow morning I'll make another charge against him that'll fetch his fine up to fifty and costs." "Which will give 'im to me till the cotton crop is picked, and several months more to work on the Jackson Swamp ditch if Fetters gits the contract. You stand by us here, Haines, an' help me git all the han's I can out o' this county, and I'll give you a job at Sycamo' when yo'r time's up here as constable. Go on and feed the niggers, an' stir up Bud, and I'll be on hand in the mornin' when court opens." When the lesser of these precious worthies left his superior to his cups, he stopped in the barroom and bought a pint of rotgut whiskey--a cheap brand of rectified spirits coloured and flavoured to resemble the real article, to which it bore about the relation of vitriol to lye. He then went into a cheap eating house, conducted by a Negro for people of his own kind, where he procured some slices of fried bacon, and some soggy corn bread, and with these various purchases, wrapped in a piece of brown paper, he betook himself to the guardhouse. He unlocked the door, closed it behind him, and called Peter. The old man came forward. "Here, Peter," said Haines, "take what you want of this, and give some to them other fellows, and if there's anything left after you've got what you want, throw it to that sulky black hound over yonder in the corner." He nodded toward a young Negro in the rear of the room, the Bud Johnson who had been the subject of the conversation with Turner. Johnson replied with a curse. The constable advanced menacingly, his hand moving toward his pocket. Quick as a flash the Negro threw himself upon him. The other prisoners, from instinct, or prudence, or hope of reward, caught him, pulled him away and held him off until Haines, pale with rage, rose to his feet and began kicking his assailant vigorously. With the aid of well-directed blows of his fists he forced the Negro down, who, unable to regain his feet, finally, whether from fear or exhaustion, lay inert, until the constable, having worked off his worst anger, and not deeming it to his advantage seriously to disable the prisoner, in whom he had a pecuniary interest, desisted from further punishment. "I might send you to the penitentiary for this," he said, panting for breath, "but I'll send you to h--ll instead. You'll be sold back to Mr. Fetters for a year or two tomorrow, and in three months I'll be down at Sycamore as an overseer, and then I'll learn you to strike a white man, you----" The remainder of the objurgation need not be told, but there was no doubt, from the expression on Haines's face, that he meant what he said, and that he would take pleasure in repaying, in overflowing measure, any arrears of revenge against the offending prisoner which he might consider his due. He had stirred Bud up very successfully--much more so, indeed, than he had really intended. He had meant to procure evidence against Bud, but had hardly thought to carry it away in the shape of a black eye and a swollen nose. _Eight_ When the colonel set out next morning for a walk down the main street, he had just breakfasted on boiled brook trout, fresh laid eggs, hot muffins and coffee, and was feeling at peace with all mankind. He was alone, having left Phil in charge of the hotel housekeeper. He had gone only a short distance when he reached a door around which several men were lounging, and from which came the sound of voices and loud laughter. Stopping, he looked with some curiosity into the door, over which there was a faded sign to indicate that it was the office of a Justice of the Peace--a pleasing collocation of words, to those who could divorce it from any technical significance--Justice, Peace--the seed and the flower of civilisation. An unwashed, dingy-faced young negro, clothed in rags unspeakably vile, which scarcely concealed his nakedness, was standing in the midst of a group of white men, toward whom he threw now and then a shallow and shifty glance. The air was heavy with the odour of stale tobacco, and the floor dotted with discarded portions of the weed. A white man stood beside a desk and was addressing the audience: "Now, gentlemen, here's Lot Number Three, a likely young nigger who answers to the name of Sam Brown. Not much to look at, but will make a good field hand, if looked after right and kept away from liquor; used to workin', when in the chain gang, where he's been, off and on, since he was ten years old. Amount of fine an' costs thirty-seven dollars an' a half. A musical nigger, too, who plays the banjo, an' sings jus' like a--like a blackbird. What am I bid for this prime lot?" The negro threw a dull glance around the crowd with an air of detachment which seemed to say that he was not at all interested in the proceedings. The colonel viewed the scene with something more than curious interest. The fellow looked like an habitual criminal, or at least like a confirmed loafer. This must be one of the idle and worthless blacks with so many of whom the South was afflicted. This was doubtless the method provided by law for dealing with them. "One year," answered a voice. "Nine months," said a second. "Six months," came a third bid, from a tall man with a buggy whip under his arm. "Are you all through, gentlemen? Six months' labour for thirty-seven fifty is mighty cheap, and you know the law allows you to keep the labourer up to the mark. Are you all done? Sold to Mr. Turner, for Mr. Fetters, for six months." The prisoner's dull face showed some signs of apprehension when the name of his purchaser was pronounced, and he shambled away uneasily under the constable's vigilant eye. "The case of the State against Bud Johnson is next in order. Bring in the prisoner." The constable brought in the prisoner, handcuffed, and placed him in front of the Justice's desk, where he remained standing. He was a short, powerfully built negro, seemingly of pure blood, with a well-rounded head, not unduly low in the brow and quite broad between the ears. Under different circumstances his countenance might have been pleasing; at present it was set in an expression of angry defiance. He had walked with a slight limp, there were several contusions upon his face; and upon entering the room he had thrown a defiant glance around him, which had not quailed even before the stern eye of the tall man, Turner, who, as the agent of the absent Fetters, had bid on Sam Brown. His face then hardened into the blank expression of one who stands in a hostile presence. "Bud Johnson," said the justice, "you are charged with escaping from the service into which you were sold to pay the fine and costs on a charge of vagrancy. What do you plead--guilty or not guilty?" The prisoner maintained a sullen silence. "I'll enter a plea of not guilty. The record of this court shows that you were convicted of vagrancy on December 26th, and sold to Mr. Fetters for four months to pay your fine and costs. The four months won't be up for a week. Mr. Turner may be sworn." Turner swore to Bud's escape and his pursuit. Haines testified to his capture. "Have you anything to say?" asked the justice. "What's de use er my sayin' anything," muttered the Negro. "It won't make no diff'ence. I didn' do nothin', in de fus' place, ter be fine' fer, an' run away 'cause dey did n' have no right ter keep me dere." "Guilty. Twenty-five dollars an' costs. You are also charged with resisting the officer who made the arrest. Guilty or not guilty? Since you don't speak, I'll enter a plea of not guilty. Mr. Haines may be sworn." Haines swore that the prisoner had resisted arrest, and had only been captured by the display of a loaded revolver. The prisoner was convicted and fined twenty-five dollars and costs for this second offense. The third charge, for disorderly conduct in prison, was quickly disposed of, and a fine of twenty-five dollars and costs levied. "You may consider yo'self lucky," said the magistrate, "that Mr. Haines didn't prefer a mo' serious charge against you. Many a nigger has gone to the gallows for less. And now, gentlemen, I want to clean this case up right here. How much time is offered for the fine and costs of the prisoner, Bud Johnson, amounting to seventy-five dollars fine and thirty-three dollars and fifty-fo' cents costs? You've heard the evidence an' you see the nigger. Ef there ain't much competition for his services and the time is a long one, he'll have his own stubbornness an' deviltry to thank for it. He's strong and healthy and able to do good work for any one that can manage him." There was no immediate response. Turner walked forward and viewed the prisoner from head to foot with a coldly sneering look. "Well, Bud," he said, "I reckon we'll hafter try it ag'in. I have never yet allowed a nigger to git the better o' me, an', moreover, I never will. I'll bid eighteen months, Squire; an' that's all he's worth, with his keep." There was no competition, and the prisoner was knocked down to Turner, for Fetters, for eighteen months. "Lock 'im up till I'm ready to go, Bill," said Turner to the constable, "an' just leave the irons on him. I'll fetch 'em back next time I come to town." The unconscious brutality of the proceeding grated harshly upon the colonel's nerves. Delinquents of some kind these men must be, who were thus dealt with; but he had lived away from the South so long that so sudden an introduction to some of its customs came with something of a shock. He had remembered the pleasant things, and these but vaguely, since his thoughts and his interests had been elsewhere; and in the sifting process of a healthy memory he had forgotten the disagreeable things altogether. He had found the pleasant things still in existence, faded but still fragrant. Fresh from a land of labour unions, and of struggle for wealth and power, of strivings first for equality with those above, and, this attained, for a point of vantage to look down upon former equals, he had found in old Peter, only the day before, a touching loyalty to a family from which he could no longer expect anything in return. Fresh from a land of women's clubs and women's claims, he had reveled last night in the charming domestic, life of the old South, so perfectly preserved in a quiet household. Things Southern, as he had already reflected, lived long and died hard, and these things which he saw now in the clear light of day, were also of the South, and singularly suggestive of other things Southern which he had supposed outlawed and discarded long ago. "Now, Mr. Haines, bring in the next lot," said the Squire. The constable led out an old coloured man, clad in a quaint assortment of tattered garments, whom the colonel did not for a moment recognise, not having, from where he stood, a full view of the prisoner's face. "Gentlemen, I now call yo'r attention to Lot Number Fo', left over from befo' the wah; not much for looks, but respectful and obedient, and accustomed, for some time past, to eat very little. Can be made useful in many ways--can feed the chickens, take care of the children, or would make a good skeercrow. What I am bid, gentlemen, for ol' Peter French? The amount due the co't is twenty-fo' dollahs and a half." There was some laughter at the Squire's facetiousness. Turner, who had bid on the young and strong men, turned away unconcernedly. "You'd 'a' made a good auctioneer, Squire," said the one-armed man. "Thank you, Mr. Pearsall. How much am I offered for this bargain?" "He'd be dear at any price," said one. "It's a great risk," observed a second. "Ten yeahs," said a third. "You're takin' big chances, Mr. Bennet," said another. "He'll die in five, and you'll have to bury him." "I withdraw the bid," said Mr. Bennet promptly. "Two yeahs," said another. The colonel was boiling over with indignation. His interest in the fate of the other prisoners had been merely abstract; in old Peter's case it assumed a personal aspect. He forced himself into the room and to the front. "May I ask the meaning of this proceeding?" he demanded. "Well, suh," replied the Justice, "I don't know who you are, or what right you have to interfere, but this is the sale of a vagrant nigger, with no visible means of suppo't. Perhaps, since you're interested, you'd like to bid on 'im. Are you from the No'th, likely?" "Yes." "I thought, suh, that you looked like a No'the'n man. That bein' so, doubtless you'd like somethin' on the Uncle Tom order. Old Peter's fine is twenty dollars, and the costs fo' dollars and a half. The prisoner's time is sold to whoever pays his fine and allows him the shortest time to work it out. When his time's up, he goes free." "And what has old Peter done to deserve a fine of twenty dollars--more money than he perhaps has ever had at any one time?" "'Deed, it is, Mars Henry, 'deed it is!" exclaimed Peter, fervently. "Peter has not been able," replied the magistrate, "to show this co't that he has reg'lar employment, or means of suppo't, and he was therefore tried and convicted yesterday evenin' of vagrancy, under our State law. The fine is intended to discourage laziness and to promote industry. Do you want to bid, suh? I'm offered two yeahs, gentlemen, for old Peter French? Does anybody wish to make it less?" "I'll pay the fine," said the colonel, "let him go." "I beg yo' pahdon, suh, but that wouldn't fulfil the requi'ments of the law. He'd be subject to arrest again immediately. Somebody must take the responsibility for his keep." "I'll look after him," said the colonel shortly. "In order to keep the docket straight," said the justice, "I should want to note yo' bid. How long shall I say?" "Say what you like," said the colonel, drawing out his pocketbook. "You don't care to bid, Mr. Turner?" asked the justice. "Not by a damn sight," replied Turner, with native elegance. "I buy niggers to work, not to bury." "I withdraw my bid in favour of the gentleman," said the two-year bidder. "Thank you," said the colonel. "Remember, suh," said the justice to the colonel, "that you are responsible for his keep as well as entitled to his labour, for the period of your bid. How long shall I make it?" "As long as you please," said the colonel impatiently. "Sold," said the justice, bringing down his gavel, "for life, to--what name, suh?" "French--Henry French." There was some manifestation of interest in the crowd; and the colonel was stared at with undisguised curiosity as he paid the fine and costs, which included two dollars for two meals in the guardhouse, and walked away with his purchase--a purchase which his father had made, upon terms not very different, fifty years before. "One of the old Frenches," I reckon, said a bystander, "come back on a visit." "Yes," said another, "old 'ristocrats roun' here. Well, they ought to take keer of their old niggers. They got all the good out of 'em when they were young. But they're not runnin' things now." An hour later the colonel, driving leisurely about the outskirts of the town and seeking to connect his memories more closely with the scenes around him, met a buggy in which sat the man Turner. After the buggy, tied behind one another to a rope, like a coffle of slaves, marched the three Negroes whose time he had bought at the constable's sale. Among them, of course, was the young man who had been called Bud Johnson. The colonel observed that this Negro's face, when turned toward the white man in front of him, expressed a fierce hatred, as of some wild thing of the woods, which finding itself trapped and betrayed, would go to any length to injure its captor. Turner passed the colonel with no sign of recognition or greeting. Bud Johnson evidently recognised the friendly gentleman who had interfered in Peter's case. He threw toward the colonel a look which resembled an appeal; but it was involuntary, and lasted but a moment, and, when the prisoner became conscious of it, and realised its uselessness, it faded into the former expression. What the man's story was, the colonel did not know, nor what were his deserts. But the events of the day had furnished food for reflection. Evidently Clarendon needed new light and leading. Men, even black men, with something to live for, and with work at living wages, would scarcely prefer an enforced servitude in ropes and chains. And the punishment had scarcely seemed to fit the crime. He had observed no great zeal for work among the white people since he came to town; such work as he had seen done was mostly performed by Negroes. If idleness were a crime, the Negroes surely had no monopoly of it. _Nine_ Furnished with money for his keep, Peter was ordered if again molested to say that he was in the colonel's service. The latter, since his own plans were for the present uncertain, had no very clear idea of what disposition he would ultimately make of the old man, but he meant to provide in some way for his declining years. He also bought Peter a neat suit of clothes at a clothing store, and directed him to present himself at the hotel on the following morning. The interval would give the colonel time to find something for Peter to do, so that he would be able to pay him a wage. To his contract with the county he attached little importance; he had already intended, since their meeting in the cemetery, to provide for Peter in some way, and the legal responsibility was no additional burden. To Peter himself, to whose homeless old age food was more than philosophy, the arrangement seemed entirely satisfactory. Colonel French's presence in Clarendon had speedily become known to the public. Upon his return to the hotel, after leaving Peter to his own devices for the day, he found several cards in his letter box, left by gentlemen who had called, during his absence, to see him. The daily mail had also come in, and the colonel sat down in the office to read it. There was a club notice, and several letters that had been readdressed and forwarded, and a long one from Kirby in reference to some detail of the recent transfer. Before he had finished reading these, a gentleman came up and introduced himself. He proved to be one John McLean, an old schoolmate of the colonel, and later a comrade-in-arms, though the colonel would never have recognised a rather natty major in his own regiment in this shabby middle-aged man, whose shoes were run down at the heel, whose linen was doubtful, and spotted with tobacco juice. The major talked about the weather, which was cool for the season; about the Civil War, about politics, and about the Negroes, who were very trifling, the major said. While they were talking upon this latter theme, there was some commotion in the street, in front of the hotel, and looking up they saw that a horse, attached to a loaded wagon, had fallen in the roadway, and having become entangled in the harness, was kicking furiously. Five or six Negroes were trying to quiet the animal, and release him from the shafts, while a dozen white men looked on and made suggestions. "An illustration," said the major, pointing through the window toward the scene without, "of what we've got to contend with. Six niggers can't get one horse up without twice as many white men to tell them how. That's why the South is behind the No'th. The niggers, in one way or another, take up most of our time and energy. You folks up there have half your work done before we get our'n started." The horse, pulled this way and that, in obedience to the conflicting advice of the bystanders, only became more and more intricately entangled. He had caught one foot in a manner that threatened, with each frantic jerk, to result in a broken leg, when the colonel, leaving his visitor without ceremony, ran out into the street, leaned down, and with a few well-directed movements, released the threatened limb. "Now, boys," he said, laying hold of the prostrate animal, "give a hand here." The Negroes, and, after some slight hesitation, one or two white men, came to the colonel's aid, and in a moment, the horse, trembling and blowing, was raised to its feet. The driver thanked the colonel and the others who had befriended him, and proceeded with his load. When the flurry of excitement was over, the colonel went back to the hotel and resumed the conversation with his friend. If the new franchise amendment went through, said the major, the Negro would be eliminated from politics, and the people of the South, relieved of the fear of "nigger domination," could give their attention to better things, and their section would move forward along the path of progress by leaps and bounds. Of himself the major said little except that he had been an alternate delegate to the last Democratic National Nominating Convention, and that he expected to run for coroner at the next county election. "If I can secure the suppo't of Mr. Fetters in the primaries," he said, "my nomination is assured, and a nomination is of co'se equivalent to an election. But I see there are some other gentlemen that would like to talk to you, and I won't take any mo' of yo' time at present." "Mr. Blake," he said, addressing a gentleman with short side-whiskers who was approaching them, "have you had the pleasure of meeting Colonel French?" "No, suh," said the stranger, "I shall be glad to have the honour of an introduction at your hands." "Colonel French, Mr. Blake--Mr. Blake, Colonel French. You gentlemen will probably like to talk to one another, because you both belong to the same party, I reckon. Mr. Blake is a new man roun' heah--come down from the mountains not mo' than ten yeahs ago, an' fetched his politics with him; but since he was born that way we don't entertain any malice against him. Mo'over, he's not a 'Black and Tan Republican,' but a 'Lily White.'" "Yes, sir," said Mr. Blake, taking the colonel's hand, "I believe in white supremacy, and the elimination of the nigger vote. If the National Republican Party would only ignore the coloured politicians, and give all the offices to white men, we'll soon build up a strong white Republican party. If I had the post-office here at Clarendon, with the encouragement it would give, and the aid of my clerks and subo'dinates, I could double the white Republican vote in this county in six months." The major had left them together, and the Lily White, ere he in turn made way for another caller, suggested delicately, that he would appreciate any good word that the colonel might be able to say for him in influential quarters--either personally or through friends who might have the ear of the executive or those close to him--in reference to the postmastership. Realising that the present administration was a business one, in which sentiment played small part, he had secured the endorsement of the leading business men of the county, even that of Mr. Fetters himself. Mr. Fetters was of course a Democrat, but preferred, since the office must go to a Republican, that it should go to a Lily White. "I hope to see mo' of you, sir," he said, "and I take pleasure in introducing the Honourable Henry Clay Appleton, editor of our local newspaper, the _Anglo-Saxon_. He and I may not agree on free silver and the tariff, but we are entirely in harmony on the subject indicated by the title of his newspaper. Mr. Appleton not only furnishes all the news that's fit to read, but he represents this county in the Legislature, along with Mr. Fetters, and he will no doubt be the next candidate for Congress from this district. He can tell you all that's worth knowin' about Clarendon." The colonel shook hands with the editor, who had come with a twofold intent--to make the visitor's acquaintance and to interview him upon his impressions of the South. Incidentally he gave the colonel a great deal of information about local conditions. These were not, he admitted, ideal. The town was backward. It needed capital to develop its resources, and it needed to be rid of the fear of Negro domination. The suffrage in the hands of the Negroes had proved a ghastly and expensive joke for all concerned, and the public welfare absolutely demanded that it be taken away. Even the white Republicans were coming around to the same point of view. The new franchise amendment to the State constitution was receiving their unqualified support. "That was a fine, chivalrous deed of yours this morning, sir," he said, "at Squire Reddick's office. It was just what might have been expected from a Southern gentleman; for we claim you, colonel, in spite of your long absence." "Yes," returned the colonel, "I don't know what I rescued old Peter from. It looked pretty dark for him there for a little while. I shouldn't have envied his fate had he been bought in by the tall fellow who represented your colleague in the Legislature. The law seems harsh." "Well," admitted the editor, "I suppose it might seem harsh, in comparison with your milder penal systems up North. But you must consider the circumstances, and make allowances for us. We have so many idle, ignorant Negroes that something must be done to make them work, or else they'll steal, and to keep them in their place, or they would run over us. The law has been in operation only a year or two, and is already having its effect. I'll be glad to introduce a bill for its repeal, as soon as it is no longer needed. "You must bear in mind, too, colonel, that niggers don't look at imprisonment and enforced labour in the same way white people do--they are not conscious of any disgrace attending stripes or the ball and chain. The State is poor; our white children are suffering for lack of education, and yet we have to spend a large amount of money on the Negro schools. These convict labour contracts are a source of considerable revenue to the State; they make up, in fact, for most of the outlay for Negro education--which I approve of, though I'm frank to say that so far I don't see much good that's come from it. This convict labour is humanely treated; Mr. Fetters has the contract for several counties, and anybody who knows Mr. Fetters knows that there's no kinder-hearted man in the South." The colonel disclaimed any intention of criticising. He had come back to his old home for a brief visit, to rest and to observe. He was willing to learn and anxious to please. The editor took copious notes of the interview, and upon his departure shook hands with the colonel cordially. The colonel had tactfully let his visitors talk, while he listened, or dropped a word here and there to draw them out. One fact was driven home to him by every one to whom he had spoken. Fetters dominated the county and the town, and apparently the State. His name was on every lip. His influence was indispensable to every political aspirant. His acquaintance was something to boast of, and his good will held a promise of success. And the colonel had once kicked the Honourable Mr. Fetters, then plain Bill, in presence of an admiring audience, all the way down Main Street from the academy to the bank! Bill had been, to all intents and purposes, a poor white boy; who could not have named with certainty his own grandfather. The Honourable William was undoubtedly a man of great ability. Had the colonel remained in his native State, would he have been able, he wondered, to impress himself so deeply upon the community? Would blood have been of any advantage, under the changed conditions, or would it have been a drawback to one who sought political advancement? When the colonel was left alone, he went to look for Phil, who was playing with the children of the landlord, in the hotel parlour. Commending him to the care of the Negro maid in charge of them, he left the hotel and called on several gentlemen whose cards he had found in his box at the clerk's desk. Their stores and offices were within a short radius of the hotel. They were all glad to see him, and if there was any initial stiffness or shyness in the attitude of any one, it soon became the warmest cordiality under the influence of the colonel's simple and unostentatious bearing. If he compared the cut of their clothes or their beards to his own, to their disadvantage, or if he found their views narrow and provincial, he gave no sign--their hearts were warm and their welcome hearty. The colonel was not able to gather, from the conversation of his friends, that Clarendon, or any one in the town--always excepting Fetters, who did not live in the town, but merely overshadowed it--was especially prosperous. There were no mills or mines in the neighbourhood, except a few grist mills, and a sawmill. The bulk of the business consisted in supplying the needs of an agricultural population, and trading in their products. The cotton was baled and shipped to the North, and re-imported for domestic use, in the shape of sheeting and other stuffs. The corn was shipped to the North, and came back in the shape of corn meal and salt pork, the staple articles of diet. Beefsteak and butter were brought from the North, at twenty-five and fifty cents a pound respectively. There were cotton merchants, and corn and feed merchants; there were dry-goods and grocery stores, drug stores and saloons--and more saloons--and the usual proportion of professional men. Since Clarendon was the county seat, there were of course a court house and a jail. There were churches enough, if all filled at once, to hold the entire population of the town, and preachers in proportion. The merchants, of whom a number were Jewish, periodically went into bankruptcy; the majority of their customers did likewise, and thus a fellow-feeling was promoted, and the loss thrown back as far as possible. The lands of the large farmers were mostly mortgaged, either to Fetters, or to the bank of which he was the chief stockholder, for all that could be borrowed on them; while the small farmers, many of whom were coloured, were practically tied to the soil by ropes of debt and chains of contract. Every one the colonel met during the afternoon had heard of Squire Reddick's good joke of the morning. That he should have sold Peter to the colonel for life was regarded as extremely clever. Some of them knew old Peter, and none of them had ever known any harm of him, and they were unanimous in their recognition and applause of the colonel's goodheartedness. Moreover, it was an index of the colonel's views. He was one of them, by descent and early associations, but he had been away a long time, and they hadn't really known how much of a Yankee he might have become. By his whimsical and kindly purchase of old Peter's time--or of old Peter, as they smilingly put it, he had shown his appreciation of the helplessness of the Negroes, and of their proper relations to the whites. "What'll you do with him, Colonel?" asked one gentleman. "An ole nigger like Peter couldn't live in the col' No'th. You'll have to buy a place down here to keep 'im. They wouldn' let you own a nigger at the No'th." The remark, with the genial laugh accompanying it, was sounding in the colonel's ears, as, on the way back to the hotel, he stepped into the barber shop. The barber, who had also heard the story, was bursting with a desire to unbosom himself upon the subject. Knowing from experience that white gentlemen, in their intercourse with coloured people, were apt to be, in the local phrase; "sometimey," or uncertain in their moods, he first tested, with a few remarks about the weather, the colonel's amiability, and finding him approachable, proved quite talkative and confidential. "You're Colonel French, ain't you, suh?" he asked as he began applying the lather. "Yes." "Yes, suh; I had heard you wuz in town, an' I wuz hopin' you would come in to get shaved. An' w'en I heard 'bout yo' noble conduc' this mawnin' at Squire Reddick's I wanted you to come in all de mo', suh. Ole Uncle Peter has had a lot er bad luck in his day, but he has fell on his feet dis time, suh, sho's you bawn. I'm right glad to see you, suh. I feels closer to you, suh, than I does to mos' white folks, because you know, colonel, I'm livin' in the same house you wuz bawn in." "Oh, you are the Nichols, are you, who bought our old place?" "Yes, suh, William Nichols, at yo' service, suh. I've own' de ole house fer twenty yeahs or mo' now, suh, an' we've b'en mighty comfo'table in it, suh. They is a spaciousness, an' a air of elegant sufficiency about the environs and the equipments of the ed'fice, suh, that does credit to the tas'e of the old aristocracy an' of you-all's family, an' teches me in a sof' spot. For I loves the aristocracy; an' I've often tol' my ol' lady, 'Liza,' says I, 'ef I'd be'n bawn white I sho' would 'a' be'n a 'ristocrat. I feels it in my bones.'" While the barber babbled on with his shrewd flattery, which was sincere enough to carry a reasonable amount of conviction, the colonel listened with curiously mingled feelings. He recalled each plank, each pane of glass, every inch of wall, in the old house. No spot was without its associations. How many a brilliant scene of gaiety had taken place in the spacious parlour where bright eyes had sparkled, merry feet had twinkled, and young hearts beat high with love and hope and joy of living! And not only joy had passed that way, but sorrow. In the front upper chamber his mother had died. Vividly he recalled, as with closed eyes he lay back under the barber's skilful hand, their last parting and his own poignant grief; for she had been not only his mother, but a woman of character, who commanded respect and inspired affection; a beautiful woman whom he had loved with a devotion that bordered on reverence. Romance, too, had waved her magic wand over the old homestead. His memory smiled indulgently as he recalled one scene. In a corner of the broad piazza, he had poured out his youthful heart, one summer evening, in strains of passionate devotion, to his first love, a beautiful woman of thirty who was visiting his mother, and who had told him between smiles and tears, to be a good boy and wait a little longer, until he was sure of his own mind. Even now, he breathed, in memory, the heavy odour of the magnolia blossoms which overhung the long wooden porch bench or "jogging board" on which the lady sat, while he knelt on the hard floor before her. He felt very young indeed after she had spoken, but her caressing touch upon his hair had so stirred his heart that his vanity had suffered no wound. Why, the family had owned the house since they had owned the cemetery lot! It was hallowed by a hundred memories, and now!---- "Will you have oil on yo' hair, suh, or bay rum?" "Nichols," exclaimed the colonel, "I should like to buy back the old house. What do you want for it?" "Why, colonel," stammered the barber, somewhat taken aback at the suddenness of the offer, "I hadn' r'ally thought 'bout sellin' it. You see, suh, I've had it now for twenty years, and it suits me, an' my child'en has growed up in it--an' it kind of has associations, suh." In principle the colonel was an ardent democrat; he believed in the rights of man, and extended the doctrine to include all who bore the human form. But in feeling he was an equally pronounced aristocrat. A servant's rights he would have defended to the last ditch; familiarity he would have resented with equal positiveness. Something of this ancestral feeling stirred within him now. While Nichols's position in reference to the house was, in principle, equally as correct as the colonel's own, and superior in point of time--since impressions, like photographs, are apt to grow dim with age, and Nichols's were of much more recent date--the barber's display of sentiment only jarred the colonel's sensibilities and strengthened his desire. "I should advise you to speak up, Nichols," said the colonel. "I had no notion of buying the place when I came in, and I may not be of the same mind to-morrow. Name your own price, but now's your time." The barber caught his breath. Such dispatch was unheard-of in Clarendon. But Nichols, a keen-eyed mulatto, was a man of thrift and good sense. He would have liked to consult his wife and children about the sale, but to lose an opportunity to make a good profit was to fly in the face of Providence. The house was very old. It needed shingling and painting. The floors creaked; the plaster on the walls was loose; the chimneys needed pointing and the insurance was soon renewable. He owned a smaller house in which he could live. He had been told to name his price; it was as much better to make it too high than too low, as it was easier to come down than to go up. The would-be purchaser was a rich man; the diamond on the third finger of his left hand alone would buy a small house. "I think, suh," he said, at a bold venture, "that fo' thousand dollars would be 'bout right." "I'll take it," returned the colonel, taking out his pocket-book. "Here's fifty dollars to bind the bargain. I'll write a receipt for you to sign." The barber brought pen, ink and paper, and restrained his excitement sufficiently to keep silent, while the colonel wrote a receipt embodying the terms of the contract, and signed it with a steady hand. "Have the deed drawn up as soon as you like," said the colonel, as he left the shop, "and when it is done I'll give you a draft for the money." "Yes, suh; thank you, suh, thank you, colonel." The barber had bought the house at a tax sale at a time of great financial distress, twenty years before, for five hundred dollars. He had made a very good sale, and he lost no time in having the deed drawn up. When the colonel reached the hotel, he found Phil seated on the doorstep with a little bow-legged black boy and a little white dog. Phil, who had a large heart, had fraternised with the boy and fallen in love with the dog. "Papa," he said, "I want to buy this dog. His name is Rover; he can shake hands, and I like him very much. This little boy wants ten cents for him, and I did not have the money. I asked him to wait until you came. May I buy him?" "Certainly, Phil. Here, boy!" The colonel threw the black boy a silver dollar. Phil took the dog under his arm and followed his father into the house, while the other boy, his glistening eyes glued to the coin in his hand, scampered off as fast as his limbs would carry him. He was back next morning with a pretty white kitten, but the colonel discouraged any further purchases for the time being. * * * * * "My dear Laura," said the colonel when he saw his friend the same evening, "I have been in Clarendon two days; and I have already bought a dog, a house and a man." Miss Laura was startled. "I don't understand," she said. The colonel proceeded to explain the transaction by which he had acquired, for life, the services of old Peter. "I suppose it is the law," Miss Laura said, "but it seems hardly right. I had thought we were well rid of slavery. White men do not work any too much. Old Peter was not idle. He did odd jobs, when he could get them; he was polite and respectful; and it was an outrage to treat him so. I am glad you--hired him." "Yes--hired him. Moreover, Laura. I have bought a house." "A house! Then you are going to stay! I am so glad! we shall all be so glad. What house?" "The old place. I went into the barber shop. The barber complimented me on the family taste in architecture, and grew sentimental about _his_ associations with the house. This awoke _my_ associations, and the collocation jarred--I was selfish enough to want a monopoly of the associations. I bought the house from him before I left the shop." "But what will you do with it?" asked Miss Laura, puzzled. "You could never _live_ in it again--after a coloured family?" "Why not? It is no less the old house because the barber has reared his brood beneath its roof. There were always Negroes in it when we were there--the place swarmed with them. Hammer and plane, soap and water, paper and paint, can make it new again. The barber, I understand, is a worthy man, and has reared a decent family. His daughter plays the piano, and sings: _'I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls, With vassals and serfs by my side.'_ I heard her as I passed there yesterday." Miss Laura gave an apprehensive start. "There were Negroes in the house in the old days," he went on unnoticing, "and surely a good old house, gone farther astray than ours, might still be redeemed to noble ends. I shall renovate it and live in it while I am here, and at such times as I may return; or if I should tire of it, I can give it to the town for a school, or for a hospital--there is none here. I should like to preserve, so far as I may, the old associations--_my_ associations. The house might not fall again into hands as good as those of Nichols, and I should like to know that it was devoted to some use that would keep the old name alive in the community." "I think, Henry," said Miss Laura, "that if your visit is long enough, you will do more for the town than if you had remained here all your life. For you have lived in a wider world, and acquired a broader view; and you have learned new things without losing your love for the old." _Ten_ The deed for the house was executed on Friday, Nichols agreeing to give possession within a week. The lavishness of the purchase price was a subject of much remark in the town, and Nichols's good fortune was congratulated or envied, according to the temper of each individual. The colonel's action in old Peter's case had made him a name for generosity. His reputation for wealth was confirmed by this reckless prodigality. There were some small souls, of course, among the lower whites who were heard to express disgust that, so far, only "niggers" had profited by the colonel's visit. The _Anglo-Saxon_, which came out Saturday morning, gave a large amount of space to Colonel French and his doings. Indeed, the two compositors had remained up late the night before, setting up copy, and the pressman had not reached home until three o'clock; the kerosene oil in the office gave out, and it was necessary to rouse a grocer at midnight to replenish the supply--so far had the advent of Colonel French affected the life of the town. The _Anglo-Saxon_ announced that Colonel Henry French, formerly of Clarendon, who had won distinction in the Confederate Army, and since the war achieved fortune at the North, had returned to visit his birthplace and his former friends. The hope was expressed that Colonel French, who had recently sold out to a syndicate his bagging mills in Connecticut, might seek investments in the South, whose vast undeveloped resources needed only the fructifying flow of abundant capital to make it blossom like the rose. The New South, the _Anglo-Saxon_ declared, was happy to welcome capital and enterprise, and hoped that Colonel French might find, in Clarendon, an agreeable residence, and an attractive opening for his trained business energies. That something of the kind was not unlikely, might be gathered from the fact that Colonel French had already repurchased, from William Nichols, a worthy negro barber, the old French mansion, and had taken into his service a former servant of the family, thus foreshadowing a renewal of local ties and a prolonged residence. The conduct of the colonel in the matter of his old servant was warmly commended. The romantic circumstances of their meeting in the cemetery, and the incident in the justice's court, which were matters of public knowledge and interest, showed that in Colonel French, should he decide to resume his residence in Clarendon, his fellow citizens would find an agreeable neighbour, whose sympathies would be with the South in those difficult matters upon which North and South had so often been at variance, but upon which they were now rapidly becoming one in sentiment. The colonel, whose active mind could not long remain unoccupied, was busily engaged during the next week, partly in making plans for the renovation of the old homestead, partly in correspondence with Kirby concerning the winding up of the loose ends of their former business. Thus compelled to leave Phil to the care of some one else, he had an excellent opportunity to utilise Peter's services. When the old man, proud of his new clothes, and relieved of any responsibility for his own future, first appeared at the hotel, the colonel was ready with a commission. "Now, Peter," he said, "I'm going to prove my confidence in you, and test your devotion to the family, by giving you charge of Phil. You may come and get him in the morning after breakfast--you can get your meals in the hotel kitchen--and take him to walk in the streets or the cemetery; but you must be very careful, for he is all I have in the world. In other words, Peter, you are to take as good care of Phil as you did of me when I was a little boy." "I'll look aftuh 'im, Mars Henry, lak he wuz a lump er pyo' gol'. Me an' him will git along fine, won't we, little Mars Phil?" "Yes, indeed," replied the child. "I like you, Uncle Peter, and I'll be glad to go with you." Phil and the old man proved excellent friends, and the colonel, satisfied that the boy would be well cared for, gave his attention to the business of the hour. As soon as Nichols moved out of the old house, there was a shaking of the dry bones among the mechanics of the town. A small army of workmen invaded the premises, and repairs and improvements of all descriptions went rapidly forward--much more rapidly than was usual in Clarendon, for the colonel let all his work by contract, and by a system of forfeits and premiums kept it going at high pressure. In two weeks the house was shingled, painted inside and out, the fences were renewed, the outhouses renovated, and the grounds put in order. The stream of ready money thus put into circulation by the colonel, soon permeated all the channels of local enterprise. The barber, out of his profits, began the erection of a row of small houses for coloured tenants. This gave employment to masons and carpenters, and involved the sale and purchase of considerable building material. General trade felt the influence of the enhanced prosperity. Groceries, dry-goods stores and saloons, did a thriving business. The ease with which the simply organised community responded to so slight an inflow of money and energy, was not without a pronounced influence upon the colonel's future conduct. When his house was finished, Colonel French hired a housekeeper, a coloured maid, a cook and a coachman, bought several horses and carriages, and, having sent to New York for his books and pictures and several articles of furniture which he had stored there, began housekeeping in his own establishment. Succumbing willingly to the charm of old associations, and entering more fully into the social life of the town, he began insensibly to think of Clarendon as an established residence, where he would look forward to spending a certain portion of each year. The climate was good for Phil, and to bring up the boy safely would be henceforth his chief concern in life. In the atmosphere of the old town the ideas of race and blood attained a new and larger perspective. It would be too bad for an old family, with a fine history, to die out, and Phil was the latest of the line and the sole hope of its continuance. The colonel was conscious, somewhat guiltily conscious, that he had neglected the South and all that pertained to it--except the market for burlaps and bagging, which several Southern sales agencies had attended to on behalf of his firm. He was aware, too, that he had felt a certain amount of contempt for its poverty, its quixotic devotion to lost causes and vanished ideals, and a certain disgusted impatience with a people who persistently lagged behind in the march of progress, and permitted a handful of upstart, blatant, self-seeking demagogues to misrepresent them, in Congress and before the country, by intemperate language and persistent hostility to a humble but large and important part of their own constituency. But he was glad to find that this was the mere froth upon the surface, and that underneath it, deep down in the hearts of the people, the currents of life flowed, if less swiftly, not less purely than in more favoured places. The town needed an element, which he could in a measure supply by residing there, if for only a few weeks each year. And that element was some point of contact with the outer world and its more advanced thought. He might induce some of his Northern friends to follow his example; there were many for whom the mild climate in Winter and the restful atmosphere at all seasons of the year, would be a boon which correctly informed people would be eager to enjoy. Of the extent to which the influence of the Treadwell household had contributed to this frame of mind, the colonel was not conscious. He had received the freedom of the town, and many hospitable doors were open to him. As a single man, with an interesting little motherless child, he did not lack for the smiles of fair ladies, of which the town boasted not a few. But Mrs. Treadwell's home held the first place in his affections. He had been there first, and first impressions are vivid. They had been kind to Phil, who loved them all, and insisted on Peter's taking him there every day. The colonel found pleasure in Miss Laura's sweet simplicity and openness of character; to which Graciella's vivacity and fresh young beauty formed an attractive counterpart; and Mrs. Treadwell's plaintive minor note had soothed and satisfied Colonel French in this emotional Indian Summer which marked his reaction from a long and arduous business career. _Eleven_ In addition to a pronounced attractiveness of form and feature, Miss Graciella Treadwell possessed a fine complexion, a clear eye, and an elastic spirit. She was also well endowed with certain other characteristics of youth; among them ingenuousness, which, if it be a fault, experience is sure to correct; and impulsiveness, which even the school of hard knocks is not always able to eradicate, though it may chasten. To the good points of Graciella, could be added an untroubled conscience, at least up to that period when Colonel French dawned upon her horizon, and for some time thereafter. If she had put herself foremost in all her thoughts, it had been the unconscious egotism of youth, with no definite purpose of self-seeking. The things for which she wished most were associated with distant places, and her longing for them had never taken the form of envy of those around her. Indeed envy is scarcely a vice of youth; it is a weed that flourishes best after the flower of hope has begun to wither. Graciella's views of life, even her youthful romanticism were sane and healthful; but since she had not been tried in the furnace of experience, it could only be said of her that she belonged to the class, always large, but shifting like the sands of the sea, who have never been tempted, and therefore do not know whether they would sin or not. It was inevitable, with such a nature as Graciella's, in such an embodiment, that the time should come, at some important crisis of her life, when she must choose between different courses; nor was it likely that she could avoid what comes sometime to all of us, the necessity of choosing between good and evil. Her liking for Colonel French had grown since their first meeting. He knew so many things that Graciella wished to know, that when he came to the house she spent a great deal of time in conversation with him. Her aunt Laura was often busy with household duties, and Graciella, as the least employed member of the family, was able to devote herself to his entertainment. Colonel French, a comparatively idle man at this period, found her prattle very amusing. It was not unnatural for Graciella to think that this acquaintance might be of future value; she could scarcely have thought otherwise. If she should ever go to New York, a rich and powerful friend would be well worth having. Should her going there be delayed very long, she would nevertheless have a tie of friendship in the great city, and a source to which she might at any time apply for information. Her fondness for Colonel French's society was, however, up to a certain time, entirely spontaneous, and coloured by no ulterior purpose. Her hope that his friendship might prove valuable was an afterthought. It was during this happy period that she was standing, one day, by the garden gate, when Colonel French passed by in his fine new trap, driving a spirited horse; and it was with perfect candour that she waved her hand to him familiarly. "Would you like a drive?" he called. "Wouldn't I?" she replied. "Wait till I tell the folks." She was back in a moment, and ran out of the gate and down the steps. The colonel gave her his hand and she sprang up beside him. They drove through the cemetery, and into the outlying part of the town, where there were some shaded woodland stretches. It was a pleasant afternoon; cloudy enough to hide the sun. Graciella's eyes sparkled and her cheek glowed with pleasure, while her light brown hair blown about her face by the breeze of their rapid motion was like an aureole. "Colonel French," she said as they were walking the horse up a hill, "are you going to give a house warming?" "Why," he said, "I hadn't thought of it. Ought I to give a house warming?" "You surely ought. Everybody will want to see your house while it is new and bright. You certainly ought to have a house warming." "Very well," said the colonel. "I make it a rule to shirk no plain duty. If I _ought_ to have a house warming, I _will_ have it. And you shall be my social mentor. What sort of a party shall it be?" "Why not make it," she said brightly, "just such a party as your father would have had. You have the old house, and the old furniture. Give an old-time party." * * * * * In fitting up his house the colonel had been animated by the same feeling that had moved him to its purchase. He had endeavoured to restore, as far as possible, the interior as he remembered it in his childhood. At his father's death the furniture had been sold and scattered. He had been able, through the kindly interest of his friends, to recover several of the pieces. Others that were lost past hope, had been reproduced from their description. Among those recovered was a fine pair of brass andirons, and his father's mahogany desk, which had been purchased by Major Treadwell at the sale of the elder French's effects. Miss Laura had been the first to speak of the desk. "Henry," she had said, "the house would not be complete without your father's desk. It was my father's too, but yours is the prior claim. Take it as a gift from me." He protested, and would have paid for it liberally, and, when she would take nothing, declared he would not accept it on such terms. "You are selfish, Henry," she replied, with a smile. "You have brought a new interest into our lives, and into the town, and you will not let us make you any return." "But I am taking from you something you need," he replied, "and for which you paid. When Major Treadwell bought it, it was merely second-hand furniture, sold under the hammer. Now it has the value of an antique--it is a fine piece and could be sold in New York for a large sum." "You must take it for nothing, or not at all," she replied firmly. "It is highway robbery," he said, and could not make up his mind to yield. Next day, when the colonel went home, after having been down town an hour, he found the desk in his library. The Treadwell ladies had corrupted Peter, who had told them when the colonel would be out of the house and had brought a cart to take the desk away. When the house was finished, the interior was simple but beautiful. It was furnished in the style that had been prevalent fifty years before. There were some modern additions in the line of comfort and luxury--soft chairs, fine rugs, and a few choice books and pictures--for the colonel had not attempted to conform his own tastes and habits to those of his father. He had some visitors, mostly gentlemen, and there was, as Graciella knew, a lively curiosity among the ladies to see the house and its contents. The suggestion of a house warming had come originally from Mrs. Treadwell; but Graciella had promptly made it her own and conveyed it to the colonel. * * * * * "A bright idea," he replied. "By all means let it be an old-time party--say such a party as my father would have given, or my grandfather. And shall we invite the old people?" "Well," replied Graciella judicially, "don't have them so old that they can't talk or hear, and must be fed with a spoon. If there were too many old, or not enough young people, I shouldn't enjoy myself." "I suppose I seem awfully old to you," said the colonel, parenthetically. "Oh, I don't know," replied Graciella, giving him a frankly critical look. "When you first came I thought you _were_ rather old--you see, you are older than Aunt Laura; but you seem to have grown younger--it's curious, but it's true--and now I hardly think of you as old at all." The colonel was secretly flattered. The wisest man over forty likes to be thought young. "Very well," he said, "you shall select the guests." "At an old-time party," continued Graciella, thoughtfully, "the guests should wear old-time clothes. In grandmother's time the ladies wore long flowing sleeves----" "And hoopskirts," said the colonel. "And their hair down over their ears." "Or in ringlets." "Yes, it is all in grandmother's bound volume of _The Ladies' Book_," said Graciella. "I was reading it only last week." "My mother took it," returned the colonel. "Then you must have read 'Letters from a Pastry Cook,' by N.P. Willis when they came out?" "No," said the colonel with a sigh, "I missed that. I--I wasn't able to read then." Graciella indulged in a brief mental calculation. "Why, of course not," she laughed, "you weren't even born when they came out! But they're fine; I'll lend you our copy. You must ask all the girls to dress as their mothers and grandmothers used to dress. Make the requirement elastic, because some of them may not have just the things for one particular period. I'm all right. We have a cedar chest in the attic, full of old things. Won't I look funny in a hoop skirt?" "You'll look charming in anything," said the colonel. It was a pleasure to pay Graciella compliments, she so frankly enjoyed them; and the colonel loved to make others happy. In his New York firm Mr. French was always ready to consider a request for an advance of salary; Kirby had often been obliged to play the wicked partner in order to keep expenses down to a normal level. At parties débutantes had always expected Mr. French to say something pleasant to them, and had rarely been disappointed. The subject of the party was resumed next day at Mrs. Treadwell's, where the colonel went in the afternoon to call. "An old-time party," declared the colonel, "should have old-time amusements. We must have a fiddler, a black fiddler, to play quadrilles and the Virginia Reel." "I don't know where you'll find one," said Miss Laura. "I'll ask Peter," replied the colonel. "He ought to know." Peter was in the yard with Phil. "Lawd, Mars Henry!" said Peter, "fiddlers is mighty sca'ce dese days, but I reckon ole 'Poleon Campbell kin make you shake yo' feet yit, ef Ole Man Rheumatiz ain' ketched holt er 'im too tight." "And I will play a minuet on your new piano," said Miss Laura, "and teach the girls beforehand how to dance it. There should be cards for those who do not dance." So the party was arranged. Miss Laura, Graciella and the colonel made out the list of guests. The invitations were duly sent out for an old-time party, with old-time costumes--any period between 1830 and 1860 permissible--and old-time entertainment. The announcement created some excitement in social circles, and, like all of Colonel French's enterprises at that happy period of his home-coming, brought prosperity in its train. Dressmakers were kept busy making and altering costumes for the ladies. Old Archie Christmas, the mulatto tailor, sole survivor of a once flourishing craft--Mr. Cohen's Universal Emporium supplied the general public with ready-made clothing, and, twice a year, the travelling salesman of a New York tailoring firm visited Clarendon with samples of suitings, and took orders and measurements--old Archie Christmas, who had not made a full suit of clothes for years, was able, by making and altering men's garments for the colonel's party, to earn enough to keep himself alive for another twelve months. Old Peter was at Archie's shop one day, and they were talking about old times--good old times--for to old men old times are always good times, though history may tell another tale. "Yo' boss is a godsen' ter dis town," declared old Archie, "he sho' is. De w'ite folks says de young niggers is triflin' 'cause dey don' larn how to do nothin'. But what is dere fer 'em to do? I kin 'member when dis town was full er black an' yaller carpenters an' 'j'iners, blacksmiths, wagon makers, shoemakers, tinners, saddlers an' cab'net makers. Now all de fu'nicher, de shoes, de wagons, de buggies, de tinware, de hoss shoes, de nails to fasten 'em on wid--yas, an' fo' de Lawd! even de clothes dat folks wears on dere backs, is made at de Norf, an' dere ain' nothin' lef' fer de ole niggers ter do, let 'lone de young ones. Yo' boss is de right kin'; I hopes he'll stay 'roun' here till you an' me dies." "I hopes wid you," said Peter fervently, "I sho' does! Yas indeed I does." Peter was entirely sincere. Never in his life had he worn such good clothes, eaten such good food, or led so easy a life as in the colonel's service. Even the old times paled by comparison with this new golden age; and the long years of poverty and hard luck that stretched behind him seemed to the old man like a distant and unpleasant dream. * * * * * The party came off at the appointed time, and was a distinct success. Graciella had made a raid on the cedar chest, and shone resplendent in crinoline, curls, and a patterned muslin. Together with Miss Laura and Ben Dudley, who had come in from Mink Run for the party, she was among the first to arrive. Miss Laura's costume, which belonged to an earlier date, was in keeping with her quiet dignity. Ben wore a suit of his uncle's, which the care of old Aunt Viney had preserved wonderfully well from moth and dust through the years. The men wore stocks and neckcloths, bell-bottomed trousers with straps under their shoes, and frock coats very full at the top and buttoned tightly at the waist. Old Peter, in a long blue coat with brass buttons, acted as butler, helped by a young Negro who did the heavy work. Miss Laura's servant Catherine had rallied from her usual gloom and begged the privilege of acting as lady's maid. 'Poleon Campbell, an old-time Negro fiddler, whom Peter had resurrected from some obscure cabin, oiled his rheumatic joints, tuned his fiddle and rosined his bow, and under the inspiration of good food and drink and liberal wage, played through his whole repertory, which included such ancient favourites as, "Fishers' Hornpipe," "Soldiers' Joy," "Chicken in the Bread-tray," and the "Campbells are Coming." Miss Laura played a minuet, which the young people danced. Major McLean danced the highland fling, and some of the ladies sang old-time songs, and war lyrics, which stirred the heart and moistened the eyes. Little Phil, in a child's costume of 1840, copied from _The Ladies' Book_, was petted and made much of for several hours, until he became sleepy and was put to bed. "Graciella," said the colonel to his young friend, during the evening, "our party is a great success. It was your idea. When it is all over, I want to make you a present in token of my gratitude. You shall select it yourself; it shall be whatever you say." Graciella was very much elated at this mark of the colonel's friendship. She did not dream of declining the proffered token, and during the next dance her mind was busily occupied with the question of what it should be--a ring, a bracelet, a bicycle, a set of books? She needed a dozen things, and would have liked to possess a dozen others. She had not yet decided, when Ben came up to claim her for a dance. On his appearance, she was struck by a sudden idea. Colonel French was a man of affairs. In New York he must have a wide circle of influential acquaintances. Old Mr. Dudley was in failing health; he might die at any time, and Ben would then be free to seek employment away from Clarendon. What better place for him than New York? With a position there, he would be able to marry her, and take her there to live. This, she decided, should be her request of the colonel--that he should help her lover to a place in New York. Her conclusion was really magnanimous. She might profit by it in the end, but Ben would be the first beneficiary. It was an act of self-denial, for she was giving up a definite and certain good for a future contingency. She was therefore in a pleasant glow of self-congratulatory mood when she accidentally overheard a conversation not intended for her ears. She had run out to the dining-room to speak to the housekeeper about the refreshments, and was returning through the hall, when she stopped for a moment to look into the library, where those who did not care to dance were playing cards. Beyond the door, with their backs turned toward her, sat two ladies engaged in conversation. One was a widow, a well-known gossip, and the other a wife known to be unhappily married. They were no longer young, and their views were marked by the cynicism of seasoned experience. "Oh, there's no doubt about it," said the widow. "He came down here to find a wife. He tried a Yankee wife, and didn't like the breed; and when he was ready for number two, he came back South." "He showed good taste," said the other. "That depends," said the widow, "upon whom he chooses. He can probably have his pick." "No doubt," rejoined the married lady, with a touch of sarcasm, which the widow, who was still under forty, chose to ignore. "I wonder which is it?" said the widow. "I suppose it's Laura; he spends a great deal of time there, and she's devoted to his little boy, or pretends to be." "Don't fool yourself," replied the other earnestly, and not without a subdued pleasure in disabusing the widow's mind. "Don't fool yourself, my dear. A man of his age doesn't marry a woman of Laura Treadwell's. Believe me, it's the little one." "But she has a beau. There's that tall nephew of old Mr. Dudley's. He's been hanging around her for a year or two. He looks very handsome to-night." "Ah, well, she'll dispose of him fast enough when the time comes. He's only a poor stick, the last of a good stock run to seed. Why, she's been pointedly setting her cap at the colonel all the evening. He's perfectly infatuated; he has danced with her three times to once with Laura." "It's sad to see a man make a fool of himself," sighed the widow, who was not without some remnants of beauty and a heart still warm and willing. "Children are very forward nowadays." "There's no fool like an old fool, my dear," replied the other with the cheerful philosophy of the miserable who love company. "These fair women are always selfish and calculating; and she's a bold piece. My husband says Colonel French is worth at least a million. A young wife, who understands her business, could get anything from him that money can buy." "What a pity, my dear," said the widow, with a spice of malice, seeing her own opportunity, "what a pity that you were older than your husband! Well, it will be fortunate for the child if she marries an old man, for beauty of her type fades early." Old 'Poleon's fiddle, to which one of the guests was improvising an accompaniment on the colonel's new piano, had struck up "Camptown Races," and the rollicking lilt of the chorus was resounding through the house. _"Gwine ter run all night, Gwine ter run all day, I'll bet my money on de bobtail nag, Oh, who's gwine ter bet on de bay?"_ Ben ran out into the hall. Graciella had changed her position and was sitting alone, perturbed in mind. "Come on, Graciella, let's get into the Virginia reel; it's the last one." Graciella obeyed mechanically. Ben, on the contrary, was unusually animated. He had enjoyed the party better than any he had ever attended. He had not been at many. Colonel French, who had entered with zest into the spirit of the occasion, participated in the reel. Every time Graciella touched his hand, it was with the consciousness of a new element in their relations. Until then her friendship for Colonel French had been perfectly ingenuous. She had liked him because he was interesting, and good to her in a friendly way. Now she realised that he was a millionaire, eligible for marriage, from whom a young wife, if she understood her business, might secure the gratification of every wish. The serpent had entered Eden. Graciella had been tendered the apple. She must choose now whether she would eat. When the party broke up, the colonel was congratulated on every hand. He had not only given his guests a delightful evening. He had restored an ancient landmark; had recalled, to a people whose life lay mostly in the past, the glory of days gone by, and proved his loyalty to their cherished traditions. Ben Dudley walked home with Graciella. Miss Laura went ahead of them with Catherine, who was cheerful in the possession of a substantial reward for her services. "You're not sayin' much to-night," said Ben to his sweetheart, as they walked along under the trees. Graciella did not respond. "You're not sayin' much to-night," he repeated. "Yes," returned Graciella abstractedly, "it was a lovely party!" Ben said no more. The house warming had also given him food for thought. He had noticed the colonel's attentions to Graciella, and had heard them remarked upon. Colonel French was more than old enough to be Graciella's father; but he was rich. Graciella was poor and ambitious. Ben's only assets were youth and hope, and priority in the field his only claim. Miss Laura and Catherine had gone in, and when the young people came to the gate, the light still shone through the open door. "Graciella," he said, taking her hand in his as they stood a moment, "will you marry me?" "Still harping on the same old string," she said, withdrawing her hand. "I'm tired now, Ben, too tired to talk foolishness." "Very well, I'll save it for next time. Good night, sweetheart." She had closed the gate between them. He leaned over it to kiss her, but she evaded his caress and ran lightly up the steps. "Good night, Ben," she called. "Good night, sweetheart," he replied, with a pang of foreboding. In after years, when the colonel looked back upon his residence in Clarendon, this seemed to him the golden moment. There were other times that stirred deeper emotions--the lust of battle, the joy of victory, the chagrin of defeat--moments that tried his soul with tests almost too hard. But, thus far, his new career in Clarendon had been one of pleasant experiences only, and this unclouded hour was its fitting crown. _Twelve_ Whenever the colonel visited the cemetery, or took a walk in that pleasant quarter of the town, he had to cross the bridge from which was visible the site of the old Eureka cotton mill of his boyhood, and it was not difficult to recall that it had been, before the War, a busy hive of industry. On a narrow and obscure street, little more than an alley, behind the cemetery, there were still several crumbling tenements, built for the mill operatives, but now occupied by a handful of abjectly poor whites, who kept body and soul together through the doubtful mercy of God and a small weekly dole from the poormaster. The mill pond, while not wide-spreading, had extended back some distance between the sloping banks, and had furnished swimming holes, fishing holes, and what was more to the point at present, a very fine head of water, which, as it struck the colonel more forcibly each time he saw it, offered an opportunity that the town could ill afford to waste. Shrewd minds in the cotton industry had long ago conceived the idea that the South, by reason of its nearness to the source of raw material, its abundant water power, and its cheaper labour, partly due to the smaller cost of living in a mild climate, and the absence of labour agitation, was destined in time to rival and perhaps displace New England in cotton manufacturing. Many Southern mills were already in successful operation. But from lack of capital, or lack of enterprise, nothing of the kind had ever been undertaken in Clarendon although the town was the centre of a cotton-raising district, and there was a mill in an adjoining county. Men who owned land mortgaged it for money to raise cotton; men who rented land from others mortgaged their crops for the same purpose. It was easy to borrow money in Clarendon--on adequate security--at ten per cent., and Mr. Fetters, the magnate of the county, was always ready, the colonel had learned, to accommodate the needy who could give such security. He had also discovered that Fetters was acquiring the greater part of the land. Many a farmer imagined that he owned a farm, when he was, actually, merely a tenant of Fetters. Occasionally Fetters foreclosed a mortgage, when there was plainly no more to be had from it, and bought in the land, which he added to his own holdings in fee. But as a rule, he found it more profitable to let the borrower retain possession and pay the interest as nearly as he could; the estate would ultimately be good for the debt, if the debtor did not live too long--worry might be counted upon to shorten his days--and the loan, with interest, could be more conveniently collected at his death. To bankrupt an estate was less personal than to break an individual; and widows, and orphans still in their minority, did not vote and knew little about business methods. To a man of action, like the colonel, the frequent contemplation of the unused water power, which might so easily be harnessed to the car of progress, gave birth, in time, to a wish to see it thus utilised, and the further wish to stir to labour the idle inhabitants of the neighbourhood. In all work the shiftless methods of an older generation still survived. No one could do anything in a quarter of an hour. Nearly all tasks were done by Negroes who had forgotten how to work, or by white people who had never learned. But the colonel had already seen the reviving effect of a little money, directed by a little energy. And so he planned to build a new and larger cotton mill where the old had stood; to shake up this lethargic community; to put its people to work, and to teach them habits of industry, efficiency and thrift. This, he imagined, would be pleasant occupation for his vacation, as well as a true missionary enterprise--a contribution to human progress. Such a cotton mill would require only an inconsiderable portion of his capital, the body of which would be left intact for investment elsewhere; it would not interfere at all with his freedom of movement; for, once built, equipped and put in operation under a competent manager, it would no more require his personal oversight than had the New England bagging mills which his firm had conducted for so many years. From impulse to action was, for the colonel's temperament, an easy step, and he had scarcely moved into his house, before he quietly set about investigating the title to the old mill site. It had been forfeited many years before, he found, to the State, for non-payment of taxes. There having been no demand for the property at any time since, it had never been sold, but held as a sort of lapsed asset, subject to sale, but open also, so long as it remained unsold, to redemption upon the payment of back taxes and certain fees. The amount of these was ascertained; it was considerably less than the fair value of the property, which was therefore redeemable at a profit. The owners, however, were widely scattered, for the mill had belonged to a joint-stock company composed of a dozen or more members. Colonel French was pleasantly surprised, upon looking up certain musty public records in the court house, to find that he himself was the owner, by inheritance, of several shares of stock which had been overlooked in the sale of his father's property. Retaining the services of Judge Bullard, the leading member of the Clarendon bar, he set out quietly to secure options upon the other shares. This involved an extensive correspondence, which occupied several weeks. For it was necessary first to find, and then to deal with the scattered representatives of the former owners. _Thirteen_ In engaging Judge Bullard, the colonel had merely stated to the lawyer that he thought of building a cotton-mill, but had said nothing about his broader plan. It was very likely, he recognised, that the people of Clarendon might not relish the thought that they were regarded as fit subjects for reform. He knew that they were sensitive, and quick to resent criticism. If some of them might admit, now and then, among themselves, that the town was unprogressive, or declining, there was always some extraneous reason given--the War, the carpetbaggers, the Fifteenth Amendment, the Negroes. Perhaps not one of them had ever quite realised the awful handicap of excuses under which they laboured. Effort was paralysed where failure was so easily explained. That the condition of the town might be due to causes within itself--to the general ignorance, self-satisfaction and lack of enterprise, had occurred to only a favoured few; the younger of these had moved away, seeking a broader outlook elsewhere; while those who remained were not yet strong enough nor brave enough to break with the past and urge new standards of thought and feeling. So the colonel kept his larger purpose to himself until a time when greater openness would serve to advance it. Thus Judge Bullard, not being able to read his client's mind, assumed very naturally that the contemplated enterprise was to be of a purely commercial nature, directed to making the most money in the shortest time. "Some day, Colonel," he said, with this thought in mind, "you might get a few pointers by running over to Carthage and looking through the Excelsior Mills. They get more work there for less money than anywhere else in the South. Last year they declared a forty per cent. dividend. I know the superintendent, and will give you a letter of introduction, whenever you like." The colonel bore the matter in mind, and one morning, a day or two after his party, set out by train, about eight o'clock in the morning, for Carthage, armed with a letter from the lawyer to the superintendent of the mills. The town was only forty miles away; but a cow had been caught in a trestle across a ditch, and some time was required for the train crew to release her. Another stop was made in the middle of a swamp, to put off a light mulatto who had presumed on his complexion to ride in the white people's car. He had been successfully spotted, but had impudently refused to go into the stuffy little closet provided at the end of the car for people of his class. He was therefore given an opportunity to reflect, during a walk along the ties, upon his true relation to society. Another stop was made for a gentleman who had sent a Negro boy ahead to flag the train and notify the conductor that he would be along in fifteen or twenty minutes with a couple of lady passengers. A hot journal caused a further delay. These interruptions made it eleven o'clock, a three-hours' run, before the train reached Carthage. The town was much smaller than Clarendon. It comprised a public square of several acres in extent, on one side of which was the railroad station, and on another the court house. One of the remaining sides was occupied by a row of shops; the fourth straggled off in various directions. The whole wore a neglected air. Bales of cotton goods were piled on the platform, apparently just unloaded from wagons standing near. Several white men and Negroes stood around and stared listlessly at the train and the few who alighted from it. Inquiring its whereabouts from one of the bystanders, the colonel found the nearest hotel--a two-story frame structure, with a piazza across the front, extending to the street line. There was a buggy standing in front, its horse hitched to one of the piazza posts. Steps led up from the street, but one might step from the buggy to the floor of the piazza, which was without a railing. The colonel mounted the steps and passed through the door into a small room, which he took for the hotel office, since there were chairs standing against the walls, and at one side a table on which a register lay open. The only person in the room, beside himself, was a young man seated near the door, with his feet elevated to the back of another chair, reading a newspaper from which he did not look up. The colonel, who wished to make some inquiries and to register for the dinner which he might return to take, looked around him for the clerk, or some one in authority, but no one was visible. While waiting, he walked over to the desk and turned over the leaves of the dog-eared register. He recognised only one name--that of Mr. William Fetters, who had registered there only a day or two before. No one had yet appeared. The young man in the chair was evidently not connected with the establishment. His expression was so forbidding, not to say arrogant, and his absorption in the newspaper so complete, that the colonel, not caring to address him, turned to the right and crossed a narrow hall to a room beyond, evidently a parlour, since it was fitted up with a faded ingrain carpet, a centre table with a red plush photograph album, and several enlarged crayon portraits hung near the ceiling--of the kind made free of charge in Chicago from photographs, provided the owner orders a frame from the company. No one was in the room, and the colonel had turned to leave it, when he came face to face with a lady passing through the hall. "Are you looking for some one?" she asked amiably, having noted his air of inquiry. "Why, yes, madam," replied the colonel, removing his hat, "I was looking for the proprietor--or the clerk." "Why," she replied, smiling, "that's the proprietor sitting there in the office. I'm going in to speak to him, and you can get his attention at the same time." Their entrance did not disturb the young man's reposeful attitude, which remained as unchanged as that of a graven image; nor did he exhibit any consciousness at their presence. "I want a clean towel, Mr. Dickson," said the lady sharply. The proprietor looked up with an annoyed expression. "Huh?" he demanded, in a tone of resentment mingled with surprise. "A clean towel, if you please." The proprietor said nothing more to the lady, nor deigned to notice the colonel at all, but lifted his legs down from the back of the chair, rose with a sigh, left the room and returned in a few minutes with a towel, which he handed ungraciously to the lady. Then, still paying no attention to the colonel, he resumed his former attitude, and returned to the perusal of his newspaper--certainly the most unconcerned of hotel keepers, thought the colonel, as a vision of spacious lobbies, liveried porters, and obsequious clerks rose before his vision. He made no audible comment, however, but merely stared at the young man curiously, left the hotel, and inquired of a passing Negro the whereabouts of the livery stable. A few minutes later he found the place without difficulty, and hired a horse and buggy. While the stable boy was putting the harness on the horse, the colonel related to the liveryman, whose manner was energetic and business-like, and who possessed an open countenance and a sympathetic eye, his experience at the hotel. "Oh, yes," was the reply, "that's Lee Dickson all over. That hotel used to be kep' by his mother. She was a widow woman, an' ever since she died, a couple of months ago, Lee's been playin' the big man, spendin' the old lady's money, and enjoyin' himself. Did you see that hoss'n'-buggy hitched in front of the ho-tel?" "Yes." "Well, that's Lee's buggy. He hires it from us. We send it up every mornin' at nine o'clock, when Lee gits up. When he's had his breakfas' he comes out an' gits in the buggy, an' drives to the barber-shop nex' door, gits out, goes in an' gits shaved, comes out, climbs in the buggy, an' drives back to the ho-tel. Then he talks to the cook, comes out an' gits in the buggy, an' drives half-way 'long that side of the square, about two hund'ed feet, to the grocery sto', and orders half a pound of coffee or a pound of lard, or whatever the ho-tel needs for the day, then comes out, climbs in the buggy and drives back. When the mail comes in, if he's expectin' any mail, he drives 'cross the square to the post-office, an' then drives back to the ho-tel. There's other lazy men roun' here, but Lee Dickson takes the cake. However, it's money in our pocket, as long as it keeps up." "I shouldn't think it would keep up long," returned the colonel. "How can such a hotel prosper?" "It don't!" replied the liveryman, "but it's the best in town." "I don't see how there could be a worse," said the colonel. "There couldn't--it's reached bed rock." The buggy was ready by this time, and the colonel set out, with a black driver, to find the Excelsior Cotton Mills. They proved to be situated in a desolate sandhill region several miles out of town. The day was hot; the weather had been dry, and the road was deep with a yielding white sand into which the buggy tires sank. The horse soon panted with the heat and the exertion, and the colonel, dressed in brown linen, took off his hat and mopped his brow with his handkerchief. The driver, a taciturn Negro--most of the loquacious, fun-loving Negroes of the colonel's youth seemed to have disappeared--flicked a horsefly now and then, with his whip, from the horse's sweating back. The first sign of the mill was a straggling group of small frame houses, built of unpainted pine lumber. The barren soil, which would not have supported a firm lawn, was dotted with scraggy bunches of wiregrass. In the open doorways, through which the flies swarmed in and out, grown men, some old, some still in the prime of life, were lounging, pipe in mouth, while old women pottered about the yards, or pushed back their sunbonnets to stare vacantly at the advancing buggy. Dirty babies were tumbling about the cabins. There was a lean and listless yellow dog or two for every baby; and several slatternly black women were washing clothes on the shady sides of the houses. A general air of shiftlessness and squalor pervaded the settlement. There was no sign of joyous childhood or of happy youth. A turn in the road brought them to the mill, the distant hum of which had already been audible. It was a two-story brick structure with many windows, altogether of the cheapest construction, but situated on the bank of a stream and backed by a noble water power. They drew up before an open door at one corner of the building. The colonel alighted, entered, and presented his letter of introduction. The superintendent glanced at him keenly, but, after reading the letter, greeted him with a show of cordiality, and called a young man to conduct the visitor through the mill. The guide seemed in somewhat of a hurry, and reticent of speech; nor was the noise of the machinery conducive to conversation. Some of the colonel's questions seemed unheard, and others were imperfectly answered. Yet the conditions disclosed by even such an inspection were, to the colonel, a revelation. Through air thick with flying particles of cotton, pale, anæmic young women glanced at him curiously, with lack-luster eyes, or eyes in which the gleam was not that of health, or hope, or holiness. Wizened children, who had never known the joys of childhood, worked side by side at long rows of spools to which they must give unremitting attention. Most of the women were using snuff, the odour of which was mingled with the flying particles of cotton, while the floor was thickly covered with unsightly brown splotches. When they had completed the tour of the mills and returned to the office, the colonel asked some questions of the manager about the equipment, the output, and the market, which were very promptly and courteously answered. To those concerning hours and wages the replies were less definite, and the colonel went away impressed as much by what he had not learned as by what he had seen. While settling his bill at the livery stable, he made further inquiries. "Lord, yes," said the liveryman in answer to one of them, "I can tell you all you want to know about that mill. Talk about nigger slavery--the niggers never were worked like white women and children are in them mills. They work 'em from twelve to sixteen hours a day for from fifteen to fifty cents. Them triflin' old pinelanders out there jus' lay aroun' and raise children for the mills, and then set down and chaw tobacco an' live on their children's wages. It's a sin an' a shame, an' there ought to be a law ag'inst it." The conversation brought out the further fact that vice was rampant among the millhands. "An' it ain't surprisin'," said the liveryman, with indignation tempered by the easy philosophy of hot climates. "Shut up in jail all day, an' half the night, never breathin' the pyo' air, or baskin' in God's bright sunshine; with no books to read an' no chance to learn, who can blame the po'r things if they have a little joy in the only way they know?" "Who owns the mill?" asked the colonel. "It belongs to a company," was the reply, "but Old Bill Fetters owns a majority of the stock--durn, him!" The colonel felt a thrill of pleasure--he had met a man after his own heart. "You are not one of Fetters's admirers then?" he asked. "Not by a durn sight," returned the liveryman promptly. "When I look at them white gals, that ought to be rosy-cheeked an' bright-eyed an' plump an' hearty an' happy, an' them po' little child'en that never get a chance to go fishin' or swimmin' or to learn anything, I allow I wouldn' mind if the durned old mill would catch fire an' burn down. They work children there from six years old up, an' half of 'em die of consumption before they're grown. It's a durned outrage, an' if I ever go to the Legislatur', for which I mean to run, I'll try to have it stopped." "I hope you will be elected," said the colonel. "What time does the train go back to Clarendon?" "Four o'clock, if she's on time--but it may be five." "Do you suppose I can get dinner at the hotel?" "Oh, yes! I sent word up that I 'lowed you might be back, so they'll be expectin' you." The proprietor was at the desk when the colonel went in. He wrote his name on the book, and was served with an execrable dinner. He paid his bill of half a dollar to the taciturn proprietor, and sat down on the shady porch to smoke a cigar. The proprietor, having put the money in his pocket, came out and stepped into his buggy, which was still standing alongside the piazza. The colonel watched him drive a stone's throw to a barroom down the street, get down, go in, come out a few minutes later, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, climb into the buggy, drive back, step out and re-enter the hotel. It was yet an hour to train time, and the colonel, to satisfy an impulse of curiosity, strolled over to the court house, which could be seen across the square, through the trees. Requesting leave of the Clerk in the county recorder's office to look at the records of mortgages, he turned the leaves over and found that a large proportion of the mortgages recently recorded--among them one on the hotel property--had been given to Fetters. The whistle of the train was heard in the distance as the colonel recrossed the square. Glancing toward the hotel, he saw the landlord come out, drive across the square to the station, and sit there until the passengers had alighted. To a drummer with a sample case, he pointed carelessly across the square to the hotel, but made no movement to take the baggage; and as the train moved off, the colonel, looking back, saw him driving back to the hotel. Fetters had begun to worry the colonel. He had never seen the man, and yet his influence was everywhere. He seemed to brood over the country round about like a great vampire bat, sucking the life-blood of the people. His touch meant blight. As soon as a Fetters mortgage rested on a place, the property began to run down; for why should the nominal owner keep up a place which was destined in the end to go to Fetters? The colonel had heard grewsome tales of Fetters's convict labour plantation; he had seen the operation of Fetters's cotton-mill, where white humanity, in its fairest and tenderest form, was stunted and blighted and destroyed; and he had not forgotten the scene in the justice's office. The fighting blood of the old Frenches was stirred. The colonel's means were abundant; he did not lack the sinews of war. Clarendon offered a field for profitable investment. He would like to do something for humanity, something to offset Fetters and his kind, who were preying upon the weaknesses of the people, enslaving white and black alike. In a great city, what he could give away would have been but a slender stream, scarcely felt in the rivers of charity poured into the ocean of want; and even his considerable wealth would have made him only a small stockholder in some great aggregation of capital. In this backward old town, away from the great centres of commerce, and scarcely feeling their distant pulsebeat, except when some daring speculator tried for a brief period to corner the cotton market, he could mark with his own eyes the good he might accomplish. It required no great stretch of imagination to see the town, a few years hence, a busy hive of industry, where no man, and no woman obliged to work, need be without employment at fair wages; where the trinity of peace, prosperity and progress would reign supreme; where men like Fetters and methods like his would no longer be tolerated. The forces of enlightenment, set in motion by his aid, and supported by just laws, should engage the retrograde forces represented by Fetters. Communities, like men, must either grow or decay, advance or decline; they could not stand still. Clarendon was decaying. Fetters was the parasite which, by sending out its roots toward rich and poor alike, struck at both extremes of society, and was choking the life of the town like a rank and deadly vine. The colonel could, if need be, spare the year or two of continuous residence needed to rescue Clarendon from the grasp of Fetters. The climate agreed with Phil, who was growing like a weed; and the colonel could easily defer for a little while his scheme of travel, and the further disposition of his future. So, when he reached home that night, he wrote an answer to a long and gossipy letter received from Kirby about that time, in which the latter gave a detailed account of what was going on in the colonel's favourite club and among their mutual friends, and reported progress in the search for some venture worthy of their mettle. The colonel replied that Phil and he were well, that he was interesting himself in a local enterprise which would certainly occupy him for some months, and that he would not visit New York during the summer, unless it were to drop in for a day or two on business and return immediately. A letter from Mrs. Jerviss, received about the same time, was less easily disposed of. She had learned, from Kirby, of the chivalrous manner in which Mr. French had protected her interests and spared her feelings in the fight with Consolidated Bagging. She had not been able, she said, to thank him adequately before he went away, because she had not known how much she owed him; nor could she fittingly express herself on paper. She could only renew her invitation to him to join her house party at Newport in July. The guests would be friends of his--she would be glad to invite any others that he might suggest. She would then have the opportunity to thank him in person. The colonel was not unmoved by this frank and grateful letter, and he knew perfectly well what reward he might claim from her gratitude. Had the letter come a few weeks sooner, it might have had a different answer. But, now, after the first pang of regret, his only problem was how to refuse gracefully her offered hospitality. He was sorry, he replied, not to be able to join her house party that summer, but during the greater part of it he would be detained in the South by certain matters into which he had been insensibly drawn. As for her thanks, she owed him none; he had only done his duty, and had already been thanked too much. So thoroughly had Colonel French entered into the spirit of his yet undefined contest with Fetters, that his life in New York, save when these friendly communications recalled it, seemed far away, and of slight retrospective interest. Every one knows of the "blind spot" in the field of vision. New York was for the time being the colonel's blind spot. That it might reassert its influence was always possible, but for the present New York was of no more interest to him than Canton or Bogota. Having revelled for a few pleasant weeks in memories of a remoter past, the reaction had projected his thoughts forward into the future. His life in New York, and in the Clarendon of the present--these were mere transitory embodiments; he lived in the Clarendon yet to be, a Clarendon rescued from Fetters, purified, rehabilitated; and no compassionate angel warned him how tenacious of life that which Fetters stood for might be--that survival of the spirit of slavery, under which the land still groaned and travailed--the growth of generations, which it would take more than one generation to destroy. In describing to Judge Bullard his visit to the cotton mill, the colonel was not sparing of his indignation. "The men," he declared with emphasis, "who are responsible for that sort of thing, are enemies of mankind. I've been in business for twenty years, but I have never sought to make money by trading on the souls and bodies of women and children. I saw the little darkies running about the streets down there at Carthage; they were poor and ragged and dirty, but they were out in the air and the sunshine; they have a chance to get their growth; to go to school and learn something. The white children are worked worse than slaves, and are growing up dulled and stunted, physically and mentally. Our folks down here are mighty short-sighted, judge. We'll wake them up. We'll build a model cotton mill, and run it with decent hours and decent wages, and treat the operatives like human beings with bodies to nourish, minds to develop; and souls to save. Fetters and his crowd will have to come up to our standard, or else we'll take their hands away." Judge Bullard had looked surprised when the colonel began his denunciation; and though he said little, his expression, when the colonel had finished, was very thoughtful and not altogether happy. _Fourteen_ It was the week after the colonel's house warming. Graciella was not happy. She was sitting, erect and graceful, as she always sat, on the top step of the piazza. Ben Dudley occupied the other end of the step. His model stood neglected beside him, and he was looking straight at Graciella, whose eyes, avoiding his, were bent upon a copy of "Jane Eyre," held open in her hand. There was an unwonted silence between them, which Ben was the first to break. "Will you go for a walk with me?" he asked. "I'm sorry, Ben," she replied, "but I have an engagement to go driving with Colonel French." Ben's dark cheek grew darker, and he damned Colonel French softly beneath his breath. He could not ask Graciella to drive, for their old buggy was not fit to be seen, and he had no money to hire a better one. The only reason why he ever had wanted money was because of her. If she must have money, or the things that money alone would buy, he must get money, or lose her. As long as he had no rival there was hope. But could he expect to hold his own against a millionaire, who had the garments and the manners of the great outside world? "I suppose the colonel's here every night, as well as every day," he said, "and that you talk to him all the time." "No, Ben, he isn't here every night, nor every day. His old darky, Peter, brings Phil over every day; but when the colonel comes he talks to grandmother and Aunt Laura, as well as to me." Graciella had risen from the step, and was now enthroned in a splint-bottomed armchair, an attitude more in keeping with the air of dignity which she felt constrained to assume as a cloak for an uneasy conscience. Graciella was not happy. She had reached the parting of the ways, and realised that she must choose between them. And yet she hesitated. Every consideration of prudence dictated that she choose Colonel French rather than Ben. The colonel was rich and could gratify all her ambitions. There could be no reasonable doubt that he was fond of her; and she had heard it said, by those more experienced than she and therefore better qualified to judge, that he was infatuated with her. Certainly he had shown her a great deal of attention. He had taken her driving; he had lent her books and music; he had brought or sent the New York paper every day for her to read. He had been kind to her Aunt Laura, too, probably for her niece's sake; for the colonel was kind by nature, and wished to make everyone about him happy. It was fortunate that her Aunt Laura was fond of Philip. If she should decide to marry the colonel, she would have her Aunt Laura come and make her home with them: she could give Philip the attention with which his stepmother's social duties might interfere. It was hardly likely that her aunt entertained any hope of marriage; indeed, Miss Laura had long since professed herself resigned to old maidenhood. But in spite of these rosy dreams, Graciella was not happy. To marry the colonel she must give up Ben; and Ben, discarded, loomed up larger than Ben, accepted. She liked Ben; she was accustomed to Ben. Ben was young, and youth attracted youth. Other things being equal, she would have preferred him to the colonel. But Ben was poor; he had nothing and his prospects for the future were not alluring. He would inherit little, and that little not until his uncle's death. He had no profession. He was not even a good farmer, and trifled away, with his useless models and mechanical toys, the time he might have spent in making his uncle's plantation productive. Graciella did not know that Fetters had a mortgage on the plantation, or Ben's prospects would have seemed even more hopeless. She felt sorry not only for herself, but for Ben as well--sorry that he should lose her--for she knew that he loved her sincerely. But her first duty was to herself. Conscious that she possessed talents, social and otherwise, it was not her view of creative wisdom that it should implant in the mind tastes and in the heart longings destined never to be realised. She must discourage Ben--gently and gradually, for of course he would suffer; and humanity, as well as friendship, counselled kindness. A gradual breaking off, too, would be less harrowing to her own feelings. "I suppose you admire Colonel French immensely," said Ben, with assumed impartiality. "Oh, I like him reasonably well," she said with an equal lack of candour. "His conversation is improving. He has lived in the metropolis, and has seen so much of the world that he can scarcely speak without saying something interesting. It's a liberal education to converse with people who have had opportunities. It helps to prepare my mind for life at the North." "You set a great deal of store by the North, Graciella. Anybody would allow, to listen to you, that you didn't love your own country." "I love the South, Ben, as I loved Aunt Lou, my old black mammy. I've laid in her arms many a day, and I 'most cried my eyes out when she died. But that didn't mean that I never wanted to see any one else. Nor am I going to live in the South a minute longer than I can help, because it's too slow. And New York isn't all--I want to travel and see the world. The South is away behind." She had said much the same thing weeks before; but then it had been spontaneous. Now she was purposely trying to make Ben see how unreasonable was his hope. Ben stood, as he obscurely felt, upon delicate ground. Graciella had not been the only person to overhear remarks about the probability of the colonel's seeking a wife in Clarendon, and jealousy had sharpened Ben's perceptions while it increased his fears. He had little to offer Graciella. He was not well educated; he had nothing to recommend him but his youth and his love for her. He could not take her to Europe, or even to New York--at least not yet. "And at home," Graciella went on seriously, "at home I should want several houses--a town house, a country place, a seaside cottage. When we were tired of one we could go to another, or live in hotels--in the winter in Florida, at Atlantic City in the spring, at Newport in the summer. They say Long Branch has gone out entirely." Ben had a vague idea that Long Branch was by the seaside, and exposed to storms. "Gone out to sea?" he asked absently. He was sick for love of her, and she was dreaming of watering places. "No, Ben," said Graciella, compassionately. Poor Ben had so little opportunity for schooling! He was not to blame for his want of knowledge; but could she throw herself away upon an ignoramus? "It's still there, but has gone out of fashion." "Oh, excuse me! I'm not posted on these fashionable things." Ben relapsed into gloom. The model remained untouched. He could not give Graciella a house; he would not have a house until his uncle died. Graciella had never seemed so beautiful as to-day, as she sat, dressed in the cool white gown which Miss Laura's slender fingers had done up, and with her hair dressed after the daintiest and latest fashion chronicled in the _Ladies' Fireside Journal_. No wonder, he thought, that a jaded old man of the world like Colonel French should delight in her fresh young beauty! But he would not give her up without a struggle. She had loved him; she must love him still; and she would yet be his, if he could keep her true to him or free from any promise to another, until her deeper feelings could resume their sway. It could not be possible, after all that had passed between them, that she meant to throw him over, nor was he a man that she could afford to treat in such a fashion. There was more in him than Graciella imagined; he was conscious of latent power of some kind, though he knew not what, and something would surely happen, sometime, somehow, to improve his fortunes. And there was always the hope, the possibility of finding the lost money. He had brought his great-uncle Ralph's letter with him, as he had promised Graciella. When she read it, she would see the reasonableness of his hope, and might be willing to wait, at least a little while. Any delay would be a point gained. He shuddered to think that he might lose her, and then, the day after the irrevocable vows had been taken, the treasure might come to light, and all their life be spent in vain regrets. Graciella was skeptical about the lost money. Even Mrs. Treadwell, whose faith had been firm for years, had ceased to encourage his hope; while Miss Laura, who at one time had smiled at any mention of the matter, now looked grave if by any chance he let slip a word in reference to it. But he had in his pocket the outward and visible sign of his inward belief, and he would try its effect on Graciella. He would risk ridicule or anything else for her sake. "Graciella," he said, "I have brought my uncle Malcolm's letter along, to convince you that uncle is not as crazy as he seems, and that there's some foundation for the hope that I may yet be able to give you all you want. I don't want to relinquish the hope, and I want you to share it with me." He produced an envelope, once white, now yellow with time, on which was endorsed in ink once black but faded to a pale brown, and hardly legible, the name of "Malcolm Dudley, Esq., Mink Run," and in the lower left-hand corner, "By hand of Viney." The sheet which Ben drew from this wrapper was worn at the folds, and required careful handling. Graciella, moved by curiosity, had come down from her throne to a seat beside Ben upon the porch. She had never had any faith in the mythical gold of old Ralph Dudley. The people of an earlier generation--her Aunt Laura perhaps--may once have believed in it, but they had long since ceased to do more than smile pityingly and shake their heads at the mention of old Malcolm's delusion. But there was in it the element of romance. Strange things had happened, and why might they not happen again? And if they should happen, why not to Ben, dear old, shiftless Ben! She moved a porch pillow close beside him, and, as they bent their heads over the paper her hair mingled with his, and soon her hand rested, unconsciously, upon his shoulder. "It was a voice from the grave," said Ben, "for my great-uncle Ralph was dead when the letter reached Uncle Malcolm. I'll read it aloud--the writing is sometimes hard to make out, and I know it by heart: _My Dear Malcolm: I have in my hands fifty thousand dollars of government money, in gold, which I am leaving here at the house for a few days. Since you are not at home, and I cannot wait, I have confided in our girl Viney, whom I can trust. She will tell you, when she gives you this, where I have put the money--I do not write it, lest the letter should fall into the wrong hands; there are many to whom it would be a great temptation. I shall return in a few days, and relieve you of the responsibility. Should anything happen to me, write to the Secretary of State at Richmond for instructions what to do with the money. In great haste_, _Your affectionate uncle,_ RALPH DUDLEY" Graciella was momentarily impressed by the letter; of its reality there could be no doubt--it was there in black and white, or rather brown and yellow. "It sounds like a letter in a novel," she said, thoughtfully. "There must have been something." "There must _be_ something, Graciella, for Uncle Ralph was killed the next day, and never came back for the money. But Uncle Malcolm, because he don't know where to look, can't find it; and old Aunt Viney, because she can't talk, can't tell him where it is." "Why has she never shown him?" asked Graciella. "There is some mystery," he said, "which she seems unable to explain without speech. And then, she is queer--as queer, in her own way, as uncle is in his. Now, if you'd only marry me, Graciella, and go out there to live, with your uncommonly fine mind, _you'd_ find it--you couldn't help but find it. It would just come at your call, like my dog when I whistle to him." Graciella was touched by the compliment, or by the serious feeling which underlay it. And that was very funny, about calling the money and having it come! She had often heard of people whistling for their money, but had never heard that it came--that was Ben's idea. There really was a good deal in Ben, and perhaps, after all---- But at that moment there was a sound of wheels, and whatever Graciella's thought may have been, it was not completed. As Colonel French lifted the latch of the garden gate and came up the walk toward them, any glamour of the past, any rosy hope of the future, vanished in the solid brilliancy of the present moment. Old Ralph was dead, old Malcolm nearly so; the money had never been found, would never come to light. There on the doorstep was a young man shabbily attired, without means or prospects. There at the gate was a fine horse, in a handsome trap, and coming up the walk an agreeable, well-dressed gentleman of wealth and position. No dead romance could, in the heart of a girl of seventeen, hold its own against so vital and brilliant a reality. "Thank you, Ben," she said, adjusting a stray lock of hair which had escaped from her radiant crop, "I am not clever enough for that. It is a dream. Your great-uncle Ralph had ridden too long and too far in the sun, and imagined the treasure, which has driven your Uncle Malcolm crazy, and his housekeeper dumb, and has benumbed you so that you sit around waiting, waiting, when you ought to be working, working! No, Ben, I like you ever so much, but you will never take me to New York with your Uncle Ralph's money, nor will you ever earn enough to take me with your own. You must excuse me now, for here comes my cavalier. Don't hurry away; Aunt Laura will be out in a minute. You can stay and work on your model; I'll not be here to interrupt you. Good evening, Colonel French! Did you bring me a _Herald_? I want to look at the advertisements." "Yes, my dear young lady, there is Wednesday's--it is only two days old. How are you, Mr. Dudley?" "Tol'able, sir, thank you." Ben was a gentleman by instinct, though his heart was heavy and the colonel a favoured rival. "By the way," said the colonel, "I wish to have an interview with your uncle, about the old mill site. He seems to have been a stockholder in the company, and we should like his signature, if he is in condition to give it. If not, it may be necessary to appoint you his guardian, with power to act in his place." "He's all right, sir, in the morning, if you come early enough," replied Ben, courteously. "You can tell what is best to do after you've seen him." "Thank you," replied the colonel, "I'll have my man drive me out to-morrow about ten, say; if you'll be at home? You ought to be there, you know." "Very well, sir, I'll be there all day, and shall expect you." Graciella threw back one compassionate glance, as they drove away behind the colonel's high-stepping brown horse, and did not quite escape a pang at the sight of her young lover, still sitting on the steps in a dejected attitude; and for a moment longer his reproachful eyes haunted her. But Graciella prided herself on being, above all things, practical, and, having come out for a good time, resolutely put all unpleasant thoughts aside. There was good horse-flesh in the neighbourhood of Clarendon, and the colonel's was of the best. Some of the roads about the town were good--not very well kept roads, but the soil was a sandy loam and was self-draining, so that driving was pleasant in good weather. The colonel had several times invited Miss Laura to drive with him, and had taken her once; but she was often obliged to stay with her mother. Graciella could always be had, and the colonel, who did not like to drive alone, found her a vivacious companion, whose naïve comments upon life were very amusing to a seasoned man of the world. She was as pretty, too, as a picture, and the colonel had always admired beauty--with a tempered admiration. At Graciella's request they drove first down Main Street, past the post-office, where she wished to mail a letter. They attracted much attention as they drove through the street in the colonel's new trap. Graciella's billowy white gown added a needed touch of maturity to her slender youthfulness. A big straw hat shaded her brown hair, and she sat erect, and held her head high, with a vivid consciousness that she was the central feature of a very attractive whole. The colonel shared her thought, and looked at her with frank admiration. "You are the cynosure of all eyes," he declared. "I suppose I'm an object of envy to every young fellow in town." Graciella blushed and bridled with pleasure. "I am not interested in the young men of Clarendon," she replied loftily; "they are not worth the trouble." "Not even--Ben?" asked the colonel slyly. "Oh," she replied, with studied indifference, "Mr. Dudley is really a cousin, and only a friend. He comes to see the family." The colonel's attentions could have but one meaning, and it was important to disabuse his mind concerning Ben. Nor was she the only one in the family who entertained that thought. Of late her grandmother had often addressed her in an unusual way, more as a woman than as a child; and, only the night before, had retold the old story of her own sister Mary, who, many years before, had married a man of fifty. He had worshipped her, and had died, after a decent interval, leaving her a large fortune. From which the old lady had deduced that, on the whole, it was better to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave. She had made no application of the story, but Graciella was astute enough to draw her own conclusions. Her Aunt Laura, too, had been unusually kind; she had done up the white gown twice a week, had trimmed her hat for her, and had worn old gloves that she might buy her niece a new pair. And her aunt had looked at her wistfully and remarked, with a sigh, that youth was a glorious season and beauty a great responsibility. Poor dear, good old Aunt Laura! When the expected happened, she would be very kind to Aunt Laura, and repay her, so far as possible, for all her care and sacrifice. _Fifteen_ It was only a short time after his visit to the Excelsior Mills that Colonel French noticed a falling off in the progress made by his lawyer, Judge Bullard, in procuring the signatures of those interested in the old mill site, and after the passing of several weeks he began to suspect that some adverse influence was at work. This suspicion was confirmed when Judge Bullard told him one day, with some embarrassment, that he could no longer act for him in the matter. "I'm right sorry, Colonel," he said. "I should like to help you put the thing through, but I simply can't afford it. Other clients, whose business I have transacted for years, and to whom I am under heavy obligations, have intimated that they would consider any further activity of mine in your interest unfriendly to theirs." "I suppose," said the colonel, "your clients wish to secure the mill site for themselves. Nothing imparts so much value to a thing as the notion that somebody else wants it. Of course, I can't ask you to act for me further, and if you'll make out your bill, I'll hand you a check." "I hope," said Judge Bullard, "there'll be no ill-feeling about our separation." "Oh, no," responded the colonel, politely, "not at all. Business is business, and a man's own interests are his first concern." "I'm glad you feel that way," replied the lawyer, much relieved. He had feared that the colonel might view the matter differently. "Some men, you know," he said, "might have kept on, and worked against you, while accepting your retainer; there are such skunks at the bar." "There are black sheep in every fold," returned the colonel with a cold smile. "It would be unprofessional, I suppose, to name your client, so I'll not ask you." The judge did not volunteer the information, but the colonel knew instinctively whence came opposition to his plan, and investigation confirmed his intuition. Judge Bullard was counsel for Fetters in all matters where skill and knowledge were important, and Fetters held his note, secured by mortgage, for money loaned. For dirty work Fetters used tools of baser metal, but, like a wise man, he knew when these were useless, and was shrewd enough to keep the best lawyers under his control. The colonel, after careful inquiry, engaged to take Judge Bullard's place, one Albert Caxton, a member of a good old family, a young man, and a capable lawyer, who had no ascertainable connection with Fetters, and who, in common with a small fraction of the best people, regarded Fetters with distrust, and ascribed his wealth to usury and to what, in more recent years, has come to be known as "graft." To a man of Colonel French's business training, opposition was merely a spur to effort. He had not run a race of twenty years in the commercial field, to be worsted in the first heat by the petty boss of a Southern backwoods county. Why Fetters opposed him he did not know. Perhaps he wished to defeat a possible rival, or merely to keep out principles and ideals which would conflict with his own methods and injure his prestige. But if Fetters wanted a fight, Fetters should have a fight. Colonel French spent much of his time at young Caxton's office, instructing the new lawyer in the details of the mill affair. Caxton proved intelligent, zealous, and singularly sympathetic with his client's views and plans. They had not been together a week before the colonel realised that he had gained immensely by the change. The colonel took a personal part in the effort to procure signatures, among others that of old Malcolm Dudley and on the morning following the drive with Graciella, he drove out to Mink Run to see the old gentleman in person and discover whether or not he was in a condition to transact business. Before setting out, he went to his desk--his father's desk, which Miss Laura had sent to him--to get certain papers for old Mr. Dudley's signature, if the latter should prove capable of a legal act. He had laid the papers on top of some others which had nearly filled one of the numerous small drawers in the desk. Upon opening the drawer he found that one of the papers was missing. The colonel knew quite well that he had placed the paper in the drawer the night before; he remembered the circumstance very distinctly, for the event was so near that it scarcely required an exercise, not to say an effort, of memory. An examination of the drawer disclosed that the piece forming the back of it was a little lower than the sides. Possibly, thought the colonel, the paper had slipped off and fallen behind the drawer. He drew the drawer entirely out, and slipped his hand into the cavity. At the back of it he felt the corner of a piece of paper projecting upward from below. The paper had evidently slipped off the top of the others and fallen into a crevice, due to the shrinkage of the wood or some defect of construction. The opening for the drawer was so shallow that though he could feel the end of the paper, he was unable to get such a grasp of it as would permit him to secure it easily. But it was imperative that he have the paper; and since it bore already several signatures obtained with some difficulty, he did not wish to run the risk of tearing it. He examined the compartment below to see if perchance the paper could be reached from there, but found that it could not. There was evidently a lining to the desk, and the paper had doubtless slipped down between this and the finished panels forming the back of the desk. To reach it, the colonel procured a screw driver, and turning the desk around, loosened, with some difficulty, the screws that fastened the proper panel, and soon recovered the paper. With it, however, he found a couple of yellow, time-stained envelopes, addressed on the outside to Major John Treadwell. The envelopes were unsealed. He glanced into one of them, and seeing that it contained a sheet, folded small, presumably a letter, he thrust the two of them into the breast pocket of his coat, intending to hand them to Miss Laura at their next meeting. They were probably old letters and of no consequence, but they should of course be returned to the owners. In putting the desk back in its place, after returning the panel and closing the crevice against future accidents, the colonel caught his coat on a projecting point and tore a long rent in the sleeve. It was an old coat, and worn only about the house; and when he changed it before leaving to pay his call upon old Malcolm Dudley, he hung it in a back corner in his clothes closet, and did not put it on again for a long time. Since he was very busily occupied in the meantime, the two old letters to which he had attached no importance, escaped his memory altogether. The colonel's coachman, a young coloured man by the name of Tom, had complained of illness early in the morning, and the colonel took Peter along to drive him to Mink Run, as well as to keep him company. On their way through the town they stopped at Mrs. Treadwell's, where they left Phil, who had, he declared, some important engagement with Graciella. The distance was not long, scarcely more than five miles. Ben Dudley was in the habit of traversing it on horseback, twice a day. When they had passed the last straggling cabin of the town, their way lay along a sandy road, flanked by fields green with corn and cotton, broken by stretches of scraggy pine and oak, growing upon land once under cultivation, but impoverished by the wasteful methods of slavery; land that had never been regenerated, and was now no longer tilled. Negroes were working in the fields, birds were singing in the trees. Buzzards circled lazily against the distant sky. Although it was only early summer, a languor in the air possessed the colonel's senses, and suggested a certain charity toward those of his neighbours--and they were most of them--who showed no marked zeal for labour. "Work," he murmured, "is best for happiness, but in this climate idleness has its compensations. What, in the end, do we get for all our labour?" "Fifty cents a day, an' fin' yo'se'f, suh," said Peter, supposing the soliloquy addressed to himself. "Dat's w'at dey pays roun' hyuh." When they reached a large clearing, which Peter pointed out as their destination, the old man dismounted with considerable agility, and opened a rickety gate that was held in place by loops of rope. Evidently the entrance had once possessed some pretensions to elegance, for the huge hewn posts had originally been faced with dressed lumber and finished with ornamental capitals, some fragments of which remained; and the one massive hinge, hanging by a slender rust-eaten nail, had been wrought into a fantastic shape. As they drove through the gateway, a green lizard scampered down from the top of one of the posts, where he had been sunning himself, and a rattlesnake lying in the path lazily uncoiled his motley brown length, and sounding his rattle, wriggled slowly off into the rank grass and weeds that bordered the carriage track. The house stood well back from the road, amid great oaks and elms and unpruned evergreens. The lane by which it was approached was partly overgrown with weeds and grass, from which the mare's fetlocks swept the dew, yet undried by the morning sun. The old Dudley "mansion," as it was called, was a large two-story frame house, built in the colonial style, with a low-pitched roof, and a broad piazza along the front, running the full length of both stories and supported by thick round columns, each a solid piece of pine timber, gray with age and lack of paint, seamed with fissures by the sun and rain of many years. The roof swayed downward on one side; the shingles were old and cracked and moss-grown; several of the second story windows were boarded up, and others filled with sashes from which most of the glass had disappeared. About the house, for a space of several rods on each side of it, the ground was bare of grass and shrubbery, rough and uneven, lying in little hillocks and hollows, as though recently dug over at haphazard, or explored by some vagrant drove of hogs. At one side, beyond this barren area, lay a kitchen garden, enclosed by a paling fence. The colonel had never thought of young Dudley as being at all energetic, but so ill-kept a place argued shiftlessness in a marked degree. When the carriage had drawn up in front of the house, the colonel became aware of two figures on the long piazza. At one end, in a massive oaken armchair, sat an old man--seemingly a very old man, for he was bent and wrinkled, with thin white hair hanging down upon his shoulders. His face, of a highbred and strongly marked type, emphasised by age, had the hawk-like contour, that is supposed to betoken extreme acquisitiveness. His faded eyes were turned toward a woman, dressed in a homespun frock and a muslin cap, who sat bolt upright, in a straight-backed chair, at the other end of the piazza, with her hands folded on her lap, looking fixedly toward her _vis-à-vis_. Neither of them paid the slightest attention to the colonel, and when the old man rose, it was not to step forward and welcome his visitor, but to approach and halt in front of the woman. "Viney," he said, sharply, "I am tired of this nonsense. I insist upon knowing, immediately, where my uncle left the money." The woman made no reply, but her faded eyes glowed for a moment, like the ashes of a dying fire, and her figure stiffened perceptibly as she leaned slightly toward him. "Show me at once, you hussy," he said, shaking his fist, "or you'll have reason to regret it. I'll have you whipped." His cracked voice rose to a shrill shriek as he uttered the threat. The slumbrous fire in the woman's eyes flamed up for a moment. She rose, and drawing herself up to her full height, which was greater than the old man's, made some incoherent sounds, and bent upon him a look beneath which he quailed. "Yes, Viney, good Viney," he said, soothingly, "I know it was wrong, and I've always regretted it, always, from the very moment. But you shouldn't bear malice. Servants, the Bible says, should obey their masters, and you should bless them that curse you, and do good to them that despitefully use you. But I was good to you before, Viney, and I was kind to you afterwards, and I know you've forgiven me, good Viney, noble-hearted Viney, and you're going to tell me, aren't you?" he pleaded, laying his hand caressingly upon her arm. She drew herself away, but, seemingly mollified, moved her lips as though in speech. The old man put his hand to his ear and listened with an air of strained eagerness, well-nigh breathless in its intensity. "Try again, Viney," he said, "that's a good girl. Your old master thinks a great deal of you, Viney. He is your best friend!" Again she made an inarticulate response, which he nevertheless seemed to comprehend, for, brightening up immediately, he turned from her, came down the steps with tremulous haste, muttering to himself meanwhile, seized a spade that stood leaning against the steps, passed by the carriage without a glance, and began digging furiously at one side of the yard. The old woman watched him for a while, with a self-absorption that was entirely oblivious of the visitors, and then entered the house. The colonel had been completely absorbed in this curious drama. There was an air of weirdness and unreality about it all. Old Peter was as silent as if he had been turned into stone. Something in the atmosphere conduced to somnolence, for even the horses stood still, with no signs of restlessness. The colonel was the first to break the spell. "What's the matter with them, Peter? Do you know?" "Dey's bofe plumb 'stracted, suh--clean out'n dey min's--dey be'n dat way fer yeahs an' yeahs an' yeahs." "That's Mr. Dudley, I suppose?" "Yas, suh, dat's ole Mars Ma'com Dudley, de uncle er young Mistah Ben Dudley w'at hangs 'roun Miss Grac'ella so much." "And who is the woman?" "She's a bright mulattah 'oman, suh, w'at use' ter b'long ter de family befo' de wah, an' has kep' house fer ole Mars' Ma'com ever sense. He 'lows dat she knows whar old Mars' Rafe Dudley, _his_ uncle, hid a million dollahs endyoin' de wah, an' huh tongue's paralyse' so she can't tell 'im--an' he's be'n tryin' ter fin' out fer de las' twenty-five years. I wo'ked out hyuh one summer on plantation, an' I seen 'em gwine on like dat many 'n' many a time. Dey don' nobody roun' hyuh pay no 'tention to 'em no mo', ev'ybody's so use' ter seein' 'em." The conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Ben Dudley, who came around the house, and, advancing to the carriage, nodded to Peter, and greeted the colonel respectfully. "Won't you 'light and come in?" he asked. The colonel followed him into the house, to a plainly furnished parlour. There was a wide fireplace, with a fine old pair of brass andirons, and a few pieces of old mahogany furniture, incongruously assorted with half a dozen splint-bottomed chairs. The floor was bare, and on the walls half a dozen of the old Dudleys looked out from as many oil paintings, with the smooth glaze that marked the touch of the travelling artist, in the days before portrait painting was superseded by photography and crayon enlargements. Ben returned in a few minutes with his uncle. Old Malcolm seemed to have shaken off his aberration, and greeted the colonel with grave politeness. "I am glad, sir," he said, giving the visitor his hand, "to make your acquaintance. I have been working in the garden--the flower-garden--for the sake of the exercise. We have negroes enough, though they are very trifling nowadays, but the exercise is good for my health. I have trouble, at times, with my rheumatism, and with my--my memory." He passed his hand over his brow as though brushing away an imaginary cobweb. "Ben tells me you have a business matter to present to me?" The colonel, somewhat mystified, after what he had witnessed, by this sudden change of manner, but glad to find the old man seemingly rational, stated the situation in regard to the mill site. Old Malcolm seemed to understand perfectly, and accepted with willingness the colonel's proposition to give him a certain amount of stock in the new company for the release of such rights as he might possess under the old incorporation. The colonel had brought with him a contract, properly drawn, which was executed by old Malcolm, and witnessed by the colonel and Ben. "I trust, sir," said Mr. Dudley, "that you will not ascribe it to any discourtesy that I have not called to see you. I knew your father and your grandfather. But the cares of my estate absorb me so completely that I never leave home. I shall send my regards to you now and then by my nephew. I expect, in a very short time, when certain matters are adjusted, to be able to give up, to a great extent, my arduous cares, and lead a life of greater leisure, which will enable me to travel and cultivate a wider acquaintance. When that time comes, sir, I shall hope to see more of you." The old gentleman stood courteously on the steps while Ben accompanied the colonel to the carriage. It had scarcely turned into the lane when the colonel, looking back, saw the old man digging furiously. The condition of the yard was explained; he had been unjust in ascribing it to Ben's neglect. "I reckon, suh," remarked Peter, "dat w'en he fin' dat million dollahs, Mistah Ben'll marry Miss Grac'ella an' take huh ter New Yo'k." "Perhaps--and perhaps not," said the colonel. To himself he added, musingly, "Old Malcolm will start on a long journey before he finds the--million dollars. The watched pot never boils. Buried treasure is never found by those who seek it, but always accidentally, if at all." On the way back they stopped at the Treadwells' for Phil. Phil was not ready to go home. He was intensely interested in a long-eared mechanical mule, constructed by Ben Dudley out of bits of wood and leather and controlled by certain springs made of rubber bands, by manipulating which the mule could be made to kick furiously. Since the colonel had affairs to engage his attention, and Phil seemed perfectly contented, he was allowed to remain, with the understanding that Peter should come for him in the afternoon. _Sixteen_ Little Phil had grown very fond of old Peter, who seemed to lavish upon the child all of his love and devotion for the dead generations of the French family. The colonel had taught Phil to call the old man "Uncle Peter," after the kindly Southern fashion of slavery days, which, denying to negroes the forms of address applied to white people, found in the affectionate terms of relationship--Mammy, Auntie and Uncle--designations that recognised the respect due to age, and yet lost, when applied to slaves, their conventional significance. There was a strong, sympathy between the intelligent child and the undeveloped old negro; they were more nearly on a mental level, leaving out, of course, the factor of Peter's experience, than could have been the case with one more generously endowed than Peter, who, though by nature faithful, had never been unduly bright. Little Phil became so attached to his old attendant that, between Peter and the Treadwell ladies, the colonel's housekeeper had to give him very little care. On Sunday afternoons the colonel and Phil and Peter would sometimes walk over to the cemetery. The family lot was now kept in perfect order. The low fence around it had been repaired, and several leaning headstones straightened up. But, guided by a sense of fitness, and having before him the awful example for which Fetters was responsible, the colonel had added no gaudy monument nor made any alterations which would disturb the quiet beauty of the spot or its harmony with the surroundings. In the Northern cemetery where his young wife was buried, he had erected to her memory a stately mausoleum, in keeping with similar memorials on every hand. But here, in this quiet graveyard, where his ancestors slept their last sleep under the elms and the willows, display would have been out of place. He had, however, placed a wrought-iron bench underneath the trees, where he would sit and read his paper, while little Phil questioned old Peter about his grandfather and his great-grandfather, their prowess on the hunting field, and the wars they fought in; and the old man would delight in detailing, in his rambling and disconnected manner, the past glories of the French family. It was always a new story to Phil, and never grew stale to the old man. If Peter could be believed, there were never white folks so brave, so learned, so wise, so handsome, so kind to their servants, so just to all with whom they had dealings. Phil developed a very great fondness for these dead ancestors, whose graves and histories he soon knew as well as Peter himself. With his lively imagination he found pleasure, as children often do, in looking into the future. The unoccupied space in the large cemetery lot furnished him food for much speculation. "Papa," he said, upon one of these peaceful afternoons, "there's room enough here for all of us, isn't there--you, and me and Uncle Peter?" "Yes, Phil," said his father, "there's room for several generations of Frenches yet to sleep with their fathers." Little Phil then proceeded to greater detail. "Here," he said, "next to grandfather, will be your place, and here next to that, will be mine, and here, next to me will be--but no," he said, pausing reflectively, "that ought to be saved for my little boy when he grows up and dies, that is, when I grow up and have a little boy and he grows up and grows old and dies and leaves a little boy and--but where will Uncle Peter be?" "Nem mine me, honey," said the old man, "dey can put me somewhar e'se. Hit doan' mattuh 'bout me." "No, Uncle Peter, you must be here with the rest of us. For you know, Uncle Peter, I'm so used to you now, that I should want you to be near me then." Old Peter thought to humour the lad. "Put me down hyuh at de foot er de lot, little Mars' Phil, unner dis ellum tree." "Oh, papa," exclaimed Phil, demanding the colonel's attention, "Uncle Peter and I have arranged everything. You know Uncle Peter is to stay with me as long as I live, and when he dies, he is to be buried here at the foot of the lot, under the elm tree, where he'll be near me all the time, and near the folks that he knows and that know him." "All right, Phil. You see to it; you'll live longer." "But, papa, if I should die first, and then Uncle Peter, and you last of all, you'll put Uncle Peter near me, won't you, papa?" "Why, bless your little heart, Phil, of course your daddy will do whatever you want, if he's here to do it. But you'll live, Phil, please God, until I am old and bent and white-haired, and you are a grown man, with a beard, and a little boy of your own." "Yas, suh," echoed the old servant, "an' till ole Peter's bones is long sence crumble' inter dus'. None er de Frenches' ain' never died till dey was done growed up." On the afternoon following the colonel's visit to Mink Run, old Peter, when he came for Phil, was obliged to stay long enough to see the antics of the mechanical mule; and had not that artificial animal suddenly refused to kick, and lapsed into a characteristic balkiness for which there was no apparent remedy, it might have proved difficult to get Phil away. "There, Philip dear, never mind," said Miss Laura, "we'll have Ben mend it for you when he comes, next time, and then you can play with it again." Peter had brought with him some hooks and lines, and, he and Phil, after leaving the house, followed the bank of the creek, climbing a fence now and then, until they reached the old mill site, upon which work had not yet begun. They found a shady spot, and seating themselves upon the bank, baited their lines, and dropped them into a quiet pool. For quite a while their patience was unrewarded by anything more than a nibble. By and by a black cat came down from the ruined mill, and sat down upon the bank at a short distance from them. "I reckon we'll haf ter move, honey," said the old man. "We ain't gwine ter have no luck fishin' 'g'ins' no ole black cat." "But cats don't fish, Uncle Peter, do they?" "Law', chile, you'll never know w'at dem critters _kin_ do, 'tel you's watched 'em long ez I has! Keep yo' eye on dat one now." The cat stood by the stream, in a watchful attitude. Suddenly she darted her paw into the shallow water and with a lightning-like movement drew out a small fish, which she took in her mouth, and retired with it a few yards up the bank. "Jes' look at dat ole devil," said Peter, "playin' wid dat fish jes' lack it wuz a mouse! She'll be comin' down heah terreckly tellin' us ter go 'way fum her fishin' groun's." "Why, Uncle Peter," said Phil incredulously, "cats can't talk!" "Can't dey? Hoo said dey couldn'? Ain't Miss Grac'ella an' me be'n tellin' you right along 'bout Bre'r Rabbit and Bre'r Fox an de yuther creturs talkin' an' gwine on jes' lak folks?" "Yes, Uncle Peter, but those were just stories; they didn't really talk, did they?" "Law', honey," said the old man, with a sly twinkle in his rheumy eye, "you is de sma'tes' little white boy I ever knowed, but you is got a monst'us heap ter l'arn yit, chile. Nobody ain' done tol' you 'bout de Black Cat an' de Ha'nted House, is dey?" "No, Uncle Peter--you tell me." "I didn' knowed but Miss Grac'ella mought a tole you--she knows mos' all de tales." "No, she hasn't. You tell me about it, Uncle Peter." "Well," said Peter, "does you 'member dat coal-black man dat drives de lumber wagon?" "Yes, he goes by our house every day, on the way to the sawmill." "Well, it all happen' 'long er him. He 'uz gwine long de street one day, w'en he heared two gent'emen--one of 'em was ole Mars' Tom Sellers an' I fuhgot de yuther--but dey 'uz talkin' 'bout dat ole ha'nted house down by de creek, 'bout a mile from hyuh, on de yuther side er town, whar we went fishin' las' week. Does you 'member de place?" "Yes, I remember the house." "Well, as dis yer Jeff--dat's de lumber-wagon driver's name--as dis yer Jeff come up ter dese yer two gentlemen, one of 'em was sayin, 'I'll bet five dollahs dey ain' narry a man in his town would stay in dat ha'nted house all night.' Dis yer Jeff, he up 'n sez, sezee, 'Scuse me, suh, but ef you'll 'low me ter speak, suh, I knows a man wat'll stay in dat ole ha'nted house all night.'" "What is a ha'nted house, Uncle Peter?" asked Phil. "W'y. Law,' chile, a ha'nted house is a house whar dey's ha'nts!" "And what are ha'nts, Uncle Peter?" "Ha'nts, honey, is sperrits er dead folks, dat comes back an' hangs roun' whar dey use' ter lib." "Do all spirits come back, Uncle Peter?" "No, chile, bress de Lawd, no. Only de bad ones, w'at has be'n so wicked dey can't rest in dey graves. Folks lack yo' gran'daddy and yo' gran'mammy--an' all de Frenches--dey don' none er _dem_ come back, fer dey wuz all good people an' is all gone ter hebben. But I'm fergittin' de tale. "'Well, hoo's de man--hoo's de man?' ax Mistah Sellers, w'en Jeff tol' 'im dey wuz somebody wat 'ud stay in de ole ha'nted house all night. "'I'm de man,' sez Jeff. 'I ain't skeered er no ha'nt dat evuh walked, an' I sleeps in graveya'ds by pref'ence; fac', I jes nach'ly lacks ter talk ter ha'nts. You pay me de five dollahs, an' I'll 'gree ter stay in de ole house f'm nine er clock 'tel daybreak.' "Dey talk' ter Jeff a w'ile, an' dey made a bahgin wid 'im; dey give 'im one dollah down, an' promus' 'im fo' mo' in de mawnin' ef he stayed 'tel den. "So w'en he got de dollah he went uptown an' spent it, an' 'long 'bout nine er clock he tuk a lamp, an' went down ter de ole house, an' went inside an' shet de do'. "Dey wuz a rickety ole table settin' in de middle er de flo'. He sot de lamp on de table. Den he look 'roun' de room, in all de cawners an' up de chimbly, ter see dat dey wan't nobody ner nuthin' hid in de room. Den he tried all de winders an' fastened de do', so dey couldn' nobody ner nuthin' git in. Den he fotch a' ole rickety chair f'm one cawner, and set it by de table, and sot down. He wuz settin' dere, noddin' his head, studyin' 'bout dem other fo' dollahs, an' w'at he wuz gwine buy wid 'em, w'en bimeby he kinder dozed off, an' befo' he knowed it he wuz settin' dere fast asleep." "W'en he woke up, 'long 'bout 'leven erclock, de lamp had bu'n' down kinder low. He heared a little noise behind him an' look 'roun', an' dere settin' in de middle er de flo' wuz a big black tomcat, wid his tail quirled up over his back, lookin' up at Jeff wid bofe his two big yaller eyes. "Jeff rub' 'is eyes, ter see ef he wuz 'wake, an w'iles he sot dere wond'rin' whar de hole wuz dat dat ole cat come in at, fus' thing he knowed, de ole cat wuz settin' right up 'side of 'im, on de table, wid his tail quirled up roun' de lamp chimbly. "Jeff look' at de black cat, an' de black cat look' at Jeff. Den de black cat open his mouf an' showed 'is teef, an' sezee----" "'Good evenin'!' "'Good evenin' suh,' 'spon' Jeff, trimblin' in de knees, an' kind'er edgin' 'way fum de table. "'Dey ain' nobody hyuh but you an' me, is dey?' sez de black cat, winkin' one eye. "'No, suh,' sez Jeff, as he made fer de do', _'an' quick ez I kin git out er hyuh, dey ain' gwine ter be nobody hyuh but you!_'" "Is that all, Uncle Peter?" asked Phil, when the old man came to a halt with a prolonged chuckle. "Huh?" "Is that all?" "No, dey's mo' er de tale, but dat's ernuff ter prove dat black cats kin do mo' dan little w'ite boys 'low dey kin." "Did Jeff go away?" "Did he go 'way! Why, chile, he jes' flew away! Befo' he got ter de do', howsomevuh, he 'membered he had locked it, so he didn' stop ter try ter open it, but went straight out'n a winder, quicker'n lightnin', an' kyared de sash 'long wid 'im. An' he'd be'n in sech pow'ful has'e dat he knock' de lamp over an' lack ter sot de house afire. He nevuh got de yuther fo' dollahs of co'se, 'ca'se he didn't stay in de ole ha'nted house all night, but he 'lowed he'd sho'ly 'arned de one dollah he'd had a'ready." "Why didn't he want to talk to the black cat, Uncle Peter?" "Why didn' he wan' ter talk ter de black cat? Whoever heared er sich a queshtun! He didn' wan' ter talk wid no black cat, 'ca'se he wuz skeered. Black cats brings 'nuff bad luck w'en dey doan' talk, let 'lone w'en dey does." "I should like," said Phil, reflectively, "to talk to a black cat. I think it would be great fun." "Keep away f'm 'em, chile, keep away f'm 'em. Dey is some things too deep fer little boys ter projec' wid, an' black cats is one of 'em." They moved down the stream and were soon having better luck. "Uncle Peter," said Phil, while they were on their way home, "there couldn't be any ha'nts at all in the graveyard where my grandfather is buried, could there? Graciella read a lot of the tombstones to me one day, and they all said that all the people were good, and were resting in peace, and had gone to heaven. Tombstones always tell the truth, don't they, Uncle Peter?" "Happen so, honey, happen so! De French tombstones does; an' as ter de res', I ain' gwine to 'spute 'em, nohow, fer ef I did, de folks under 'em mought come back an' ha'nt me, jes' fer spite." _Seventeen_ By considerable effort, and a moderate outlay, the colonel at length secured a majority of interest in the Eureka mill site and made application to the State, through Caxton, for the redemption of the title. The opposition had either ceased or had proved ineffective. There would be some little further delay, but the outcome seemed practically certain, and the colonel did not wait longer to set in motion his plans for the benefit of Clarendon. "I'm told that Fetters says he'll get the mill anyway," said Caxton, "and make more money buying it under foreclosure than by building a new one. He's ready to lend on it now." "Oh, damn Fetters!" exclaimed the colonel, elated with his victory. He had never been a profane man, but strong language came so easy in Clarendon that one dropped into it unconsciously. "The mill will be running on full time when Fetters has been put out of business. We've won our first fight, and I've never really seen the fellow yet." As soon as the title was reasonably secure, the colonel began his preparations for building the cotton mill. The first step was to send for a New England architect who made a specialty of mills, to come down and look the site over, and make plans for the dam, the mill buildings and a number of model cottages for the operatives. As soon as the estimates were prepared, he looked the ground over to see how far he could draw upon local resources for material. There was good brick clay on the outskirts of the town, where bricks had once been made; but for most of the period since the war such as were used in the town had been procured from the ruins of old buildings--it was cheaper to clean bricks than to make them. Since the construction of the railroad branch to Clarendon the few that were needed from time to time were brought in by train. Not since the building of the Opera House block had there been a kiln of brick made in the town. Inquiry brought out the fact that in case of a demand for bricks there were brickmakers thereabouts; and in accordance with his general plan to employ local labour, the colonel looked up the owner of the brickyard, and asked if he were prepared to take a large contract. The gentleman was palpably troubled by the question. "Well, colonel," he said, "I don't know. I'd s'posed you were goin' to impo't yo' bricks from Philadelphia." "No, Mr. Barnes," returned the colonel, "I want to spend the money here in Clarendon. There seems to be plenty of unemployed labour." "Yes, there does, till you want somethin' done; then there ain't so much. I s'pose I might find half a dozen niggers round here that know how to make brick; and there's several more that have moved away that I can get back if I send for them. If you r'al'y think you want yo'r brick made here, I'll try to get them out for you. They'll cost you, though, as much, if not more than, you'd have to pay for machine-made bricks from the No'th." The colonel declared that he preferred the local product. "Well, I'm shore I don't see why," said the brickmaker. "They'll not be as smooth or as uniform in colour." "They'll be Clarendon brick," returned the colonel, "and I want this to be a Clarendon enterprise, from the ground up." "Well," said Barnes resignedly, "if you must have home-made brick, I suppose I'll have to make 'em. I'll see what I can do." Colonel French then turned the brick matter over to Caxton, who, in the course of a week, worried Barnes into a contract to supply so many thousand brick within a given time. "I don't like that there time limit," said the brickmaker, "but I reckon I can make them brick as fast as you can get anybody roun' here to lay 'em." When in the course of another week the colonel saw signs of activity about the old brickyard, he proceeded with the next step, which was to have the ruins of the old factory cleared away. "Well, colonel," said Major McLean one day when the colonel dropped into the hotel, where the Major hung out a good part of the time, "I s'pose you're goin' to hire white folks to do the work over there." "Why," replied the colonel, "I hadn't thought about the colour of the workmen. There'll be plenty, I guess, for all who apply, so long as it lasts." "You'll have trouble if you hire niggers," said the major. "You'll find that they won't work when you want 'em to. They're not reliable, they have no sense of responsibility. As soon as they get a dollar they'll lay off to spend it, and leave yo' work at the mos' critical point." "Well, now, major," replied the colonel, "I haven't noticed any unnatural activity among the white men of the town. The Negroes have to live, or seem to think they have, and I'll give 'em a chance to turn an honest penny. By the way, major, I need a superintendent to look after the work. It don't require an expert, but merely a good man--gentleman preferred--whom I can trust to see that my ideas are carried out. Perhaps you can recommend such a person?" The major turned the matter over in his mind before answering. He might, of course, offer his own services. The pay would doubtless be good. But he had not done any real work for years. His wife owned their home. His daughter taught in the academy. He was drawn on jury nearly every term; was tax assessor now and then, and a judge or clerk of elections upon occasion. Nor did he think that steady employment would agree with his health, while it would certainly interfere with his pleasant visits with the drummers at the hotel. "I'd be glad to take the position myself, colonel," he said, "but I r'aly won't have the time. The campaign will be hummin' in a month or so, an' my political duties will occupy all my leisure. But I'll bear the matter in mind, an' see if I can think of any suitable person." The colonel thanked him. He had hardly expected the major to offer his services, but had merely wished, for the fun of the thing, to try the experiment. What the colonel really needed was a good foreman--he had used the word "superintendent" merely on the major's account, as less suggestive of work. He found a poor white man, however, Green by name, who seemed capable and energetic, and a gang of labourers under his charge was soon busily engaged in clearing the mill site and preparing for the foundations of a new dam. When it was learned that the colonel was paying his labourers a dollar and a half a day, there was considerable criticism, on the ground that such lavishness would demoralise the labour market, the usual daily wage of the Negro labourer being from fifty to seventy-five cents. But since most of the colonel's money soon found its way, through the channels of trade, into the pockets of the white people, the criticism soon died a natural death. _Eighteen_ Once started in his career of active benevolence, the colonel's natural love of thoroughness, combined with a philanthropic zeal as pleasant as it was novel, sought out new reforms. They were easily found. He had begun, with wise foresight, at the foundations of prosperity, by planning an industry in which the people could find employment. But there were subtler needs, mental and spiritual, to be met. Education, for instance, so important to real development, languished in Clarendon. There was a select private school for young ladies, attended by the daughters of those who could not send their children away to school. A few of the town boys went away to military schools. The remainder of the white youth attended the academy, which was a thoroughly democratic institution, deriving its support partly from the public school fund and partly from private subscriptions. There was a coloured public school taught by a Negro teacher. Neither school had, so far as the colonel could learn, attained any very high degree of efficiency. At one time the colonel had contemplated building a schoolhouse for the children of the mill hands, but upon second thought decided that the expenditure would be more widely useful if made through the channels already established. If the old academy building were repaired, and a wing constructed, for which there was ample room upon the grounds, it would furnish any needed additional accommodation for the children of the operatives, and avoid the drawing of any line that might seem to put these in a class apart. There were already lines enough in the town--the deep and distinct colour line, theoretically all-pervasive, but with occasional curious exceptions; the old line between the "rich white folks" or aristocrats--no longer rich, most of them, but retaining some of their former wealth and clinging tenaciously to a waning prestige--and the "poor whites," still at a social disadvantage, but gradually evolving a solid middle class, with reinforcements from the decaying aristocracy, and producing now and then some ambitious and successful man like Fetters. To emphasise these distinctions was no part of the colonel's plan. To eradicate them entirely in any stated time was of course impossible, human nature being what it was, but he would do nothing to accentuate them. His mill hands should become, like the mill hands in New England towns, an intelligent, self-respecting and therefore respected element of an enlightened population; and the whole town should share equally in anything he might spend for their benefit. He found much pleasure in talking over these fine plans of his with Laura Treadwell. Caxton had entered into them with the enthusiasm of an impressionable young man, brought into close contact with a forceful personality. But in Miss Laura the colonel found a sympathy that was more than intellectual--that reached down to sources of spiritual strength and inspiration which the colonel could not touch but of which he was conscious and of which he did not hesitate to avail himself at second hand. Little Phil had made the house almost a second home; and the frequent visits of his father had only strengthened the colonel's admiration of Laura's character. He had learned, not from the lady herself, how active in good works she was. A Lady Bountiful in any large sense she could not be, for her means, as she had so frankly said upon his first visit, were small. But a little went a long way among the poor of Clarendon, and the life after all is more than meat, and the body more than raiment, and advice and sympathy were as often needed as other kinds of help. He had offered to assist her charities in a substantial way, and she had permitted it now and then, but had felt obliged at last to cease mentioning them altogether. He was able to circumvent this delicacy now and then through the agency of Graciella, whose theory was that money was made to spend. "Laura," he said one evening when at the house, "will you go with me to-morrow to visit the academy? I wish to see with your eyes as well as with mine what it needs and what can be done with it. It shall be our secret until we are ready to surprise the town." They went next morning, without notice to the principal. The school was well ordered, but the equipment poor. The building was old and sadly in need of repair. The teacher was an ex-Confederate officer, past middle life, well taught by the methods in vogue fifty years before, but scarcely in harmony with modern ideals of education. In spite of his perfect manners and unimpeachable character, the Professor, as he was called, was generally understood to hold his position more by virtue of his need and his influence than of his fitness to instruct. He had several young lady assistants who found in teaching the only career open, in Clarendon, to white women of good family. The recess hour arrived while they were still at school. When the pupils marched out, in orderly array, the colonel, seizing a moment when Miss Treadwell and the professor were speaking about some of the children whom the colonel did not know, went to the rear of one of the schoolrooms and found, without much difficulty, high up on one of the walls, the faint but still distinguishable outline of a pencil caricature he had made there thirty years before. If the wall had been whitewashed in the meantime, the lime had scaled down to the original plaster. Only the name, which had been written underneath, was illegible, though he could reconstruct with his mind's eye and the aid of a few shadowy strokes--"Bill Fetters, Sneak"--in angular letters in the printed form. The colonel smiled at this survival of youthful bigotry. Yet even then his instinct had been a healthy one; his boyish characterisation of Fetters, schoolboy, was not an inapt description of Fetters, man--mortgage shark, labour contractor and political boss. Bill, seeking official favour, had reported to the Professor of that date some boyish escapade in which his schoolfellows had taken part, and it was in revenge for this meanness that the colonel had chased him ignominiously down Main Street and pilloried him upon the schoolhouse wall. Fetters the man, a Goliath whom no David had yet opposed, had fastened himself upon a weak and disorganised community, during a period of great distress and had succeeded by devious ways in making himself its master. And as the colonel stood looking at the picture he was conscious of a faint echo of his boyish indignation and sense of outraged honour. Already Fetters and he had clashed upon the subject of the cotton mill, and Fetters had retired from the field. If it were written that they should meet in a life-and-death struggle for the soul of Clarendon, he would not shirk the conflict. "Laura," he said, when they went away, "I should like to visit the coloured school. Will you come with me?" She hesitated, and he could see with half an eye that her answer was dictated by a fine courage. "Why, certainly, I will go. Why not? It is a place where a good work is carried on." "No, Laura," said the colonel smiling, "you need not go. On second thought, I should prefer to go alone." She insisted, but he was firm. He had no desire to go counter to her instincts, or induce her to do anything that might provoke adverse comment. Miss Laura had all the fine glow of courage, but was secretly relieved at being excused from a trip so unconventional. So the colonel found his way alone to the schoolhouse, an unpainted frame structure in a barren, sandy lot upon a street somewhat removed from the centre of the town and given over mainly to the humble homes of Negroes. That his unannounced appearance created some embarrassment was quite evident, but his friendliness toward the Negroes had already been noised abroad, and he was welcomed with warmth, not to say effusion, by the principal of the school, a tall, stalwart and dark man with an intelligent expression, a deferential manner, and shrewd but guarded eyes--the eyes of the jungle, the colonel had heard them called; and the thought came to him, was it some ancestral jungle on the distant coast of savage Africa, or the wilderness of another sort in which the black people had wandered and were wandering still in free America? The attendance was not large; at a glance the colonel saw that there were but twenty-five pupils present. "What is your total enrolment?" he asked the teacher. "Well, sir," was the reply, "we have seventy-five or eighty on the roll, but it threatened rain this morning, and as a great many of them haven't got good shoes, they stayed at home for fear of getting their feet wet." The colonel had often noticed the black children paddling around barefoot in the puddles on rainy days, but there was evidently some point of etiquette connected with attending school barefoot. He had passed more than twenty-five children on the streets, on his way to the schoolhouse. The building was even worse than that of the academy, and the equipment poorer still. Upon the colonel asking to hear a recitation, the teacher made some excuse and shrewdly requested him to make a few remarks. They could recite, he said, at any time, but an opportunity to hear Colonel French was a privilege not to be neglected. The colonel, consenting good-humouredly, was introduced to the school in very flowery language. The pupils were sitting, the teacher informed them, in the shadow of a great man. A distinguished member of the grand old aristocracy of their grand old native State had gone to the great North and grown rich and famous. He had returned to his old home to scatter his vast wealth where it was most needed, and to give his fellow townsmen an opportunity to add their applause to his world-wide fame. He was present to express his sympathy with their feeble efforts to rise in the world, and he wanted the scholars all to listen with the most respectful attention. Colonel French made a few simple remarks in which he spoke of the advantages of education as a means of forming character and of fitting boys and girls for the work of men and women. In former years his people had been charged with direct responsibility for the care of many coloured children, and in a larger and indirect way they were still responsible for their descendants. He urged them to make the best of their opportunities and try to fit themselves for useful citizenship. They would meet with the difficulties that all men must, and with some peculiarly their own. But they must look up and not down, forward and not back, seeking always incentives to hope rather than excuses for failure. Before leaving, he arranged with the teacher, whose name was Taylor, to meet several of the leading coloured men, with whom he wished to discuss some method of improving their school and directing their education to more definite ends. The meeting was subsequently held. "What your people need," said the colonel to the little gathering at the schoolhouse one evening, "is to learn not only how to read and write and think, but to do these things to some definite end. We live in an age of specialists. To make yourselves valuable members of society, you must learn to do well some particular thing, by which you may reasonably expect to earn a comfortable living in your own home, among your neighbours, and save something for old age and the education of your children. Get together. Take advice from some of your own capable leaders in other places. Find out what you can do for yourselves, and I will give you three dollars for every one you can gather, for an industrial school or some similar institution. Take your time, and when you're ready to report, come and see me, or write to me, if I am not here." The result was the setting in motion of a stagnant pool. Who can measure the force of hope? The town had been neglected by mission boards. No able or ambitious Negro had risen from its midst to found an institution and find a career. The coloured school received a grudging dole from the public funds, and was left entirely to the supervision of the coloured people. It would have been surprising had the money always been expended to the best advantage. The fact that a white man, in some sense a local man, who had yet come from the far North, the land of plenty, with feelings friendly to their advancement, had taken a personal interest in their welfare and proved it by his presence among them, gave them hope and inspiration for the future. They had long been familiar with the friendship that curbed, restricted and restrained, and concerned itself mainly with their limitations. They were almost hysterically eager to welcome the co-operation of a friend who, in seeking to lift them up, was obsessed by no fear of pulling himself down or of narrowing in some degree the gulf that separated them--who was willing not only to help them, but to help them to a condition in which they might be in less need of help. The colonel touched the reserves of loyalty in the Negro nature, exemplified in old Peter and such as he. Who knows, had these reserves been reached sooner by strict justice and patient kindness, that they might not long since have helped to heal the wounds of slavery? "And now, Laura," said the colonel, "when we have improved the schools and educated the people, we must give them something to occupy their minds. We must have a library, a public library." "That will be splendid!" she replied with enthusiasm. "A public library," continued the colonel, "housed in a beautiful building, in a conspicuous place, and decorated in an artistic manner--a shrine of intellect and taste, at which all the people, rich and poor, black and white, may worship." Miss Laura was silent for a moment, and thoughtful. "But, Henry," she said with some hesitation, "do you mean that coloured people should use the library?" "Why not?" he asked. "Do they not need it most? Perhaps not many of them might wish to use it; but to those who do, should we deny the opportunity? Consider their teachers--if the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch?" "Yes, Henry, that is the truth; but I am afraid the white people wouldn't wish to handle the same books." "Very well, then we will give the coloured folks a library of their own, at some place convenient for their use. We need not strain our ideal by going too fast. Where shall I build the library?" "The vacant lot," she said, "between the post-office and the bank." "The very place," he replied. "It belonged to our family once, and I shall be acquiring some more ancestral property. The cows will need to find a new pasture." The announcement of the colonel's plan concerning the academy and the library evoked a hearty response on the part of the public, and the _Anglo-Saxon_ hailed it as the dawning of a new era. With regard to the colonel's friendly plans for the Negroes, there was less enthusiasm and some difference of opinion. Some commended the colonel's course. There were others, good men and patriotic, men who would have died for liberty, in the abstract, men who sought to walk uprightly, and to live peaceably with all, but who, by much brooding over the conditions surrounding their life, had grown hopelessly pessimistic concerning the Negro. The subject came up in a little company of gentlemen who were gathered around the colonel's table one evening, after the coffee had been served, and the Havanas passed around. "Your zeal for humanity does you infinite credit, Colonel French," said Dr. Mackenzie, minister of the Presbyterian Church, who was one of these prophetic souls, "but I fear your time and money and effort will be wasted. The Negroes are hopelessly degraded. They have degenerated rapidly since the war." "How do you know, doctor? You came here from the North long after the war. What is your standard of comparison?" "I voice the unanimous opinion of those who have known them at both periods." "_I_ don't agree with you; and I lived here before the war. There is certainly one smart Negro in town. Nichols, the coloured barber, owns five houses, and overreached me in a bargain. Before the war he was a chattel. And Taylor, the teacher, seems to be a very sensible fellow." "Yes," said Dr. Price, who was one of the company, "Taylor is a very intelligent Negro. Nichols and he have learned how to live and prosper among the white people." "They are exceptions," said the preacher, "who only prove the rule. No, Colonel French, for a long time _I_ hoped that there was a future for these poor, helpless blacks. But of late I have become profoundly convinced that there is no place in this nation for the Negro, except under the sod. We will not assimilate him, we cannot deport him----" "And therefore, O man of God, must we exterminate him?" "It is God's will. We need not stain our hands with innocent blood. If we but sit passive, and leave their fate to time, they will die away in discouragement and despair. Already disease is sapping their vitals. Like other weak races, they will vanish from the pathway of the strong, and there is no place for them to flee. When they go hence, it is to go forever. It is the law of life, which God has given to the earth. To coddle them, to delude them with false hopes of an unnatural equality which not all the power of the Government has been able to maintain, is only to increase their unhappiness. To a doomed race, ignorance is euthanasia, and knowledge is but pain and sorrow. It is His will that the fittest should survive, and that those shall inherit the earth who are best prepared to utilise its forces and gather its fruits." "My dear doctor, what you say may all be true, but, with all due respect, I don't believe a word of it. I am rather inclined to think that these people have a future; that there is a place for them here; that they have made fair progress under discouraging circumstances; that they will not disappear from our midst for many generations, if ever; and that in the meantime, as we make or mar them, we shall make or mar our civilisation. No society can be greater or wiser or better than the average of all its elements. Our ancestors brought these people here, and lived in luxury, some of them--or went into bankruptcy, more of them--on their labour. After three hundred years of toil they might be fairly said to have earned their liberty. At any rate, they are here. They constitute the bulk of our labouring class. To teach them is to make their labour more effective and therefore more profitable; to increase their needs is to increase our profits in supplying them. I'll take my chances on the Golden Rule. I am no lover of the Negro, _as_ Negro--I do not know but I should rather see him elsewhere. I think our land would have been far happier had none but white men ever set foot upon it after the red men were driven back. But they are here, through no fault of theirs, as we are. They were born here. We have given them our language--which they speak more or less corruptly; our religion--which they practise certainly no better than we; and our blood--which our laws make a badge of disgrace. Perhaps we could not do them strict justice, without a great sacrifice upon our own part. But they are men, and they should have their chance--at least _some_ chance." "I shall pray for your success," sighed the preacher. "With God all things are possible, if He will them. But I can only anticipate your failure." "The colonel is growing so popular, with his ready money and his cheerful optimism," said old General Thornton, another of the guests, "that we'll have to run him for Congress, as soon as he is reconverted to the faith of his fathers." Colonel French had more than once smiled at the assumption that a mere change of residence would alter his matured political convictions. His friends seemed to look upon them, so far as they differed from their own, as a mere veneer, which would scale off in time, as had the multiplied coats of whitewash over the pencil drawing made on the school-house wall in his callow youth. "You see," the old general went on, "it's a social matter down here, rather than a political one. With this ignorant black flood sweeping up against us, the race question assumes an importance which overshadows the tariff and the currency and everything else. For instance, I had fully made up my mind to vote the other ticket in the last election. I didn't like our candidate nor our platform. There was a clean-cut issue between sound money and financial repudiation, and _I_ was tired of the domination of populists and demagogues. All my better instincts led me toward a change of attitude, and I boldly proclaimed the fact. I declared my political and intellectual independence, at the cost of many friends; even my own son-in-law scarcely spoke to me for a month. When I went to the polls, old Sam Brown, the triflingest nigger in town, whom I had seen sentenced to jail more than once for stealing--old Sam Brown was next to me in the line. "'Well, Gin'l,' he said, 'I'm glad you is got on de right side at las', an' is gwine to vote _our_ ticket.'" "This was too much! I could stand the other party in the abstract, but not in the concrete. I voted the ticket of my neighbours and my friends. We had to preserve our institutions, if our finances went to smash. Call it prejudice--call it what you like--it's human nature, and you'll come to it, colonel, you'll come to it--and then we'll send you to Congress." "I might not care to go," returned the colonel, smiling. "You could not resist, sir, the unanimous demand of a determined constituency. Upon the rare occasions when, in this State, the office has had a chance to seek the man, it has never sought in vain." _Nineteen_ Time slipped rapidly by, and the colonel had been in Clarendon a couple of months when he went home one afternoon, and not finding Phil and Peter, went around to the Treadwells' as the most likely place to seek them. "Henry," said Miss Laura, "Philip does not seem quite well to-day. There are dark circles under his eyes, and he has been coughing a little." The colonel was startled. Had his growing absorption in other things led him to neglect his child? Phil needed a mother. This dear, thoughtful woman, whom nature had made for motherhood, had seen things about his child, that he, the child's father, had not perceived. To a mind like Colonel French's, this juxtaposition of a motherly heart and a motherless child seemed very pleasing. He despatched a messenger on horseback immediately for Dr. Price. The colonel had made the doctor's acquaintance soon after coming to Clarendon, and out of abundant precaution, had engaged him to call once a week to see Phil. A physician of skill and experience, a gentleman by birth and breeding, a thoughtful student of men and manners, and a good story teller, he had proved excellent company and the colonel soon numbered him among his intimate friends. He had seen Phil a few days before, but it was yet several days before his next visit. Dr. Price owned a place in the country, several miles away, on the road to Mink Run, and thither the messenger went to find him. He was in his town office only at stated hours. The colonel was waiting at home, an hour later, when the doctor drove up to the gate with Ben Dudley, in the shabby old buggy to which Ben sometimes drove his one good horse on his trips to town. "I broke one of my buggy wheels going out home this morning," explained the doctor, "and had just sent it to the shop when your messenger came. I would have ridden your horse back, and let the man walk in, but Mr. Dudley fortunately came along and gave me a lift." He looked at Phil, left some tablets, with directions for their use, and said that it was nothing serious and the child would be all right in a day or two. "What he needs, colonel, at his age, is a woman's care. But for that matter none of us ever get too old to need that." "I'll have Tom hitch up and take you home," said the colonel, when the doctor had finished with Phil, "unless you'll stay to dinner." "No, thank you," said the doctor, "I'm much obliged, but I told my wife I'd be back to dinner. I'll just sit here and wait for young Dudley, who's going to call for me in an hour. There's a fine mind, colonel, that's never had a proper opportunity for development. If he'd had half the chance that your boy will, he would make his mark. Did you ever see his uncle Malcolm?" The colonel described his visit to Mink Run, the scene on the piazza, the interview with Mr. Dudley, and Peter's story about the hidden treasure. "Is the old man sane?" he asked. "His mind is warped, undoubtedly," said the doctor, "but I'll leave it to you whether it was the result of an insane delusion or not--if you care to hear his story--or perhaps you've heard it?" "No, I have not," returned the colonel, "but I should like to hear it." This was the story that the doctor told: * * * * * When the last century had passed the half-way mark, and had started upon its decline, the Dudleys had already owned land on Mink Run for a hundred years or more, and were one of the richest and most conspicuous families in the State. The first great man of the family, General Arthur Dudley, an ardent patriot, had won distinction in the War of Independence, and held high place in the councils of the infant nation. His son became a distinguished jurist, whose name is still a synonym for legal learning and juridical wisdom. In Ralph Dudley, the son of Judge Dudley, and the immediate predecessor of the demented old man in whom now rested the title to the remnant of the estate, the family began to decline from its eminence. Ralph did not marry, but led a life of ease and pleasure, wasting what his friends thought rare gifts, and leaving his property to the management of his nephew Malcolm, the orphan son of a younger brother and his uncle's prospective heir. Malcolm Dudley proved so capable a manager that for year after year the large estate was left almost entirely in his charge, the owner looking to it merely for revenue to lead his own life in other places. The Civil War gave Ralph Dudley a career, not upon the field, for which he had no taste, but in administrative work, which suited his talents, and imposed more arduous tasks than those of actual warfare. Valour was of small account without arms and ammunition. A commissariat might be improvised, but gunpowder must be manufactured or purchased. Ralph's nephew Malcolm kept bachelor's hall in the great house. The only women in the household were an old black cook, and the housekeeper, known as "Viney"--a Negro corruption of Lavinia--a tall, comely young light mulattress, with a dash of Cherokee blood, which gave her straighter, blacker and more glossy hair than most women of mixed race have, and perhaps a somewhat different temperamental endowment. Her duties were not onerous; compared with the toiling field hands she led an easy life. The household had been thus constituted for ten years and more, when Malcolm Dudley began paying court to a wealthy widow. This lady, a Mrs. Todd, was a war widow, who had lost her husband in the early years of the struggle. War, while it took many lives, did not stop the currents of life, and weeping widows sometimes found consolation. Mrs. Todd was of Clarendon extraction, and had returned to the town to pass the period of her mourning. Men were scarce in those days, and Mrs. Todd was no longer young, Malcolm Dudley courted her, proposed marriage, and was accepted. He broke the news to his housekeeper by telling her to prepare the house for a mistress. It was not a pleasant task, but he was a resolute man. The woman had been in power too long to yield gracefully. Some passionate strain of the mixed blood in her veins broke out in a scene of hysterical violence. Her pleadings, remonstrances, rages, were all in vain. Mrs. Todd was rich, and he was poor; should his uncle see fit to marry--always a possibility--he would have nothing. He would carry out his purpose. The day after this announcement Viney went to town, sought out the object of Dudley's attentions, and told her something; just what, no one but herself and the lady ever knew. When Dudley called in the evening, the widow refused to see him, and sent instead, a curt note cancelling their engagement. Dudley went home puzzled and angry. On the way thither a suspicion flashed into his mind. In the morning he made investigations, after which he rode round by the residence of his overseer. Returning to the house at noon, he ate his dinner in an ominous silence, which struck terror to the heart of the woman who waited on him and had already repented of her temerity. When she would have addressed him, with a look he froze the words upon her lips. When he had eaten he looked at his watch, and ordered a boy to bring his horse round to the door. He waited until he saw his overseer coming toward the house, then sprang into the saddle and rode down the lane, passing the overseer with a nod. Ten minutes later Dudley galloped back up the lane and sprang from his panting horse. As he dashed up the steps he met the overseer coming out of the house. "You have not----" "I have, sir, and well! The she-devil bit my hand to the bone, and would have stabbed me if I hadn't got the knife away from her. You'd better have the niggers look after her; she's shamming a fit." Dudley was remorseful, and finding Viney unconscious, sent hastily for a doctor. "The woman has had a stroke," said that gentleman curtly, after an examination, "brought on by brutal treatment. By G--d, Dudley, I wouldn't have thought this of you! I own Negroes, but I treat them like human beings. And such a woman! I'm ashamed of my own race, I swear I am! If we are whipped in this war and the slaves are freed, as Lincoln threatens, it will be God's judgment!" Many a man has been shot by Southern gentlemen for language less offensive; but Dudley's conscience made him meek as Moses. "It was a mistake," he faltered, "and I shall discharge the overseer who did it." "You had better shoot him," returned the doctor. "He has no soul--and what is worse, no discrimination." Dudley gave orders that Viney should receive the best of care. Next day he found, behind the clock, where she had laid it, the letter which Ben Dudley, many years after, had read to Graciella on Mrs. Treadwell's piazza. It was dated the morning of the previous day. An hour later he learned of the death of his uncle, who had been thrown from a fractious horse, not far from Mink Run, and had broken his neck in the fall. A hasty search of the premises did not disclose the concealed treasure. The secret lay in the mind of the stricken woman. As soon as Dudley learned that Viney had eaten and drunk and was apparently conscious, he went to her bedside and took her limp hand in his own. "I'm sorry, Viney, mighty sorry, I assure you. Martin went further than I intended, and I have discharged him for his brutality. You'll be sorry, Viney, to learn that your old Master Ralph is dead; he was killed by an accident within ten miles of here. His body will be brought home to-day and buried to-morrow." Dudley thought he detected in her expressionless face a shade of sorrow. Old Ralph, high liver and genial soul, had been so indulgent a master, that his nephew suffered by the comparison. "I found the letter he left with you," he continued softly, "and must take charge of the money immediately. Can you tell me where it is?" One side of Viney's face was perfectly inert, as the result of her disorder, and any movement of the other produced a slight distortion that spoiled the face as the index of the mind. But her eyes were not dimmed, and into their sombre depths there leaped a sudden fire--only a momentary flash, for almost instantly she closed her lids, and when she opened them a moment later, they exhibited no trace of emotion. "You will tell me where it is?" he repeated. A request came awkwardly to his lips; he was accustomed to command. Viney pointed to her mouth with her right hand, which was not affected. "To be sure," he said hastily, "you cannot speak--not yet." He reflected for a moment. The times were unsettled. Should a wave of conflict sweep over Clarendon, the money might be found by the enemy. Should Viney take a turn for the worse and die, it would be impossible to learn anything from her at all. There was another thought, which had rapidly taken shape in his mind. No one but Viney knew that his uncle had been at Mink Run. The estate had been seriously embarrassed by Roger's extravagant patriotism, following upon the heels of other and earlier extravagances. The fifty thousand dollars would in part make good the loss; as his uncle's heir, he had at least a moral claim upon it, and possession was nine points of the law. "Is it in the house?" he asked. She made a negative sign. "In the barn?" The same answer. "In the yard? the garden? the spring house? the quarters?" No question he could put brought a different answer. Dudley was puzzled. The woman was in her right mind; she was no liar--of this servile vice at least she was free. Surely there was some mystery. "You saw my uncle?" he asked thoughtfully. She nodded affirmatively. "And he had the money, in gold?" Yes. "He left it here?" Yes, positively. "Do you know where he hid it?" She indicated that she did, and pointed again to her silent tongue. "You mean that you must regain your speech before you can explain?" She nodded yes, and then, as if in pain, turned her face away from him. Viney was carefully nursed. The doctor came to see her regularly. She was fed with dainty food, and no expense was spared to effect her cure. In due time she recovered from the paralytic stroke, in all except the power of speech, which did not seem to return. All of Dudley's attempts to learn from her the whereabouts of the money were equally futile. She seemed willing enough, but, though she made the effort, was never able to articulate; and there was plainly some mystery about the hidden gold which only words could unravel. If she could but write, a few strokes of the pen would give him his heart's desire! But, alas! Viney may as well have been without hands, for any use she could make of a pen. Slaves were not taught to read or write, nor was Viney one of the rare exceptions. But Dudley was a man of resource--he would have her taught. He employed a teacher for her, a free coloured man who knew the rudiments. But Viney, handicapped by her loss of speech, made wretched progress. From whatever cause, she manifested a remarkable stupidity, while seemingly anxious to learn. Dudley himself took a hand in her instruction, but with no better results, and, in the end, the attempt to teach her was abandoned as hopeless. Years rolled by. The fall of the Confederacy left the slaves free and completed the ruin of the Dudley estate. Part of the land went, at ruinous prices, to meet mortgages at ruinous rates; part lay fallow, given up to scrub oak and short-leaf pine; merely enough was cultivated, or let out on shares to Negro tenants, to provide a living for old Malcolm and a few servants. Absorbed in dreams of the hidden gold and in the search for it, he neglected his business and fell yet deeper into debt. He worried himself into a lingering fever, through which Viney nursed him with every sign of devotion, and from which he rose with his mind visibly weakened. When the slaves were freed, Viney had manifested no desire to leave her old place. After the tragic episode which had led to their mutual undoing, there had been no relation between them but that of master and servant. But some gloomy attraction, or it may have been habit, held her to the scene of her power and of her fall. She had no kith nor kin, and her affliction separated her from the rest of mankind. Nor would Dudley have been willing to let her go, for in her lay the secret of the treasure; and, since all other traces of her ailment had disappeared, so her speech might return. The fruitless search was never relinquished, and in time absorbed all of Malcolm Dudley's interest. The crops were left to the servants, who neglected them. The yard had been dug over many times. Every foot of ground for rods around had been sounded with a pointed iron bar. The house had suffered in the search. No crack or cranny had been left unexplored. The spaces between the walls, beneath the floors, under the hearths--every possible hiding place had been searched, with little care for any resulting injury. * * * * * Into this household Ben Dudley, left alone in the world, had come when a boy of fifteen. He had no special turn for farming, but such work as was done upon the old plantation was conducted under his supervision. In the decaying old house, on the neglected farm, he had grown up in harmony with his surroundings. The example of his old uncle, wrecked in mind by a hopeless quest, had never been brought home to him as a warning; use had dulled its force. He had never joined in the search, except casually, but the legend was in his mind. Unconsciously his standards of life grew around it. Some day he would be rich, and in order to be sure of it, he must remain with his uncle, whose heir he was. For the money was there, without a doubt. His great-uncle had hid the gold and left the letter--Ben had read it. The neighbours knew the story, or at least some vague version of it, and for a time joined in the search--surreptitiously, as occasion offered, and each on his own account. It was the common understanding that old Malcolm was mentally unbalanced. The neighbouring Negroes, with generous imagination, fixed his mythical and elusive treasure at a million dollars. Not one of them had the faintest conception of the bulk or purchasing power of one million dollars in gold; but when one builds a castle in the air, why not make it lofty and spacious? From this unwholesome atmosphere Ben Dudley found relief, as he grew older, in frequent visits to Clarendon, which invariably ended at the Treadwells', who were, indeed, distant relatives. He had one good horse, and in an hour or less could leave behind him the shabby old house, falling into ruin, the demented old man, digging in the disordered yard, the dumb old woman watching him from her inscrutable eyes; and by a change as abrupt as that of coming from a dark room into the brightness of midday, find himself in a lovely garden, beside a beautiful girl, whom he loved devotedly, but who kept him on the ragged edge of an uncertainty that was stimulating enough, but very wearing. _Twenty_ The summer following Colonel French's return to Clarendon was unusually cool, so cool that the colonel, pleasantly occupied with his various plans and projects, scarcely found the heat less bearable than that of New York at the same season. During a brief torrid spell he took Phil to a Southern mountain resort for a couple of weeks, and upon another occasion ran up to New York for a day or two on business in reference to the machinery for the cotton mill, which was to be ready for installation some time during the fall. But these were brief interludes, and did not interrupt the current of his life, which was flowing very smoothly and pleasantly in its new channel, if not very swiftly, for even the colonel was not able to make things move swiftly in Clarendon during the summer time, and he was well enough pleased to see them move at all. Kirby was out of town when the colonel was in New York, and therefore he did not see him. His mail was being sent from his club to Denver, where he was presumably looking into some mining proposition. Mrs. Jerviss, the colonel supposed, was at the seaside, but he had almost come face to face with her one day on Broadway. She had run down to the city on business of some sort. Moved by the instinct of defense, the colonel, by a quick movement, avoided the meeting, and felt safer when the lady was well out of sight. He did not wish, at this time, to be diverted from his Southern interests, and the image of another woman was uppermost in his mind. One moonlight evening, a day or two after his return from this brief Northern trip, the colonel called at Mrs. Treadwells'. Caroline opened the door. Mrs. Treadwell, she said, was lying down. Miss Graciella had gone over to a neighbour's, but would soon return. Miss Laura was paying a call, but would not be long. Would the colonel wait? No, he said, he would take a walk, and come back later. The streets were shady, and the moonlight bathed with a silvery glow that part of the town which the shadows did not cover. Strolling aimlessly along the quiet, unpaved streets, the colonel, upon turning a corner, saw a lady walking a short distance ahead of him. He thought he recognised the figure, and hurried forward; but ere he caught up with her, she turned and went into one of a row of small houses which he knew belonged to Nichols, the coloured barber, and were occupied by coloured people. Thinking he had been mistaken in the woman's identity, he slackened his pace, and ere he had passed out of hearing, caught the tones of a piano, accompanying the words, _"I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls, With vassals and serfs at my s-i-i-de."_ It was doubtless the barber's daughter. The barber's was the only coloured family in town that owned a piano. In the moonlight, and at a distance of some rods, the song sounded well enough, and the colonel lingered until it ceased, and the player began to practise scales, when he continued his walk. He had smoked a couple of cigars, and was returning toward Mrs. Treadwells', when he met, face to face, Miss Laura Treadwell coming out of the barber's house. He lifted his hat and put out his hand. "I called at the house a while ago, and you were all out. I was just going back. I'll walk along with you." Miss Laura was visibly embarrassed at the meeting. The colonel gave no sign that he noticed her emotion, but went on talking. "It is a delightful evening," he said. "Yes," she replied, and then went on, "you must wonder what I was doing there." "I suppose," he said, "that you were looking for a servant, or on some mission of kindness and good will." Miss Laura was silent for a moment and he could feel her hand tremble on the arm he offered her. "No, Henry," she said, "why should I deceive you? I did not go to find a servant, but to serve. I have told you we were poor, but not how poor. I can tell you what I could not say to others, for you have lived away from here, and I know how differently from most of us you look at things. I went to the barber's house to give the barber's daughter music lessons--for money." The colonel laughed contagiously. "You taught her to sing-- _'I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls?'_" "Yes, but you must not judge my work too soon," she replied. "It is not finished yet." "You shall let me know when it is done," he said, "and I will walk by and hear the finished product. Your pupil has improved wonderfully. I heard her singing the song the day I came back--the first time I walked by the old house. She sings it much better now. You are a good teacher, as well as a good woman." Miss Laura laughed somewhat excitedly, but was bent upon her explanation. "The girl used to come to the house," she said. "Her mother belonged to us before the war, and we have been such friends as white and black can be. And she wanted to learn to play, and offered to pay me well for lessons, and I gave them to her. We never speak about the money at the house; mother knows it, but feigns that I do it out of mere kindness, and tells me that I am spoiling the coloured people. Our friends are not supposed to know it, and if any of them do, they are kind and never speak of it. Since you have been coming to the house, it has not been convenient to teach her there, and I have been going to her home in the evening." "My dear Laura," said the colonel, remorsefully, "I have driven you away from your own home, and all unwittingly. I applaud your enterprise and your public spirit. It is a long way from the banjo to the piano--it marks the progress of a family and foreshadows the evolution of a race. And what higher work than to elevate humanity?" They had reached the house. Mrs. Treadwell had not come down, nor had Graciella returned. They went into the parlour. Miss Laura turned up the lamp. * * * * * Graciella had run over to a neighbour's to meet a young lady who was visiting a young lady who was a friend of Graciella's. She had remained a little longer than she had meant to, for among those who had called to see her friend's friend was young Mr. Fetters, the son of the magnate, lately returned home from college. Barclay Fetters was handsome, well-dressed and well-mannered. He had started at one college, and had already changed to two others. Stories of his dissipated habits and reckless extravagance had been bruited about. Graciella knew his family history, and had imbibed the old-fashioned notions of her grandmother's household, so that her acknowledgment of the introduction was somewhat cold, not to say distant. But as she felt the charm of his manner, and saw that the other girls were vieing with one another for his notice, she felt a certain triumph that he exhibited a marked preference for her conversation. Her reserve gradually broke down, and she was talking with animation and listening with pleasure, when she suddenly recollected that Colonel French would probably call, and that she ought to be there to entertain him, for which purpose she had dressed herself very carefully. He had not spoken yet, but might be expected to speak at any time; such marked attentions as his could have but one meaning; and for several days she had had a premonition that before the week was out he would seek to know his fate; and Graciella meant to be kind. Anticipating this event, she had politely but pointedly discouraged Ben Dudley's attentions, until Ben's pride, of which he had plenty in reserve, had awaked to activity. At their last meeting he had demanded a definite answer to his oft-repeated question. "Graciella," he had said, "are you going to marry me? Yes or no. I'll not be played with any longer. You must marry me for myself, or not at all. Yes or no." "Then no, Mr. Dudley," she had replied with spirit, and without a moment's hesitation, "I will not marry you. I will never marry you, not if I should die an old maid." She was sorry they had not parted friends, but she was not to blame. After her marriage, she would avoid the embarrassment of meeting him, by making the colonel take her away. Sometime she might, through her husband, be of service to Ben, and thus make up, in part at least, for his disappointment. As she ran up through the garden and stepped upon the porch--her slippers were thin and made no sound--she heard Colonel French's voice in the darkened parlour. Some unusual intonation struck her, and she moved lightly and almost mechanically forward, in the shadow, toward a point where she could see through the window and remain screened from observation. So intense was her interest in what she heard, that she stood with her hand on her heart, not even conscious that she was doing a shameful thing. * * * * * Her aunt was seated and Colonel French was standing near her. An open Bible lay upon the table. The colonel had taken it up and was reading: "'Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. Strength and honour are her clothing, and she shall rejoice in time to come.' "Laura," he said, "the proverb maker was a prophet as well. In these words, written four thousand years ago, he has described you, line for line." The glow which warmed her cheek, still smooth, the light which came into her clear eyes, the joy that filled her heart at these kind words, put the years to flight, and for the moment Laura was young again. "You have been good to Phil," the colonel went on, "and I should like him to be always near you and have your care. And you have been kind to me, and made me welcome and at home in what might otherwise have seemed, after so long an absence, a strange land. You bring back to me the best of my youth, and in you I find the inspiration for good deeds. Be my wife, dear Laura, and a mother to my boy, and we will try to make you happy." "Oh, Henry," she cried with fluttering heart, "I am not worthy to be your wife. I know nothing of the world where you have lived, nor whether I would fit into it." "You are worthy of any place," he declared, "and if one please you more than another, I shall make your wishes mine." "But, Henry, how could I leave my mother? And Graciella needs my care." "You need not leave your mother--she shall be mine as well as yours. Graciella is a dear, bright child; she has in her the making of a noble woman; she should be sent away to a good school, and I will see to it. No, dear Laura, there are no difficulties, no giants in the pathway that will not fly or fall when we confront them." He had put his arm around her and lifted her face to his. He read his answer in her swimming eyes, and when he had reached down and kissed her cheek, she buried her head on his shoulder and shed some tears of happiness. For this was her secret: she was sweet and good; she would have made any man happy, who had been worthy of her, but no man had ever before asked her to be his wife. She had lived upon a plane so simple, yet so high, that men not equally high-minded had never ventured to address her, and there were few such men, and chance had not led them her way. As to the others--perhaps there were women more beautiful, and certainly more enterprising. She had not repined; she had been busy and contented. Now this great happiness was vouchsafed her, to find in the love of the man whom she admired above all others a woman's true career. "Henry," she said, when they had sat down on the old hair-cloth sofa, side by side, "you have made me very happy; so happy that I wish to keep my happiness all to myself--for a little while. Will you let me keep our engagement secret until I--am accustomed to it? It may be silly or childish, but it seems like a happy dream, and I wish to assure myself of its reality before I tell it to anyone else." "To me," said the colonel, smiling tenderly into her eyes, "it is the realisation of an ideal. Since we met that day in the cemetery you have seemed to me the embodiment of all that is best of my memories of the old South; and your gentleness, your kindness, your tender grace, your self-sacrifice and devotion to duty, mark you a queen among women, and my heart shall be your throne. As to the announcement, have it as you will--it is the lady's privilege." "You are very good," she said tremulously. "This hour repays me for all I have ever tried to do for others." * * * * * Graciella felt very young indeed--somewhere in the neighbourhood of ten, she put it afterward, when she reviewed the situation in a calmer frame of mind--as she crept softly away from the window and around the house to the back door, and up the stairs and into her own chamber, where, all oblivious of danger to her clothes or her complexion, she threw herself down upon her own bed and burst into a passion of tears. She had been cruelly humiliated. Colonel French, whom she had imagined in love with her, had regarded her merely as a child, who ought to be sent to school--to acquire what, she asked herself, good sense or deportment? Perhaps she might acquire more good sense--she had certainly made a fool of herself in this case--but she had prided herself upon her manners. Colonel French had been merely playing with her, like one would with a pet monkey; and he had been in love, all the time, with her Aunt Laura, whom the girls had referred to compassionately, only that same evening, as a hopeless old maid. It is fortunate that youth and hope go generally hand in hand. Graciella possessed a buoyant spirit to breast the waves of disappointment. She had her cry out, a good, long cry; and when much weeping had dulled the edge of her discomfiture she began to reflect that all was not yet lost. The colonel would not marry her, but he would still marry in the family. When her Aunt Laura became Mrs. French, she would doubtless go often to New York, if she would not live there always. She would invite Graciella to go with her, perhaps to live with her there. As for going to school, that was a matter which her own views should control; at present she had no wish to return to school. She might take lessons in music, or art; her aunt would hardly care for her to learn stenography now, or go into magazine work. Her aunt would surely not go to Europe without inviting her, and Colonel French was very liberal with his money, and would deny his wife nothing, though Graciella could hardly imagine that any man would be infatuated with her Aunt Laura. But this was not the end of Graciella's troubles. Graciella had a heart, although she had suppressed its promptings, under the influence of a selfish ambition. She had thrown Ben Dudley over for the colonel; the colonel did not want her, and now she would have neither. Ben had been very angry, unreasonably angry, she had thought at the time, and objectionably rude in his manner. He had sworn never to speak to her again. If he should keep his word, she might be very unhappy. These reflections brought on another rush of tears, and a very penitent, contrite, humble-minded young woman cried herself to sleep before Miss Laura, with a heart bursting with happiness, bade the colonel good-night at the gate, and went upstairs to lie awake in her bed in a turmoil of pleasant emotions. Miss Laura's happiness lay not alone in the prospect that Colonel French would marry her, nor in any sordid thought of what she would gain by becoming the wife of a rich man. It rested in the fact that this man, whom she admired, and who had come back from the outer world to bring fresh ideas, new and larger ideals to lift and broaden and revivify the town, had passed by youth and beauty and vivacity, and had chosen her to share this task, to form the heart and mind and manners of his child, and to be the tie which would bind him most strongly to her dear South. For she was a true child of the soil; the people about her, white and black, were her people, and this marriage, with its larger opportunities for usefulness, would help her to do that for which hitherto she had only been able to pray and to hope. To the boy she would be a mother indeed; to lead him in the paths of truth and loyalty and manliness and the fear of God--it was a priceless privilege, and already her mother-heart yearned to begin the task. And then after the flow came the ebb. Why had he chosen her? Was it _merely_ as an abstraction--the embodiment of an ideal, a survival from a host of pleasant memories, and as a mother for his child, who needed care which no one else could give, and as a helpmate in carrying out his schemes of benevolence? Were these his only motives; and, if so, were they sufficient to ensure her happiness? Was he marrying her through a mere sentimental impulse, or for calculated convenience, or from both? She must be certain; for his views might change. He was yet in the full flow of philanthropic enthusiasm. She shared his faith in human nature and the triumph of right ideas; but once or twice she had feared he was underrating the power of conservative forces; that he had been away from Clarendon so long as to lose the perspective of actual conditions, and that he was cherishing expectations which might be disappointed. Should this ever prove true, his disillusion might be as far-reaching and as sudden as his enthusiasm. Then, if he had not loved her for herself, she might be very unhappy. She would have rejoiced to bring him youth and beauty, and the things for which other women were preferred; she would have loved to be the perfect mate, one in heart, mind, soul and body, with the man with whom she was to share the journey of life. But this was a passing thought, born of weakness and self-distrust, and she brushed it away with the tear that had come with it, and smiled at its absurdity. Her youth was past; with nothing to expect but an old age filled with the small expedients of genteel poverty, there had opened up to her, suddenly and unexpectedly, a great avenue for happiness and usefulness. It was foolish, with so much to be grateful for, to sigh for the unattainable. His love must be all the stronger since it took no thought of things which others would have found of controlling importance. In choosing her to share his intellectual life he had paid her a higher compliment than had he praised the glow of her cheek or the contour of her throat. In confiding Phil to her care he had given her a sacred trust and confidence, for she knew how much he loved the child. _Twenty-one_ The colonel's schemes for the improvement of Clarendon went forward, with occasional setbacks. Several kilns of brick turned out badly, so that the brickyard fell behind with its orders, thus delaying the work a few weeks. The foundations of the old cotton mill had been substantially laid, and could be used, so far as their position permitted for the new walls. When the bricks were ready, a gang of masons was put to work. White men and coloured were employed, under a white foreman. So great was the demand for labour and so stimulating the colonel's liberal wage, that even the drowsy Negroes around the market house were all at work, and the pigs who had slept near them were obliged to bestir themselves to keep from being run over by the wagons that were hauling brick and lime and lumber through the streets. Even the cows in the vacant lot between the post-office and the bank occasionally lifted up their gentle eyes as though wondering what strange fever possessed the two-legged creatures around them, urging them to such unnatural activity. The work went on smoothly for a week or two, when the colonel had some words with Jim Green, the white foreman of the masons. The cause of the dispute was not important, but the colonel, as the master, insisted that certain work should be done in a certain way. Green wished to argue the point. The colonel brought the discussion to a close with a peremptory command. The foreman took offense, declared that he was no nigger to be ordered around, and quit. The colonel promoted to the vacancy George Brown, a coloured man, who was the next best workman in the gang. On the day when Brown took charge of the job the white bricklayers, of whom there were two at work, laid down their tools. "What's the matter?" asked the colonel, when they reported for their pay. "Aren't you satisfied with the wages?" "Yes, we've got no fault to find with the wages." "Well?" "We won't work under George Brown. We don't mind working _with_ niggers, but we won't work _under_ a nigger." "I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I must hire my own men. Here is your money." They would have preferred to argue their grievance, and since the colonel had shut off discussion they went down to Clay Jackson's saloon and argued the case with all comers, with the usual distortion attending one-sided argument. Jim Green had been superseded by a nigger--this was the burden of their grievance. Thus came the thin entering wedge that was to separate the colonel from a measure of his popularity. There had been no objection to the colonel's employing Negroes, no objection to his helping their school--if he chose to waste his money that way; but there were many who took offense when a Negro was preferred to a white man. Through Caxton the colonel learned of this criticism. The colonel showed no surprise, and no annoyance, but in his usual good-humoured way replied: "We'll go right along and pay no attention to him. There were only two white men in the gang, and they have never worked under the Negro; they quit as soon as I promoted him. I have hired many men in my time and have made it an unvarying rule to manage my own business in my own way. If anybody says anything to you about it, you tell them just that. These people have got to learn that we live in an industrial age, and success demands of an employer that he utilise the most available labour. After Green was discharged, George Brown was the best mason left. He gets more work out of the men than Green did--even in the old slave times Negroes made the best of overseers; they knew their own people better than white men could and got more out of them. When the mill is completed it will give employment to five hundred white women and fifty white men. But every dog must have his day, so give the Negro his." The colonel attached no great importance to the incident; the places of the workmen were filled, and the work went forward. He knew the Southern sensitiveness, and viewed it with a good-natured tolerance, which, however, stopped at injustice to himself or others. The very root of his reform was involved in the proposition to discharge a competent foreman because of an unreasonable prejudice. Matters of feeling were all well enough in some respects--no one valued more highly than the colonel the right to choose his own associates--but the right to work and to do one's best work, was fundamental, as was the right to have one's work done by those who could do it best. Even a healthy social instinct might be perverted into an unhealthy and unjust prejudice; most things evil were the perversion of good. The feeling with which the colonel thus came for the first time directly in contact, a smouldering fire capable always of being fanned into flame, had been greatly excited by the political campaign which began about the third month after his arrival in Clarendon. An ambitious politician in a neighbouring State had led a successful campaign on the issue of Negro disfranchisement. Plainly unconstitutional, it was declared to be as plainly necessary for the preservation of the white race and white civilisation. The example had proved contagious, and Fetters and his crowd, who dominated their State, had raised the issue there. At first the pronouncement met with slight response. The sister State had possessed a Negro majority, which, in view of reconstruction history was theoretically capable of injuring the State. Such was not the case here. The State had survived reconstruction with small injury. White supremacy existed, in the main, by virtue of white efficiency as compared with efficiency of a lower grade; there had been places, and instances, where other methods had been occasionally employed to suppress the Negro vote, but, taken as a whole, the supremacy of the white man was secure. No Negro had held a State office for twenty years. In Clarendon they had even ceased to be summoned as jurors, and when a Negro met a white man, he gave him the wall, even if it were necessary to take the gutter to do so. But this was not enough; this supremacy must be made permanent. Negroes must be taught that they need never look for any different state of things. New definitions were given to old words, new pictures set in old frames, new wine poured into old bottles. "So long," said the candidate for governor, when he spoke at Clarendon during the canvas, at a meeting presided over by the editor of the _Anglo-Saxon_, "so long as one Negro votes in the State, so long are we face to face with the nightmare of Negro domination. For example, suppose a difference of opinion among white men so radical as to divide their vote equally, the ballot of one Negro would determine the issue. Can such a possibility be contemplated without a shudder? Our duty to ourselves, to our children, and their unborn descendants, and to our great and favoured race, impels us to protest, by word, by vote, by arms if need be, against the enforced equality of an inferior race. Equality anywhere, means ultimately, equality everywhere. Equality at the polls means social equality; social equality means intermarriage and corruption of blood, and degeneration and decay. What gentleman here would want his daughter to marry a blubber-lipped, cocoanut-headed, kidney-footed, etc., etc., nigger?" There could be but one answer to the question, and it came in thunders of applause. Colonel French heard the speech, smiled at the old arguments, but felt a sudden gravity at the deep-seated feeling which they evoked. He remembered hearing, when a boy, the same arguments. They had served their purpose once before, with other issues, to plunge the South into war and consequent disaster. Had the lesson been in vain? He did not see the justice nor the expediency of the proposed anti-Negro agitation. But he was not in politics, and confined his protests to argument with his friends, who listened but were not convinced. Behind closed doors, more than one of the prominent citizens admitted that the campaign was all wrong; that the issues were unjust and reactionary, and that the best interests of the State lay in uplifting every element of the people rather than selecting some one class for discouragement and degradation, and that the white race could hold its own, with the Negroes or against them, in any conceivable state of political equality. They listened to the colonel's quiet argument that no State could be freer or greater or more enlightened than the average of its citizenship, and that any restriction of rights that rested upon anything but impartial justice, was bound to re-act, as slavery had done, upon the prosperity and progress of the State. They listened, which the colonel regarded as a great point gained, and they agreed in part, and he could almost understand why they let their feelings govern their reason and their judgment, and said no word to prevent an unfair and unconstitutional scheme from going forward to a successful issue. He knew that for a white man to declare, in such a community, for equal rights or equal justice for the Negro, or to take the Negro's side in any case where the race issue was raised, was to court social ostracism and political death, or, if the feeling provoked were strong enough, an even more complete form of extinction. So the colonel was patient, and meant to be prudent. His own arguments avoided the stirring up of prejudice, and were directed to the higher motives and deeper principles which underlie society, in the light of which humanity is more than race, and the welfare of the State above that of any man or set of men within it; it being an axiom as true in statesmanship as in mathematics, that the whole is greater than any one of its parts. Content to await the uplifting power of industry and enlightenment, and supremely confident of the result, the colonel went serenely forward in his work of sowing that others might reap. _Twenty-two_ The atmosphere of the Treadwell home was charged, for the next few days, with electric currents. Graciella knew that her aunt was engaged to Colonel French. But she had not waited, the night before, to hear her aunt express the wish that the engagement should be kept secret. She was therefore bursting with information of which she could manifest no consciousness without confessing that she had been eavesdropping--a thing which she knew Miss Laura regarded as detestably immoral. She wondered at her aunt's silence. Except a certain subdued air of happiness there was nothing to distinguish Miss Laura's calm demeanor from that of any other day. Graciella had determined upon her own attitude toward her aunt. She would kiss her, and wish her happiness, and give no sign that any thought of Colonel French had ever entered her own mind. But this little drama, rehearsed in the privacy of her own room, went unacted, since the curtain did not rise upon the stage. The colonel came and went as usual. Some dissimulation was required on Graciella's part to preserve her usual light-hearted manner toward him. She may have been to blame in taking the colonel's attentions as intended for herself; she would not soon forgive his slighting reference to her. In his eyes she had been only a child, who ought to go to school. He had been good enough to say that she had the making of a fine woman. Thanks! She had had a lover for at least two years, and a proposal of marriage before Colonel French's shadow had fallen athwart her life. She wished her Aunt Laura happiness; no one could deserve it more, but was it possible to be happy with a man so lacking in taste and judgment? Her aunt's secret began to weigh upon her mind, and she effaced herself as much as possible when the colonel came. Her grandmother had begun to notice this and comment upon it, when the happening of a certain social event created a diversion. This was the annual entertainment known as the Assembly Ball. It was usually held later in the year, but owing to the presence of several young lady visitors in the town, it had been decided to give it early in the fall. The affair was in the hands of a committee, by whom invitations were sent to most people in the county who had any claims to gentility. The gentlemen accepting were expected to subscribe to the funds for hall rent, music and refreshments. These were always the best the town afforded. The ball was held in the Opera House, a rather euphemistic title for the large hall above Barstow's cotton warehouse, where third-class theatrical companies played one-night stands several times during the winter, and where an occasional lecturer or conjurer held forth. An amateur performance of "Pinafore" had once been given there. Henry W. Grady had lectured there upon White Supremacy; the Reverend Sam Small had preached there on Hell. It was also distinguished as having been refused, even at the request of the State Commissioner of Education, as a place for Booker T. Washington to deliver an address, which had been given at the town hall instead. The Assembly Balls had always been held in the Opera House. In former years the music had been furnished by local Negro musicians, but there were no longer any of these, and a band of string music was brought in from another town. So far as mere wealth was concerned, the subscribers touched such extremes as Ben Dudley on the one hand and Colonel French on the other, and included Barclay Fetters, whom Graciella had met on the evening before her disappointment. The Treadwell ladies were of course invited, and the question of ways and means became paramount. New gowns and other accessories were imperative. Miss Laura's one party dress had done service until it was past redemption, and this was Graciella's first Assembly Ball. Miss Laura took stock of the family's resources, and found that she could afford only one gown. This, of course, must be Graciella's. Her own marriage would entail certain expenses which demanded some present self-denial. She had played wall-flower for several years, but now that she was sure of a partner, it was a real sacrifice not to attend the ball. But Graciella was young, and in such matters youth has a prior right; for she had yet to find her mate. Graciella magnanimously offered to remain at home, but was easily prevailed upon to go. She was not entirely happy, for the humiliating failure of her hopes had left her for the moment without a recognised admirer, and the fear of old maidenhood had again laid hold of her heart. Her Aunt Laura's case was no consoling example. Not one man in a hundred would choose a wife for Colonel French's reasons. Most men married for beauty, and Graciella had been told that beauty that matured early, like her own, was likely to fade early. One humiliation she was spared. She had been as silent about her hopes as Miss Laura was about her engagement. Whether this was due to mere prudence or to vanity--the hope of astonishing her little world by the unexpected announcement--did not change the comforting fact that she had nothing to explain and nothing for which to be pitied. If her friends, after the manner of young ladies, had hinted at the subject and sought to find a meaning in Colonel French's friendship, she had smiled enigmatically. For this self-restraint, whatever had been its motive, she now reaped her reward. The announcement of her aunt's engagement would account for the colonel's attentions to Graciella as a mere courtesy to a young relative of his affianced. With regard to Ben, Graciella was quite uneasy. She had met him only once since their quarrel, and had meant to bow to him politely, but with dignity, to show that she bore no malice; but he had ostentatiously avoided her glance. If he chose to be ill-natured, she had thought, and preferred her enmity to her friendship, her conscience was at least clear. She had been willing to forget his rudeness and be a friend to him. She could have been his true friend, if nothing more; and he would need friends, unless he changed a great deal. When her mental atmosphere was cleared by the fading of her dream, Ben assumed larger proportions. Perhaps he had had cause for complaint; at least it was only just to admit that he thought so. Nor had he suffered in her estimation by his display of spirit in not waiting to be jilted but in forcing her hand before she was quite ready to play it. She could scarcely expect him to attend her to the ball; but he was among the subscribers, and could hardly avoid meeting her, or dancing with her, without pointed rudeness. If he did not ask her to dance, then either the Virginia reel, or the lancers, or quadrilles, would surely bring them together; and though Graciella sighed, she did not despair. She could, of course, allay his jealousy at once by telling him of her Aunt Laura's engagement, but this was not yet practicable. She must find some other way of placating him. Ben Dudley also had a problem to face in reference to the ball--a problem which has troubled impecunious youth since balls were invented--the problem of clothes. He was not obliged to go to the ball. Graciella's outrageous conduct relieved him of any obligation to invite her, and there was no other woman with whom he would have cared to go, or who would have cared, so far as he knew, to go with him. For he was not a lady's man, and but for his distant relationship would probably never have gone to the Treadwells'. He was looked upon by young women as slow, and he knew that Graciella had often been impatient at his lack of sprightliness. He could pay his subscription, which was really a sort of gentility tax, the failure to meet which would merely forfeit future invitations, and remain at home. He did not own a dress suit, nor had he the money to spare for one. He, or they, for he and his uncle were one in such matters, were in debt already, up to the limit of their credit, and he had sold the last bale of old cotton to pay the last month's expenses, while the new crop, already partly mortgaged, was not yet picked. He knew that some young fellows in town rented dress suits from Solomon Cohen, who, though he kept only four suits in stock at a time, would send to New York for others to rent out on this occasion, and return them afterwards. But Ben would not wear another man's clothes. He had borne insults from Graciella that he never would have borne from any one else, and that he would never bear again; but there were things at which his soul protested. Nor would Cohen's suits have fitted him. He was so much taller than the average man for whom store clothes were made. He remained in a state of indecision until the day of the ball. Late in the evening he put on his black cutaway coat, which was getting a little small, trousers to match, and a white waistcoat, and started to town on horseback so as to arrive in time for the ball, in case he should decide, at the last moment, to take part. _Twenty-three_ The Opera House was brilliantly lighted on the night of the Assembly Ball. The dancers gathered at an earlier hour than is the rule in the large cities. Many of the guests came in from the country, and returned home after the ball, since the hotel could accommodate only a part of them. When Ben Dudley, having left his horse at a livery stable, walked up Main Street toward the hall, carriages were arriving and discharging their freight. The ladies were prettily gowned, their faces were bright and animated, and Ben observed that most of the gentlemen wore dress suits; but also, much to his relief, that a number, sufficient to make at least a respectable minority, did not. He was rapidly making up his mind to enter, when Colonel French's carriage, drawn by a pair of dashing bays and driven by a Negro in livery, dashed up to the door and discharged Miss Graciella Treadwell, radiantly beautiful in a new low-cut pink gown, with pink flowers in her hair, a thin gold chain with a gold locket at the end around her slender throat, white slippers on her feet and long white gloves upon her shapely hands and wrists. Ben shrank back into the shadow. He had never been of an envious disposition; he had always looked upon envy as a mean vice, unworthy of a gentleman; but for a moment something very like envy pulled at his heartstrings. Graciella worshipped the golden calf. _He_ worshipped Graciella. But he had no money; he could not have taken her to the ball in a closed carriage, drawn by blooded horses and driven by a darky in livery. Graciella's cavalier wore, with the ease and grace of long habit, an evening suit of some fine black stuff that almost shone in the light from the open door. At the sight of him the waist of Ben's own coat shrunk up to the arm-pits, and he felt a sinking of the heart as they passed out of his range of vision. He would not appear to advantage by the side of Colonel French, and he would not care to appear otherwise than to advantage in Graciella's eyes. He would not like to make more palpable, by contrast, the difference between Colonel French and himself; nor could he be haughty, distant, reproachful, or anything but painfully self-conscious, in a coat that was not of the proper cut, too short in the sleeves, and too tight under the arms. While he stood thus communing with his own bitter thoughts, another carriage, drawn by a pair of beautiful black horses, drew up to the curb in front of him. The horses were restive, and not inclined to stand still. Some one from the inside of the carriage called to the coachman through the open window. "Ransom," said the voice, "stay on the box. Here, you, open this carriage door!" Ben looked around for the person addressed, but saw no one near but himself. "You boy there, by the curb, open this door, will you, or hold the horses, so my coachman can!" "Are you speaking to me?" demanded Ben angrily. Just then one of the side-lights of the carriage flashed on Ben's face. "Oh, I beg pardon," said the man in the carriage, carelessly, "I took you for a nigger." There could be no more deadly insult, though the mistake was not unnatural. Ben was dark, and the shadow made him darker. Ben was furious. The stranger had uttered words of apology, but his tone had been insolent, and his apology was more offensive than his original blunder. Had it not been for Ben's reluctance to make a disturbance, he would have struck the offender in the mouth. If he had had a pistol, he could have shot him; his great uncle Ralph, for instance, would not have let him live an hour. While these thoughts were surging through his heated brain, the young man, as immaculately clad as Colonel French had been, left the carriage, from which he helped a lady, and with her upon his arm, entered the hall. In the light that streamed from the doorway, Ben recognised him as Barclay Fetters, who, having finished a checkered scholastic career, had been at home at Sycamore for several months. Much of this time he had spent in Clarendon, where his father's wealth and influence gave him entrance to good society, in spite of an ancestry which mere character would not have offset. He knew young Fetters very well by sight, since the latter had to pass Mink Run whenever he came to town from Sycamore. Fetters may not have known him, since he had been away for much of the time in recent years, but he ought to have been able to distinguish between a white man--a gentleman--and a Negro. It was the insolence of an upstart. Old Josh Fetters had been, in his younger days, his uncle's overseer. An overseer's grandson treated him, Ben Dudley, like dirt under his feet! Perhaps he had judged him by his clothes. He would like to show Barclay Fetters, if they ever stood face to face, that clothes did not make the man, nor the gentleman. Ben decided after this encounter that he would not go on the floor of the ballroom; but unable to tear himself away, he waited until everybody seemed to have gone in; then went up the stairs and gained access, by a back way, to a dark gallery in the rear of the hall, which the ushers had deserted for the ballroom, from which he could, without discovery, look down upon the scene below. His eyes flew to Graciella as the needle to the pole. She was dancing with Colonel French. The music stopped, and a crowd of young fellows surrounded her. When the next dance, which was a waltz, began, she moved out upon the floor in the arms of Barclay Fetters. Ben swore beneath his breath. He had heard tales of Barclay Fetters which, if true, made him unfit to touch a decent woman. He left the hall, walked a short distance down a street and around the corner to the bar in the rear of the hotel, where he ordered a glass of whiskey. He had never been drunk in his life, and detested the taste of liquor; but he was desperate and had to do something; he would drink till he was drunk, and forget his troubles. Having never been intoxicated, he had no idea whatever of the effect liquor would have upon him. With each succeeding drink, the sense of his wrongs broadened and deepened. At one stage his intoxication took the form of an intense self-pity. There was something rotten in the whole scheme of things. Why should he be poor, while others were rich, and while fifty thousand dollars in gold were hidden in or around the house where he lived? Why should Colonel French, an old man, who was of no better blood than himself, be rich enough to rob him of the woman whom he loved? And why, above all, should Barclay Fetters have education and money and every kind of opportunity, which he did not appreciate, while he, who would have made good use of them, had nothing? With this sense of wrong, which grew as his brain clouded more and more, there came, side by side, a vague zeal to right these wrongs. As he grew drunker still, his thoughts grew less coherent; he lost sight of his special grievance, and merely retained the combative instinct. He had reached this dangerous stage, and had, fortunately, passed it one step farther along the road to unconsciousness--fortunately, because had he been sober, the result of that which was to follow might have been more serious--when two young men, who had come down from the ballroom for some refreshment, entered the barroom and asked for cocktails. While the barkeeper was compounding the liquor, the young men spoke of the ball. "That little Treadwell girl is a peach," said one. "I could tote a bunch of beauty like that around the ballroom all night." The remark was not exactly respectful, nor yet exactly disrespectful. Ben looked up from his seat. The speaker was Barclay Fetters, and his companion one Tom McRae, another dissolute young man of the town. Ben got up unsteadily and walked over to where they stood. "I want you to un'erstan'," he said thickly, "that no gen'l'man would mensh'n a lady's name in a place like this, or shpeak dissuspeckerly 'bout a lady 'n any place; an' I want you to unerstan' fu'thermo' that you're no gen'l'man, an' that I'm goin' t' lick you, by G--d!" "The hell you are!" returned Fetters. A scowl of surprise rose on his handsome face, and he sprang to an attitude of defence. Ben suited the action to the word, and struck at Fetters. But Ben was drunk and the other two were sober, and in three minutes Ben lay on the floor with a sore head and a black eye. His nose was bleeding copiously, and the crimson stream had run down upon his white shirt and vest. Taken all in all, his appearance was most disreputable. By this time the liquor he had drunk had its full effect, and complete unconsciousness supervened to save him, for a little while, from the realisation of his disgrace. "Who is the mucker, anyway?" asked Barclay Fetters, readjusting his cuffs, which had slipped down in the melee. "He's a chap by the name of Dudley," answered McRae; "lives at Mink Run, between here and Sycamore, you know." "Oh, yes, I've seen him--the 'po' white' chap that lives with the old lunatic that's always digging for buried treasure---- _'For my name was Captain Kidd, As I sailed, as I sailed.'_ But let's hurry back, Tom, or we'll lose the next dance." Fetters and his companion returned to the ball. The barkeeper called a servant of the hotel, with whose aid, Ben was carried upstairs and put to bed, bruised in body and damaged in reputation. _Twenty-four_ Ben's fight with young Fetters became a matter of public comment the next day after the ball. His conduct was cited as sad proof of the degeneracy of a once fine old family. He had been considered shiftless and not well educated, but no one had suspected that he was a drunkard and a rowdy. Other young men in the town, high-spirited young fellows with plenty of money, sometimes drank a little too much, and occasionally, for a point of honour, gentlemen were obliged to attack or defend themselves, but when they did, they used pistols, a gentleman's weapon. Here, however, was an unprovoked and brutal attack with fists, upon two gentlemen in evening dress and without weapons to defend themselves, "one of them," said the _Anglo-Saxon_, "the son of our distinguished fellow citizen and colleague in the legislature, the Honourable William Fetters." When Colonel French called to see Miss Laura, the afternoon of next day after the ball, the ladies were much concerned about the affair. "Oh, Henry," exclaimed Miss Laura, "what is this dreadful story about Ben Dudley? They say he was drinking at the hotel, and became intoxicated, and that when Barclay Fetters and Tom McRae went into the hotel, he said something insulting about Graciella, and when they rebuked him for his freedom he attacked them violently, and that when finally subdued he was put to bed unconscious and disgracefully intoxicated. Graciella is very angry, and we all feel ashamed enough to sink into the ground. What can be the matter with Ben? He hasn't been around lately, and he has quarrelled with Graciella. I never would have expected anything like this from Ben." "It came from his great-uncle Ralph," said Mrs. Treadwell. "Ralph was very wild when he was young, but settled down into a very polished gentleman. I danced with him once when he was drunk, and I never knew it--it was my first ball, and I was intoxicated myself, with excitement. Mother was scandalised, but father laughed and said boys would be boys. But poor Ben hasn't had his uncle's chances, and while he has always behaved well here, he could hardly be expected to carry his liquor like a gentleman of the old school." "My dear ladies," said the colonel, "we have heard only one side of the story. I guess there's no doubt Ben was intoxicated, but we know he isn't a drinking man, and one drink--or even one drunk--doesn't make a drunkard, nor one fight a rowdy. Barclay Fetters and Tom McRae are not immaculate, and perhaps Ben can exonerate himself." "I certainly hope so," said Miss Laura earnestly. "I am sorry for Ben, but I could not permit a drunken rowdy to come to the house, or let my niece be seen upon the street with him." "It would only be fair," said the colonel, "to give him a chance to explain, when he comes in again. I rather like Ben. He has some fine mechanical ideas, and the making of a man in him, unless I am mistaken. I have been hoping to find a place for him in the new cotton mill, when it is ready to run." They were still speaking of Ben, when there was an irresolute knock at the rear door of the parlour, in which they were seated. "Miss Laura, O Miss Laura," came a muffled voice. "Kin I speak to you a minute. It's mighty pertickler, Miss Laura, fo' God it is!" "Laura," said the colonel, "bring Catharine in. I saw that you were troubled once before when you were compelled to refuse her something. Henceforth your burdens shall be mine. Come in, Catharine," he called, "and tell us what's the matter. What's your trouble? What's it all about?" The woman, red-eyed from weeping, came in, wringing her apron. "Miss Laura," she sobbed, "an' Colonel French, my husban' Bud is done gone and got inter mo' trouble. He's run away f'm Mistah Fettuhs, w'at he wuz sol' back to in de spring, an' he's done be'n fine' fifty dollahs mo', an' he's gwine ter be sol' back ter Mistah Fettuhs in de mawnin', fer ter finish out de ole fine and wo'k out de new one. I's be'n ter see 'im in de gyard house, an' he say Mistah Haines, w'at use' ter be de constable and is a gyard fer Mistah Fettuhs now, beat an' 'bused him so he couldn' stan' it; an' 'ceptin' I could pay all dem fines, he'll be tuck back dere; an'he say ef dey evah beats him ag'in, dey'll eithuh haf ter kill him, er he'll kill some er dem. An' Bud is a rash man, Miss Laura, an' I'm feared dat he'll do w'at he say, an' ef dey kills him er he kills any er dem, it'll be all de same ter me--I'll never see 'm no mo' in dis worl'. Ef I could borry de money, Miss Laura--Mars' Colonel--I'd wuk my fingers ter de bone 'tel I paid back de las' cent. Er ef you'd buy Bud, suh, lack you did Unc' Peter, he would n' mind wukkin' fer you, suh, fer Bud is a good wukker we'n folks treats him right; an' he had n' never had no trouble nowhar befo' he come hyuh, suh." "How did he come to be arrested the first time?" asked the colonel. "He didn't live hyuh, suh; I used ter live hyuh, an' I ma'ied him down ter Madison, where I wuz wukkin'. We fell out one day, an' I got mad and lef' 'im--it wuz all my fault an' I be'n payin' fer it evuh since--an' I come back home an' went ter wuk hyuh, an' he come aftuh me, an de fus' day he come, befo' I knowed he wuz hyuh, dis yer Mistah Haines tuck 'im up, an' lock 'im up in de gyard house, like a hog in de poun', an' he didn' know nobody, an' dey didn' give 'im no chanst ter see nobody, an' dey tuck 'im roun' ter Squi' Reddick nex' mawnin', an' fined 'im an' sol' 'im ter dis yer Mistuh Fettuhs fer ter wo'k out de fine; an' I be'n wantin' all dis time ter hyuh fum 'im, an' I'd done be'n an' gone back ter Madison to look fer 'im, an' foun' he wuz gone. An' God knows I didn' know what had become er 'im, 'tel he run away de yuther time an' dey tuck 'im an' sent 'im back again. An' he hadn' done nothin' de fus' time, suh, but de Lawd know w'at he won' do ef dey sen's 'im back any mo'." Catharine had put her apron to her eyes and was sobbing bitterly. The story was probably true. The colonel had heard underground rumours about the Fetters plantation and the manner in which it was supplied with labourers, and his own experience in old Peter's case had made them seem not unlikely. He had seen Catharine's husband, in the justice's court, and the next day, in the convict gang behind Turner's buggy. The man had not looked like a criminal; that he was surly and desperate may as well have been due to a sense of rank injustice as to an evil nature. That a wrong had been done, under cover of law, was at least more than likely; but a deed of mercy could be made to right it. The love of money might be the root of all evil, but its control was certainly a means of great good. The colonel glowed with the consciousness of this beneficent power to scatter happiness. "Laura," he said, "I will attend to this; it is a matter about which you should not be troubled. Don't be alarmed, Catharine. Just be a good girl and help Miss Laura all you can, and I'll look after your husband, and pay his fine and let him work it out as a free man." "Thank'y, suh, thank'y, Mars' Colonel, an' Miss Laura! An' de Lawd is gwine bless you, suh, you an' my sweet young lady, fuh bein' good to po' folks w'at can't do nuthin' to he'p deyse'ves out er trouble," said Catharine backing out with her apron to her eyes. * * * * * On leaving Miss Laura, the colonel went round to the office of Squire Reddick, the justice of the peace, to inquire into the matter of Bud Johnson. The justice was out of town, his clerk said, but would be in his office at nine in the morning, at which time the colonel could speak to him about Johnson's fine. The next morning was bright and clear, and cool enough to be bracing. The colonel, alive with pleasant thoughts, rose early and after a cold bath, and a leisurely breakfast, walked over to the mill site, where the men were already at work. Having looked the work over and given certain directions, he glanced at his watch, and finding it near nine, set out for the justice's office in time to reach it by the appointed hour. Squire Reddick was at his desk, upon which his feet rested, while he read a newspaper. He looked up with an air of surprise as the colonel entered. "Why, good mornin', Colonel French," he said genially. "I kind of expected you a while ago; the clerk said you might be around. But you didn' come, so I supposed you'd changed yo' mind." "The clerk said that you would be here at nine," replied the colonel; "it is only just nine." "Did he? Well, now, that's too bad! I do generally git around about nine, but I was earlier this mornin' and as everybody was here, we started in a little sooner than usual. You wanted to see me about Bud Johnson?" "Yes, I wish to pay his fine and give him work." "Well, that's too bad; but you weren't here, and Mr. Turner was, and he bought his time again for Mr. Fetters. I'm sorry, you know, but first come, first served." The colonel was seriously annoyed. He did not like to believe there was a conspiracy to frustrate his good intention; but that result had been accomplished, whether by accident or design. He had failed in the first thing he had undertaken for the woman he loved and was to marry. He would see Fetters's man, however, and come to some arrangement with him. With Fetters the hiring of the Negro was purely a commercial transaction, conditioned upon a probable profit, for the immediate payment of which, and a liberal bonus, he would doubtless relinquish his claim upon Johnson's services. Learning that Turner, who had acted as Fetters's agent in the matter, had gone over to Clay Johnson's saloon, he went to seek him there. He found him, and asked for a proposition. Turner heard him out. "Well, Colonel French," he replied with slightly veiled insolence, "I bought this nigger's time for Mr. Fetters, an' unless I'm might'ly mistaken in Mr. Fetters, no amount of money can get the nigger until he's served his time out. He's defied our rules and defied the law, and defied me, and assaulted one of the guards; and he ought to be made an example of. We want to keep 'im; he's a bad nigger, an' we've got to handle a lot of 'em, an' we need 'im for an example--he keeps us in trainin'." "Have you any power in the matter?" demanded the colonel, restraining his contempt. "Me? No, not _me_! I couldn't let the nigger go for his weight in gol'--an' wouldn' if I could. I bought 'im in for Mr. Fetters, an' he's the only man that's got any say about 'im." "Very well," said the colonel as he turned away, "I'll see Fetters." "I don't know whether you will or not," said Turner to himself, as he shot a vindictive glance at the colonel's retreating figure. "Fetters has got this county where he wants it, an' I'll bet dollars to bird shot he ain't goin' to let no coon-flavoured No'the'n interloper come down here an' mix up with his arrangements, even if he did hail from this town way back yonder. This here nigger problem is a South'en problem, and outsiders might's well keep their han's off. Me and Haines an' Fetters is the kind o' men to settle it." The colonel was obliged to confess to Miss Laura his temporary setback, which he went around to the house and did immediately. "It's the first thing I've undertaken yet for your sake, Laura, and I've got to report failure, so far." "It's only the first step," she said, consolingly. "That's all. I'll drive out to Fetters's place to-morrow, and arrange the matter. By starting before day, I can make it and transact my business, and get back by night, without hurting the horses." Catharine was called in and the situation explained to her. Though clearly disappointed at the delay, and not yet free of apprehension that Bud might do something rash, she seemed serenely confident of the colonel's ultimate success. In her simple creed, God might sometimes seem to neglect his black children, but no harm could come to a Negro who had a rich white gentleman for friend and protector. _Twenty-five_ It was not yet sunrise when the colonel set out next day, after an early breakfast, upon his visit to Fetters. There was a crisp freshness in the air, the dew was thick upon the grass, the clear blue sky gave promise of a bright day and a pleasant journey. The plantation conducted by Fetters lay about twenty miles to the south of Clarendon, and remote from any railroad, a convenient location for such an establishment, for railroads, while they bring in supplies and take out produce, also bring in light and take out information, both of which are fatal to certain fungus growths, social as well as vegetable, which flourish best in the dark. The road led by Mink Run, and the colonel looked over toward the house as they passed it. Old and weather-beaten it seemed, even in the distance, which lent it no enchantment in the bright morning light. When the colonel had travelled that road in his boyhood, great forests of primeval pine had stretched for miles on either hand, broken at intervals by thriving plantations. Now all was changed. The tall and stately growth of the long-leaf pine had well nigh disappeared; fifteen years before, the turpentine industry, moving southward from Virginia, along the upland counties of the Appalachian slope, had swept through Clarendon County, leaving behind it a trail of blasted trunks and abandoned stills. Ere these had yielded to decay, the sawmill had followed, and after the sawmill the tar kiln, so that the dark green forest was now only a waste of blackened stumps and undergrowth, topped by the vulgar short-leaved pine and an occasional oak or juniper. Here and there they passed an expanse of cultivated land, and there were many smaller clearings in which could be seen, plowing with gaunt mules or stunted steers, some heavy-footed Negro or listless "po' white man;" or women and children, black or white. In reply to a question, the coachman said that Mr. Fetters had worked all that country for turpentine years before, and had only taken up cotton raising after the turpentine had been exhausted from the sand hills. He had left his mark, thought the colonel. Like the plague of locusts, he had settled and devoured and then moved on, leaving a barren waste behind him. As the morning advanced, the settlements grew thinner, until suddenly, upon reaching the crest of a hill, a great stretch of cultivated lowland lay spread before them. In the centre of the plantation, near the road which ran through it, stood a square, new, freshly painted frame house, which would not have seemed out of place in some Ohio or Michigan city, but here struck a note alien to its surroundings. Off to one side, like the Negro quarters of another generation, were several rows of low, unpainted cabins, built of sawed lumber, the boards running up and down, and battened with strips where the edges met. The fields were green with cotton and with corn, and there were numerous gangs of men at work, with an apparent zeal quite in contrast with the leisurely movement of those they had passed on the way. It was a very pleasing scene. "Dis yer, suh," said the coachman in an awed tone, "is Mistah Fetters's plantation. You ain' gwine off nowhere, and leave me alone whils' you are hyuh, is you, suh?" "No," said the colonel, "I'll keep my eye on you. Nobody'll trouble you while you're with me." Passing a clump of low trees, the colonel came upon a group at sight of which he paused involuntarily. A gang of Negroes were at work. Upon the ankles of some was riveted an iron band to which was soldered a chain, at the end of which in turn an iron ball was fastened. Accompanying them was a white man, in whose belt was stuck a revolver, and who carried in one hand a stout leather strap, about two inches in width with a handle by which to grasp it. The gang paused momentarily to look at the traveller, but at a meaning glance from the overseer fell again to their work of hoeing cotton. The white man stepped to the fence, and Colonel French addressed him. "Good morning." "Mornin', suh." "Will you tell me where I can find Mr. Fetters?" inquired the colonel. "No, suh, unless he's at the house. He may have went away this mornin', but I haven't heard of it. But you drive along the road to the house, an' somebody'll tell you." The colonel seemed to have seen the overseer before, but could not remember where. "Sam," he asked the coachman, "who is that white man?" "Dat's Mistah Haines, suh--use' ter be de constable at Cla'endon, suh. I wouldn' lak to be in no gang under him, suh, sho' I wouldn', no, suh!" After this ejaculation, which seemed sincere as well as fervent, Sam whipped up the horses and soon reached the house. A Negro boy came out to meet them. "Is Mr. Fetters at home," inquired the colonel? "I--_I_ don' know, suh--I--I'll ax Mars' Turner. _He's_ hyuh." He disappeared round the house and in a few minutes returned with Turner, with whom the colonel exchanged curt nods. "I wish to see Mr. Fetters," said the colonel. "Well, you can't see him." "Why not?" "Because he ain't here. He left for the capital this mornin', to be gone a week. You'll be havin' a fine drive, down here and back." The colonel ignored the taunt. "When will Mr. Fetters return?" he inquired. "I'm shore I don't know. He don't tell me his secrets. But I'll tell _you_, Colonel French, that if you're after that nigger, you're wastin' your time. He's in Haines's gang, and Haines loves him so well that Mr. Fetters has to keep Bud in order to keep Haines. There's no accountin' for these vi'lent affections, but they're human natur', and they have to be 'umoured." "I'll talk to your _master_," rejoined the colonel, restraining his indignation and turning away. Turner looked after him vindictively. "He'll talk to my _master_, like as if I was a nigger! It'll be a long time before he talks to Fetters, if that's who he means--if I can prevent it. Not that it would make any difference, but I'll just keep him on the anxious seat." It was nearing noon, but the colonel had received no invitation to stop, or eat, or feed his horses. He ordered Sam to turn and drive back the way they had come. As they neared the group of labourers they had passed before, the colonel saw four Negroes, in response to an imperative gesture from the overseer, seize one of their number, a short, thickset fellow, overpower some small resistance which he seemed to make, throw him down with his face to the ground, and sit upon his extremities while the overseer applied the broad leathern thong vigorously to his bare back. The colonel reached over and pulled the reins mechanically. His instinct was to interfere; had he been near enough to recognise in the Negro the object of his visit, Bud Johnson, and in the overseer the ex-constable, Haines, he might have yielded to the impulse. But on second thought he realised that he had neither authority nor strength to make good his interference. For aught he knew, the performance might be strictly according to law. So, fighting a feeling of nausea which he could hardly conquer, he ordered Sam to drive on. The coachman complied with alacrity, as though glad to escape from a mighty dangerous place. He had known friendless coloured folks, who had strayed down in that neighbourhood to be lost for a long time; and he had heard of a spot, far back from the road, in a secluded part of the plantation, where the graves of convicts who had died while in Fetters's service were very numerous. _Twenty-six_ During the next month the colonel made several attempts to see Fetters, but some fatality seemed always to prevent their meeting. He finally left the matter of finding Fetters to Caxton, who ascertained that Fetters would be in attendance at court during a certain week, at Carthage, the county seat of the adjoining county, where the colonel had been once before to inspect a cotton mill. Thither the colonel went on the day of the opening of court. His train reached town toward noon and he went over to the hotel. He wondered if he would find the proprietor sitting where he had found him some weeks before. But the buggy was gone from before the piazza, and there was a new face behind the desk. The colonel registered, left word that he would be in to dinner, and then went over to the court house, which lay behind the trees across the square. The court house was an old, square, hip-roofed brick structure, whose walls, whitewashed the year before, had been splotched and discoloured by the weather. From one side, under the eaves, projected a beam, which supported a bell rung by a rope from the window below. A hall ran through the centre, on either side of which were the county offices, while the court room with a judge's room and jury room, occupied the upper floor. The colonel made his way across the square, which showed the usual signs of court being in session. There were buggies hitched to trees and posts here and there, a few Negroes sleeping in the sun, and several old coloured women with little stands for the sale of cakes, and fried fish, and cider. The colonel went upstairs to the court room. It was fairly well filled, and he remained standing for a few minutes near the entrance. The civil docket was evidently on trial, for there was a jury in the box, and a witness was being examined with some prolixity with reference to the use of a few inches of land which lay on one side or on the other of a disputed boundary. From what the colonel could gather, that particular line fence dispute had been in litigation for twenty years, had cost several lives, and had resulted in a feud that involved a whole township. The testimony was about concluded when the colonel entered, and the lawyers began their arguments. The feeling between the litigants seemed to have affected their attorneys, and the court more than once found it necessary to call counsel to order. The trial was finished, however, without bloodshed; the case went to the jury, and court was adjourned until two o'clock. The colonel had never met Fetters, nor had he seen anyone in the court room who seemed likely to be the man. But he had seen his name freshly written on the hotel register, and he would doubtless go there for dinner. There would be ample time to get acquainted and transact his business before court reassembled for the afternoon. Dinner seemed to be a rather solemn function, and except at a table occupied by the judge and the lawyers, in the corner of the room farthest from the colonel, little was said. A glance about the room showed no one whom the colonel could imagine to be Fetters, and he was about to ask the waiter if that gentleman had yet entered the dining room, when a man came in and sat down on the opposite side of the table. The colonel looked up, and met the cheerful countenance of the liveryman from whom he had hired a horse and buggy some weeks before. "Howdy do?" said the newcomer amiably. "Hope you've been well." "Quite well," returned the colonel, "how are you?" "Oh, just tol'able. Tendin' co't?" "No, I came down here to see a man that's attending court--your friend Fetters. I suppose he'll be in to dinner." "Oh, yes, but he ain't come in yet. I reckon you find the ho-tel a little different from the time you were here befo'." "This is a better dinner than I got," replied the colonel, "and I haven't seen the landlord anywhere, nor his buggy." "No, he ain't here no more. Sad loss to Carthage! You see Bark Fetters--that's Bill's boy that's come home from the No'th from college--Bark Fetters come down here one day, an' went in the ho-tel, an' when Lee Dickson commenced to put on his big airs, Bark cussed 'im out, and Lee, who didn't know Bark from Adam, cussed 'im back, an' then Bark hauled off an' hit 'im. They had it hot an' heavy for a while. Lee had more strength, but Bark had more science, an' laid Lee out col'. Then Bark went home an' tol' the ole man, who had a mortgage on the ho-tel, an' he sol' Lee up. I hear he's barberin' or somethin' er that sort up to Atlanta, an' the hotel's run by another man. There's Fetters comin' in now." The colonel glanced in the direction indicated, and was surprised at the appearance of the redoubtable Fetters, who walked over and took his seat at the table with the judge and the lawyers. He had expected to meet a tall, long-haired, red-faced, truculent individual, in a slouch hat and a frock coat, with a loud voice and a dictatorial manner, the typical Southerner of melodrama. He saw a keen-eyed, hard-faced small man, slightly gray, clean-shaven, wearing a well-fitting city-made business suit of light tweed. Except for a few little indications, such as the lack of a crease in his trousers, Fetters looked like any one of a hundred business men whom the colonel might have met on Broadway in any given fifteen minutes during business hours. The colonel timed his meal so as to leave the dining-room at the same moment with Fetters. He went up to Fetters, who was chewing a toothpick in the office, and made himself known. "I am Mr. French," he said--he never referred to himself by his military title--"and you, I believe, are Mr. Fetters?" "Yes, sir, that's my name," replied Fetters without enthusiasm, but eyeing the colonel keenly between narrowed lashes. "I've been trying to see you for some time, about a matter," continued the colonel, "but never seemed able to catch up with you before." "Yes, I heard you were at my house, but I was asleep upstairs, and didn't know you'd be'n there till you'd gone." "Your man told me you had gone to the capital for two weeks." "My man? Oh, you mean Turner! Well, I reckon you must have riled Turner somehow, and he thought he'd have a joke on you." "I don't quite see the joke," said the colonel, restraining his displeasure. "But that's ancient history. Can we sit down over here in the shade and talk by ourselves for a moment?" Fetters followed the colonel out of doors, where they drew a couple of chairs to one side, and the colonel stated the nature of his business. He wished to bargain for the release of a Negro, Bud Johnson by name, held to service by Fetters under a contract with Clarendon County. He was willing to pay whatever expense Fetters had been to on account of Johnson, and an amount sufficient to cover any estimated profits from his services. Meanwhile Fetters picked his teeth nonchalantly, so nonchalantly as to irritate the colonel. The colonel's impatience was not lessened by the fact that Fetters waited several seconds before replying. "Well, Mr. Fetters, what say you?" "Colonel French," said Fetters, "I reckon you can't have the nigger." "Is it a matter of money?" asked the colonel. "Name your figure. I don't care about the money. I want the man for a personal reason." "So do I," returned Fetters, coolly, "and money's no object to me. I've more now than I know what to do with." The colonel mastered his impatience. He had one appeal which no Southerner could resist. "Mr. Fetters," he said, "I wish to get this man released to please a lady." "Sorry to disoblige a lady," returned Fetters, "but I'll have to keep the nigger. I run a big place, and I'm obliged to maintain discipline. This nigger has been fractious and contrary, and I've sworn that he shall work out his time. I have never let any nigger get the best of me--or white man either," he added significantly. The colonel was angry, but controlled himself long enough to make one more effort. "I'll give you five hundred dollars for your contract," he said rising from his chair. "You couldn't get him for five thousand." "Very well, sir," returned the colonel, "this is not the end of this. I will see, sir, if a man can be held in slavery in this State, for a debt he is willing and ready to pay. You'll hear more of this before I'm through with it." "Another thing, Colonel French," said Fetters, his quiet eyes glittering as he spoke, "I wonder if you recollect an incident that occurred years ago, when we went to the academy in Clarendon?" "If you refer," returned the colonel promptly, "to the time I chased you down Main Street, yes--I recalled it the first time I heard of you when I came back to Clarendon--and I remember why I did it. It is a good omen." "That's as it may be," returned Fetters quietly. "I didn't have to recall it; I've never forgotten it. Now you want something from me, and you can't have it." "We shall see," replied the colonel. "I bested you then, and I'll best you now." "We shall see," said Fetters. Fetters was not at all alarmed, indeed he smiled rather pityingly. There had been a time when these old aristocrats could speak, and the earth trembled, but that day was over. In this age money talked, and he had known how to get money, and how to use it to get more. There were a dozen civil suits pending against him in the court house there, and he knew in advance that he should win them every one, without directly paying any juryman a dollar. That any nigger should get away while he wished to hold him, was--well, inconceivable. Colonel French might have money, but he, Fetters, had men as well; and if Colonel French became too troublesome about this nigger, this friendship for niggers could be used in such a way as to make Clarendon too hot for Colonel French. He really bore no great malice against Colonel French for the little incident of their school days, but he had not forgotten it, and Colonel French might as well learn a lesson. He, Fetters, had not worked half a lifetime for a commanding position, to yield it to Colonel French or any other man. So Fetters smoked his cigar tranquilly, and waited at the hotel for his anticipated verdicts. For there could not be a jury impanelled in the county which did not have on it a majority of men who were mortgaged to Fetters. He even held the Judge's note for several hundred dollars. The colonel waited at the station for the train back to Clarendon. When it came, it brought a gang of convicts, consigned to Fetters. They had been brought down in the regular "Jim Crow" car, for the colonel saw coloured women and children come out ahead of them. The colonel watched the wretches, in coarse striped garments, with chains on their legs and shackles on their hands, unloaded from the train and into the waiting wagons. There were burly Negroes and flat-shanked, scrawny Negroes. Some wore the ashen hue of long confinement. Some were shamefaced, some reckless, some sullen. A few white convicts among them seemed doubly ashamed--both of their condition and of their company; they kept together as much as they were permitted, and looked with contempt at their black companions in misfortune. Fetters's man and Haines, armed with whips, and with pistols in their belts, were present to oversee the unloading, and the colonel could see them point him out to the State officers who had come in charge of the convicts, and see them look at him with curious looks. The scene was not edifying. There were criminals in New York, he knew very well, but he had never seen one. They were not marched down Broadway in stripes and chains. There were certain functions of society, as of the body, which were more decently performed in retirement. There was work in the State for the social reformer, and the colonel, undismayed by his temporary defeat, metaphorically girded up his loins, went home, and, still metaphorically, set out to put a spoke in Fetters's wheel. _Twenty-seven_ His first step was to have Caxton look up and abstract for him the criminal laws of the State. They were bad enough, in all conscience. Men could be tried without jury and condemned to infamous punishments, involving stripes and chains, for misdemeanours which in more enlightened States were punished with a small fine or brief detention. There were, for instance, no degrees of larceny, and the heaviest punishment might be inflicted, at the discretion of the judge, for the least offense. The vagrancy law, of which the colonel had had some experience, was an open bid for injustice and "graft" and clearly designed to profit the strong at the expense of the weak. The crop-lien laws were little more than the instruments of organised robbery. To these laws the colonel called the attention of some of his neighbours with whom he was on terms of intimacy. The enlightened few had scarcely known of their existence, and quite agreed that the laws were harsh and ought to be changed. But when the colonel, pursuing his inquiry, undertook to investigate the operation of these laws, he found an appalling condition. The statutes were mild and beneficent compared with the results obtained under cover of them. Caxton spent several weeks about the State looking up the criminal records, and following up the sentences inflicted, working not merely for his fee, but sharing the colonel's indignation at the state of things unearthed. Convict labour was contracted out to private parties, with little or no effective State supervision, on terms which, though exceedingly profitable to the State, were disastrous to free competitive labour. More than one lawmaker besides Fetters was numbered among these contractors. Leaving the realm of crime, they found that on hundreds of farms, ignorant Negroes, and sometimes poor whites, were held in bondage under claims of debt, or under contracts of exclusive employment for long terms of years--contracts extorted from ignorance by craft, aided by State laws which made it a misdemeanour to employ such persons elsewhere. Free men were worked side by side with convicts from the penitentiary, and women and children herded with the most depraved criminals, thus breeding a criminal class to prey upon the State. In the case of Fetters alone the colonel found a dozen instances where the law, bad as it was, had not been sufficient for Fetters's purpose, but had been plainly violated. Caxton discovered a discharged guard of Fetters, who told him of many things that had taken place at Sycamore; and brought another guard one evening, at that time employed there, who told him, among other things, that Bud Johnson's life, owing to his surliness and rebellious conduct, and some spite which Haines seemed to bear against him, was simply a hell on earth--that even a strong Negro could not stand it indefinitely. A case was made up and submitted to the grand jury. Witnesses were summoned at the colonel's instance. At the last moment they all weakened, even the discharged guard, and their testimony was not sufficient to justify an indictment. The colonel then sued out a writ of habeas corpus for the body of Bud Johnson, and it was heard before the common pleas court at Clarendon, with public opinion divided between the colonel and Fetters. The court held that under his contract, for which he had paid the consideration, Fetters was entitled to Johnson's services. The colonel, defeated but still undismayed, ordered Caxton to prepare a memorial for presentation to the federal authorities, calling their attention to the fact that peonage, a crime under the Federal statutes, was being flagrantly practised in the State. This allegation was supported by a voluminous brief, giving names and dates and particular instances of barbarity. The colonel was not without some quiet support in this movement; there were several public-spirited men in the county, including his able lieutenant Caxton, Dr. Price and old General Thornton, none of whom were under any obligation to Fetters, and who all acknowledged that something ought to be done to purge the State of a great disgrace. There was another party, of course, which deprecated any scandal which would involve the good name of the State or reflect upon the South, and who insisted that in time these things would pass away and there would be no trace of them in future generations. But the colonel insisted that so also would the victims of the system pass away, who, being already in existence, were certainly entitled to as much consideration as generations yet unborn; it was hardly fair to sacrifice them to a mere punctilio. The colonel had reached the conviction that the regenerative forces of education and enlightenment, in order to have any effect in his generation, must be reinforced by some positive legislative or executive action, or else the untrammelled forces of graft and greed would override them; and he was human enough, at this stage of his career to wish to see the result of his labours, or at least a promise of result. The colonel's papers were forwarded to the proper place, whence they were referred from official to official, and from department to department. That it might take some time to set in motion the machinery necessary to reach the evil, the colonel knew very well, and hence was not impatient at any reasonable delay. Had he known that his presentation had created a sensation in the highest quarter, but that owing to the exigencies of national politics it was not deemed wise, at that time, to do anything which seemed like an invasion of State rights or savoured of sectionalism, he might not have been so serenely confident of the outcome. Nor had Fetters known as much, would he have done the one thing which encouraged the colonel more than anything else. Caxton received a message one day from Judge Bullard, representing Fetters, in which Fetters made the offer that if Colonel French would stop his agitation on the labour laws, and withdraw any papers he had filed, and promise to drop the whole matter, he would release Bud Johnson. The colonel did not hesitate a moment. He had gone into this fight for Johnson--or rather to please Miss Laura. He had risen now to higher game; nothing less than the system would satisfy him. "But, Colonel," said Caxton, "it's pretty hard on the nigger. They'll kill him before his time's up. If you'll give me a free hand, I'll get him anyway." "How?" "Perhaps it's just as well you shouldn't know. But I have friends at Sycamore." "You wouldn't break the law?" asked the colonel. "Fetters is breaking the law," replied Caxton. "He's holding Johnson for debt--and whether that is lawful or not, he certainly has no right to kill him." "You're right," replied the colonel. "Get Johnson away, I don't care how. The end justifies the means--that's an argument that goes down here. Get him away, and send him a long way off, and he can write for his wife to join him. His escape need not interfere with our other plans. We have plenty of other cases against Fetters." Within a week, Johnson, with the connivance of a bribed guard, a poor-white man from Clarendon, had escaped from Fetters and seemingly vanished from Beaver County. Fetters's lieutenants were active in their search for him, but sought in vain. _Twenty-eight_ Ben Dudley awoke the morning after the assembly ball, with a violent headache and a sense of extreme depression, which was not relieved by the sight of his reflection in the looking-glass of the bureau in the hotel bedroom where he found himself. One of his eyes was bloodshot, and surrounded by a wide area of discolouration, and he was conscious of several painful contusions on other portions of his body. His clothing was badly disordered and stained with blood; and, all in all, he was scarcely in a condition to appear in public. He made such a toilet as he could, and, anxious to avoid observation, had his horse brought from the livery around to the rear door of the hotel, and left for Mink Run by the back streets. He did not return to town for a week, and when he made his next appearance there, upon strictly a business visit, did not go near the Treadwells', and wore such a repellent look that no one ventured to speak to him about his encounter with Fetters and McRae. He was humiliated and ashamed, and angry with himself and all the world. He had lost Graciella already; any possibility that might have remained of regaining her affection, was destroyed by his having made her name the excuse for a barroom broil. His uncle was not well, and with the decline of his health, his monomania grew more acute and more absorbing, and he spent most of his time in the search for the treasure and in expostulations with Viney to reveal its whereabouts. The supervision of the plantation work occupied Ben most of the time, and during his intervals of leisure he sought to escape unpleasant thoughts by busying himself with the model of his cotton gin. His life had run along in this way for about two weeks after the ball, when one night Barclay Fetters, while coming to town from his father's plantation at Sycamore, in company with Turner, his father's foreman, was fired upon from ambush, in the neighbourhood of Mink Run, and seriously wounded. Groaning heavily and in a state of semi-unconsciousness he was driven by Turner, in the same buggy in which he had been shot, to Doctor Price's house, which lay between Mink Run and the town. The doctor examined the wound, which was serious. A charge of buckshot had been fired at close range, from a clump of bushes by the wayside, and the charge had taken effect in the side of the face. The sight of one eye was destroyed beyond a peradventure, and that of the other endangered by a possible injury to the optic nerve. A sedative was administered, as many as possible of the shot extracted, and the wounds dressed. Meantime a messenger was despatched to Sycamore for Fetters, senior, who came before morning post-haste. To his anxious inquiries the doctor could give no very hopeful answer. "He's not out of danger," said Doctor Price, "and won't be for several days. I haven't found several of those shot, and until they're located I can't tell what will happen. Your son has a good constitution, but it has been abused somewhat and is not in the best condition to throw off an injury." "Do the best you can for him, Doc," said Fetters, "and I'll make it worth your while. And as for the double-damned scoundrel that shot him in the dark, I'll rake this county with a fine-toothed comb till he's found. If Bark dies, the murderer shall hang as high as Haman, if it costs me a million dollars, or, if Bark gets well, he shall have the limit of the law. No man in this State shall injure me or mine and go unpunished." The next day Ben Dudley was arrested at Mink Run, on a warrant sworn out by Fetters, senior, charging Dudley with attempted murder. The accused was brought to Clarendon, and lodged in Beaver County jail. Ben sent for Caxton, from whom he learned that his offense was not subject to bail until it became certain that Barclay Fetters would recover. For in the event of his death, the charge would be murder; in case of recovery, the offense would be merely attempted murder, or shooting with intent to kill, for which bail was allowable. Meantime he would have to remain in jail. In a day or two young Fetters was pronounced out of danger, so far as his life was concerned, and Colonel French, through Caxton, offered to sign Ben's bail bond. To Caxton's surprise Dudley refused to accept bail at the colonel's hands. "I don't want any favours from Colonel French," he said decidedly. "I prefer to stay in jail rather than to be released on his bond." So he remained in jail. Graciella was not so much surprised at Ben's refusal to accept bail. She had reasoned out, with a fine instinct, the train of emotions which had brought her lover to grief, and her own share in stirring them up. She could not believe that Ben was capable of shooting a man from ambush; but even if he had, it would have been for love of her; and if he had not, she had nevertheless been the moving cause of the disaster. She would not willingly have done young Mr. Fetters an injury. He had favoured her by his attentions, and, if all stories were true, he had behaved better than Ben, in the difficulty between them, and had suffered more. But she loved Ben, as she grew to realise, more and more. She wanted to go and see Ben in jail but her aunt did not think it proper. Appearances were all against Ben, and he had not purged himself by any explanation. So Graciella sat down and wrote him a long letter. She knew very well that the one thing that would do him most good would be the announcement of her Aunt Laura's engagement to Colonel French. There was no way to bring this about, except by first securing her aunt's permission. This would make necessary a frank confession, to which, after an effort, she nerved herself. "Aunt Laura," she said, at a moment when they were alone together, "I know why Ben will not accept bail from Colonel French, and why he will not tell his side of the quarrel between himself and Mr. Fetters. He was foolish enough to imagine that Colonel French was coming to the house to see me, and that I preferred the colonel to him. And, Aunt Laura, I have a confession to make; I have done something for which I want to beg your pardon. I listened that night, and overheard the colonel ask you to be his wife. Please, dear Aunt Laura, forgive me, and let me write and tell Ben--just Ben, in confidence. No one else need know it." Miss Laura was shocked and pained, and frankly said so, but could not refuse the permission, on condition that Ben should be pledged to keep her secret, which, for reasons of her own, she was not yet ready to make public. She, too, was fond of Ben, and hoped that he might clear himself of the accusation. So Graciella wrote the letter. She was no more frank in it, however, on one point, than she had been with her aunt, for she carefully avoided saying that she _had_ taken Colonel French's attentions seriously, or built any hopes upon them, but chided Ben for putting such a construction upon her innocent actions, and informed him, as proof of his folly, and in the strictest confidence, that Colonel French was engaged to her Aunt Laura. She expressed her sorrow for his predicament, her profound belief in his innocence, and her unhesitating conviction that he would be acquitted of the pending charge. To this she expected by way of answer a long letter of apology, explanation, and protestations of undying love. She received, instead, a brief note containing a cold acknowledgment of her letter, thanking her for her interest in his welfare, and assuring her that he would respect Miss Laura's confidence. There was no note of love or reproachfulness--mere cold courtesy. Graciella was cut to the quick, so much so that she did not even notice Ben's mistakes in spelling. It would have been better had he overwhelmed her with reproaches--it would have shown at least that he still loved her. She cried bitterly, and lay awake very late that night, wondering what else she could do for Ben that a self-respecting young lady might. For the first time, she was more concerned about Ben than about herself. If by marrying him immediately she could have saved him from danger and disgrace she would have done so without one selfish thought--unless it were selfish to save one whom she loved. * * * * * The preliminary hearing in the case of the State _vs._ Benjamin Dudley was held as soon as Doctor Price pronounced Barclay Fetters out of danger. The proceedings took place before Squire Reddick, the same justice from whom the colonel had bought Peter's services, and from whom he had vainly sought to secure Bud Johnson's release. In spite of Dudley's curt refusal of his assistance, the colonel, to whom Miss Laura had conveyed a hint of the young man's frame of mind, had instructed Caxton to spare no trouble or expense in the prisoner's interest. There was little doubt, considering Fetters's influence and vindictiveness, that Dudley would be remanded, though the evidence against him was purely circumstantial; but it was important that the evidence should be carefully scrutinised, and every legal safeguard put to use. The case looked bad for the prisoner. Barclay Fetters was not present, nor did the prosecution need him; his testimony could only have been cumulative. Turner described the circumstances of the shooting from the trees by the roadside near Mink Run, and the driving of the wounded man to Doctor Price's. Doctor Price swore to the nature of the wound, its present and probable consequences, which involved the loss of one eye and perhaps the other, and produced the shot he had extracted. McRae testified that he and Barclay Fetters had gone down between dances, from the Opera Ball, to the hotel bar, to get a glass of seltzer. They had no sooner entered the bar than the prisoner, who had evidently been drinking heavily and showed all the signs of intoxication, had picked a quarrel with them and assaulted Mr. Fetters. Fetters, with the aid of the witness, had defended himself. In the course of the altercation, the prisoner had used violent and profane language, threatening, among other things, to kill Fetters. All this testimony was objected to, but was admitted as tending to show a motive for the crime. This closed the State's case. Caxton held a hurried consultation with his client. Should they put in any evidence, which would be merely to show their hand, since the prisoner would in any event undoubtedly be bound over? Ben was unable to deny what had taken place at the hotel, for he had no distinct recollection of it--merely a blurred impression, like the memory of a bad dream. He could not swear that he had not threatened Fetters. The State's witnesses had refrained from mentioning the lady's name; he could do no less. So far as the shooting was concerned, he had had no weapon with which to shoot. His gun had been stolen that very day, and had not been recovered. "The defense will offer no testimony," declared Caxton, at the result of the conference. The justice held the prisoner to the grand jury, and fixed the bond at ten thousand dollars. Graciella's information had not been without its effect, and when Caxton suggested that he could still secure bail, he had little difficulty in inducing Ben to accept Colonel French's friendly offices. The bail bond was made out and signed, and the prisoner released. Caxton took Ben to his office after the hearing. There Ben met the colonel, thanked him for his aid and friendship, and apologised for his former rudeness. "I was in a bad way, sir," he said, "and hardly knew what I was doing. But I know I didn't shoot Bark Fetters, and never thought of such a thing." "I'm sure you didn't, my boy," said the colonel, laying his hand, in familiar fashion, upon the young fellow's shoulder, "and we'll prove it before we quit. There are some ladies who believe the same thing, and would like to hear you say it." "Thank you, sir," said Ben. "I should like to tell them, but I shouldn't want to enter their house until I am cleared of this charge. I think too much of them to expose them to any remarks about harbouring a man out on bail for a penitentiary offense. I'll write to them, sir, and thank them for their trust and friendship, and you can tell them for me, if you will, that I'll come to see them when not only I, but everybody else, can say that I am fit to go." "Your feelings do you credit," returned the colonel warmly, "and however much they would like to see you, I'm sure the ladies will appreciate your delicacy. As your friend and theirs, you must permit me to serve you further, whenever the opportunity offers, until this affair is finished." Ben thanked the colonel from a full heart, and went back to Mink Run, where, in the effort to catch up the plantation work, which had fallen behind in his absence, he sought to forget the prison atmosphere and lose the prison pallor. The disgrace of having been in jail was indelible, and the danger was by no means over. The sympathy of his friends would have been priceless to him, but to remain away from them would be not only the honourable course to pursue, but a just punishment for his own folly. For Graciella, after all, was only a girl--a young girl, and scarcely yet to be judged harshly for her actions; while he was a man grown, who knew better, and had not acted according to his lights. Three days after Ben Dudley's release on bail, Clarendon was treated to another sensation. Former constable Haines, now employed as an overseer at Fetters's convict farm, while driving in a buggy to Clarendon, where he spent his off-duty spells, was shot from ambush near Mink Run, and his right arm shattered in such a manner as to require amputation. _Twenty-nine_ Colonel French's interest in Ben Dudley's affairs had not been permitted to interfere with his various enterprises. Work on the chief of these, the cotton mill, had gone steadily forward, with only occasional delays, incident to the delivery of material, the weather, and the health of the workmen, which was often uncertain for a day or two after pay day. The coloured foreman of the brick-layers had been seriously ill; his place had been filled by a white man, under whom the walls were rising rapidly. Jim Green, the foreman whom the colonel had formerly discharged, and the two white brick-layers who had quit at the same time, applied for reinstatement. The colonel took the two men on again, but declined to restore Green, who had been discharged for insubordination. Green went away swearing vengeance. At Clay Johnson's saloon he hurled invectives at the colonel, to all who would listen, and with anger and bad whiskey, soon worked himself into a frame of mind that was ripe for any mischief. Some of his utterances were reported to the colonel, who was not without friends--the wealthy seldom are; but he paid no particular attention to them, except to keep a watchman at the mill at night, lest this hostility should seek an outlet in some attempt to injure the property. The precaution was not amiss, for once the watchman shot at a figure prowling about the mill. The lesson was sufficient, apparently, for there was no immediate necessity to repeat it. The shooting of Haines, while not so sensational as that of Barclay Fetters, had given rise to considerable feeling against Ben Dudley. That two young men should quarrel, and exchange shots, would not ordinarily have been a subject of extended remark. But two attempts at assassination constituted a much graver affair. That Dudley was responsible for this second assault was the generally accepted opinion. Fetters's friends and hirelings were openly hostile to young Dudley, and Haines had been heard to say, in his cups, at Clay Jackson's saloon, that when young Dudley was tried and convicted and sent to the penitentiary, he would be hired out to Fetters, who had the country contract, and that he, Haines, would be delighted to have Dudley in his gang. The feeling against Dudley grew from day to day, and threats and bets were openly made that he would not live to be tried. There was no direct proof against him, but the moral and circumstantial evidence was quite sufficient to convict him in the eyes of Fetter's friends and supporters. The colonel was sometimes mentioned, in connection with the affair as a friend of Ben's, for whom he had given bail, and as an enemy of Fetters, to whom his antagonism in various ways had become a matter of public knowledge and interest. One day, while the excitement attending the second shooting was thus growing, Colonel French received through the mail a mysteriously worded note, vaguely hinting at some matter of public importance which the writer wished to communicate to him, and requesting a private interview for the purpose, that evening, at the colonel's house. The note, which had every internal evidence of sincerity, was signed by Henry Taylor, the principal of the coloured school, whom the colonel had met several times in reference to the proposed industrial school. From the tenor of the communication, and what he knew about Taylor, the colonel had no doubt that the matter was one of importance, at least not one to be dismissed without examination. He thereupon stepped into Caxton's office and wrote an answer to the letter, fixing eight o'clock that evening as the time, and his own library as the place, of a meeting with the teacher. This letter he deposited in the post-office personally--it was only a step from Caxton's office. Upon coming out of the post-office he saw the teacher standing on an opposite corner. When the colonel had passed out of sight, Taylor crossed the street, entered the post-office, and soon emerged with the letter. He had given no sign that he saw the colonel, but had looked rather ostentatiously the other way when that gentleman had glanced in his direction. At the appointed hour there was a light step on the colonel's piazza. The colonel was on watch, and opened the door himself, ushering Taylor into his library, a very handsome and comfortable room, the door of which he carefully closed behind them. The teacher looked around cautiously. "Are we alone, sir?" "Yes, entirely so." "And can any one hear us?" "No. What have you got to tell me?" "Colonel French," replied the other, "I'm in a hard situation, and I want you to promise that you'll never let on to any body that I told you what I'm going to say." "All right, Mr. Taylor, if it is a proper promise to make. You can trust my discretion." "Yes, sir, I'm sure I can. We coloured folks, sir, are often accused of trying to shield criminals of our own race, or of not helping the officers of the law to catch them. Maybe we does, suh," he said, lapsing in his earnestness, into bad grammar, "maybe we does sometimes, but not without reason." "What reason?" asked the colonel. "Well, sir, fer the reason that we ain't always shore that a coloured man will get a fair trial, or any trial at all, or that he'll get a just sentence after he's been tried. We have no hand in makin' the laws, or in enforcin' 'em; we are not summoned on jury; and yet we're asked to do the work of constables and sheriffs who are paid for arrestin' criminals, an' for protectin' 'em from mobs, which they don't do." "I have no doubt every word you say is true, Mr. Taylor, and such a state of things is unjust, and will some day be different, if I can help to make it so. But, nevertheless, all good citizens, whatever their colour, ought to help to preserve peace and good order." "Yes, sir, so they ought; and I want to do just that; I want to co-operate, and a whole heap of us want to co-operate with the good white people to keep down crime and lawlessness. I know there's good white people who want to see justice done--but they ain't always strong enough to run things; an' if any one of us coloured folks tells on another one, he's liable to lose all his frien's. But I believe, sir, that I can trust you to save me harmless, and to see that nothin' mo' than justice is done to the coloured man." "Yes, Taylor, you can trust me to do all that I can, and I think I have considerable influence. Now, what's on your mind? Do you know who shot Haines and Mr. Fetters?" "Well, sir, you're a mighty good guesser. It ain't so much Mr. Fetters an' Mr. Haines I'm thinkin' about, for that place down the country is a hell on earth, an' they're the devils that runs it. But there's a friend of yo'rs in trouble, for something he didn' do, an' I wouldn' stan' for an innocent man bein' sent to the penitentiary--though many a po' Negro has been. Yes, sir, I know that Mr. Ben Dudley didn' shoot them two white men." "So do I," rejoined the colonel. "Who did?" "It was Bud Johnson, the man you tried to get away from Mr. Fetters--yo'r coachman tol' us about it, sir, an' we know how good a friend of ours you are, from what you've promised us about the school. An' I wanted you to know, sir. You are our friend, and have showed confidence in us, and I wanted to prove to you that we are not ungrateful, an' that we want to be good citizens." "I had heard," said the colonel, "that Johnson had escaped and left the county." "So he had, sir, but he came back. They had 'bused him down at that place till he swore he'd kill every one that had anything to do with him. It was Mr. Turner he shot at the first time and he hit young Mr. Fetters by accident. He stole a gun from ole Mr. Dudley's place at Mink Run, shot Mr. Fetters with it, and has kept it ever since, and shot Mr. Haines with it. I suppose they'd 'a' ketched him before, if it hadn't be'n for suspectin' young Mr. Dudley." "Where is Johnson now," asked the colonel. "He's hidin' in an old log cabin down by the swamp back of Mink Run. He sleeps in the daytime, and goes out at night to get food and watch for white men from Mr. Fetters's place." "Does his wife know where he is?" "No, sir; he ain't never let her know." "By the way, Taylor," asked the colonel, "how do _you_ know all this?" "Well, sir," replied the teacher, with something which, in an uneducated Negro would have been a very pronounced chuckle, "there's mighty little goin' on roun' here that I _don't_ find out, sooner or later." "Taylor," said the colonel, rising to terminate the interview, "you have rendered a public service, have proved yourself a good citizen, and have relieved Mr. Dudley of serious embarrassment. I will see that steps are taken to apprehend Johnson, and will keep your participation in the matter secret, since you think it would hurt your influence with your people. And I promise you faithfully that every effort shall be made to see that Johnson has a fair trial and no more than a just punishment." He gave the Negro his hand. "Thank you, sir, thank you, sir," replied the teacher, returning the colonel's clasp. "If there were more white men like you, the coloured folks would have no more trouble." The colonel let Taylor out, and watched him as he looked cautiously up and down the street to see that he was not observed. That coloured folks, or any other kind, should ever cease to have trouble, was a vain imagining. But the teacher had made a well-founded complaint of injustice which ought to be capable of correction; and he had performed a public-spirited action, even though he had felt constrained to do it in a clandestine manner. About his own part in the affair the colonel was troubled. It was becoming clear to him that the task he had undertaken was no light one--not the task of apprehending Johnson and clearing Dudley, but that of leavening the inert mass of Clarendon with the leaven of enlightenment. With the best of intentions, and hoping to save a life, he had connived at turning a murderer loose upon the community. It was true that the community, through unjust laws, had made him a murderer, but it was no part of the colonel's plan to foster or promote evil passions, or to help the victims of the law to make reprisals. His aim was to bring about, by better laws and more liberal ideas, peace, harmony, and universal good will. There was a colossal work for him to do, and for all whom he could enlist with him in this cause. The very standards of right and wrong had been confused by the race issue, and must be set right by the patient appeal to reason and humanity. Primitive passions and private vengeance must be subordinated to law and order and the higher good. A new body of thought must be built up, in which stress must be laid upon the eternal verities, in the light of which difficulties which now seemed unsurmountable would be gradually overcome. But this halcyon period was yet afar off, and the colonel roused himself to the duty of the hour. With the best intentions he had let loose upon the community, in a questionable way, a desperate character. It was no less than his plain duty to put the man under restraint. To rescue from Fetters a man whose life was threatened, was one thing. To leave a murderer at large now would be to endanger innocent lives, and imperil Ben Dudley's future. The arrest of Bud Johnson brought an end to the case against Ben Dudley. The prosecuting attorney, who was under political obligations to Fetters, seemed reluctant to dismiss the case, until Johnson's guilt should have been legally proved; but the result of the Negro's preliminary hearing rendered this position no longer tenable; the case against Ben was nolled, and he could now hold up his head as a free man, with no stain upon his character. Indeed, the reaction in his favour as one unjustly indicted, went far to wipe out from the public mind the impression that he was a drunkard and a rowdy. It was recalled that he was of good family and that his forebears had rendered valuable service to the State, and that he had never been seen to drink before, or known to be in a fight, but that on the contrary he was quiet and harmless to a fault. Indeed, the Clarendon public would have admired a little more spirit in a young man, even to the extent of condoning an occasional lapse into license. There was sincere rejoicing at the Treadwell house when Ben, now free in mind, went around to see the ladies. Miss Laura was warmly sympathetic and congratulatory; and Graciella, tearfully happy, tried to make up by a sweet humility, through which shone the true womanliness of a hitherto undeveloped character, for the past stings and humiliations to which her selfish caprice had subjected her lover. Ben resumed his visits, if not with quite their former frequency, and it was only a day or two later that the colonel found him and Graciella, with his own boy Phil, grouped in familiar fashion on the steps, where Ben was demonstrating with some pride of success, the operation of his model, into which he was feeding cotton when the colonel came up. The colonel stood a moment and looked at the machine. "It's quite ingenious," he said. "Explain the principle." Ben described the mechanism, in brief, well-chosen words which conveyed the thought clearly and concisely, and revealed a fine mind for mechanics and at the same time an absolute lack of technical knowledge. "It would never be of any use, sir," he said, at the end, "for everybody has the other kind. But it's another way, and I think a better." "It is clever," said the colonel thoughtfully, as he went into the house. The colonel had not changed his mind at all since asking Miss Laura to be his wife. The glow of happiness still warmed her cheek, the spirit of youth still lingered in her eyes and in her smile. He might go a thousand miles before meeting a woman who would please him more, take better care of Phil, or preside with more dignity over his household. Her simple grace would adapt itself to wealth as easily as it had accommodated itself to poverty. It would be a pleasure to travel with her to new scenes and new places, to introduce her into a wider world, to see her expand in the generous sunlight of ease and freedom from responsibility. True to his promise, the colonel made every effort to see that Bud Johnson should be protected against mob violence and given a fair trial. There was some intemperate talk among the partisans of Fetters, and an ominous gathering upon the streets the day after the arrest, but Judge Miller, of the Beaver County circuit, who was in Clarendon that day, used his influence to discountenance any disorder, and promised a speedy trial of the prisoner. The crime was not the worst of crimes, and there was no excuse for riot or lynch law. The accused could not escape his just punishment. As a result of the judge's efforts, supplemented by the colonel's and those of Doctor Price and several ministers, any serious fear of disorder was removed, and a handful of Fetters's guards who had come up from his convict farm and foregathered with some choice spirits of the town at Clay Jackson's saloon, went back without attempting to do what they had avowedly come to town to accomplish. _Thirty_ One morning the colonel, while overseeing the work at the new mill building, stepped on the rounded handle of a chisel, which had been left lying carelessly on the floor, and slipped and fell, spraining his ankle severely. He went home in his buggy, which was at the mill, and sent for Doctor Price, who put his foot in a plaster bandage and ordered him to keep quiet for a week. Peter and Phil went around to the Treadwells' to inform the ladies of the accident. On reaching the house after the accident, the colonel had taken off his coat, and sent Peter to bring him one from the closet off his bedroom. When the colonel put on the coat, he felt some papers in the inside pocket, and taking them out, recognised the two old letters he had taken from the lining of his desk several months before. The housekeeper, in a moment of unusual zeal, had discovered and mended the tear in the sleeve, and Peter had by chance selected this particular coat to bring to his master. When Peter started, with Phil, to go to the Treadwells', the colonel gave him the two letters. "Give these," he said, "to Miss Laura, and tell her I found them in the old desk." It was not long before Miss Laura came, with Graciella, to call on the colonel. When they had expressed the proper sympathy, and had been assured that the hurt was not dangerous, Miss Laura spoke of another matter. "Henry," she said, with an air of suppressed excitement, "I have made a discovery. I don't quite know what it means, or whether it amounts to anything, but in one of the envelopes you sent me just now there was a paper signed by Mr. Fetters. I do not know how it could have been left in the desk; we had searched it, years ago, in every nook and cranny, and found nothing." The colonel explained the circumstances of his discovery of the papers, but prudently refrained from mentioning how long ago they had taken place. Miss Laura handed him a thin, oblong, yellowish slip of paper, which had been folded in the middle; it was a printed form, upon which several words had been filled in with a pen. "It was enclosed in this," she said, handing him another paper. The colonel took the papers and glanced over them. "Mother thinks," said Miss Laura anxiously, "that they are the papers we were looking for, that prove that Fetters was in father's debt." The colonel had been thinking rapidly. The papers were, indeed, a promissory note from Fetters to Mr. Treadwell, and a contract and memorandum of certain joint transactions in turpentine and cotton futures. The note was dated twenty years back. Had it been produced at the time of Mr. Treadwell's death, it would not have been difficult to collect, and would have meant to his survivors the difference between poverty and financial independence. Now it was barred by the lapse of time. Miss Laura was waiting in eager expectation. Outwardly calm, her eyes were bright, her cheeks were glowing, her bosom rose and fell excitedly. Could he tell her that this seemingly fortunate accident was merely the irony of fate--a mere cruel reminder of a former misfortune? No, she could not believe it! "It has made me happy, Henry," she said, while he still kept his eyes bent on the papers to conceal his perplexity, "it has made me very happy to think that I may not come to you empty-handed." "Dear woman," he thought, "you shall not. If the note is not good, it shall be made good." "Laura," he said aloud, "I am no lawyer, but Caxton shall look at these to-day, and I shall be very much mistaken if they do not bring you a considerable sum of money. Say nothing about them, however, until Caxton reports. He will be here to see me to-day and by to-morrow you shall have his opinion." Miss Laura went away with a radiantly hopeful face, and as she and Graciella went down the street, the colonel noted that her step was scarcely less springy than her niece's. It was worth the amount of Fetters's old note to make her happy; and since he meant to give her all that she might want, what better way than to do it by means of this bit of worthless paper? It would be a harmless deception, and it would save the pride of three gentlewomen, with whom pride was not a disease, to poison and scorch and blister, but an inspiration to courtesy, and kindness, and right living. Such a pride was worth cherishing even at a sacrifice, which was, after all, no sacrifice. He had already sent word to Caxton of his accident, requesting him to call at the house on other business. Caxton came in the afternoon, and when the matter concerning which he had come had been disposed of, Colonel French produced Fetters's note. "Caxton," he said, "I wish to pay this note and let it seem to have come from Fetters." Caxton looked at the note. "Why should you pay it?" he asked. "I mean," he added, noting a change in the colonel's expression, "why shouldn't Fetters pay it?" "Because it is outlawed," he replied, "and we could hardly expect him to pay for anything he didn't have to pay. The statute of limitations runs against it after fifteen years--and it's older than that, much older than that." Caxton made a rapid mental calculation. "That is the law in New York," he said, "but here the statute doesn't begin to run for twenty years. The twenty years for which this note was given expires to-day." "Then it is good?" demanded the colonel, looking at his watch. "It is good," said Caxton, "provided there is no defence to it except the statute, and provided I can file a petition on it in the county clerk's office by four o'clock, the time at which the office closes. It is now twenty minutes of four." "Can you make it?" "I'll try." Caxton, since his acquaintance with Colonel French, had learned something more about the value of half an hour than he had ever before appreciated, and here was an opportunity to test his knowledge. He literally ran the quarter of a mile that lay between the colonel's residence and the court house, to the open-eyed astonishment of those whom he passed, some of whom wondered whether he were crazy, and others whether he had committed a crime. He dashed into the clerk's office, seized a pen, and the first piece of paper handy, and began to write a petition. The clerk had stepped into the hall, and when he came leisurely in at three minutes to four, Caxton discovered that he had written his petition on the back of a blank marriage license. He folded it, ran his pen through the printed matter, endorsed it, "Estate of Treadwell _vs._ Fetters," signed it with the name of Ellen Treadwell, as executrix, by himself as her attorney, swore to it before the clerk, and handed it to that official, who raised his eyebrows as soon as he saw the endorsement. "Now, Mr. Munroe," said Caxton, "if you'll enter that on the docket, now, as of to-day, I'll be obliged to you. I'd rather have the transaction all finished up while I wait. Your fee needn't wait the termination of the suit. I'll pay it now and take a receipt for it." The clerk whistled to himself as he read the petition in order to make the entry. "That's an old-timer," he said. "It'll make the old man cuss." "Yes," said Caxton. "Do me a favour, and don't say anything about it for a day or two. I don't think the suit will ever come to trial." _Thirty-one_ On the day following these events, the colonel, on the arm of old Peter, hobbled out upon his front porch, and seating himself in a big rocking chair, in front of which a cushion had been adjusted for his injured ankle, composed himself to read some arrears of mail which had come in the day before, and over which he had only glanced casually. When he was comfortably settled, Peter and Phil walked down the steps, upon the lowest of which they seated themselves. The colonel had scarcely begun to read before he called to the old man. "Peter," he said, "I wish you'd go upstairs, and look in my room, and bring me a couple of light-coloured cigars from the box on my bureau--the mild ones, you know, Peter." "Yas, suh, I knows, suh, de mil' ones, dem wid de gol' ban's 'roun' 'em. Now you stay right hyuh, chile, till Peter come back." Peter came up the steps and disappeared in the doorway. The colonel opened a letter from Kirby, in which that energetic and versatile gentleman assured the colonel that he had evolved a great scheme, in which there were millions for those who would go into it. He had already interested Mrs. Jerviss, who had stated she would be governed by what the colonel did in the matter. The letter went into some detail upon this subject, and then drifted off into club and social gossip. Several of the colonel's friends had inquired particularly about him. One had regretted the loss to their whist table. Another wanted the refusal of his box at the opera, if he were not coming back for the winter. "I think you're missed in a certain quarter, old fellow. I know a lady who would be more than delighted to see you. I am invited to her house to dinner, ostensibly to talk about our scheme, in reality to talk about you. "But this is all by the way. The business is the thing. Take my proposition under advisement. We all made money together before; we can make it again. My option has ten days to run. Wire me before it is up what reply to make. I know what you'll say, but I want your 'ipse dixit.'" The colonel knew too what his reply would be, and that it would be very different from Kirby's anticipation. He would write it, he thought, next day, so that Kirby should not be kept in suspense, or so that he might have time to enlist other capital in the enterprise. The colonel felt really sorry to disappoint his good friends. He would write and inform Kirby of his plans, including that of his approaching marriage. He had folded the letter and laid it down, and had picked up a newspaper, when Peter returned with the cigars and a box of matches. "Mars Henry?" he asked, "w'at's gone wid de chile?" "Phil?" replied the colonel, looking toward the step, from which the boy had disappeared. "I suppose he went round the house." "Mars Phil! O Mars Phil!" called the old man. There was no reply. Peter looked round the corner of the house, but Phil was nowhere visible. The old man went round to the back yard, and called again, but did not find the child. "I hyuhs de train comin'; I 'spec's he's gone up ter de railroad track," he said, when he had returned to the front of the house. "I'll run up dere an' fetch 'im back." "Yes, do, Peter," returned the colonel. "He's probably all right, but you'd better see about him." Little Phil, seeing his father absorbed in the newspaper, and not wishing to disturb him, had amused himself by going to the gate and looking down the street toward the railroad track. He had been doing this scarcely a moment, when he saw a black cat come out of a neighbour's gate and go down the street. Phil instantly recalled Uncle Peter's story of the black cat. Perhaps this was the same one! Phil had often been warned about the railroad. "Keep 'way f'm dat railroad track, honey," the old man had repeated more than once. "It's as dange'ous as a gun, and a gun is dange'ous widout lock, stock, er bairl: I knowed a man oncet w'at beat 'is wife ter def wid a ramrod, an' wuz hung fer it in a' ole fiel' down by de ha'nted house. Dat gun couldn't hol' powder ner shot, but was dange'ous 'nuff ter kill two folks. So you jes' better keep 'way f'm dat railroad track, chile." But Phil was a child, with the making of a man, and the wisest of men sometimes forget. For the moment Phil saw nothing but the cat, and wished for nothing more than to talk to it. So Phil, unperceived by the colonel, set out to overtake the black cat. The cat seemed in no hurry, and Phil had very nearly caught up with him--or her, as the case might be--when the black cat, having reached the railroad siding, walked under a flat car which stood there, and leaping to one of the truck bars, composed itself, presumably for a nap. In order to get close enough to the cat for conversational purposes, Phil stooped under the overhanging end of the car, and kneeled down beside the truck. "Kitty, Kitty!" he called, invitingly. The black cat opened her big yellow eyes with every evidence of lazy amiability. Peter shuffled toward the corner as fast as his rickety old limbs would carry him. When he reached the corner he saw a car standing on the track. There was a brakeman at one end, holding a coupling link in one hand, and a coupling pin in the other, his eye on an engine and train of cars only a rod or two away, advancing to pick up the single car. At the same moment Peter caught sight of little Phil, kneeling under the car at the other end. Peter shouted, but the brakeman was absorbed in his own task, which required close attention in order to assure his own safety. The engineer on the cab, at the other end of the train, saw an old Negro excitedly gesticulating, and pulled a lever mechanically, but too late to stop the momentum of the train, which was not equipped with air brakes, even if these would have proved effective to stop it in so short a distance. Just before the two cars came together, Peter threw himself forward to seize the child. As he did so, the cat sprang from the truck bar; the old man stumbled over the cat, and fell across the rail. The car moved only a few feet, but quite far enough to work injury. A dozen people, including the train crew, quickly gathered. Willing hands drew them out and laid them upon the grass under the spreading elm at the corner of the street. A judge, a merchant and a Negro labourer lifted old Peter's body as tenderly as though it had been that of a beautiful woman. The colonel, somewhat uneasy, he scarcely knew why, had started to limp painfully toward the corner, when he was met by a messenger who informed him of the accident. Forgetting his pain, he hurried to the scene, only to find his heart's delight lying pale, bleeding and unconscious, beside the old Negro who had sacrificed his life to save him. A doctor, who had been hastily summoned, pronounced Peter dead. Phil showed no superficial injury, save a cut upon the head, from which the bleeding was soon stanched. A Negro's strong arms bore the child to the house, while the bystanders remained about Peter's body until the arrival of Major McLean, recently elected coroner, who had been promptly notified of the accident. Within a few minutes after the officer's appearance, a jury was summoned from among the bystanders, the evidence of the trainmen and several other witnesses was taken, and a verdict of accidental death rendered. There was no suggestion of blame attaching to any one; it had been an accident, pure and simple, which ordinary and reasonable prudence could not have foreseen. By the colonel's command, the body of his old servant was then conveyed to the house and laid out in the front parlour. Every honour, every token of respect, should be paid to his remains. _Thirty-two_ Meanwhile the colonel, forgetting his own hurt, hovered, with several physicians, among them Doctor Price, around the bedside of his child. The slight cut upon the head, the physicians declared, was not, of itself, sufficient to account for the rapid sinking which set in shortly after the boy's removal to the house. There had evidently been some internal injury, the nature of which could not be ascertained. Phil remained unconscious for several hours, but toward the end of the day opened his blue eyes and fixed them upon his father, who was sitting by the bedside. "Papa," he said, "am I going to die?" "No, no, Phil," said his father hopefully. "You are going to get well in a few days, I hope." Phil was silent for a moment, and looked around him curiously. He gave no sign of being in pain. "Is Miss Laura here?" "Yes, Phil, she's in the next room, and will be here in a moment." At that instant Miss Laura came in and kissed him. The caress gave him pleasure, and he smiled sweetly in return. "Papa, was Uncle Peter hurt?" "Yes, Phil." "Where is he, papa? Was he hurt badly?" "He is lying in another room, Phil, but he is not in any pain." "Papa," said Phil, after a pause, "if I should die, and if Uncle Peter should die, you'll remember your promise and bury him near me, won't you, dear?" "Yes, Phil," he said, "but you are not going to die!" But Phil died, dozing off into a peaceful sleep in which he passed quietly away with a smile upon his face. It required all the father's fortitude to sustain the blow, with the added agony of self-reproach that he himself had been unwittingly the cause of it. Had he not sent old Peter into the house, the child would not have been left alone. Had he kept his eye upon Phil until Peter's return the child would not have strayed away. He had neglected his child, while the bruised and broken old black man in the room below had given his life to save him. He could do nothing now to show the child his love or Peter his gratitude, and the old man had neither wife nor child in whom the colonel's bounty might find an object. But he would do what he could. He would lay his child's body in the old family lot in the cemetery, among the bones of his ancestors, and there too, close at hand, old Peter should have honourable sepulture. It was his due, and would be the fulfilment of little Phil's last request. The child was laid out in the parlour, amid a mass of flowers. Miss Laura, for love of him and of the colonel, with her own hands prepared his little body for the last sleep. The undertaker, who hovered around, wished, with a conventional sense of fitness, to remove old Peter's body to a back room. But the colonel said no. "They died together; together they shall lie here, and they shall be buried together." He gave instructions as to the location of the graves in the cemetery lot. The undertaker looked thoughtful. "I hope, sir," said the undertaker, "there will be no objection. It's not customary--there's a coloured graveyard--you might put up a nice tombstone there--and you've been away from here a long time, sir." "If any one objects," said the colonel, "send him to me. The lot is mine, and I shall do with it as I like. My great-great-grandfather gave the cemetery to the town. Old Peter's skin was black, but his heart was white as any man's! And when a man reaches the grave, he is not far from God, who is no respecter of persons, and in whose presence, on the judgment day, many a white man shall be black, and many a black man white." The funeral was set for the following afternoon. The graves were to be dug in the morning. The undertaker, whose business was dependent upon public favour, and who therefore shrank from any step which might affect his own popularity, let it be quietly known that Colonel French had given directions to bury Peter in Oak Cemetery. It was inevitable that there should be some question raised about so novel a proceeding. The colour line in Clarendon, as in all Southern towns, was, on the surface at least, rigidly drawn, and extended from the cradle to the grave. No Negro's body had ever profaned the sacred soil of Oak Cemetery. The protestants laid the matter before the Cemetery trustees, and a private meeting was called in the evening to consider the proposed interment. White and black worshipped the same God, in different churches. There had been a time when coloured people filled the galleries of the white churches, and white ladies had instilled into black children the principles of religion and good morals. But as white and black had grown nearer to each other in condition, they had grown farther apart in feeling. It was difficult for the poor lady, for instance, to patronise the children of the well-to-do Negro or mulatto; nor was the latter inclined to look up to white people who had started, in his memory, from a position but little higher than his own. In an era of change, the benefits gained thereby seemed scarcely to offset the difficulties of readjustment. The situation was complicated by a sense of injury on both sides. Cherishing their theoretical equality of citizenship, which they could neither enforce nor forget, the Negroes resented, noisly or silently, as prudence dictated, its contemptuous denial by the whites; and these, viewing this shadowy equality as an insult to themselves, had sought by all the machinery of local law to emphasise and perpetuate their own superiority. The very word "equality" was an offence. Society went back to Egypt and India for its models; to break caste was a greater sin than to break any or all of the ten commandments. White and coloured children studied the same books in different schools. White and black people rode on the same trains in separate cars. Living side by side, and meeting day by day, the law, made and administered by white men, had built a wall between them. And white and black buried their dead in separate graveyards. Not until they reached God's presence could they stand side by side in any relation of equality. There was a Negro graveyard in Clarendon, where, as a matter of course the coloured dead were buried. It was not an ideal locality. The land was low and swampy, and graves must be used quickly, ere the water collected in them. The graveyard was unfenced, and vagrant cattle browsed upon its rank herbage. The embankment of the railroad encroached upon one side of it, and the passing engines sifted cinders and ashes over the graves. But no Negro had ever thought of burying his dead elsewhere, and if their cemetery was not well kept up, whose fault was it but their own? The proposition, therefore, of a white man, even of Colonel French's standing, to bury a Negro in Oak Cemetery, was bound to occasion comment, if nothing more. There was indeed more. Several citizens objected to the profanation, and laid their protest before the mayor, who quietly called a meeting of the board of cemetery trustees, of which he was the chairman. The trustees were five in number. The board, with the single exception of the mayor, was self-perpetuating, and the members had been chosen, as vacancies occurred by death, at long intervals, from among the aristocracy, who had always controlled it. The mayor, a member and chairman of the board by virtue of his office, had sprung from the same class as Fetters, that of the aspiring poor whites, who, freed from the moral incubus of slavery, had by force of numbers and ambition secured political control of the State and relegated not only the Negroes, but the old master class, to political obscurity. A shrewd, capable man was the mayor, who despised Negroes and distrusted aristocrats, and had the courage of his convictions. He represented in the meeting the protesting element of the community. "Gentlemen," he said, "Colonel French has ordered this Negro to be buried in Oak Cemetery. We all appreciate the colonel's worth, and what he is doing for the town. But he has lived at the North for many years, and has got somewhat out of our way of thinking. We do not want to buy the prosperity of this town at the price of our principles. The attitude of the white people on the Negro question is fixed and determined for all time, and nothing can ever alter it. To bury this Negro in Oak Cemetery is against our principles." "The mayor's statement of the rule is quite correct," replied old General Thornton, a member of the board, "and not open to question. But all rules have their exceptions. It was against the law, for some years before the war, to manumit a slave; but an exception to that salutary rule was made in case a Negro should render some great service to the State or the community. You will recall that when, in a sister State, a Negro climbed the steep roof of St. Michael's church and at the risk of his own life saved that historic structure, the pride of Charleston, from destruction by fire, the muncipality granted him his freedom." "And we all remember," said Mr. Darden, another of the trustees, "we all remember, at least I'm sure General Thornton does, old Sally, who used to belong to the McRae family, and was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and who, because of her age and infirmities--she was hard of hearing and too old to climb the stairs to the gallery--was given a seat in front of the pulpit, on the main floor." "That was all very well," replied the mayor, stoutly, "when the Negroes belonged to you, and never questioned your authority. But times are different now. They think themselves as good as we are. We had them pretty well in hand until Colonel French came around, with his schools, and his high wages, and now they are getting so fat and sassy that there'll soon be no living with them. The last election did something, but we'll have to do something more, and that soon, to keep them in their places. There's one in jail now, alive, who has shot and disfigured and nearly killed two good white men, and such an example of social equality as burying one in a white graveyard will demoralise them still further. We must preserve the purity and prestige of our race, and we can only do it by keeping the Negroes down." "After all," said another member, "the purity of our race is not apt to suffer very seriously from the social equality of a graveyard." "And old Peter will be pretty effectually kept down, wherever he is buried," added another. These sallies provoked a smile which lightened the tension. A member suggested that Colonel French be sent for. "It seems a pity to disturb him in his grief," said another. "It's only a couple of squares," suggested another. "Let's call in a body and pay our respects. We can bring up the matter incidentally, while there." The muscles of the mayor's chin hardened. "Colonel French has never been at my house," he said, "and I shouldn't care to seem to intrude." "Come on, mayor," said Mr. Darden, taking the official by the arm, "these fine distinctions are not becoming in the presence of death. The colonel will be glad to see you." The mayor could not resist this mark of intimacy on the part of one of the old aristocracy, and walked somewhat proudly through the street arm in arm with Mr. Darden. They paid their respects to the colonel, who was bearing up, with the composure to be expected of a man of strong will and forceful character, under a grief of which he was exquisitely sensible. Touched by a strong man's emotion, which nothing could conceal, no one had the heart to mention, in the presence of the dead, the object of their visit, and they went away without giving the colonel any inkling that his course had been seriously criticised. Nor was the meeting resumed after they left the house, even the mayor seeming content to let the matter go by default. _Thirty-three_ Fortune favoured Caxton in the matter of the note. Fetters was in Clarendon the following morning. Caxton saw him passing, called him into his office, and produced the note. "That's no good," said Fetters contemptuously. "It was outlawed yesterday. I suppose you allowed I'd forgotten it. On the contrary, I've a memorandum of it in my pocketbook, and I struck it off the list last night. I always pay my lawful debts, when they're properly demanded. If this note had been presented yesterday, I'd have paid it. To-day it's too late. It ain't a lawful debt." "Do you really mean to say, Mr. Fetters, that you have deliberately robbed those poor women of this money all these years, and are not ashamed of it, not even when you're found out, and that you are going to take refuge behind the statute?" "Now, see here, Mr. Caxton," returned Fetters, without apparent emotion, "you want to be careful about the language you use. I might sue you for slander. You're a young man, that hopes to have a future and live in this county, where I expect to live and have law business done long after some of your present clients have moved away. I didn't owe the estate of John Treadwell one cent--you ought to be lawyer enough to know that. He owed me money, and paid me with a note. I collected the note. I owed him money and paid it with a note. Whoever heard of anybody's paying a note that wasn't presented?" "It's a poor argument, Mr. Fetters. You would have let those ladies starve to death before you would have come forward and paid that debt." "They've never asked me for charity, so I wasn't called on to offer it. And you know now, don't you, that if I'd paid the amount of that note, and then it had turned up afterward in somebody else's hands, I'd have had to pay it over again; now wouldn't I?" Caxton could not deny it. Fetters had robbed the Treadwell estate, but his argument was unanswerable. "Yes," said Caxton, "I suppose you would." "I'm sorry for the women," said Fetters, "and I've stood ready to pay that note all these years, and it ain't my fault that it hasn't been presented. Now it's outlawed, and you couldn't expect a man to just give away that much money. It ain't a lawful debt, and the law's good enough for me." "You're awfully sorry for the ladies, aren't you?" said Caxton, with thinly veiled sarcasm. "I surely am; I'm honestly sorry for them." "And you'd pay the note if you had to, wouldn't you?" asked Caxton. "I surely would. As I say, I always pay my legal debts." "All right," said Caxton triumphantly, "then you'll pay this. I filed suit against you yesterday, which takes the case out of the statute." Fetters concealed his discomfiture. "Well," he said, with quiet malignity, "I've nothing more to say till I consult my lawyer. But I want to tell you one thing. You are ruining a fine career by standing in with this Colonel French. I hear his son was killed to-day. You can tell him I say it's a judgment on him; for I hold him responsible for my son's condition. He came down here and tried to demoralise the labour market. He put false notions in the niggers' heads. Then he got to meddling with my business, trying to get away a nigger whose time I had bought. He insulted my agent Turner, and came all the way down to Sycamore and tried to bully me into letting the nigger loose, and of course I wouldn't be bullied. Afterwards, when I offered to let the nigger go, the colonel wouldn't have it so. I shall always believe he bribed one of my men to get the nigger off, and then turned him loose to run amuck among the white people and shoot my boy and my overseer. It was a low-down performance, and unworthy of a gentleman. No really white man would treat another white man so. You can tell him I say it's a judgment that's fallen on him to-day, and that it's not the last one, and that he'll be sorrier yet that he didn't stay where he was, with his nigger-lovin' notions, instead of comin' back down here to make trouble for people that have grown up with the State and made it what it is." Caxton, of course, did not deliver the message. To do so would have been worse taste than Fetters had displayed in sending it. Having got the best of the encounter, Caxton had no objection to letting his defeated antagonist discharge his venom against the absent colonel, who would never know of it, and who was already breasting the waves of a sorrow so deep and so strong as almost to overwhelm him. For he had loved the boy; all his hopes had centred around this beautiful man child, who had promised so much that was good. His own future had been planned with reference to him. Now he was dead, and the bereaved father gave way to his grief. _Thirty-four_ The funeral took place next day, from the Episcopal Church, in which communion the little boy had been baptised, and of which old Peter had always been an humble member, faithfully appearing every Sunday morning in his seat in the gallery, long after the rest of his people had deserted it for churches of their own. On this occasion Peter had, for the first time, a place on the main floor, a little to one side of the altar, in front of which, banked with flowers, stood the white velvet casket which contained all that was mortal of little Phil. The same beautiful sermon answered for both. In touching words, the rector, a man of culture, taste and feeling, and a faithful servant of his Master, spoke of the sweet young life brought to so untimely an end, and pointed the bereaved father to the best source of consolation. He paid a brief tribute to the faithful servant and humble friend, to whom, though black and lowly, the white people of the town were glad to pay this signal tribute of respect and appreciation for his heroic deed. The attendance at the funeral, while it might have been larger, was composed of the more refined and cultured of the townspeople, from whom, indeed, the church derived most of its membership and support; and the gallery overflowed with coloured people, whose hearts had warmed to the great honour thus paid to one of their race. Four young white men bore Phil's body and the six pallbearers of old Peter were from among the best white people of the town. The double interment was made in Oak Cemetery. Simultaneously both bodies were lowered to their last resting-place. Simultaneously ashes were consigned to ashes and dust to dust. The earth was heaped above the graves. The mound above little Phil's was buried with flowers, and old Peter's was not neglected. Beyond the cemetery wall, a few white men of the commoner sort watched the proceedings from a distance, and eyed with grim hostility the Negroes who had followed the procession. They had no part nor parcel in this sentimental folly, nor did they approve of it--in fact they disapproved of it very decidedly. Among them was the colonel's discharged foreman, Jim Green, who was pronounced in his denunciation. "Colonel French is an enemy of his race," he declared to his sympathetic following. "He hires niggers when white men are idle; and pays them more than white men who work are earning. And now he is burying them with white people." When the group around the grave began to disperse, the little knot of disgruntled spectators moved sullenly away. In the evening they might have been seen, most of them, around Clay Jackson's barroom. Turner, the foreman at Fetters's convict farm, was in town that evening, and Jackson's was his favourite haunt. For some reason Turner was more sociable than usual, and liquor flowed freely, at his expense. There was a great deal of intemperate talk, concerning the Negro in jail for shooting Haines and young Fetters, and concerning Colonel French as the protector of Negroes and the enemy of white men. _Thirty-five_ At the same time that the colonel, dry-eyed and heavy-hearted, had returned to his empty house to nurse his grief, another series of events was drawing to a climax in the dilapidated house on Mink Run. Even while the preacher was saying the last words over little Phil's remains, old Malcolm Dudley's illness had taken a sudden and violent turn. He had been sinking for several days, but the decline had been gradual, and there had seemed no particular reason for alarm. But during the funeral exercises Ben had begun to feel uneasy--some obscure premonition warned him to hurry homeward. As soon as the funeral was over he spoke to Dr. Price, who had been one of the pallbearers, and the doctor had promised to be at Mink Run in a little while. Ben rode home as rapidly as he could; as he went up the lane toward the house a Negro lad came forward to take charge of the tired horse, and Ben could see from the boy's expression that he had important information to communicate. "Yo' uncle is monst'ous low, sir," said the boy. "You bettah go in an' see 'im quick, er you'll be too late. Dey ain' nobody wid 'im but ole Aun' Viney." Ben hurried into the house and to his uncle's room, where Malcolm Dudley lay dying. Outside, the sun was setting, and his red rays, shining through the trees into the open window, lit the stage for the last scene of this belated drama. When Ben entered the room, the sweat of death had gathered on the old man's brow, but his eyes, clear with the light of reason, were fixed upon old Viney, who stood by the bedside. The two were evidently so absorbed in their own thoughts as to be oblivious to anything else, and neither of them paid the slightest attention to Ben, or to the scared Negro lad, who had followed him and stood outside the door. But marvellous to hear, Viney was talking, strangely, slowly, thickly, but passionately and distinctly. "You had me whipped," she said. "Do you remember that? You had me whipped--whipped--whipped--by a poor white dog I had despised and spurned! You had said that you loved me, and you had promised to free me--and you had me whipped! But I have had my revenge!" Her voice shook with passion, a passion at which Ben wondered. That his uncle and she had once been young he knew, and that their relations had once been closer than those of master and servant; but this outbreak of feeling from the wrinkled old mulattress seemed as strange and weird to Ben as though a stone image had waked to speech. Spellbound, he stood in the doorway, and listened to this ghost of a voice long dead. "Your uncle came with the money and left it, and went away. Only he and I knew where it was. But I never told you! I could have spoken at any time for twenty-five years, but I never told you! I have waited--I have waited for this moment! I have gone into the woods and fields and talked to myself by the hour, that I might not forget how to talk--and I have waited my turn, and it is here and now!" Ben hung breathlessly upon her words. He drew back beyond her range of vision, lest she might see him, and the spell be broken. Now, he thought, she would tell where the gold was hidden! "He came," she said, "and left the gold--two heavy bags of it, and a letter for you. An hour later _he came back and took it all away_, except the letter! The money was here one hour, but in that hour you had me whipped, and for that you have spent twenty-five years in looking for nothing--something that was not here! I have had my revenge! For twenty-five years I have watched you look for--nothing; have seen you waste your time, your property, your life, your mind--for nothing! For ah, Mars' Ma'colm, you had me whipped--_by another man_!" A shadow of reproach crept into the old man's eyes, over which the mists of death were already gathering. "Yes, Viney," he whispered, "you have had your revenge! But I was sorry, Viney, for what I did, and you were not. And I forgive you, Viney; but you are unforgiving--even in the presence of death." His voice failed, and his eyes closed for the last time. When she saw that he was dead, by a strange revulsion of feeling the wall of outraged pride and hatred and revenge, built upon one brutal and bitterly repented mistake, and labouriously maintained for half a lifetime in her woman's heart that even slavery could not crush, crumbled and fell and let pass over it in one great and final flood the pent-up passions of the past. Bursting into tears--strange tears from eyes that had long forgot to weep--old Viney threw herself down upon her knees by the bedside, and seizing old Malcolm's emaciated hand in both her own, covered it with kisses, fervent kisses, the ghosts of the passionate kisses of their distant youth. With a feeling that his presence was something like sacrilege, Ben stole away and left her with her dead--the dead master and the dead past--and thanked God that he lived in another age, and had escaped this sin. As he wandered through the old house, a veil seemed to fall from his eyes. How old everything was, how shrunken and decayed! The sheen of the hidden gold had gilded the dilapidated old house, the neglected plantation, his own barren life. Now that it was gone, things appeared in their true light. Fortunately he was young enough to retrieve much of what had been lost. When the old man was buried, he would settle the estate, sell the land, make some provision for Aunt Viney, and then, with what was left, go out into the world and try to make a place for himself and Graciella. For life intrudes its claims even into the presence of death. When the doctor came, a little later, Ben went with him into the death chamber. Viney was still kneeling by her master's bedside, but strangely still and silent. The doctor laid his hand on hers and old Malcolm's, which had remained clasped together. "They are both dead," he declared. "I knew their story; my father told it to me many years ago." Ben related what he had overheard. "I'm not surprised," said the doctor. "My father attended her when she had the stroke, and after. He always maintained that Viney could speak--if she had wished to speak." _Thirty-six_ The colonel's eyes were heavy with grief that night, and yet he lay awake late, and with his sorrow were mingled many consoling thoughts. The people, his people, had been kind, aye, more than kind. Their warm hearts had sympathised with his grief. He had sometimes been impatient of their conservatism, their narrowness, their unreasoning pride of opinion; but in his bereavement they had manifested a feeling that it would be beautiful to remember all the days of his life. All the people, white and black, had united to honour his dead. He had wished to help them--had tried already. He had loved the town as the home of his ancestors, which enshrined their ashes. He would make of it a monument to mark his son's resting place. His fight against Fetters and what he represented should take on a new character; henceforward it should be a crusade to rescue from threatened barbarism the land which contained the tombs of his loved ones. Nor would he be alone in the struggle, which he now clearly foresaw would be a long one. The dear, good woman he had asked to be his wife could help him. He needed her clear, spiritual vision; and in his lifelong sorrow he would need her sympathy and companionship; for she had loved the child and would share his grief. She knew the people better than he, and was in closer touch with them; she could help him in his schemes of benevolence, and suggest new ways to benefit the people. Phil's mother was buried far away, among her own people; could he consult her, he felt sure she would prefer to remain there. Here she would be an alien note; and when Laura died she could lie with them and still be in her own place. "Have you heard the news, sir," asked the housekeeper, when he came down to breakfast the next morning. "No, Mrs. Hughes, what is it?" "They lynched the Negro who was in jail for shooting young Mr. Fetters and the other man." The colonel hastily swallowed a cup of coffee and went down town. It was only a short walk. Already there were excited crowds upon the street, discussing the events of the night. The colonel sought Caxton, who was just entering his office. "They've done it," said the lawyer. "So I understand. When did it happen?" "About one o'clock last night. A crowd came in from Sycamore--not all at once, but by twos and threes, and got together in Clay Johnson's saloon, with Ben Green, your discharged foreman, and a lot of other riffraff, and went to the sheriff, and took the keys, and took Johnson and carried him out to where the shooting was, and----" "Spare me the details. He is dead?" "Yes." A rope, a tree--a puff of smoke, a flash of flame--or a barbaric orgy of fire and blood--what matter which? At the end there was a lump of clay, and a hundred murderers where there had been one before. "Can we do anything to punish _this_ crime?" "We can try." And they tried. The colonel went to the sheriff. The sheriff said he had yielded to force, but he never would have dreamed of shooting to defend a worthless Negro who had maimed a good white man, had nearly killed another, and had declared a vendetta against the white race. By noon the colonel had interviewed as many prominent men as he could find, and they became increasingly difficult to find as it became known that he was seeking them. The town, he said, had been disgraced, and should redeem itself by prosecuting the lynchers. He may as well have talked to the empty air. The trail of Fetters was all over the town. Some of the officials owed Fetters money; others were under political obligations to him. Others were plainly of the opinion that the Negro got no more than he deserved; such a wretch was not fit to live. The coroner's jury returned a verdict of suicide, a grim joke which evoked some laughter. Doctor McKenzie, to whom the colonel expressed his feelings, and whom he asked to throw the influence of his church upon the side of law and order, said: "It is too bad. I am sorry, but it is done. Let it rest. No good can ever come of stirring it up further." Later in the day there came news that the lynchers, after completing their task, had proceeded to the Dudley plantation and whipped all the Negroes who did not learn of their coming in time to escape, the claim being that Johnson could not have maintained himself in hiding without their connivance, and that they were therefore parties to his crimes. The colonel felt very much depressed when he went to bed that night, and lay for a long time turning over in his mind the problem that confronted him. So far he had been beaten, except in the matter of the cotton mill, which was yet unfinished. His efforts in Bud Johnson's behalf--the only thing he had undertaken to please the woman he loved, had proved abortive. His promise to the teacher--well, he had done his part, but to no avail. He would be ashamed to meet Taylor face to face. With what conscience could a white man in Clarendon ever again ask a Negro to disclose the name or hiding place of a coloured criminal? In the effort to punish the lynchers he stood, to all intents and purposes, single-handed and alone; and without the support of public opinion he could do nothing. The colonel was beaten, but not dismayed. Perhaps God in his wisdom had taken Phil away, that his father might give himself more completely and single-mindedly to the battle before him. Had Phil lived, a father might have hesitated to expose a child's young and impressionable mind to the things which these volcanic outbursts of passion between mismated races might cause at any unforeseen moment. Now that the way was clear, he could go forward, hand in hand with the good woman who had promised to wed him, in the work he had laid out. He would enlist good people to demand better laws, under which Fetters and his kind would find it harder to prey upon the weak. Diligently he would work to lay wide and deep the foundations of prosperity, education and enlightenment, upon which should rest justice, humanity and civic righteousness. In this he would find a worthy career. Patiently would he await the results of his labours, and if they came not in great measure in his own lifetime, he would be content to know that after years would see their full fruition. So that night he sat down and wrote a long answer to Kirby's letter, in which he told him of Phil's death and burial, and his own grief. Something there was, too, of his plans for the future, including his marriage to a good woman who would help him in them. Kirby, he said, had offered him a golden opportunity for which he thanked him heartily. The scheme was good enough for any one to venture upon. But to carry out his own plans, would require that he invest his money in the State of his residence, where there were many openings for capital that could afford to wait upon development for large returns. He sent his best regards to Mrs. Jerviss, and his assurance that Kirby's plan was a good one. Perhaps Kirby and she alone could handle it; if not, there must be plenty of money elsewhere for so good a thing. He sealed the letter, and laid it aside to be mailed in the morning. To his mind it had all the force of a final renunciation, a severance of the last link that bound him to his old life. Long the colonel lay thinking, after he retired to rest, and the muffled striking of the clock downstairs had marked the hour of midnight ere he fell asleep. And he had scarcely dozed away, when he was awakened by a scraping noise, as though somewhere in the house a heavy object was being drawn across the floor. The sound was not repeated, however, and thinking it some trick of the imagination, he soon slept again. As the colonel slept this second time, he dreamed of a regenerated South, filled with thriving industries, and thronged with a prosperous and happy people, where every man, having enough for his needs, was willing that every other man should have the same; where law and order should prevail unquestioned, and where every man could enter, through the golden gate of hope, the field of opportunity, where lay the prizes of life, which all might have an equal chance to win or lose. For even in his dreams the colonel's sober mind did not stray beyond the bounds of reason and experience. That all men would ever be equal he did not even dream; there would always be the strong and the weak, the wise and the foolish. But that each man, in his little life in this our little world might be able to make the most of himself, was an ideal which even the colonel's waking hours would not have repudiated. Following this pleasing thread with the unconscious rapidity of dreams, the colonel passed, in a few brief minutes, through a long and useful life to a happy end, when he too rested with his fathers, by the side of his son, and on his tomb was graven what was said of Ben Adhem: "Here lies one who loved his fellow men," and the further words, "and tried to make them happy." * * * * * Shortly after dawn there was a loud rapping at the colonel's door: "Come downstairs and look on de piazza, Colonel," said the agitated voice of the servant who had knocked. "Come quick, suh." There was a vague terror in the man's voice that stirred the colonel strangely. He threw on a dressing gown and hastened downstairs, and to the front door of the hall, which stood open. A handsome mahogany burial casket, stained with earth and disfigured by rough handling, rested upon the floor of the piazza, where it had been deposited during the night. Conspicuously nailed to the coffin lid was a sheet of white paper, upon which were some lines rudely scrawled in a handwriting that matched the spelling: _Kurnell French_: _Take notis. Berry yore ole nigger somewhar else. He can't stay in Oak Semitury. The majority of the white people of this town, who dident tend yore nigger funarl, woant have him there. Niggers by there selves, white peepul by there selves, and them that lives in our town must bide by our rules._ _By order of_ CUMITTY. The colonel left the coffin standing on the porch, where it remained all day, an object of curious interest to the scores and hundreds who walked by to look at it, for the news spread quickly through the town. No one, however, came in. If there were those who reprobated the action they were silent. The mob spirit, which had broken out in the lynching of Johnson, still dominated the town, and no one dared to speak against it. As soon as Colonel French had dressed and breakfasted, he drove over to the cemetery. Those who had exhumed old Peter's remains had not been unduly careful. The carelessly excavated earth had been scattered here and there over the lot. The flowers on old Peter's grave and that of little Phil had been trampled under foot--whether wantonly or not, inevitably, in the execution of the ghoulish task. The colonel's heart hardened as he stood by his son's grave. Then he took a long lingering look at the tombs of his ancestors and turned away with an air of finality. From the cemetery he went to the undertaker's, and left an order; thence to the telegraph office, from which he sent a message to his former partner in New York; and thence to the Treadwells'. _Thirty-seven_ Miss Laura came forward with outstretched hands and tear-stained eyes to greet him. "Henry," she exclaimed, "I am shocked and sorry, I cannot tell you how much! Nor do I know what else to say, except that the best people do not--cannot--could not--approve of it!" "The best people, Laura," he said with a weary smile, "are an abstraction. When any deviltry is on foot they are never there to prevent it--they vanish into thin air at its approach. When it is done, they excuse it; and they make no effort to punish it. So it is not too much to say that what they permit they justify, and they cannot shirk the responsibility. To mar the living--it is the history of life--but to make war upon the dead!--I am going away, Laura, never to return. My dream of usefulness is over. To-night I take away my dead and shake the dust of Clarendon from my feet forever. Will you come with me?" "Henry," she said, and each word tore her heart, "I have been expecting this--since I heard. But I cannot go; my duty calls me here. My mother could not be happy anywhere else, nor would I fit into any other life. And here, too, I am useful--and may still be useful--and should be missed. I know your feelings, and would not try to keep you. But, oh, Henry, if all of those who love justice and practise humanity should go away, what would become of us?" "I leave to-night," he returned, "and it is your right to go with me, or to come to me." "No, Henry, nor am I sure that you would wish me to. It was for the old town's sake that you loved me. I was a part of your dream--a part of the old and happy past, upon which you hoped to build, as upon the foundations of the old mill, a broader and a fairer structure. Do you remember what you told me, that night--that happy night--that you loved me because in me you found the embodiment of an ideal? Well, Henry, that is why I did not wish to make our engagement known, for I knew, I felt, the difficulty of your task, and I foresaw that you might be disappointed, and I feared that if your ideal should be wrecked, you might find me a burden. I loved you, Henry--I seem to have always loved you, but I would not burden you." "No, no, Laura--not so! not so!" "And you wanted me for Phil's sake, whom we both loved; and now that your dream is over, and Phil is gone, I should only remind you of where you lost him, and of your disappointment, and of--this other thing, and I could not be sure that you loved me or wanted me." "Surely you cannot doubt it, Laura?" His voice was firm, but to her sensitive spirit it did not carry conviction. "You remembered me from my youth," she continued tremulously but bravely, "and it was the image in your memory that you loved. And now, when you go away, the old town will shrink and fade from your memory and your heart and you will have none but harsh thoughts of it; nor can I blame you greatly, for you have grown far away from us, and we shall need many years to overtake you. Nor do you need me, Henry--I am too old to learn new ways, and elsewhere than here I should be a hindrance to you rather than a help. But in the larger life to which you go, think of me now and then as one who loves you still, and who will try, in her poor way, with such patience as she has, to carry on the work which you have begun, and which you--Oh, Henry!" He divined her thought, though her tear-filled eyes spoke sorrow rather than reproach. "Yes," he said sadly, "which I have abandoned. Yes, Laura, abandoned, fully and forever." The colonel was greatly moved, but his resolution remained unshaken. "Laura," he said, taking both her hands in his, "I swear that I should be glad to have you with me. Come away! The place is not fit for you to live in!" "No, Henry! it cannot be! I could not go! My duty holds me here! God would not forgive me if I abandoned it. Go your way; live your life. Marry some other woman, if you must, who will make you happy. But I shall keep, Henry--nothing can ever take away from me--the memory of one happy summer." "No, no, Laura, it need not be so! I shall write you. You'll think better of it. But I go to-night--not one hour longer than I must, will I remain in this town. I must bid your mother and Graciella good-bye." He went into the house. Mrs. Treadwell was excited and sorry, and would have spoken at length, but the colonel's farewells were brief. "I cannot stop to say more than good-bye, dear Mrs. Treadwell. I have spent a few happy months in my old home, and now I am going away. Laura will tell you the rest." Graciella was tearfully indignant. "It was a shame!" she declared. "Peter was a good old nigger, and it wouldn't have done anybody any harm to leave him there. I'd rather be buried beside old Peter than near any of the poor white trash that dug him up--so there! I'm so sorry you're going away; but I hope, sometime," she added stoutly, "to see you in New York! Don't forget!" "I'll send you my address," said the colonel. _Thirty-eight_ It was a few weeks later. Old Ralph Dudley and Viney had been buried. Ben Dudley had ridden in from Mink Run, had hitched his horse in the back yard as usual, and was seated on the top step of the piazza beside Graciella. His elbows rested on his knees, and his chin upon his hand. Graciella had unconsciously imitated his drooping attitude. Both were enshrouded in the deepest gloom, and had been sunk, for several minutes, in a silence equally profound. Graciella was the first to speak. "Well, then," she said with a deep sigh, "there is absolutely nothing left?" "Not a thing," he groaned hopelessly, "except my horse and my clothes, and a few odds and ends which belong to me. Fetters will have the land--there's not enough to pay the mortgages against it, and I'm in debt for the funeral expenses." "And what are you going to do?" "Gracious knows--I wish I did! I came over to consult the family. I have no trade, no profession, no land and no money. I can get a job at braking on the railroad--or may be at clerking in a store. I'd have asked the colonel for something in the mill--but that chance is gone." "Gone," echoed Graciella, gloomily. "I see my fate! I shall marry you, because I can't help loving you, and couldn't live without you; and I shall never get to New York, but be, all my life, a poor man's wife--a poor white man's wife." "No, Graciella, we might be poor, but not poor-white! Our blood will still be of the best." "It will be all the same. Blood without money may count for one generation, but it won't hold out for two." They relapsed into a gloom so profound, so rayless, that they might almost be said to have reveled in it. It was lightened, or at least a diversion was created by Miss Laura's opening the garden gate and coming up the walk. Ben rose as she approached, and Graciella looked up. "I have been to the post-office," said Miss Laura. "Here is a letter for you, Ben, addressed in my care. It has the New York postmark." "Thank you, Miss Laura." Eagerly Ben's hand tore the envelope and drew out the enclosure. Swiftly his eyes devoured the lines; they were typewritten and easy to follow. "Glory!" he shouted, "glory hallelujah! Listen!" He read the letter aloud, while Graciella leaned against his shoulder and feasted her eyes upon the words. The letter was from Colonel French: _"My dear Ben_: _I was very much impressed with the model of a cotton gin and press which I saw you exhibit one day at Mrs. Treadwells'. You have a fine genius for mechanics, and the model embodies, I think, a clever idea, which is worth working up. If your uncle's death has left you free to dispose of your time, I should like to have you come on to New York with the model, and we will take steps to have the invention patented at once, and form a company for its manufacture. As an evidence of good faith, I enclose my draft for five hundred dollars, which can be properly accounted for in our future arrangements._" "O Ben!" gasped Graciella, in one long drawn out, ecstatic sigh. "O Graciella!" exclaimed Ben, as he threw his arms around her and kissed her rapturously, regardless of Miss Laura's presence. "Now you can go to New York as soon as you like!" _Thirty-nine_ Colonel French took his dead to the North, and buried both the little boy and the old servant in the same lot with his young wife, and in the shadow of the stately mausoleum which marked her resting-place. There, surrounded by the monuments of the rich and the great, in a beautiful cemetery, which overlooks a noble harbour where the ships of all nations move in endless procession, the body of the faithful servant rests beside that of the dear little child whom he unwittingly lured to his death and then died in the effort to save. And in all the great company of those who have laid their dead there in love or in honour, there is none to question old Peter's presence or the colonel's right to lay him there. Sometimes, at night, a ray of light from the uplifted torch of the Statue of Liberty, the gift of a free people to a free people, falls athwart the white stone which marks his resting place--fit prophecy and omen of the day when the sun of liberty shall shine alike upon all men. When the colonel went away from Clarendon, he left his affairs in Caxton's hands, with instructions to settle them up as expeditiously as possible. The cotton mill project was dropped, and existing contracts closed on the best terms available. Fetters paid the old note--even he would not have escaped odium for so bare-faced a robbery--and Mrs. Treadwell's last days could be spent in comfort and Miss Laura saved from any fear for her future, and enabled to give more freely to the poor and needy. Barclay Fetters recovered the use of one eye, and embittered against the whole Negro race by his disfigurement, went into public life and devoted his talents and his education to their debasement. The colonel had relented sufficiently to contemplate making over to Miss Laura the old family residence in trust for use as a hospital, with a suitable fund for its maintenance, but it unfortunately caught fire and burned down--and he was hardly sorry. He sent Catherine, Bud Johnson's wife, a considerable sum of money, and she bought a gorgeous suit of mourning, and after a decent interval consoled herself with a new husband. And he sent word to the committee of coloured men to whom he had made a definite promise, that he would be ready to fulfil his obligation in regard to their school whenever they should have met the conditions. * * * * * One day, a year or two after leaving Clarendon, as the colonel, in company with Mrs. French, formerly a member of his firm, now his partner in a double sense--was riding upon a fast train between New York and Chicago, upon a trip to visit a western mine in which the reorganised French and Company, Limited, were interested, he noticed that the Pullman car porter, a tall and stalwart Negro, was watching him furtively from time to time. Upon one occasion, when the colonel was alone in the smoking-room, the porter addressed him. "Excuse me, suh," he said, "I've been wondering ever since we left New York, if you wa'n't Colonel French?" "Yes, I'm Mr. French--Colonel French, if you want it so." "I 'lowed it must be you, suh, though you've changed the cut of your beard, and are looking a little older, suh. I don't suppose you remember me?" "I've seen you somewhere," said the colonel--no longer the colonel, but like the porter, let us have it so. "Where was it?" "I'm Henry Taylor, suh, that used to teach school at Clarendon. I reckon you remember me now." "Yes," said the colonel sadly, "I remember you now, Taylor, to my sorrow. I didn't keep my word about Johnson, did I?" "Oh, yes, suh," replied the porter, "I never doubted but what you'd keep your word. But you see, suh, they were too many for you. There ain't no one man can stop them folks down there when they once get started." "And what are you doing here, Taylor?" "Well, suh, the fact is that after you went away, it got out somehow that I had told on Bud Johnson. I don't know how they learned it, and of course I knew you didn't tell it; but somebody must have seen me going to your house, or else some of my enemies guessed it--and happened to guess right--and after that the coloured folks wouldn't send their children to me, and I lost my job, and wasn't able to get another anywhere in the State. The folks said I was an enemy of my race, and, what was more important to me, I found that my race was an enemy to me. So I got out, suh, and I came No'th, hoping to find somethin' better. This is the best job I've struck yet, but I'm hoping that sometime or other I'll find something worth while." "And what became of the industrial school project?" asked the colonel. "I've stood ready to keep my promise, and more, but I never heard from you." "Well, suh, after you went away the enthusiasm kind of died out, and some of the white folks throwed cold water on it, and it fell through, suh." When the porter came along, before the train reached Chicago, the colonel offered Taylor a handsome tip. "Thank you, suh," said the porter, "but I'd rather not take it. I'm a porter now, but I wa'n't always one, and hope I won't always be one. And during all the time I taught school in Clarendon, you was the only white man that ever treated me quite like a man--and our folks just like people--and if you won't think I'm presuming, I'd rather not take the money." The colonel shook hands with him, and took his address. Shortly afterward he was able to find him something better than menial employment, where his education would give him an opportunity for advancement. Taylor is fully convinced that his people will never get very far along in the world without the good will of the white people, but he is still wondering how they will secure it. For he regards Colonel French as an extremely fortunate accident. * * * * * And so the colonel faltered, and, having put his hand to the plow, turned back. But was not his, after all, the only way? For no more now than when the Man of Sorrows looked out over the Mount of Olives, can men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. The seed which the colonel sowed seemed to fall by the wayside, it is true; but other eyes have seen with the same light, and while Fetters and his kind still dominate their section, other hands have taken up the fight which the colonel dropped. In manufactures the South has gone forward by leaps and bounds. The strong arm of the Government, guided by a wise and just executive, has been reached out to crush the poisonous growth of peonage, and men hitherto silent have raised their voices to commend. Here and there a brave judge has condemned the infamy of the chain-gang and convict lease systems. Good men, North and South, have banded themselves together to promote the cause of popular education. Slowly, like all great social changes, but visibly, to the eye of faith, is growing up a new body of thought, favourable to just laws and their orderly administration. In this changed attitude of mind lies the hope of the future, the hope of the Republic. But Clarendon has had its chance, nor seems yet to have had another. Other towns, some not far from it, lying nearer the main lines of travel, have been swept into the current of modern life, but not yet Clarendon. There the grass grows thicker in the streets. The meditative cows still graze in the vacant lot between the post-office and the bank, where the public library was to stand. The old academy has grown more dilapidated than ever, and a large section of plaster has fallen from the wall, carrying with it the pencil drawing made in the colonel's schooldays; and if Miss Laura Treadwell sees that the graves of the old Frenches are not allowed to grow up in weeds and grass, the colonel knows nothing of it. The pigs and the loafers--leaner pigs and lazier loafers--still sleep in the shade, when the pound keeper and the constable are not active. The limpid water of the creek still murmurs down the slope and ripples over the stone foundation of what was to have been the new dam, while the birds have nested for some years in the vines that soon overgrew the unfinished walls of the colonel's cotton mill. White men go their way, and black men theirs, and these ways grow wider apart, and no one knows the outcome. But there are those who hope, and those who pray, that this condition will pass, that some day our whole land will be truly free, and the strong will cheerfully help to bear the burdens of the weak, and Justice, the seed, and Peace, the flower, of liberty, will prevail throughout all our borders. * * * * * +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | Page 114: resposeful replaced with reposeful | | Page 120: retrogade replaced with retrograde | | Page 149: h'anted replaced with ha'nted | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ 
40178	----	[Illustration: The popovers had popped just right. (_Frontis_) (_The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors_)] THE CARTER GIRLS' MYSTERIOUS NEIGHBORS By NELL SPEED AUTHOR OF "The Molly Brown Series," "The Tucker Twins Series," etc. [Illustration] A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Printed in U. S. A. Copyright, 1931 BY HURST & COMPANY MADE IN U. S. A. Contents I. EN ROUTE TO THE FARM 7 II. THE LANDLADIES AND A NEW ACQUAINTANCE 19 III. THE COUNT 38 IV. GRANTLY 56 V. VALHALLA 63 VI. CHLOE 76 VII. BOBBY'S BLAME PAY 90 VIII. SATURDAY 107 IX. GOLDILOCKS' CHAIRS 118 X. NOVEMBER 133 XI. PARADISE 153 XII. HERZ 167 XIII. GOOSE STEPPING 189 XIV. AN EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY 197 XV. BLACK SOCIALISM 211 XVI. DRESSING FOR THE BALL 221 XVII. THE BALL 231 XVIII. ANGEL'S FOOD 247 XIX. A LITTLE LEARNING 255 XX. IN THE MEANTIME 262 XXI. THE FLAMING SWORD 272 XXII. A NEAT TRICK 287 XXIII. VISITORS AT PRESTON 294 XXIV. THE CARRIER PIGEON 308 The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors CHAPTER I EN ROUTE TO THE FARM "How I hate being poor!" exclaimed Helen Carter, looking ruefully at her darned glove. "Me, too!" echoed the younger sister, Lucy. "Shh! Father will hear you," admonished Douglas. "Nobody can hear above the rattle of this horrid old day coach," declared Helen. "There is something about the odor of a common coach that has spent its life hauling commuters from home to work--from work to home, that sickens me," and Helen's sensitive nostrils quivered in disgust. "I'm sorry, dear; I know it is all so hard on you," said Douglas. "Not a bit harder on me than it is on you." "Not a bit!" from Lucy. "I think it must be," smiled Douglas. "I have an idea Nature did not intend me to ride in Pullmans. I am really just as comfortable in a day coach and I think they are lots more airy and better ventilated. What do you think about it, Nan?" "Oh, I like 'em--such interesting types," drawled Nan. "You get to your destination sooner, too, as the Pullman is always hitched onto the back end of the train." "I can't see anything very interesting in commuters, I must say," laughed Helen, "but Nan was always easy to please." "Yes, Nan is our philosopher," said Douglas. "Well, since Lucy and I are to join the army of commuters it would be foolish of us not to find them interesting. Don't you remember Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby? If we find them interesting maybe they will return the compliment." "Yes, and I remember Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, too," declared Douglas, exchanging a sly glance with Helen. The two older sisters could not help seeing that a nice looking boy sitting across the aisle had already found something to interest him in the dreamy brown eyes of one courageous commuter to be. His own grey eyes were twinkling with merriment. Evidently the rattle of the despised coach had not drowned the conversation so far as he was concerned. He had made some pretense of studying, but Latin Comp. was deadly dull in comparison with the chatter of the Carter girls. The Carters were _en route_ to their winter quarters, chosen after much discussion and misgivings as the best place they could find for all concerned. The doctor had pronounced the ultimatum: Mr. Carter must be in the country for another year at least and he must have no business worries. He must live out-of-doors as much as possible and no matter how perplexing the problems that in the natural course of events would arise in a household, they were not to be brought to the master of that household. As Mrs. Carter had determined many weeks before to play the rôle of a lily of the field, announcing herself as a semi-invalid, who was to be loved and cherished and waited on but not to be worried, it meant that Douglas, as oldest child, must be mother and father as well. Hers was the thankless task of telling her sisters what they must and must not do, and curbing the extravagance that would break out now and then in spots. Small wonder that it was the case, as, up to a few months before this, lavish expenditure had been the rule in the Carter family rather than the exception. They had spent a wonderful summer running a week-end boarding camp on the side of a mountain in Albemarle County. It had been a remarkable thing for these young girls to have undertaken and accomplished, all untrained as they were. But when their father's nervous breakdown came and the realization that there was no more money in the family till, and none likely to be there unless they could earn it, right manfully they put their young shoulders to the wheel and with a long push and a strong push and a push all together they got their wagon, if not hitched to a star, at least moving along the highroad of life and making some progress. Dr. George Wright, the nerve specialist who had undertaken Mr. Carter's cure, had been invaluable in their search for the proper place in which to spend the winter, this winter that was to put the keystone in their father's recovery. Such a place was not easy to find, as it must be near enough to Richmond for Nan and Lucy to go to school. That was one time when Douglas put her foot down most emphatically. The two younger girls were quite willing to follow in their sister Helen's footsteps and "quiturate," but Douglas knew that they must be held to their tasks. She bitterly regretted her own inability to continue her education, as college had been her dream, and she also deplored the fact that Helen was not able to spend the one more year at school necessary for her graduation. As for Helen, not having to go to school was the one bright spot for her in the whole sordid business, at least she had boldly declared such was the case. The winter was to be a busy one for Helen, as the home work was to fall to her share. Douglas, by a great piece of good luck, had obtained a place as teacher in a district school not far from the little farm that had been selected as the abiding place for the Carter family during that winter of 1916 and '17. The teacher who had been employed had been called away by private affairs, and Douglas had fallen heir to the position. The train rocked and swayed and bumped on the illy-laid road-bed as our girls sped on to their destination. Mrs. Carter in a seat across the aisle had placed her tired head on her husband's shoulder. The poor little lady felt in her heart of hearts that all of this going to out-of-the-way country places to spend winter months was really absurd, but then it was absurd to be poor anyhow, something she had not bargained for in her scheme of existence. She had said not a word, however, but had let Douglas and that stern Dr. Wright manage everything. She felt about as capable of changing the plans of her family as her youngest child, Bobby, might. Bobby, who had spent the time on the train most advantageously, having made friends with the brakeman and conductor, was now sitting in an alert attitude, as his new friends had informed him that there were only five minutes more before they would reach Grantly, their destination. Going to the country was just what he wanted and he was preparing to have a glorious time with no restrictions as to clean face and hands. To be sure, he had heard that he was to go to school, but since Douglas was to be the teacher this fact was not disturbing him much. The summer in the mountains had done much to develop this darling of the Carters. He no longer looked so much like an angel as when we were first introduced to the family. His curls were close cropped now and he was losing teeth faster than he was gaining them. If there could be such a thing as a snaggled tooth angel perhaps that celestial being would resemble Bobby Carter; but I am sure if that angel could have thought up as much mischief in a week as Bobby could execute in an hour, he would have met the fate of Lucifer and been hurled from Heaven. It may be, though, that if Lucifer had possessed such eyes as this little boy he would have been forgiven and might still be in his happy home. It was an impossibility to harbor wrath against Bobby if once you looked in his eyes. They were like brown forest pools. His sister Nan had the same eyes and the same long curling lashes. The shape and color of their eyes were inherited from their beautiful little mother, but the soulful expression that the children possessed was something that came from within and is not controlled by laws of heredity. Mrs. Carter's eyes if they reminded one of forest pools were certainly very shallow pools. "At last!" as the brakeman called out their station, came with a sigh of relief from the whole family. The station consisted of a platform and a little three-sided shed designed to shield the traveler from the weather, if the weather did not happen to arrive on the unprotected fourth side. "They promised to meet us," said Douglas as she collected parcels and umbrellas, "but I don't see a sign of them." "Maybe they are on the other side," suggested the hopeful Nan, peering through the window. They weren't, however, nor anywhere in sight. Douglas and Helen looked at each other askance. The two older girls were the only ones in the family who had seen their future abode and they felt very responsible. This hitch of not being met was most disconcerting. They had felt if everything went off smoothly and well their choice of a home would be smiled upon. First, the day they moved must be good, and this day in October was surely perfect. The packing must be done without bustle and confusion, and that had been accomplished. They must have a good luncheon before leaving Richmond, and Miss Elizabeth Somerville, who had invited them to her house, had feasted her cousins most royally, sending them forth with well-nourished bodies and peaceful minds in consequence. This was the first obstacle to their carefully laid plans. They were to learn that no plan depending in any particular on the coöperation of their landladies, the Misses Grant, would go through safely. Miss Ella and Miss Louise Grant were joint owners of the small farm that the glib real estate agent had persuaded Dr. Wright and our girls was the one and only place in which the winter could be comfortably spent. "Excellent air and water; close to schools and churches; neighborhood as good as to be found in Virginia, and what more could be said? House one of the old landmarks of the county; the view from the front porch quite a famous one; R. F. D. at yard gate; commuting distance from Richmond; roads excellent, as we have found on our way here." They had motored out and certainly the roads had seemed very good. The Misses Grant were all that was left of a large and at one time influential family. They lived in a great old mansion erected in the middle of what was at one time a vast estate but which had gradually shrunk through generations of mortgages until now it comprised about two thousand acres. The name of this old place was Grantly. The farm that Helen and Douglas had rented for the year was only called a farm by courtesy, as it had in its holding only about ten acres. It had at one time been the home of the overseer of Grantly when that aristocratic estate could boast an overseer. It was too humble an abode to have a name of its own, but our girls were determined to give it a name when they found out what would suit it. Now they stood on the platform of the tiny station and said in their hearts that such a place, belonging to such unreliable persons, deserved no name at all. "Oh, I'm so sorry they haven't sent to meet us. They told me if I would write to them they would have a carriage and a farm wagon here," wailed Douglas. "Why not walk?" suggested Mr. Carter. "A quarter of a mile is nothing." "Oh, do let's walk!" exclaimed Lucy. "We can just leave the luggage here and get someone to come back for it." "All of you can walk," came faintly from Mrs. Carter. "Just leave me here alone. I don't fancy anything much will happen to me." "But Mumsy, only a quarter of a mile!" begged Lucy. "Why, my child, I never expect to walk more than a few blocks again as long as I live." Mr. Carter looked pained and ended by staying with his wife while the four girls and Bobby trooped off to find someone to send for them. "Why does Mother say she never expects to walk more than a few blocks again as long as she lives?" blurted out Lucy. "Is she sick? She looks to me like she's getting fat." "Tell her that," suggested Nan, "and I bet you she will find she can walk a teensy little more than a few blocks." CHAPTER II THE LANDLADIES AND A NEW ACQUAINTANCE "This is a long quarter of a mile," said Nan, trying to keep up with her more athletic sisters. "The agent told us a quarter of a mile, but I reckon he meant as the crow flies. He did not allow for all the twistings and turnings of this lane," laughed Helen. "It is a very pretty walk, anyhow, and I'm glad we are not so close to the track because of Bobby," said the philosophic Nan. "Shucks! You needn't be a-thinkin' I can't find my way back to that old station," said that young hopeful. "I wisht it was barefoot time and I would wade in that branch." They were crossing a pretty little stream that intersected the road. Of course Bobby took occasion to slip off the stepping-stones and get his foot wet. "S'long as one is wet I reckon I might as well get th' other one wet, too," and he stepped boldly into the stream. "Sqush! Sqush! Ain't this a grand and glorious feeling?" "Oh, Bobby!" chorused his sisters. "'Tain't gonter make no diffunce! My 'ployer says sech things as this toughen kids." Bobby always called Dr. Wright his employer, as it had been his habit to go with that young physician while he was making his professional calls, his duties being to hold out his arm when they were turning corners or preparing to stop; and to sit in the car and guard his 'ployer's property from the depredations of hoodlums and micks. "I don't think some kids need toughening," said Nan, trying to look severe. "Yes'n I gotter joke on you, too! They was a pretty near grown-up boy on the train wanted to know what yo' name was. I was jawin' the inductor an' the boy comed and plunked hissef down by me an' he axed me what was my name and where I was a-gointer, an' was all'n you my aunts or what. He was so busy a-findin' out he come near a-missing his gettin' off place. He lives jus' befo' our gettin' off place." "Oh, that must have been the good-looking boy sitting opposite us, just behind Mother and Father! You noticed him, Douglas, didn't you?" asked Helen. "Well, he wasn't a-noticin' you much," proceeded the _enfant terrible_. "He wanted mostly to know what was Nan's name an' where she went to school." "Surely you didn't tell him!" blushed Nan. "Sho' nix! I told him yo' name was Lizajane an' you was a-clerkin' in the five an' ten." "Oh, Bobby!" Nobody could help laughing at the saucy youngster, and his sisters were ever inclined to find him amusing and altogether delightful in spite of his outrageousness. Their laughter rang out clear and infectious. First they laughed at Bobby and then they laughed for the pure joy of laughing. Douglas forgot her burdens and responsibilities; Helen forgot how she hated to be poor; Nan forgot that the quarter of a mile she was going to have to trudge twice a day to join the army of commuters was much nearer half a mile and she was not a very energetic girl; Lucy had nothing to forget or regret, being only thirteen with a perfect digestion. For the moment all of them forgot the nerve-worn father and the hypochondriacal mother waiting so forlornly at the station with the luggage piled so hopelessly at one end. In the midst of their gale of laughter they heard the hum of a motor and the toot of a horn. A large touring car came swerving around the curve in the road. "That's him now!" cried the delighted Bobby. It was no other than the boy on the train. He stopped his car and with crimson face began to stammer forth unintelligible words. "Excuse me!--but--that is a--you see I---- Oh, hang it all! er--my name is William--Will--Billy Sutton." "Oh, he's plum nutty an' thinks he's Billy Sunday--Billy Nut Sunday!" and Bobby danced gleefully in his squshy shoes. "Bobby! Behave yourself!" said Douglas, trying to swallow the laugh she was in the midst of. "We was jes' a-talkin' about you," said Bobby, with his most disarming smile. "About me?" and the young fellow choked his engine. "Yes, I was a-tellin'----" But here Helen took her little brother in hand. Helen could usually manage him better than any of the others. She whispered some mysterious something to him which quickly sobered him. "I don't want you to think I am impertinent or interfering, but your little brother told me on the train coming out that your mother and father were both ill----" "Yes, I told him they were likely to die mos' any time." "And I heard at the post-office at Preston, where I live, that you have rented the farm from the Misses Grant; also that those ladies were not expecting you until tomorrow----" "But I wrote we would be there today, Wednesday!" exclaimed Douglas. "That doesn't make a bit of difference to Miss Ella and Miss Louise Grant," laughed the boy. "They never get anything straight because they discuss every subject so thoroughly that they are all mixed up before they get through. Anyhow, they did not meet you, and if you don't think I am pushing or forward or something----" "Butinsky!" suggested Bobby, but Helen slipped her hand over his pert little mouth. "Thank you for that word--butinsky--why, I should like the privilege of going after your mother and father and bringing all the luggage my car will hold." "Oh, you are too kind!" chorused the girls. "Let me take all of you first to the farm." "We must go by Grantly to let the ladies know we are here," suggested Douglas. "They are both of them at the farm. I saw them as I came by." "Did you tell them we had come?" "No! They were sure to let me know it was none of my business, and, as I was fully aware of the fact, I just drove on by, hoping to be of more service to you in this way." The girls and Bobby piled into the car assisted by the boy, who handed them in with pleasing gallantry. By adroit manoeuvering he managed to get Nan in front, although the irrepressible did squeeze in, too. "I must sit in front so I can poke out my arm. Maybe you is huntin' a shover. I'm Dr. Wright's shover in town an' up'n the mountings. He don't mind my having two jobs in off times when he ain't a-needin' me." "Well, then, I'll employ you right now," said Billy Sutton, solemnly. "I think maybe it is in order for us to introduce ourselves," said Douglas. "This is Helen Carter; and this, Nan; and this, Lucy; I am Douglas; and Bobby has already been noticed enough." Hands were shaken and then they started gaily off. "It seems a long quarter of a mile from the station to the farm, but maybe it is because I am lazy," said Nan, who was unfeignedly glad of a lift. "Who said it was only a quarter of a mile? It is exactly three quarters." Two minutes brought them to the farm gate, where Billy deposited the occupants of the back seat. It was decided that Nan and Bobby were to go on to the station with their new friend and benefactor and explain him to Mr. and Mrs. Carter. "Oh, Douglas, isn't the place sweet? Lucy, don't you like it?" asked Helen as they opened the big gate that led from the road into the lawn of their new abode. "Great! It looks so romantical." "I was so afraid it wasn't going to be as nice as we thought it was because the real estate agent was so glib and rattled on so he confused us. I was afraid he had hypnotized us into liking it. But it is lovely," and Douglas breathed a great sigh of relief. Indeed it was lovely; lovelier, I fancy, than the real estate agent dreamed. The lawn was spacious, with soft rolling contours and a few great trees, some of them centuries old. In the front a mighty oak stood guard at one corner and an elm at another. Nearer the house a straight young ash and a willow oak divided the honors. At one side of the quaint old house a great mock orange had established a precedent for mock oranges and grown into a tree, just to show what a mock orange is capable of when not confined to the limitations of a hedge. Its trunk was gnarled and twisted and because of careful pruning of lower branches it had grown like a huge umbrella with limbs curving out from the parent stem and almost touching the ground all around. "What a grand place to play house and tell secrets!" thought Lucy, regretting that thirteen years old, almost fourteen, was too great an age to indulge in dolly tea parties. A grove of gum trees glorified the back yard with their brilliant October foliage. There never was such a red as the gum tree boasts and these huge specimens were one blaze of color. The trunks had taken on a hoary tone that contrasted pleasantly with the warm tints of the leaves. The yard contained about four acres enclosed by a fence that had been covered entirely by honeysuckle, and even then a few blossoms were making the air fragrant. In the back there were several rather tumble-down outhouses, but these, too, were covered with honeysuckle as though by a mantle of charity. The house had been added to from time to time as the race of overseers had felt the need. These additions had been made with no thought of congruity or ornamentation, but since utility had been the ruling thought the outcome was on the whole rather artistic. The original house, built in the first years of the nineteenth century, had a basement dining-room, a large chamber over this and two small, low-ceilinged attic rooms. Later a shed room had been built at one side in the back, then a two-story addition had reared itself next to that with no apparent connection with the main house, not even a family resemblance. This two-storied "lean-to" was known always as "the new house," although it had been in existence some threescore years. There were two rooms and two halls in this addition and it had a front porch all its own. The old house also boasted a front porch, with a floor of unplaned boards and posts of rough cedar. But who minds cedar pillars when Washington's bower has done its best to cover them up? As for unplaned boards with cracks between: what a good place to sweep the dirt! The green blinds were open all over the house and windows were raised. As our girls stood on the lawn drinking in the beauty and peace of the scene they heard loud and angry voices proceeding from the basement window. "Louise Grant, you are certainly foolish! Didn't I tell you they wouldn't be coming down here yesterday? Here you have littered up this place with flowers and they will all be faded by tomorrow. I have told you a million times I read the letter that Douglas Carter wrote and she said distinctly she was coming on Thursday." This in a loud, high, commanding tone as though the speaker was determined to be heard. "You needn't put your hands over your ears! I know you can hear me!" "That's all right, Ella Grant," came in full contralto notes; "just because they didn't come yesterday is no sign they did not say they were coming that day. I read the note, too, and if you hadn't have been so quick to burn it I guess I could prove it. Those flowers are not doing anybody any harm and I know one thing--they smell a sight better than that old carbolic you are so fond of sprinkling around." "I thought I heard the three train stop at the crossing," broke in the high, hard voice. "No such thing! I noticed particularly." "Nonsense! You were so busy watching that Sutton boy racing by in his car that you didn't even know it was train time. What John Sutton means by letting that boy drive that car I can't see. He isn't more than fourteen----" "Fourteen! Ella Grant, you have lost your senses! He is twenty, if he is a day. I remember perfectly well that he was born during the Spanish war." "Certainly! That was just fourteen years ago." The girls couldn't help laughing. It happened that it was eighteen years since the Spanish war, as our history scholar, Lucy, had just learned. That seemed to be the way the sisters hit the mark: one shooting far in front, one far behind. "We had better knock," whispered Helen, "or they will begin to break up the china soon." She accordingly beat a rat-tat on the open front door of the old house. "Someone is knocking!" exclaimed the contralto. "Not at all! It's a woodpecker," put in the treble. One more application of Helen's knuckles and treble was convinced. "That time it was a knock," she conceded. There was a hurrying and scurrying, a sound of altercation on the stairs leading from the basement to the front hall. "Why do you try to go first? You know perfectly well I can go faster than you can, and here you have started up the steps and I can't get by. You fat----" "If you can go so much faster, why didn't you start up the steps first?" panted the contralto. "Don't talk or you'll never get up the steps! Save your wind for climbing." The bulky form of Miss Louise hove in sight and over her shoulder the girls could see the stern countenance of her long, slim sister. How could two such different looking persons be born of one mother? Miss Louise was all breadth and no height; Miss Ella, all height and no breadth. Miss Louise was dark of complexion, with coal-black hair streaked with grey; Miss Ella was a strawberry blonde with sandy hair streaked with grey. Age that brought the grey hair seemed about the only thing they had in common, except, of course, the estate of Grantly. That had been willed to them by their father with a grim humor, as he must have been well aware of their idiosyncrasies. They were to hold the property together with no division, the one who survived to inherit the whole. "Well!" said Miss Ella over the shoulder of her sister, who refused to give her right of way but who was silenced for the moment by shortness of breath. "Why did you come today when you wrote you were coming to-morrow?" "I did not write I was coming tomorrow," said Douglas, smiling in spite of herself. "There! What did I tell you?" panted Miss Louise. "You said Tuesday, didn't you, honey?" with ingratiating sweetness. "No, Miss Grant, I said Wednesday." The incident was closed. The wrangling sisters had no more to say on the subject except to apologize for not having them met. It was explained that Billy Sutton had gone to get Mr. and Mrs. Carter, but the trunks must be sent for. Quite humbly Miss Ella went to get her farmhand to hitch up the mules to drive to the station, while Miss Louise showed the girls over the house. Everything was in beautiful order and shining with cleanliness. The white pine floors were scrubbed until they reminded the girls of biscuit boards, and very lovely did the bright rag rugs look on these floors. The furniture was very plain with the exception of an occasional bit of fine old mahogany. A beautiful old highboy was not too proud to stay in the same room with a cheap oak dresser, and in the basement dining-room a handsome mahogany table democratically mingled with split-bottom chairs. Miss Louise had put flowers everywhere for their reception the day before and the whole house was redolent of late roses and mignonette and citronella. An occasional whiff of carbolic acid and chloride of lime gave evidence of the indomitable practicality of Miss Ella. Miss Louise proved very sweet and kindly when not in her sister's presence and later on the girls found Miss Ella to be really very agreeable. Both ladies seemed to be bent on showing kindness and consideration to their tenants to make up for the mistake about their day of arrival. Mr. and Mrs. Carter could not help thinking that the place their daughters had chosen for them to spend the winter was pretty. As they rolled up in Billy's car the quaint house and beautiful lawn certainly presented a most pleasing aspect, and their handsome daughters were an added loveliness to the landscape as they hurried to meet their parents. "Ah, this is great!" exclaimed Mr. Carter, taking a deep breath of the pure fresh air. "I think I shall have to have a cow and some pigs and do some fall plowing besides. Eh, Helen? You and I are to be the stay-at-homes. What do you think?" "I think what you think, Daddy," answered Helen, smiling happily over her father's show of enthusiasm. Dr. Wright had told her that with returning healthy nerves would come the enthusiasm that before his illness had seemed to be part of Robert Carter's make-up. "How do you like it, Mumsy?" asked Douglas as she drew her arm through her mother's. "Very nice, I am sure, but I think it would be wiser for me to go to bed now. I am not very strong and if I can give up before I drop it would be less trouble for my family," and Mrs. Carter took on a most plaintive accent. "A little tea and toast will be all I want for my supper." "Oh now, it will be too bad for you to go to bed," said Miss Ella. "We were planning to have all of you come up to Grantly for supper." She and Miss Louise seemed to have agreed for once on the propriety of having their tenants to supper. "The count is coming," said Miss Louise, with a sentimental note in her full voice. "The count! Who is the count?" asked Mrs. Carter with some show of animation and interest. "He is a nobleman who has settled in our neighborhood," said Miss Ella in a matter-of-fact tone, as though noblemen were the rule rather than the exception in her life. "Maybe it would be possible for me to take a short rest and come to Grantly," said Mrs. Carter, with a quickening in her pretty eyes. At mention of the count, Billy Sutton pretended to be much occupied with his engine, but Nan noticed a slight curl on his lip as he bent over the wheel. CHAPTER III THE COUNT "Isn't it fine not to have to bother about supper?" said Helen, as she and Douglas were attempting to get some order out of the chaos of trunks that had been brought from the station and systematically put in the wrong place by the good-natured, shambling, inefficient darky who served as factotum to the Misses Grant. Helen and Douglas had decided to take one attic room in the old house for their bedroom; Bobby was to have the other; the large chamber below them was to serve as family sitting-room; Nan and Lucy were to have the upstairs room in the new house; Mr. and Mrs. Carter the lower room; the shed room was to serve as guest chamber when needed; the dining-room was in the basement. Over the outside kitchen was another extremely low attic room that was to be the servant's bedroom, when they got her. This room was accessible from the kitchen by a flight of primitive chicken steps, that is, accessible to the young and agile. The two servants the Carters had had at the week-end camp had been eager to come with them to the country, but Douglas and Helen had decided that they were expensive luxuries, and as much as they hated to part with them, had determined to have a country girl, accustomed to less wages than Susan, and to do without a manservant in place of the faithful, if high-priced, Oscar. Dr. Wright had insisted that some chores were indispensable for Mr. Carter, such as chopping wood, carrying water, etc., and that gentleman was eager to assist wherever he could. "Surely you are not going to dress up to go out to supper this evening," said Douglas, as Helen shook out a pretty little old-rose dinner gown, a leftover from the time when the Carters purchased clothes for every occasion and for every passing style and season. "I am going to dress suitably, but I don't call it dressing up," said Helen, hunting for the stockings to match the gown. "I think Father is well enough for me to wear silk stockings this evening," she said a little wistfully. We all remember that in the first throes of agony over her father's nervous breakdown Helen had taken an oath not to wear silk stockings until he was well. "What do you think, Douglas?" "Of course, you goose, just so you don't have to buy the stockings," laughed Douglas. "I am going to wear what I have on, I can tell you that. There is a lot to do to get the beds made up and the house ready to sleep in, and I have no idea of unpacking my own trunk until tomorrow," and Douglas unlocked the trunk that held the bed linen. "Oh, Douglas, please put on your grey crêpe de chine! I'll get it out for you and find your stockings and everything," begged Helen. "I don't think it is very respectful to our hostesses for you not to be suitably dressed." "Is it altogether our hostesses you are thinking about?" teased Douglas. "Whom else should I consider?" "How about the count?" "Well, naturally I can't help thinking some about a nobleman," declared Helen frankly. "Do you fancy he is young or old, rich or poor, handsome or ugly? I am wild to see him." "I can't imagine. They didn't even say what he was a count of. I hope he is not German. I must say I'd hate to put on my best dress for a German count," laughed Douglas. "Why, Douglas, I wouldn't be so biased as all that. As long as our country is neutral, I don't think it is fair for us to take such a stand. I'd rather dress up for a German count than--than--a Russian anarchist or maybe an Australian Bushman." "Well, I am not pining to dress up for anybody, but if I must, I must. How about Mumsy?" "She has already got out her black lace and is going to wear her pearls. She is trying to persuade Father into his tuxedo but I fancy he will rebel." "Mercy on us! I thought we would never have to dress in this out-of-the-way spot," sighed Douglas. "Well, I for one am glad to have a chance to dress. It seems to me we have been khakied to death all summer, and I believe people deteriorate when they stay in the same old clothes year in and year out. I could wish my old-rose had another width in it. Skirts are much broader this fall. The sleeves are quite right, though,--sleeves haven't changed much." Poor Helen! It was a keen misery to her not to be in the latest style. She had a natural taste for dress and the tendency to overrate the importance of clothes had been fostered in her by her frivolous mother. Douglas, on the other hand, had a tendency to underrate the value of dress and her inclination was to be rather careless of her attire. After much scrabbling and stirring up of trunks the whole family was dressed in what Mrs. Carter and Helen considered suitable garments, with the exception of Mr. Carter, who could not be coerced into a dinner coat. "I can't think that a quiet supper in the country with two old ladies who are renting us the overseer's cottage could possibly call for formal dressing. Of course, you women know best what you want to wear, and very handsome all of you look I am sure, but you must excuse me." "That's what I say!" exclaimed Bobby, putting his hands in his pockets and trying to balance himself with his feet very far apart. "Me'n Father certainly do nachelly hate clean clothes. When I gits to be growed up, I'm gonter be a barefoot tramp an' ain't never gonter wash nor nothin'." Bobby was still smarting and indignant from the polishing Helen had seemed to think the occasion demanded, especially concentrating on his long-suffering ears. "Sometimes I wisht I hadn't never had my curls cut off. Folks weren't near so 'ticular 'bout my yers when I had curls. They kinder hid 'em." "But, Bobby, when you are going to have supper with a count you must be very carefully dressed," explained Lucy. "Counts are not just common persons like us." "I thank you I'm no common person," drawled Nan. "I'm a good American and fit to dine with any count living. That's the way Douglas and I feel. We wouldn't have changed our dresses if Mother and Helen hadn't made such a point of it." "Good for you, Nan!" and her father put his arm around her. "Of course you must dress as your mother sees fit, but don't, for goodness' sake, think a man, because he is a count or even a king, must be treated differently from any other gentleman of your acquaintance." They were on their way to Grantly, only about five minutes' walk from the farmhouse. The sun had set in a blaze of glory but already the great October moon was doing her best to take his place. There was a hint of frost in the air and our Carters were bringing their appetites with them to grace the board of their hospitable landladies. "I do hope Miss Ella and Miss Louise won't quarrel all the time," whispered Helen as they approached the imposing mansion. "They remind me of the blue and white seidlitz powders," said Douglas: "bound to sizzle when you mix 'em. They are so mild and gentle when they are apart and the minute they get together--whiz!" Mrs. Carter cast a triumphant glance at her husband as they entered the parlor at Grantly. The Misses Grant were dressed in rustling black silk with old lace berthas and cuffs, and the gentleman who sprang to his feet, bringing his heels together with a click as he bowed low, was attired in a faultlessly fitting dress suit. Helen's questions were answered by one glance at this distinguished stranger; certainly he was young and handsome; the chances were that he was also not poor. That cut of dress suit did not go with poverty, nor did the exquisite fineness of his linen. Douglas's question of his nationality remained to be solved. "Count de Lestis" did not give the girls a clue to the country from which this interesting person hailed. "He does not look German," Douglas said to herself. "He is too dark and too graceful." She breathed a sigh of relief that her grey crêpe de chine had not been donned in honor of a German, count or no count. When she saw that the Misses Grant evidently considered their suppers worthy to be dressed up for, she was glad she had listened to the dictates of Helen. That young lady was looking especially charming in the old-rose gown, in spite of the fact that the skirt did not flare quite enough. Helen had a way of wearing her clothes and of arranging her hair that many a dame at Palm Beach or Newport would have given her fortune to possess. Mrs. Carter always was at her best in a parlor and now her beauty shone resplendent, framed in black lace and pearls. Her gracious manner and bearing marked her as one whose natural place was in society. Her gift was social and it did seem a great waste that such a talent should have to be buried under the bushel of an overseer's cottage in an out-of-the-way spot in the country, with a once prosperous husband to do the chores and a maid-of-all-work, chosen because of her cheapness and not her worth. The Misses Grant smiled their approval over the appearance of their guests. The fact that they were two quarrelsome old sisters farming on a dwindling estate did not lessen their importance in their own eyes, and they always felt that the dignity of Grantly demanded ceremonial dressing for the evening meal. The sisters showed no marks of having toiled through the entire afternoon to prepare the feast that they were to set before their guests. Disagreeing as they did on every subject, food was not exempt. If Miss Ella decided to make an angel's food cake, Miss Louise must make a devil's food cake; if one thought the whites of eggs left from the frozen custard would be well to use in a silver cake, the other simultaneously determined to have apple float, requiring whites of eggs, and then the yolks must be converted into golden cake. The consequence was that their supper table groaned with opposing dishes. Each one pressed upon the guests her own specialty, and if it so happened that Miss Ella had to serve some dish of Miss Louise's concocting, she would do it with a deprecating air as though she were helping you to cold poison; and if Miss Louise perforce must hand you one of Miss Ella's muffins, she would shake her head mysteriously as though to warn you against them. One thing was apparent from the beginning and that was that the count was a good mixer. His English was perfect, except for an occasional suggestion of an interchange of b and p, and also a too great stress on his s. He was a brilliant conversationalist but had the wit not to be a monologueist. He had done much traveling for a man under thirty and had lived in so many places that it made him a real citizen of the world. Evidently he had the Misses Grant charmed. From the moment that he bought Weston, a fine old estate in the neighborhood, and came into their county to settle, the old ladies had taken him to their hearts. They seemed in danger of agreeing on the subject of this fascinating young man's charms. However, they found something to quarrel about even in this stranger: Miss Ella thought his mouth was his best feature, while Miss Louise insisted that his eyes were. Of course the Carters were one and all dying to know more about him: Who was he? What was his nationality? Why had he settled in America? Where were his people? Did he have a family? He seemed to be equally curious about them. Why should city people of such breeding and beauty come and live in a little tumbledown shack in the country? He had merely been told by the Misses Grant that the tenants who had just moved into the little farmhouse were to have supper with them, when these visions of loveliness burst upon him. He couldn't decide which one of the sisters was the most attractive. Douglas was the most beautiful with her titian hair and clear complexion, not ruined by the summer out-of-doors as her mother had feared. But Helen--there was a piquancy about Helen that was certainly very fetching; her brown hair was so beautifully arranged at exactly the right and becoming angle; her little head was so gracefully set on her athletic shoulders; her bearing was so gallant;--certainly Helen was very attractive. Then there was Nan with her soft loveliness, her great eyes now shining with excitement and now dreaming some entrancing dream. She was only sixteen but there was something about her countenance that gave promise of great cleverness. Lucy was growing more like Helen and much of Helen's charm was hers, although the child had strong characteristics all her own. While Count de Lestis was deciding which one of the sisters was most attractive, he did the extremely tactful and suitable thing of addressing his remarks to their mother, not forgetting to give the hostesses a full share of attention. Mr. Carter, who since his illness had been inclined to be very quiet, was drawn into the conversation and held his own with his old time power. Little wonder that his daughters were grateful to this interesting stranger who had this effect on their beloved father. The young man told them he was Hungarian and had bought the estate of Weston with a view to entering into intensive farming. "Then you are not Prussian!" exclaimed Douglas. "Oh, I am so glad!" "Ah!" and his handsome eyes flashed for a moment. Then he looked amused. "And why are you so glad?" "Why, of course anyone would be glad," and Douglas blushed. "Who would want to have a Prussian for a neighbor?" "Do you dislike them so much then?" "I hate them!" "And you, too?" turning to Helen. "I am trying to remain neutral as our president has asked us to. I don't feel so terribly Anglo-Saxon as my sister." Of course this started the question of the war, which was in the minds of everybody. Count de Lestis rather surprised Mr. Carter by his frank announcement concerning his connection with Berlin. "I, no doubt, would be fighting with the Central Powers if I had not committed political suicide four years ago." "And how was that?" "I wrote a book in which I made a plea for a democratization of Austria-Hungary. In it I intimated that the Hohenzollerns had no right to dictate to the universe. I was requested to leave the country. I was then living in Vienna, making short trips to my estate, which lies partly in Austria and partly in Hungary. Now there is danger of my entire possessions being confiscated." "Oh, but when Germany is finally whipped you can come into your own again," asserted Douglas. "The outcome is merely a matter of time." "And so Germany is to be whipped?" his eyes flashing again. "Of course," said Douglas simply. "And why of course?" "'Because God's in his Heaven,'" whispered Nan, but the count heard her. "Yes, but whose God?" "The God of Justice and of Right." "How about the God of Might?" "There is no such God," and this time Douglas's eyes did some flashing. "I believe the United States will intervene before so very long," said Mr. Carter as he and the count strolled out on the veranda to enjoy their cigars. The older man was enjoying his talk with this young foreigner. He looked forward with pleasure to seeing much of him, since Weston was only about three miles from the farm. They made plans to do some shooting together, as the open season was only a week off. When de Lestis learned that Mr. Carter was an architect he asked him to visit him at his earliest convenience at Weston to advise with him concerning the restoration of the old house to its original grandeur. "I'm not supposed to be doing any work for at least a year," sighed Mr. Carter, "but I might look it over and tell you what I think and then recommend a suitable architect to take it in hand." Douglas and Helen had a talk with Miss Louise on the subject of a country girl to come to them as maid of all work. "They are all of them thoroughly trifling," declared that lady in her soft round voice, "but this creature we have has a sister who could come to you. I beg of you not to give her any more wages than ours receives, as in that case we should have to go up." "Certainly not," said Douglas. "Just tell us what that is." But on learning that it was only seven dollars a month, the girls felt that it was no wonder the creatures were thoroughly trifling. "Did she cook this wonderful supper?" asked Helen. "No, indeed! Ella and I always cook everything we eat and this Tempy washes the dishes and cleans." "But we want someone to cook. Do you think I might train the sister?" "Well, I have heard you can train monkeys but I have never seen it done," laughed the fat old lady. "Come with me now and we can speak to Tempy about her sister Chloe." They found Tempy in the pantry, peacefully sleeping in the midst of the unwashed dishes. Not in the least abashed at being caught napping, she waked up and told Helen that no doubt Chloe would be pleased fur ter come. She promised to fetch her on the morrow. "I will pay her just what the Misses Grant pay you," said Helen. "Lawsamussy, missy, she ain't wuth what I is. She ain't nebber wucked out ter say much. I done started at six and wucked up ter seben, an' if Chloe gits now what I gits, she'll be too proudified. You jis' start her at six same as Miss Ellanlouise done me." CHAPTER IV GRANTLY Since our girls were to become quite intimate with the peculiar old sisters and their home, perhaps it would be just as well for me to give my readers some idea of what Grantly was like. The first thing that struck a visitor was the wonderful box bushes in the hedge enclosing the yard and in a labyrinth in the garden. These bushes were so thick that one could really walk on the tops of them if they were kept clipped, which they were not. In the labyrinth the bushes met overhead and even after a heavy rain the paths between were perfectly dry. It took days of soaking rain to make those winding paths wet. Beyond the labyrinth was an old-fashioned garden, but now in October chrysanthemums and late roses and cosmos were all that was left of the riot of color that could be seen there during the spring and summer. The house was of a very peculiar architectural design: a long, low body with a tower at each end. In each tower was a square room with many windows overlooking the country for miles around. Miss Ella claimed one of these rooms as her own especial property; Miss Louise the other. To approach Miss Ella's sanctum sanctorum it was necessary to climb a narrow spiral stairway; Miss Louise's was more accessible by reason of a broad stairway of many landings, but the ceilings at the landings were so low that anyone of ordinary stature must stoop to ascend. These rooms were used only as sitting-rooms by the erratic sisters as, strange to say, the two old ladies slept in the same room and in the same great four-posted tester bed. There were many other bedrooms in the mansion, but they both preferred the great chamber leading from the parlor, and there they slept and no doubt quarreled in their sleep. "This is my sitting-room up here," said Miss Ella as she showed her guests over the quaint old house. "You may come up if you like. I had the steps made this way so Louise can't get up here and worry my soul out of me with her eternal chatter. She's too fat for the spiral stairway. Elephant!" "Yes, and my sitting-room is in the other tower, and thank goodness, Ella would find it a back-breaking job to get up my steps," retaliated Miss Louise. "Giraffe!" Those strange old ladies had actually had the original steps to the towers changed to suit their particular grouches! They really spent very little time in their tower fastnesses, however, as they were much happier when together and quarreling. A tale was told in the neighborhood that once Miss Ella had neglected or forgotten to contradict Miss Louise on some vital subject such as whether it was or was not going to rain, and Miss Louise was so uneasy that she sent post haste for Dr. Allison. "I was afraid it was a stroke or something," whimpered Miss Louise. She worried herself into a sick headache before the doctor arrived, and then the fat one had to go to bed and take the medicine and Miss Ella was forced to repent of her misbehavior by nursing her sister. Dr. Allison left strict injunctions that she was not to worry her poor sister again by agreeing with her. Grantly was filled with fine old furniture and all kinds of curios. A great-uncle had been a traveler in the Orient and many were the teakwood cabinets and jade ornaments; curious Japanese prints; Chinese embroidered fans and screens; bronze Buddhas; rare vases with inlaid flowers and birds; Toby jugs and lacquered teapots; quaint armor, swords and daggers; everything in fact that might be found in an old house that a traveler had once called home. "Does Tempy dust all these beautiful things?" asked Mrs. Carter, who was quite carried away by the wonders in her landladies' home. "Bless you, no! She doesn't dare to touch a one of them," laughed Miss Louise. "Ella dusts the high ones, I dust the low." She said it quite with the air of the song: "You take the high road, I'll take the low." With all of its beauties, Grantly was undergoing a process of slow decay. Lack of paint and neglected leaks were getting in their insidious work. There never seemed to be money enough for the owners to afford the needed repairs, and if there ever was any money at all, they could never come to an agreement on which repairs were the most urgent. The overseer's house was suffering in the same way. A kind of dry rot had attacked portions of it. Weather-boarding was so loose in places that Bobby could pull it off. Steps groaned and floors creaked; shutters had lost fastenings; putty had dropped from the window panes, which were insecurely held in place with tacks; mop-boarding and floors had parted company many years before. All of these little details had escaped the inexperienced eyes of Douglas and Helen when they decided that this was the place of all others to spend the winter. Dr. Wright, who had accompanied them, had been more noticing, but had wisely decided to say nothing, as he wanted his patient to become interested in tinkering at small jobs, and he could see that this little farm would keep Mr. Carter busy. The ladies of Grantly had promised to have everything in order before the tenants should arrive, but disagreeing on which workman they should employ, the time had slipped by and nothing had been done. The pump to the well had lost its sucker and had to be primed before water could be got. This meant that the person who pumped must remember to fill a can of water and leave it for the next pumper. The yard gate shut with difficulty and opened with more. The stovepipe in the kitchen had a large hole in one side and if the wind shifted, so did the smoke, seeking an outlet through the nearest aperture. All of these disagreeable features dawned gradually on our girls. They saw nothing to be complained of in those rare October days. Accustomed as they had become to camp life, they made light of any inconveniences. Their father was happy and getting better every day, so any small hardships that might fall to their share were to be lightly borne. CHAPTER V. VALHALLA That was the name Nan gave to the little winter home. "Valhalla is the place where the dead warriors go, and that is what we all of us are after the day's work is done." Commuting at first was very tiring for both Nan and Lucy. Catching trains was hard on their nerves and the trip seemed interminable, but in a few weeks they fell into the attitude of mind of all commuters and just accepted it as part of the daily routine. It became no more irksome than doing one's hair or brushing one's teeth. The girls made many friends on the train and before the winter was over really enjoyed the time spent going to and from school. Billy Sutton was Nan's devoted cavalier. He managed, if possible, to sit by her and together they would study. He helped her with her mathematics, and she, quick at languages, would correct his French exercises. Those were sad mornings for Billy when the seat by Nan was taken before they reached Preston. He cursed his luck that Preston should not have been beyond Grantly instead of a station nearer to town. Coming home he always saw to it that no "fresh kid" got ahead of him in the choice of seats. He would get to the station ahead of time and watch with eagle eye for Nan's sedate little figure; then he would pounce on her like a veritable eagle and possess himself of her books and parcels. Thereafter no power could have separated him from her short of the brakeman who cruelly called out: "P-errr-reston!" Billy's younger sister Mag was of great assistance to her big brother in his manoeuvres. She struck up a warm friendship with Lucy, and since the two younger girls were together, what more natural than that he and Nan should be the same? "How would you like me to run you over to see Lucy for a while this afternoon?" he would ask in the lordly and nonchalant manner of big brothers, and Mag would be duly grateful, all the time laughing in her sleeve, as is the way with small sisters. The only person who ever got ahead of Billy on the homeward voyage was Count de Lestis. That man of the world with lordly condescension permitted Billy to carry all the books and parcels and then quietly appropriated the seat by Nan. That was hard enough, but what was harder was to see how Nan dimpled under the compliments the count paid her, and how gaily she laughed at his wit, and how easily she held her own in the very interesting conversation into which they plunged. Billy, boiling and raging, could not help catching bits of it. Actually Nan was quoting poetry to the handsome foreigner. With wonder her schoolboy friend heard her telling the count of how she had gone up in an aeroplane the preceding summer and what her sensations were. She had never told him all these things. "And why is it you like so much to fly?" the count asked. "Is it merely the physical sensation?" "Oh no, there is something else. I'll tell you a little bit of poetry I learned the other day from a magazine. That is the way I feel, somehow: "'Well, good-by! We're going! Where? Why there is no knowing Where! We've grown tired, we don't know why, Of our section of the sky, Of our little patch of air, And we're going, going! Where? "'Who would ever stop to care?-- Far off land or farther sea Where our feet again are free, We shall fare all unafraid Where no trail or furrow's made-- Where there's room enough, room enough, room enough for laughter! And we'll find our Land o' Dreaming at a long day's close, We'll find our Land o' Dreaming--perhaps, who knows? To-morrow--or the next day--or maybe the day after! "'So good-by! We're going! Why? O, there is no knowing Why! Something's singing in our veins, Something that no book explains. There's no magic in your air! And we're going, going! Where? "'Where there's magic and to spare! So we break our chains and go. Life? What is it but to know Southern cross and Pleiades, Sunny lands and windy seas; Where there's time enough, time enough, time enough for laughter! We'll find our Land o' Dreaming, so away! Away! We'll find our Land o' Dreaming--or at least we may-- Tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe the day after!'" Nan Carter was a very charming girl at any time, but Nan Carter reciting poetry was irresistible. So the count found her. Her eyes looked more like forest pools than ever and the trembling Billy was very much afraid the handsome nobleman was going to fall into said pools. He gritted his teeth with the determination to be on the spot ready to pull him out by his aristocratic and well-shod heels if he should take such a tumble. "Ah, you have the wanderlust, too! I'd like to go with you to your Land o' Dreaming." Fortunately Billy did not hear this remark, as the brakeman opened the door at this juncture and shouted the name of a station. For once Billy was glad when the brakeman finally called: "P-err-reston!" If he had to get out, so had the hated count. He never had taken as much of a fancy to de Lestis as the other members of the neighborhood had, anyhow, and now he knew why he had never liked him. "He is a selfish, arrogant foreigner," he raged on in his boyish way. "He might have let me sit with Nan part of the way, anyhow." Nan went home quite pleased with the interesting conversation she had had on the train. The count was rapidly becoming a warm friend of the family. Everybody liked him but Lucy, and she had no especial reason for disliking him. "He's got no time for me and I guess that's the reason," she said when questioned. "Mag doesn't cotton to him much, either." "Well, I should think you would be glad for Father to have somebody to talk to," said Helen. "You and Mag are too young to have much in common with a grown-up gentleman." "Pooh, Miss Grandmother! I'm most as old as Nan and he cottons to her for fair. I know why he doesn't think much of Mag and me--it is because he knows we know he is nothing but a Dutchman." "Dutchman! Nonsense! Dutchmen proper come from Holland and Count de Lestis is a Hungarian." "Well, he can talk Dutch like a Prussian, anyhow. You oughter hear him jabbering with that German family that live over near Preston. He brings old Mr. Blitz newspapers all the time and they laugh and laugh over jokes in them; at least, they must be jokes to make them laugh so." "Of course the count speaks German. He speaks a great many languages," declared Helen with the dignified air that she thought necessary to assume when she and Lucy got in a discussion. "Well, what's the reason he ain't fighting for his country? Tell me that! Mag says that Billy says that if his country was at war you wouldn't catch him buying farms in strange countries, like this de Lestis. He says he'd be in the fight, if he couldn't do anything but beat a drum." "But you see he is not in sympathy with the cause, child. All of the Austrians and Hungarians are not on the Kaiser's side. A whole lot of them believe in a more democratic form of government than Emperor William wants. The count explained all that to Father. He says he could not conscientiously fight with Prussia against democracy." "All that sounds mighty fine but I like men that fight," and Lucy tossed her head. "Me and Mag both like men that fight." "Mag and I," admonished Helen. The gentleman in question had just been off on a business trip. He had much business in New York and Washington and sometimes made flying visits to Chicago. He was interested in a land agency and was hoping to import some Hungarian and Serbian families to the United States. He had bought up quite a tract of land in Virginia, making cash payments that showed he had unlimited means. "They make excellent servants," he told the Misses Grant, "far superior to your negroes. The Serbs are especially fine farmers. It is really a nation of yeomen. They could make the barren tracts of Virginia blossom like the rose." "Well, bring them over then." The sisters almost agreed about this but they had a diverging point in that Miss Ella thought she would rather have a family of Hungarians, since that was the count's nationality; while Miss Louise fancied some Serbs, because they were at least fighting on the side of the Allies. But to return to "Valhalla." Douglas did not at all approve of the name Nan had given the little home. "I am not a dead warrior when the day is over nor do I mean to be one ever," she declared. She started in on her winter of teaching with all the energy and vim of the proverbial new broom. She gloried in the fact that she was able to turn her education to some account; and while the remuneration of a country school teacher is certainly not munificent, it helped a great deal towards the family expenses. The rent from the Carters' pretty home in Richmond was all they had to live on now, except for a small sum in bank left over from the camp earnings. It would be possible to manage if no clothes had to be bought, and one and all promised to do with last year's suits. Only a born teacher could make a real success of a country school where thirty children must be taught in all grades up to high-school standing. It took infinite patience, boundless good humor, and a systematic saving of time, together with a keen sense of fun to get Douglas over each day. She found the school in a state of insurrection, due to having proved too much for the first teacher, who had found urgent business elsewhere, and then for a series of substitutes until the present incumbent, Miss Douglas Carter, was installed. She made a little speech the first morning, telling the pupils quite frankly that this was her first year of teaching but that it was not going to be her last; that she was determined to make good and she asked their help; that she was willing to give them all she had in the way of knowledge and strength but that they must meet her half-way and do their best. She gave them to understand from the very first that she intended to have good order and that obedience was to be the first lesson taught. Most of the children fell into her plans with enthusiasm. Of course there were the reactionaries who had to be dealt with summarily. Bobby was one of them. He was very difficult to manage in school. Never having been under the least restraint before in all of his seven years, it was hard on him to have to sit still and pretend to study, and he made it harder on Douglas. The faction opposed to government in any form egged him on. They laughed at his impertinent remarks to the teacher and bribed him to do and say many outrageous things. Poor Douglas was tempted to confess herself beaten as far as her little brother was concerned and give up trying to teach him. He was rather young for school, she almost fooled herself into believing; but there was a sturdiness and determination in Douglas Carter's make-up that would not let her succumb to difficulties. "I will succeed! He shall learn! My pupils must respect me, and if I can't make my own little brother obey me, how can I expect to control the rest of them?" She asked herself what she would do with any other pupil, not her brother, who gave her so much trouble. "Write a note to his mother or father, of course," she answered. "But I can't bear to bother Father, and Mother would blame me and no doubt pet Bobby. I'll write a note to Dr. Wright and his disapproval will hurt Bobby more than anything that could happen." And so she wrote the following letter to Bobby's employer: _Preston, Va., R. F. D. Route 1. November 1, 1916._ DEAR DR. WRIGHT: I am sorry to inform you that your chauffeur, Robert Carter, Jr., is misbehaving at school in such a way that his teacher is afraid he will have to be expelled. She has done everything in her power to make him be more considerate but he is very, very naughty and tries to worry his teacher all the time. Very sincerely, DOUGLAS CARTER. Dr. Wright telephoned that he would be down to see them on Saturday after receiving Douglas's note; but the message was sent via Grantly, as the Carters had no telephone, and Miss Ella and Miss Louise could not agree just what his name was or when he said he was coming. So the matter was lost sight of in the wrangle that ensued and the word was not delivered until too late. CHAPTER VI CHLOE To Helen had fallen the most difficult and trying part of the program: training a cheap, country servant to the ways of civilization. Many times did she think of Miss Louise's trained monkey as she labored with Chloe, with whom she had to start all over every day. A seven o'clock breakfast must be ready for Nan and Lucy, and the one morning that she left it to Chloe the girls had to go off with nothing more comforting on their little insides than cold bread and milk. That was when the new maid had first arrived and Helen had not sounded the depths of her incompetence and ignorance. "What would you have done in your own home if you had had to have an early breakfast for someone?" asked Helen, curious to know if the girl knew how to do anything. "I'd 'a' done what I done this mornin': let 'um fill up on what col' victuals they was lef' on de she'f." Helen endeavored to introduce Chloe to the mysteries of the fireless cooker, which they had brought with them from camp, but the girl seemed to think there was some kind of magic in a thing that cooked without fire and would none of it. "I ain't a-goin' ter tetch no sich hoodoo doin's as dat 'ere box," she asserted. "It mus' hab a kinder debble in it ter keep it hot 'thout a piece er dry wood or nothin'." Helen was lifting out the pot full of steaming oatmeal that she had put in the cooker the night before, determined that her sisters should not have to go off again with such cold comfort. "All right, you keep up the wood fire and I'll attend to the fireless cooker," laughed Helen. "What makes the stove smoke? It was burning all right yesterday." "Smoking 'cause dat hoodoo debble done got in it," and Chloe rolled her great eyes until nothing showed but the whites. "Smoking because you've got the damper turned down," and Helen righted the appliance. "Have you set the table?" "Yassum!" "Put everything on it just as I showed you yesterday?" "Nom! I ain't put nothin' on it. I jes' sot the cheers up to it, but all the gals is got ter do is jes' retch the things off'n the sidebo'd." That meant that Helen must run and get the table set as quickly as possible as it was three minutes to seven. Chloe followed her meekly to the dining-room to do her bidding. "Run back to the kitchen, Chloe, and look at the biscuit, and see if they are burning," cried Helen as she rapidly placed the silver on the table. A few minutes later, having set the table she hastened to the kitchen. An ominous odor greeted her. "Chloe, did you look at the biscuit?" "Yassum! They was gettin' ready to burn. I guess they is 'bout burned by now." "Oh, Chloe, why didn't you take them out?" and poor Helen thought maybe she was going to weep with exasperation. "You nebber tol' me ter do mo'n look at 'em. My maw an' Sis Tempy both done caution me not to be too frisky 'bout doin' things 'til the white folks tells me. Tempy says white folks laks ter boss 'bout ev'ything." "Oh, for a trained monkey!" thought Helen. "I could at least give one a good switching." Chloe had only two characteristics to work on: one was perfect good-nature, the other unbounded health and strength. Helen wondered if she had enough material to go on to evolve even a passable servant. Anyhow she meant to try. She determined to do the cooking herself for a little while with Chloe as scullion, and also to have the girl do the housework. Of course Mrs. Carter was of absolutely no assistance. She held to her purpose of semi-invalidism. The family would not listen to her when she offered the only sane suggestion for the winter: that they should oust the tenant and move back into their own pretty, comfortable, well-furnished home; Douglas to make her début in Richmond society and the other girls continue at school. As for money--why not just make bills? They had perfectly good credit, and what was credit for but to use? Dr. Wright had been so stern with her, and Douglas so severe and unfilial, and they had intimated that she wanted to kill her dear Robert, so she had just let them have their own way. She insisted she had not the strength to cope with these changed conditions and took on the habits of an invalid. Helen, remembering how Susan, who was supposed to help with the cooking at the camp, had been kept busy waiting on her mistress, feared Chloe would be pressed into lady's maid service, too. Indeed Mrs. Carter attempted it, but Chloe proved too rough for the job, and that poor lady was forced to run the ribbons in her lingerie herself. Chloe's cleaning was even worse than her cooking if such a thing was possible. She spread up the beds, leaving great wrinkles and bumps, which proved to be top sheets and blankets that she had not thought fit to pull up. When Helen remonstrated and made her take all the covers off to air before making the beds she obeyed, but put the covers back on regardless of sequence, with counterpanes next to the mattress and sheets on top, with blankets anywhere that her fancy dictated. She swept the dirt safely under the rugs; wiped up the floor with bath towels; and the crowning glory of her achievement was sticking all the tooth-brushes together. Now when we remember that Helen herself had perhaps never made up a bed in her whole life until about eight months before this time, we may indeed have sympathy for her in her tribulations. Her days were full to running over, beginning very early in the morning and ending only after the family was fed at night. The cooking was not so difficult, as she had a genius for it and consequently a liking. Chloe could wash dishes after a fashion and clean the kitchen utensils, which was some comfort. Mr. Carter always carried his wife's breakfast tray to her room and waited on her like a devoted slave. He would even have run the ribbons in had she trusted him. All he could do for her now was wait on her and spoil her, and this he did to perfection. She was the same lovely little creature he had married and he was not unreasonable enough to expect her to be anything else. He did not think it strange that his little canary could not turn herself into a raven and feed him when he was hungry. His tenderness to his wife was so great that his daughters took their keynote from him and their patience towards their mother was wonderful. They vied with one another in their attentions to the parent that they would not let themselves call selfish. Helen cooked her little dainties; Nan kept her in light literature from the circulating library in town; Lucy scoured the fields for mushrooms that a late fall had made plentiful; Douglas always brought her the choice fruit and flowers that her pupils showered on her; even Bobby did his part by bringing her ripe persimmons that the frost had nipped just enough to make delicious. Mr. Carter was often able to bring her in a partridge or a young hare. On the whole life wasn't so bad. When one felt perfectly well, semi-invalidism was a pretty pleasant state. As for society: the count was a frequent visitor and the ladies from Grantly most attentive. The Suttons had called, too, several times, and other county families were finding the Carters out. It was easy to treat the fact that they were living in the overseer's house as a kind of joke. Of course, anyone could tell that they were not the kind of persons who usually lived in overseers' houses. Chloe was the thorn in the flesh, the fly in the ointment for Mrs. Carter. Chloe could not be laughed away,--Chloe was no joke. Accustomed to trained, highly-paid servants to do her bidding, this rough, uncouth ourang-outang was more than the dainty little lady could stand. The very first time Count de Lestis called, Mrs. Carter happened to be alone in the house except for Chloe, Mr. Carter having gone to Preston for much-needed nails and Helen having run up to Grantly to ask the advice of Miss Ella on the best way to preserve some late pears. A knock and Chloe promptly fell down the steps in her eagerness to get to the door. She had been up in Douglas's and Helen's room attempting to make up the bed to suit Miss Helen. "Thank Gawd I fell down instidder up! If'n I had 'a' fell up I wouldn't 'a' got ma'ied dis year," and she picked herself up and dived at the front door. "Are Mr. and Mrs. Carter and the young ladies at home?" Mrs. Carter heard in the count's fine baritone. "Nawsir! The boss is done gone ter Preston ter fetch some nails ter try ter bolster up this here ole shack, an' Miss Douglas is done gone ter her teachin' job an' Miss Helen is done stepped up to see Miss Ellanlouise 'bout 'zervin' some ole hard pears----" "And how about Mrs. Carter?" in an amused voice. "Oh, she is a-layin' on the sofy tryin' ter git sick." "Is she ill?" solicitously. "Naw! She is jes' plum lazy. She's too lazy ter chaw an' has ter have all her victuals fixed soft like." "Well, will you please take her this card?" "That there ticket?" Imagine Mrs. Carter's mortification, when the grinning Chloe came running into the sitting-room with the count's card crushed in her eager hand, to discover that the wretched girl was in her stocking feet; capless, with her wrapped plaits sticking out all over her head like quills upon the fretful porcupine; her apron on hind part before. "Chloe! Where is your cap?" exclaimed that elegant lady. "Well, lawsamussy! I done forgot about it. It do make my haid eatch so I done pulled it off." "And your shoes?" "I's savin' them fer big meetin' nex' year." "And why do you wear your apron in the back? Put it on right this minute." "Well, Ole Miss, my dress was siled an' my ap'on was clean, so I jes' slid it 'roun' behinst so it wouldn't git siled, too." Nothing but the fact that the count was cooling his heels on the front porch kept Mrs. Carter from weeping outright. Old Miss, indeed! All she could do was feebly tell Chloe to ask the gentleman in. If Count de Lestis had been ushered in by a butler in livery he could not have entered in a more ceremonious manner. He bowed low over the fair lady's hand, kissing her finger-tips lightly. Even the spectacle of Chloe's walking off, with her clean apron on hind part before and her shoeless condition disclosing large holes in the heels of her stockings, did not upset his gravity. He, too, realized that Chloe was no joke. Afterwards Chloe said to Helen: "That sho' is a pretty man what comed ter see you alls. I ain't knowin' yit what made him stoop over an' smell yo' ma's hand. Cose she mus' smell pow'ful good with never put'n her hands in nothin' mo' than her own victuals." Helen was weak with laughter. "What fer they call him a count, Miss Helen? Is it 'cause he spen' all his time a-countin' out money? They do say he is pow'ful good an' kin' ter the niggers. Some say he likes niggers better'n what he does white folks, but I says that is plum foolish. Anyhow, he talks mighty sweet to 'em an' don't never call 'em low down triflin' black rascals whin they gits kinder lop-sided with liquor, like some of the county gents does whin hands gits so fur gone they can't git in the craps. He done started a night school over at Weston what his secondary is teachin'." "I didn't know he had a secretary," exclaimed Helen, "but it certainly is kind of him to try and help the poor colored people. I wish you could go to night school, Chloe." "Lawd, Gawd, no! Miss Helen! I ain't got no call to larn." "Can't you read at all, Chloe?" "Well, I kin read whin they is picters ter go by. I done been ter school mos' six months countin' the diffunt years what I started, but my ma, she say my haid was too hard an' she 'fraid it might git cracked open if'n teacher tried to put any mo' in it. She say some folks is got sof' haids what kin stretch an' they ain't so ap' ter bus' open, haids kinder like hog bladders what you kin keep on a-blowin' up." "Wouldn't you like me to teach you to read, Chloe?" asked Helen, feeling rather ashamed that this foreigner should come to Virginia and take more interest in the education of the negroes than she should ever have done. "I believe I could teach you without breaking your head open." "Anything you says do I'll do, but I tell you now I ain't got no mo' notion er readin' than a tarrapin. A tarrapin kin git his haid out'n the shell an' you might git a little larnin' in it, but my haid is groun' what you gotter break up with a grubbin' hoe." "I am willing to try. Let's begin now! First we will learn how to spell things right here in the kitchen and then you can soon be reading recipes," said Helen kindly. "Now we are making biscuit, so we will begin with that. First take two cups of flour," and she wrote on the whitewashed wall of the kitchen: "2 cups of flour." Chloe was delighted with this kind of school, very different from her former experiences where she was made to sit for hours on a hard bench saying the same thing over and over with no conception of what it was all about. Now "2 cups of flour" had some sense in it, so had "2 spoons of baking powder." "Lard the size of an egg" was a brilliant remark; "1 spoon of salt" had a gleam of intelligence, too; "1 cup of milk" was filled with gumption. In less than a week the girl could read and write the recipe for biscuit and was eagerly waiting for her beloved Miss Helen to advance her to cake. CHAPTER VII BOBBY'S BLAME DAY Dr. George Wright was making a name for himself in his chosen profession. Older men were beginning to look upon him as an authority on nervous cases and now he had been asked to come in as partner in a sanitarium starting in the capital city of Virginia. Certainly he had been very successful in his treatment of Robert Carter's case, so successful that even Mrs. Carter could not but admire him. She was still very much in awe of him, but he had her respect and she depended upon him. The daughters felt the same way without the awe. Douglas and Nan and Lucy were openly extravagant in their praise of him. Helen was a little more guarded in her expressions of admiration, but she had a sincere liking for him and deep gratitude not only for what he had done for her father but for his service to her. She could never forget that it was Dr. Wright who had brought her to her senses when her father was first taken ill, making her see herself as a selfish, extravagant, vain girl. It takes some generosity of spirit to like the person who makes you see the error of your ways, but Helen Carter had that generosity. There were times when her cheeks burned at the memory of what Dr. Wright must have thought of her. How silly he must have found her, how childish! After the experience in the mountains when the rattlesnake bit her on the heel and Dr. Wright had come to her assistance with first aid to the injured, which in the case of a snake bite means sucking the wound, Helen began to realize that what the young physician thought of her made a great deal of difference to her. His approval was something worth gaining. Douglas had not told her she had written the letter to Dr. Wright as Bobby's employer. She had a feeling that her dignity as teacher was involved and she must not confide in her family. She was waiting, hoping to hear from him, rather expecting him to write to Bobby and call him to account for his misdemeanors. Bobby had been especially unruly all week. There was nothing he had not thought of doing in the way of mischief, and thinking mischief was almost identical with doing mischief where Bobby Carter was concerned. The deed was no sooner conceived than accomplished and the other children, who were inclined to be naughty, thought up extra things for him to do. Putting a piece of rubber on the stove was certainly not Bobby's idea, nor slipping chestnut burrs in the desk-seats while the girls were not looking, causing howls of anguish when they inadvertently sat down on the same. Bobby manfully took the blame for all of these things, however, confidently certain that no punishment worth speaking of would be meted out to him. "He is honest, at least," sighed Douglas, "and owns up every time." Friday afternoon on the way home she felt that maybe Nan's name for their place was a good one. She was almost a dead warrior if not quite one. "Oh, for a Valkyrie to bear me to Valhalla!" Bobby was trudging along by her side looking as though butter would not melt in his mouth. What a sturdy little fellow he was growing to be! Douglas looked down on his jaunty, erect figure. "Bobby, you are getting right fat." Bobby slapped his pockets. "That ain't fat, that's blame pay!" "Blame pay! What on earth?" "Oh, them is the gif's I gits fer saying I done it ev'y time you asks us to hol' up our han's who done it." "Oh, Bobby!" "You see, the big fellers say you ain't man enough to whup 'em an' you is too soft to whup me, so I don't run no risk nohow. This is a top string I got for 'tendin' like I put the rubber on the stove,--this here is a big apple I got for not fillin' the girls' desks with chestnut burrs,--this here pile er oak balls I come mighty near not gettin'. I sho' did want to turn the fleas loose on Minnie Brice but the big boys was afraid I might not be able to open the little purse right and so one of them done it." "Fleas on Minnie Brice?" "Yes, you never did fin' out about it, so I didn't have to own up. You know what a funny thin neck Minnie's got, just like a mud turkle, and how she wears a stiff collar kinder like a shell and it sets out all around, fur out from her neck?" "Yes, I know," said Douglas, struggling with a laugh. "Well, the fellers caught some fleas off'n ol' Blitz's houn' dog an' then they put 'em in a teensy money purse with a tight clasp, an' while Minnie was leaning over studying her joggerfy, Tim Tenser dumped 'em all down her back." "Poor Minnie! No wonder she missed all of her lessons today. I could not imagine what was the matter with her. Bobby, you wouldn't have done such a cruel thing as that surely!" "Shoo! That ain't nothin'. It might 'a' been toads, 'cep'n the little ones is all growed up big now. We are a-savin' up the toad joke 'til spring. First the fellers said I didn't 'serve no blame money 'cause Minnie jes' cried when she missed her lessons an' didn't scratch none, only wiggled, an' teacher never did ask us to hol' up our han's who done it. But Ned Beatty said I was a dead game spo't an' I took the chanst an' I mus' have my blood money, an' so I got all these here oak balls." "Bobby, do you realize that you must take all of these blame gifts back to the boys?" "Blamed if I will!" "Please don't talk that way! Don't say: 'Blamed if you will.'" "Well, wasn't you a-talkin' that way? Didn't you say, 'blame gif's,' with your own mouth? I'd like to know why I have to take them back." "Well, you got them for taking the blame and now you no longer take the blame but have told on the ones who did the naughty things." "But I ain't a-tellin' teacher! I'm a-tellin' my own sister Douglas. You ain't teacher 'cep'n when you is in school." "Oh, so that is the way you look at it! I suppose you think I am not your own sister while I am teacher, either, and when you worry me sick at school it is only teacher and not Douglas you are distressing so much," and Douglas sat down on the roadside and burst out crying. Now Douglas Carter was no weeper. I doubt if her little brother had ever seen her shed a tear in all of his seven years. And he, Robert Carter, Jr., had done this thing! He had made his sister Douglas cry. When she was playing teacher, she had feelings just as much as she did when she turned into his sister Douglas again. And what was this thing she was saying about his having to give back the blood money? Had he told on the boys after having received pay for taking the blame? Why, that was a low-down, sneaky trick! "Don't cry, Douglas, please don't cry! I'm a-gonter take back all the things--'cep'n the apple--I done et into that a leetle bit." But the flood gates were opened and Douglas could not stop crying. Like most persons who cry with difficulty, when she once began she kept it up. Now she was crying for all the times she might have cried. She had had enough to make her cry but had held in. She was crying now for all the days and nights of anxiety she had spent in thinking of her sick father; she was crying for the stern way in which she had been forced to deal with her mother over extravagancies; she was crying for having to make Helen understand that there was no money for clothes; she was crying for having to be the adamant sister who forced Nan and Lucy to go on to school; she was crying because her own dream of college was to come to nothing; she was crying very little because of Bobby's naughtiness, but he, of course, thought that it was all because of him. One of her biggest grievances was against herself: why had she been so priggish with her cousin, Lewis Somerville? Last August he had come to her on the eve of his enlistment to go with the troops to the Mexican border and had plead so earnestly with her to try to love him just a little bit and to let him go off engaged to her, and she had turned him down with absurd talk of friendship and the like. He had astonished her when he made love to her, but she knew perfectly well in her heart of hearts that it would have astonished her a great deal more if he had made love to someone else. No doubt that was what he was doing that minute: making love to someone else. A young man who looked like a Greek god was not going to be turned down by every girl. How good Lewis had always been to her and how well he had understood her! He thought she was cold and unfeeling now, she just knew he did. She had received no letters from him for weeks, at least it seemed weeks. Oh well, if he wanted to make love to other girls, why she wasn't going to be the one to care! "Douglas, I hear a auto a-comin'. If'n you don't stop bawlin' folks will see you." A car was coming! She could hear its chug as it climbed the hill half a mile off. "Please wet my handkerchief in that little branch so I can wash my face," she begged Bobby, while she smoothed her ruffled hair and wished she had one of Helen's precious dorines to powder her red nose. "Yo' hankcher is as wet as water already. I don't see what you want it any wetter for," said Bobby, who might have quoted: "'Too much of water hast thou, my poor Ophelia,'" had he known his Hamlet. "I ain't a-gonter be bad no mo', Douglas," declared Bobby as he brought the little handkerchief back from the brook dripping wet. "You mos' cried yo' face away, didn't you, Dug?" and with that Douglas had to laugh. "Feel better now?" he said with quite the big brother air. "That there car is jes' roun' the bend. I reckon if you turn yo' face away the folks in it won't know you is been a-bawlin'." The car slowed up, then stopped when the driver recognized Douglas, and Count de Lestis sprang out to greet her. The signs of the recent storm were still visible on her pretty face in spite of all the water Bobby had brought from the brook. Douglas tried to hold her head down so the count could not see her disfigured countenance, but such floods of weeping could not but be noticed. "My dear Miss Carter, you are in distress!" He looked so truly grieved and anxious that already Douglas felt somewhat comforted. Sympathy is a great balm. "It is nothing! I am a foolish, weak girl." "Not that! You are very intelligent and far from weak. Are you not the staunch ally? The poor Kaiser would not find you weak." "I done it all! I made her cry!" declared Bobby. The count looked at the youngster, amused. "And so! Do little American gentlemen make their sisters cry?" Bobby hung his head. "Well, come on and let me take you home, and then I'll take your sister for a little ride and wipe all the tears away with the wind." "Let me go riding, too. I don't want to go home." "No, not this time. My little red car doesn't like to take for long rides boys who make their sisters cry." So Bobby had to climb meekly in to be ignominiously dumped at the yard gate while Douglas was whisked off in the count's natty little red roadster. "Now you are looking like your beautiful self," he declared, slowing down his racer and turning to gaze into Douglas's face. "What is it that made you weep so profusely? Not the little brother. Beautiful damsels do not weep so much because of little brothers." Douglas smiled. "Ah, the sun has come out! Now I am happy. I am so distressed by tears that I can hardly bear it." "You must have a very tender heart." "Yes, perhaps! Now tell me what caused your grief." How handsome this man was and how kind! He seemed like an old friend. He really did care what was troubling her and it would be a relief to pour out all of her foolish griefs. Douglas missed her father's sympathy. She knew that he was as ready as ever with his love and solicitude for her, but she felt that she must not add to his worries one iota. Her mother was out of the question and Helen was too young. Before she knew it, she was trying to tell Count de Lestis all about it, all but about Lewis Somerville--somehow that was something she could not mention. Her grievances sounded very small when she tried to put them into words. Naturally she could not dwell upon her mother's extravagancies or this man would think her poor little mother was selfish; Helen was such a trump, the fact that she longed for stylish clothes certainly was not enough to make a grown girl sit on the roadside and dissolve in tears; while Nan and Lucy were commuting to school like little soldiers. It ended by being a humorous account of Bobby and his blame pay. Of course the count knew perfectly well that that was not all that had made this lovely girl give way so to grief. No doubt Bobby's misbehavior was the last straw, but there had been a heavy load to carry before Douglas's camel of endurance had got his back broken. He laughed merrily over the fleas and Douglas forgot all about her worries and laughed, too. "Poor little Minnie! She did squirm so, and think of her being too ladylike to scratch, and how she must have disappointed those bad boys by refraining!" "Yes, if all women would just squirm and not scratch it would take much from the pleasure of teasing them," laughed de Lestis. "What amuses me is how boys are alike all the world over. The discipline of my school days was very strict, but a thing like that might have happened among boys in Berlin as much as here in a rural school in Virginia." "Berlin! But you are Hungarian!" "So! So--but Hungarians can go to school in Berlin. Even Americans have profited by the educational advantages offered there." Douglas thought her companion's tone sounded a little harsh. She bent her candid gaze on him and met his glowing eyes. Blue eyes looked unflinchingly into black until the steering of the red car forced him to give his attention to the wheel. "I wish the count's moustache did not turn up quite so much at the corners," thought the girl. "It makes him look a wee bit like the Kaiser; of course, though, he is kind and the Kaiser is cruel." "Perhaps we had better turn around now," she suggested gently, contrite that even for a moment she had thought this kind friend could resemble the hated Kaiser. Certainly the wind had wiped away all traces of the emotional storm from Douglas's countenance. The young man by her side could but admire the pure profile presented to him, with its soft, girlish lines but withal a look of strength and determination. Her loosened hair was like sunlight and her cheeks had the pink of the Cherokee rose. Profiles were all well enough, but he would like another look into those eyes as blue as summer skies after a shower. "Of course, my dear Miss Carter, I know that the little rascal Bobby must have been very annoying but I cannot but think that you have not entrusted to me your real troubles." Douglas stiffened almost imperceptibly. "When one finds a beautiful damsel sitting by the roadside in such grief that her charming face is convulsed with weeping, one cannot but divine that some affair of the heart has touched her. Tell me, has some bold cavalier trifled with her affections?" Douglas stiffened more perceptibly. "Your father told me of a young cousin, a Mr. Somerville, who is now on the Mexican border----" "Father told you! I don't believe it." "My dear young lady, he only told me there was such a cousin; you have told me the rest. Now! Now! Don't let your sweet eyes shed another tear for him. He is not worth it! If he can find amusement in the ladies of Mexico, who are, when all is told, an untidy lot, why should you worry? There are other fish in the sea!" If the Count de Lestis wished to see something more of Douglas's eyes he had his desire fulfilled now. She turned and once more blue eyes looked unflinchingly into black. This time the black eyes had a mischievous gleam and the blue ones looked more like winter ice than summer skies. "Now I have made you angry." Once more his car took his attention for the moment. "Not at all!" icily. "You wish you had not come with me." "I appreciate your kindness in bringing me for the drive very much," still cold and formal in tone. "I guessed too well, that is where I sinned." Douglas was silent, but she still looked at her companion. "She is like the little Minnie: she squirms but will not scratch." "I was just thinking," said Douglas, changing the subject with a swiftness that disarmed the count, "your moustache certainly turns up at the ends just like Emperor William's." CHAPTER VIII SATURDAY "Isn't it glorious to be living and for it to be Saturday?" yawned Lucy. "Yes, and not to have to catch that old train," and Nan snuggled down luxuriously under the bedclothes. "I used to think Saturday was a pretty good institution when we lived in town, but now--Oh, ye gods! Now!" "Did you know that Saturday was decreed a half-holiday in the days of the Saxon King Edgar 958 A. D.?" asked Lucy, who had a way of springing historical facts on people. "No, but I know it's going to be a whole holiday for Nan Carter in the year of grace 1916. I intend to do nothing but laze the whole day long, laze and read." "I bet you won't. I bet you go nutting with Mag and me, because if we go it means Billy goes along, and if he goes along he'll be in a terrible grouch unless you go, too." October had delightfully spread over into November. The weather had obligingly stayed good, and although our Carters had been at Valhalla more than a month, they had experienced no real bad days. Nippy, frosty nights had put Mr. Carter wise to the many cracks that he must stop up. Weather strips must be put on windows and doors, panes of glass must be puttied in. Suspicious stains on walls and ceilings warned him of leaks, but he had to wait for a rain to locate them. He found himself almost as busy as he had been before his breakdown, but busy in such a different way. "I'm glad it's Saturday! I think I won't work today," he had remarked to his wife at about the same time Nan and Lucy were having their talk. "Come and walk in the woods with me." That lady had graciously consented, if he promised not to go far and to lift her over fences. "I think I'll wash my hair today; and darn the stockings; and go over the accounts; and write some letters; and read the _Saturday Evening Post_," said Douglas as she and Helen dressed hurriedly. Their little attic room was hot in summer and cold in winter. Douglas had been thinking a great deal about her ride with the count. Had he only meant to tease her? Was he trying to flirt with her? Did she like him at all or did she in a way distrust him? She asked herself all of these questions. Of course she liked him! Why should she distrust a man because of the way his moustache grew? Of course he was teasing her, and who could help teasing a silly goose of a girl who sat on the roadside and bawled until her nose was disgracefully red, and then insisted it was all because her little brother had aided and abetted in the crime of putting fleas down a little girl's neck? He had made a good guess about Lewis Somerville, because no doubt her father had told him that she and Lewis had been chums from the time they were babies. "I only hope I will be able to make up to him for my discourtesy by being very polite to him the next time I see him," she thought. "Count de Lestis is coming to lunch with us today," said Helen, almost as though she had been reading her sister's mind. "Father asked him." "That's good! Isn't it nice for Father to have such a congenial friend?" "And Mumsy! She enjoys his visits so much. I am going to try and have a scrumptious luncheon, but I tell you I am going to leave mighty little of it to Chloe." "I think she is improving, Helen." "Of course she is improving. She is trying so hard to do what I want her to and I am trying so hard to be patient. I think I am improving some myself." "Oh, honey, you are simply splendid. I think you have the hardest job of all and I think you are doing better than any of us." "Nonsense!" But Helen looked very happy over her sister's praise. "I'd rather do general housework for six dollars a month than go every day and teach thirty little nincompoops a-b, ab." "But the thing is you are doing general housework for nothing a month." "I am doing a little teaching of a-b, ab, too, only my methods are different. I have evolved a very advanced style of teaching and Chloe, too, is learning to spell. My method is somewhat that of Dotheboys' Hall--you remember: 'W-i-n-d-o-w, window--Go wash them.' I make her spell and write all the kitchen utensils. She learns while she is working and it makes her take an interest in becoming educated." "Oh, Helen, you are so clever! You must let me help about the luncheon." "How about washing your head; and writing your letters; and casting up the household accounts; and the _Saturday Evening Post_?" "Well, the letters and _Post_ will keep!" On Saturday the rule was that the dead warriors must make up their own beds and clean their own rooms, so shortly after breakfast there was a general scramble in process. Helen turned Chloe loose in the dining-room to have it swept and garnished for their distinguished visitor. What a pretty room it was, much the most attractive in the house, with the exception of the sitting-room, perhaps! Low, rough-hewn rafters were frankly exposed to view. The walls were sealed with pine boards. Walls and ceiling were both painted a very soft, pleasing grey-green. On the high mantel was an old-fashioned wooden clock with painted door, and this was flanked on both sides by funny old vases with large raised roses and gilt ears. Two high windows and a glass door, opening on a covered passage leading to the kitchen, gave a soft and insufficient light. Douglas had just put the finishing touch to the table: a bunch of cosmos sent down by the Misses Grant. Nan had made the mayonnaise; and Lucy had found a great basket of mushrooms and peeled them for Helen to cream. Truly they were to have a scrumptious luncheon. The count had arrived and was playing lady-come-to-see, so Lucy said, with Mrs. Carter. The whir of a motor drew the attention of all. "Who on earth!" exclaimed Helen. "Surely not callers at this hour, just when my popovers are almost ready to eat!" "Mo' comply!" declared Chloe. "Dat ol' red rooster what yo' paw set so much sto' by is been a-crowing halleluja all mornin'. I been a-tryin' ter make him hesh, 'cause we ain't got no mo' cheers fer comply." "That's so, there aren't but eight dining-room chairs," laughed Helen. "My 'ployer done come and a soger is in with him!" cried Bobby, tearing excitedly by the dining-room in his race to open the gate for his beloved Dr. Wright. Helen ran out in her pink bungalow apron, first peeping into the oven, not trusting Chloe yet to keep things from burning. "Douglas!" she called excitedly, but Douglas, with flushed cheeks, bent over the bowl of cosmos. "A soldier with him! What soldier? Could it be Lewis?" she asked herself. It was Lewis Somerville, looking very handsome and upstanding indeed in his khaki uniform, with his face burned a deep bronze so that his eyes looked very blue and his teeth very white. He clambered out over the great basket of fruit Dr. Wright was bringing to Mrs. Carter, dropped the boxes and parcels piled in around him and hugged and kissed all the female cousins in sight, Helen, Nan and Lucy. He shook Bobby by the hand, knowing full well that that youngster would sooner die than be hugged and kissed. "Douglas, where is Douglas?" he whispered to Helen. "In the dining-room! You can get there around at the back of the house--in the basement. We thought you were still in Mexico." Lewis did not wait to tell her that he wasn't, but doing double quick time he streaked around the house, and finding the basement stairs without any trouble, he was down them in one stride. "Douglas!" "Oh, Lewis!" Douglas forgot that not so very many months before this time she had informed her cousin that she was too big to be kissed and that he was not close enough kin to warrant indiscriminate hugging. Certainly she was no younger than she had been eight months before and Lewis was no closer kin, but now she submitted to his embraces and even clung to him for a moment. It was so wonderful to have him back safe and sound. She could hardly believe it was only yesterday that she had sat on the roadside and wept. He was her same Lewis, too. She felt instinctively that the count's suggestion in regard to Mexican beauties was ridiculous. "And Lewis, sergeant stripes on your sleeve, too! Why didn't you tell me?" "I did! Didn't you get my letter?" "No, not for weeks and weeks!" "Strange! I must say I am not crazy about that letter's being lost." "Can't you tell me what was in it?" "Sure! I'm telling you now," and the young man caught her to him once more, but Douglas suddenly remembered she was too old to be kissed by a second cousin, once removed. "I'm not crazy about having anyone but you read that letter, though, not only because of my telling you this," and he took another for luck, "but," as Douglas recovered her maidenly reserve and pushed him from her laughing, "I said some other things in that letter that I wouldn't like anyone and everyone to see." "State secrets?" "Well, a newly-made sergeant would hardly have such things intrusted to him! It was only my opinion concerning the state of affairs down there on the border. I may be wrong about things, but a soldier has no right to blab his conclusions about conditions in belligerent countries, especially when the press is wary in its comments." "I wouldn't worry a moment about it. If you could see the road that our R. F. D. has to come over you would not wonder that some of our letters jolt out. There is one creek to cross that is like going down the Grand Canyon." "If it only jolted out there and found watery oblivion, I shan't mind. But what a bully little shack this is! Wright was afraid we would not get here in time for luncheon, and he and I were determined to lie and say we had eaten, but gee, I'm glad not to have to perjure my soul!" CHAPTER IX GOLDILOCKS' CHAIRS "Miss Hell-e-en! Miss Hell-e-en! Yo' popovers is done popped over!" came in a wailing shriek from the kitchen. Helen went so fast her pink bungalow apron looked like a rosy streak. Dr. Wright, fearing some dire calamity had befallen someone and his "first aid to the injured" might be in demand, ran after her. The popovers had popped just right, however, but must be devoured immediately; so luncheon was served as quickly as possible. "Bring those two chairs from the kitchen, Chloe," commanded Douglas as she deftly rearranged the table for ten persons instead of eight. "Now, Miss Douglas, don't you know 'bout dem cheers in de kitchen? Th' ain't got no mo' seat to 'em dan a rabbit." "Bring them anyhow," laughed Douglas. "I can sit in one and Miss Helen in the other." In the confusion of placing family and guests, Douglas forgot all about the bottomless chairs. After everyone was seated she suddenly remembered them with horror. "Suppose the count got one of them!" It made very little difference about anyone else. But the count! All of that charm and elegance in a chair with no seat! As soon as grace was said, Bobby, with a shriek of delight, suddenly collapsed and disappeared. "One chair accounted for!" thought Douglas. Bobby's heels were sticking up and he peered saucily through his feet at the astonished company. "I done got a Goldilocks' cheer," he announced. "'An' Goldilocks sat, an' sat, an' sat, an' sat 'til she sat the bottom out of the little bar's cheer.'" "Bobby, take your seat!" commanded Mr. Carter, trying to look stern. "I done took it!" "Get up!" Easier said than done! Bobby was fast stuck, "I reckon my 'ployer'll have to op'rate on me," he said plaintively, "'fo' I kin eat." There was a roar of laughter at this and Dr. Wright, who was sitting between Helen and Bobby, extricated the youngster and then changed chairs with him, whereupon they proceeded to the business of eating popovers and creamed mushrooms and the other good things that Helen had planned for the repast. Douglas then laughingly told of their predicament in having only eight whole straight chairs in the house and of her intention of sitting on one of the decrepit ones herself and of having Helen sit on the other. "It is rather like playing 'Thimble, thimble! Who's got the thimble?'" she laughed. "I hope whoever has it is comfortable." "Don't all speak at once!" said Lucy. "Of course some of the company's got it, because home folks would put you out of misery at once." Still silence and Douglas was mortally certain the count had it and was too polite to say so. "He certainly has beautiful manners," she said to herself, and turning from Lewis, who was endeavoring to monopolize her, she smiled her sweetest on the courteous foreigner. She felt she must make up to him anyhow for telling him his moustache turned up like the Kaiser's. "Isn't it strange, Cousin Robert," said Lewis to Mr. Carter, "I wrote Douglas I was coming and she never got my letter?" The count's manner was a little distrait. Evidently he was trying to hear what Douglas was saying and to listen to the conversation between Lewis and Mr. Carter at the same time. "Is that so? I am afraid our postman is careless. He seems to get the mail mixed sometimes. Every now and then our letters get left at Grantly." "But the ladies up there would send them down, I am sure," said Mrs. Carter. "You got my telephone message all right, didn't you?" Dr. Wright asked Douglas. "What message?" "Why, I telephoned Grantly I would be out today!" "No, they did not deliver it." "Perhaps they will send the letter with the message," suggested the count in an amused tone. Just then Chloe fell down the steps into the dining-room with a plate of hot popovers, which she adroitly caught before they reached the floor. "Miss Ellanlouise done sent Sis Tempy down with the news that you alls is gonter hab some comply. They done dis'greed whether they is a-comin' yesterday or tomorrow." "Who is it coming?" laughed Helen. "They done 'sputed whether it is a doctor or a lywer, an' they ain't able t' agree what his name is, but Miss Ella thinks it is Stites an' Miss Louise she holds that it is Bright. Both on 'em was a-tryin' ter listen at the 'phome ter onct so they done got kinder twis'ed like." "When was the message sent?" asked Douglas. "Sis Tempy said Miss Ella said it come of a Chuseday an' Miss Louise called her back an' tol' her not ter pay no 'tention ter Miss Ella, that she knows it come of a Thursday." "Why, that must be my message I sent on Wednesday!" exclaimed Dr. Wright. "I am either Lawyer Stites or Dr. Bright." "Of course!" and everyone laughed heartily over the mistake of the peculiar old sisters. "Well, it doesn't make any real difference since you are here, does it?" asked Helen. "Not a bit! Being here is what is important to me. Does it make any difference to you?" Dr. Wright was able to say this in a whisper to Helen. It seemed very difficult for him to have many words in private with this girl, who seemed to him to become more charming every day. Certainly adversity had improved her in his eyes. The character and determination she had shown when once the gravity of her father's condition had been explained to her were really remarkable in one so young, and one who had up to that time never done a single thing she had not wanted to do. Tête-à-têtes with Helen were made difficult for him by reason of his popularity with the whole Carter family. Mr. Carter had various questions to discuss with him; Mrs. Carter must always tell him her symptoms; Douglas wanted his advice about many things; Nan found him very sympathetic and always had something to confide in him; Lucy, realizing that Helen no longer looked upon him as an enemy to the family, had come over to his camp and now considered him her company just as much as anybody's and demanded his attention accordingly. Of course Bobby knew he belonged exclusively to him. Was he not his 'ployer? "Does it make any difference to you?" he repeated. Helen was on the point of answering him very kindly when Count de Lestis leaned over and engaged her attention. "Miss Helen, do not forget the promise you made me to come to Weston some morning with your father. There are many things I want to show you. I want your advice, too, about some pantry arrangements I am contemplating. What does mere man know of pantry shelves?" "Oh, I'd love to come!" exclaimed Helen, and the kind answer she was preparing to give Dr. Wright never was spoken. That young physician looked at the Hungarian count as though he would cheerfully throttle him. Helen's advice about pantry shelves, indeed! What business had this foreigner to draw Helen into his household arrangements? During that luncheon de Lestis managed to antagonize both Lewis Somerville and George Wright. Douglas had smiled entirely too many times on this stranger to suit Lewis, and Helen had been much too eager to pass on the housekeeping arrangements to accord with George's ideas of United States' relations with Hungary. "Why is he not fighting with his country?" each young man asked himself. Chloe was waiting on the table remarkably well, much to Helen's gratification. Only once had she fallen down the steps, and, thanks to her teacher's vigilance, she usually remembered to pass things to the left. "You must try to show the Count de Lestis how much you have learned," Helen had told her while she was preparing the lunch; "remember how interested he is in educating colored people." Helen, seated at the head of the table, was pouring the tea, Mrs. Carter having resigned her place to her daughter when she resigned herself to be a semi-invalid. "Hand this to Count de Lestis," Helen said, having put in sugar to his taste. "Here's yo' C-U-P, CUP of T-E, TEA," shouted Chloe, as she balanced the cup precariously on the tray. "Beg pardon!" exclaimed the honored guest in amazement. "C-U-P, CUP! H-O-T, HOT! T-E, TEA!" The count took the tea with a puzzled look on his handsome countenance and Chloe fled from the room, not in embarrassment but to impart to Sis Tempy how she had done made Miss Helen proud by showing the count how much she done learned her to spell. Everybody roared, even Mrs. Carter, who had come to the realization that the most dignified way to treat Chloe was to recognize her as a joke. "It is this way," said Helen when she could speak. "You see, I have been trying to teach the poor thing to read and spell. She told me of the wonderful work you are doing," to the count. "I am doing?" "Yes, in your night school at Weston! It made me ashamed to think you, a foreigner, should be doing so much for the colored race, and I doing nothing, so I determined to do what I could with my own servant at least. I can't tell you how splendid I think it is of you and your secretary to give so much time to the poor country darkies." The count flushed a dark red. He seemed actually confused by this girl's praise. "All of us think it is fine," said Nan. "Speak for yourself!" whispered Lucy. "Mag and I think it is smart Alec of him and we bet he does it 'cause he wants to, not to help the colored people." "I beg your pardon! Did you speak to me?" asked the count, recovering himself from the evident confusion into which Helen's and Nan's approbration seemed to have plunged him. "I--I--said--er--I said you and your kind secretary must enjoy the work," stammered Lucy. "Do you find they learn easily?" asked Dr. Wright, trying to hide his feelings and wishing he had put in his spare time in altruistic work among the colored brethren. "The truth of the matter is I do no teaching myself. This night school is a fad of Herz, my secretary." "Ah, but I know you do some, because Chloe tells me of how kindly you speak to the darkies," insisted Helen. "She says you make beautiful talks to them sometimes and they are crazy about you." "They exaggerate!" shrugged the count. "They seem a simple, kindly folk, grateful for any crumb of learning." "Aren't there any district schools here for the colored people?" asked George Wright. "Yes, but no place for the older ones to learn. It is quite pathetic how they yearn for knowledge,--so Herz tells me." "Well, my opinion is that too much learning is bad for them," blurted out Lewis. "Oh, Lewis!" exclaimed Douglas. "How can you say such a thing? Too much learning can't be bad for anybody." "What I mean is too much and not enough. They get just enough to make them big-headed and not enough to give them any balance." "'A little learning is a dangerous thing-- Drink deep or taste not the Pierian Spring,'" murmured Nan. "Exactly!" said Lewis gratefully. "I don't want to hold the darky down, but I do think he should be taught very carefully or he will get wrong notions in his head, social equality with the whites and such stuff." "I find Americans very strange when one gets them on the subject of social equality," and de Lestis suddenly seemed very superior and quite conscious of his own station in life. "There is much talk of being democratic but not so much practice. Your Declaration of Independence plainly states that all men shall be free and equal, and still, while you grant the black race freedom, you deny it equality." "I reckon you don't understand the South very well," answered Lewis, his blue eyes flashing. "Ah!" was all the count said, but he said it with a toploftical manner that irritated Lewis. "The colored soldiers are excellent, so I have heard," put in Douglas, hoping to get the subject changed, if not too abruptly. "Yes, they are good," said Lewis, "but that is because they are trained well. That is drinking deep of Nan's Pierian Spring. I think a military training in colored schools is almost more important than in the white ones. It gives them the kind of balance they don't get in any other way." "Why don't you give the pupils in your night school some drilling?" asked Helen. "Thank you for the suggestion!" and the count bowed low over Helen's hand as they arose from the table at a signal from Mrs. Carter, who began to think the conversation was getting entirely too serious and not at all social. "I shall profit by it immediately and introduce a kind of setting-up exercise at least." "Now we'll find out who had the other busted cheer!" cried Bobby. It was the count, and his tact and good manners in patiently sitting through the meal on what must have been a rather uncomfortable perch made the females of the party, excepting Lucy, admire him just that much more, but it did not make George Wright and Lewis Somerville think any more highly of the good-looking foreigner. "He had much better be fighting for his country," grumbled Lewis to his companion in misery, "even if it would be on the wrong side." Which was not the proper remark for a soldier in the army of a neutral nation. CHAPTER X NOVEMBER The mystery that will never be solved for the human race is why some days must be dark and dreary and why those days sometimes stretch themselves into weeks. The weather that had been so perfect when our Carters first came to Valhalla had held for a long time. Frosty, crisp autumn mornings that made the blood tingle in one's veins, followed by warmer days and then cold bracing nights when a fire in the great chimney of the living-room was most acceptable, had become so much the rule that when the exception occurred no one was prepared to accept it. Morning after morning Nan and Lucy had trudged cheerfully over the fields and through the lane to Grantly Station to catch the early train, enjoying the walk and not minding at all that the quarter of a mile was really three-quarters. Coming home was happy, too. The train reached Grantly by half-past three, the pleasantest time in an autumn afternoon, and the girls would loiter along the road, stopping to eat wild grapes or to crack walnuts or maybe to get some persimmons, delicious and shriveled from the hard frosts. Sometimes Billy and Mag would have the good news for them that the Suttons' car was to be at Preston and that meant that our girls were to get out at that station and be run home by Billy. They were great favorites with both Mr. and Mrs. Sutton who encouraged the intimacy with their son and daughter. Suitable companions are not always to be found in rural communities and the coming of the Carters to the neighborhood was recognized by that worthy couple as a great advantage to their children. "Nan is a charming girl, William," Mrs. Sutton had said to her husband, "and even if Billy fancies himself to be in love with her it will do him no harm, only good, since she has such good sense and breeding." "Of course it will do him good and maybe it is not just fancy on his part. We Suttons have a way of deciding early and sticking to it. Eh, Margaret? I remember you had your hair in a plait and wore quite short skirts when I began to scheme how best to get a permanent seat by you on the train, and here I've got it!" and Mr. Sutton gave his portly wife a comfortable hug. "And Mag is having a splendid time with Lucy," continued that lady, accepting the hug with a smile. "Lucy is so quick and clever, no one could help liking her. I, for one, am glad the Carters have come." "What do you think is the matter with their mother? They always speak of her as an invalid. She looks well enough to me, although of course not robust like one beautiful lady I know." Mr. Sutton admired his wife so much that the flesh she was taking on just made her that much more beautiful in his eyes. He thought there could not be too much of a good thing. "Invalid indeed! She is just spoiled and lazy," declared Mrs. Sutton who was all energy and industry. "She is attractive enough but I should hate to be her daughter." "Yes, and I'd hate to be her husband, too!" The Suttons had been most pleasant and hospitable to their new neighbors, although there could not have been two women brought together so dissimilar as Mrs. Sutton and Mrs. Carter. Mrs. Carter considered her mission in life to be as beautiful as possible and also charming. Mrs. Sutton had never had time to think what her mission in life was, she was so busy doing the things it seemed important to do. She was first of all the wife of a successful farmer and that meant eternal vigilance on her part, as the success of a farm depends so much on the management of women. Next she was the mother of two healthy, normal children who must be trained in the way they should go. After that she was an important member of a community where her progressive spirit was needed and appreciated. Her home, Preston, was where the Ladies' Aid met and worked and kept the little church out of debt; there was headquarters for the Traveling Library; there the Magazine Club read and swapped periodicals. She was president of the Preston Equal Suffrage League, a struggling but valorous band, and now that work of organizations was sorely needed for suffering humanity, this same league was rolling bandages and making comfort kits for the Allies, showing that votes for women was not the only thing it could work for. Truly Mrs. Sutton was a busy and happy woman. But we are forgetting that the weather seemed destined to become our topic! Certainly the Suttons are a more agreeable subject than the weather our girls were fated to endure. Of course the sun can't shine all the time and in the natural course of events October days must shorten into November days and they in turn into December, with nights growing longer and longer and days shorter and shorter and both of them colder and colder. Drizzling rains must fall, even if a trusting family has taken its abode in a weather-beaten old house, up a muddy lane that must be walked through to reach the station. "'In winter I get up at night And dress by early candle light,'" yawned Nan one morning as the alarm went off, warning her it was time to rouse herself and Lucy. Lucy had curled up in a little ball, having gone to bed without quite enough cover. It had turned cold and damp during the night, a heavy rain had kept up for hours and now at six in the morning it was drizzling dismally. "I don't see how we can go to town to-day," sighed Nan, peering out of the window. "It is so dark and gloomy." "I reckon the lane will be awfully muddy," said Lucy, reluctantly uncurling herself, "and I believe I left my rubbers at school that time I took them in when I thought it was going to rain and it didn't." "You'll have to borrow Helen's." "Gee! Isn't it cold?" and Lucy drew back the foot she had tentatively poked out of bed. "I wish we could live in a steam-heated house again." Valhalla was heated by open fireplaces, drum stoves and the Grace of God, according to Chloe. There was a small stove in the younger girls' room, but up to this time they had not felt the necessity of having a fire. It seemed difficult on that rainy morning for everyone to awaken. Chloe's feet and then her reluctant legs came through the trap-door of her attic room and slowly down the chicken steps leading into the kitchen long after Helen had started the kerosene stove and put on the kettle. "I ain't slep' none," she declared when Helen remonstrated with her because of her tardiness. "The rain done leaked in on my haid an' I reckon I's gonter die er the ammonia." "Oh, I fancy not! A little water won't hurt you," said Helen, flying around the kitchen like a demented hen trying to scratch up a breakfast for her brood. "Hurry up and set the table, it is so late." "Won't hurt me! Lawsamussy, Miss Helen! Don't you know that niggers can't wash they haids in winter time? They do say they wool has deeper roots than what white folks' hair is got an' the water what touches they haids dreens plum down inter they brains." "Brains, did you say?" said Helen, but her sarcasm was lost on Chloe. "If it leaked on your head why didn't you move your bed? It leaked on Miss Douglas and me, too, but we moved the bed." "Well, I was in a kinder stupid an' looks like I couldn't raise han' or foot." "I can well believe it," muttered Helen. "Please set the table as fast as you can!" "Helen," cried Lucy, hurrying into the dining-room, "you'll have to lend me your rubbers! I left mine in town." "Have to?" "Well, please to!" "I hate for you to stretch my rubbers all out of shape." "Stretch 'em much! Your feet are bigger than mine." "That being the case I certainly won't lend them to be dropped off in the mud." "Children! Children!" admonished Douglas, hurrying to breakfast. "What are you quarreling about?" "Who shall be Cinderella!" drawled Nan. "And it seems a strange subject to dispute about on such a morning. For my part, I wish my feet were a quarter of a mile long and I could take three steps and land at the station." "It leaked in our room last night," said Lucy. "And ours!" chorused Helen and Douglas. "Mine, too! But I ain't a-keerin'," from Bobby. "My haid is done soaked up with leaks," grinned Chloe. "I really think Miss Ella and Miss Louise should have had the roof mended before we came," said Douglas. "Well, tonight we can go to bed with our umbrellas up," suggested Nan. "Yes! An' wake up a corp!" said Chloe dismally, as she handed the certainly not overdone biscuit. "It am sho' death ter hist a umbrell in the house." Nan and Lucy were finally off, forlorn little figures with raincoats and rubbers and dripping umbrellas. Helen's rubbers were a bit too small, much to that young lady's satisfaction and to Lucy's chagrin. "My feet will slim down some as I grow older, the shoe man told me. I betcher when I am as old as you are my feet will be smaller," said Lucy as she paddled off with the rubbers pulled on as far as she could get them. The road was passable until they got within a hundred yards of the station and then they struck a soft stretch of red clay that was the consistency of molasses candy about to be pulled. Nan clambered up an embankment, balancing herself on a very precarious path that hung over the road, but Lucy kept to the middle of the pike. "I hear the train!" cried Nan. "We must hurry!" "Hurry, indeed! How can anyone hurry through fudge?" and poor Lucy gave a wail of agony. She was stuck and stuck fast. "Come on!" begged Nan, but Lucy with an agonized countenance looked at her sister. "I'm stuck!" "If I come pull you out, I'll get stuck, too! What on earth are we to do?" "Throw me a plank," wailed Lucy in the tones of a drowning man. Her feet were going in deeper and deeper. Helen's rubbers were almost submerged and there seemed to be nothing to keep Lucy's shoes and finally Lucy from going the way of the rubbers. Nan dropped her books, umbrella and lunch on the bank and pulled a rail from the fence. Lucy clutched it and with a great pull and a sudden lurch which sent Nan backwards into the blackberry bushes, the younger girl came hurtling from what had threatened to become her muddy grave. The train was whistling, so they had to forego the giggling fit that was upon them and run for the station. The small branch that they must pass before they got there, was swollen beyond recognition, but one stepping-stone obligingly projected above water and with a mighty leap they were over. The accommodating accommodation train reached the station of Grantly before they did, but the kindly engineer and conductor waited patiently while the girls, puffing and panting, raced up the hill. They had hardly recovered their breath when Billy and Mag boarded the train at Preston. "Well, if you girls aren't spunky!" cried Billy admiringly as he sank in the seat by Nan, which Lucy had tactfully vacated, sharing the one with Mag. "Mag and I were betting you couldn't make it this morning." "We just did and that is all," laughed Nan, recounting the perils of the way. "And only look at my boots! Did you ever see such sights?" cried Lucy. "Oh, Heavens! One of Helen's rubbers is gone!" "That must have happened when I fished you out with the fence rail. I heard a terrible sough but didn't realize what it meant. They were so much too small for you," said Nan. "Small, indeed! They were too big. Their coming off proves they were too big," insisted Lucy. "I'm glad your feet didn't come off too, then," teased Nan. "At one time I thought they were going to." Billy produced a very shady handkerchief from a hip pocket and proceeded to wipe off the girls' shoes, while he sang the sad song of the Three Flies: "'There were three flies inclined to roam, They thought they were tired of staying at home, So away they went with a skip and a hop Till they came to the door of a grocer-ri shop. "'Away they went with a merry, merry buz-zz, Till they came to a tub of mo-las-i-uz, They never stopped a minute But plunged right in it And rubbed their noses and their pretty wings in it. "'And there they stuck, and stuck, and stuck, And there they cussed their miserable luck, With nobody by But a greenbottle fly Who didn't give a darn for their miser-ri.'" "But what I am worrying about," he continued when his song had been applauded, "is how you are going to get home. Our car has been put out of commission for the winter. Mag and I had to foot it over the hill this morning, but our path is high and dry, while the road to Grantly is something fierce. If you get off at Preston and go home with us, I'll get a rig and drive you over." "No, indeed, we couldn't think of it," objected Nan. "This is only the beginning of winter and we can't get off at Preston every day and impose on you and your father's horses to get us home. We shall just have to get some top boots and get through the mud somehow." "But you don't know that stream. If it was high this morning, by afternoon it will be way up. The Misses Grant should have told you what you were to expect. They should have a bridge there, but it seems Miss Ella wants a rustic bridge and Miss Louise thinks a stone bridge would be better, so they go a century with nothing but a ford." "Going home I mean to pull another rail off the fence and do some pole vaulting," declared Lucy. "I hope I can find Helen's big old rubber I left sticking in the mud." "It may stay there until the spring thawing," said Mag. "You had better stick to the path going home. It is better to stick than get stuck." "I wish I had some stilts," sighed Nan. "They would carry me over like seven league boots." "Can you walk on them?" asked Billy. "Sure! Walking on stilts is my one athletic stunt," laughed Nan. "I haven't tried for years but I used to do it with extreme grace." That afternoon Billy had a mysterious package that he stowed under the seats in the coach. "What on earth is that?" demanded Mag. "Larroes to catch meddlers!" "Please, Billy!" "Well, it's nothing but some fence rails to help Nan and Lucy get home. I'm afraid the Misses Grant will object if they pull down a fence every time they get stuck in the mud." The parcel proved to contain two pairs of bright red stilts found at a gentleman's furnishing store. They had been used to advertise a certain grade of very reliable trousers, of an English cut. Just before the train reached Preston Billy unearthed them and presented Nan and Lucy each with a pair. "Here are some straps, too, to put on your books to sling them over your shoulders. You can't walk on stilts and carry things in your hands at the same time. Tie your umbrellas to the stilts! So long!" and Billy fled from the coach before the delighted girls could thank him. Going home over the muddy road was very different from the walk they had taken that morning. In the first place it had stopped raining and their umbrellas could be closed and tied to the stilts. The air was cold and crisp now and there was a hint of snow. They stopped in the little station long enough to strap their books securely and get their packs on their backs, and then, mounting their steeds, they started on their way rejoicing. "I wonder if I can walk," squealed Nan. "It has been years and years since I tried," and she balanced herself daintily on the great long red legs. "Of course you can! Once a stilt walker, always a stilt walker!" cried Lucy, starting bravely off. Nan found the art was not lost and followed her sister down the muddy hill to the branch. Billy was right: it had been high in the morning but was much higher in the afternoon. The one stepping-stone that had kept its nose above water on their trip to town was now completely submerged. "Ugggh!" exclaimed Lucy. "My legs are floating!" And indeed it was a difficult feat to walk through deep rushing water on stilts. They have a way of floating off unless you put them down with a most determined push and bear your whole weight on them as you step. "Look at me! I can get through the water if I goose step!" cried Nan. "Isn't this the best fun ever? Oh, Nan, I pretty near love Billy for thinking of such a thing. Don't you?" "Well, I wouldn't say love exactly." "I would! I can't see the use in beating 'round the bush about such matters. He is certainly the nicest person we know and does more kind things for us." "He is nice and I do like him a lot," confessed Nan. "Better than the count and Mr. Tom Smith?" "I don't see what they have to do with it," and Nan got rosy from her exertion of goose stepping through the water and up the muddy hill. "Well, the old count talked about taking a trip with you to the land of dreaming, wherever that is, and Tom Smith took you on fine flying bats, but Billy here, he gets some stilts for you and lets you help yourself through the mud. I say, give me Billy every time!" "Billy is a nice boy; but Count de Lestis is an elegant, cultured gentleman; and Tom Smith--Tom Smith--he--he----" "I guess you are right--Tom Smith, Tom Smith he he! But flying machines wouldn't do much good here in the mud, and stilts will get us over the branch dry shod. There's Helen's rubber!" and Lucy adroitly lifted the little muddy shoe out of the mire on the end of one of her stilts and with a skillful twist of the wrist flopped it onto dry ground. When they reached the top of the hill where the road became better they hid their stilts in the bushes, up close to the fence, carefully covering them with dry leaves and brush. "Our flamingo legs," Nan called them. During that winter many times the girls crossed the swollen stream on those red stilts and truly thanked the kind Billy Sutton who had thought of them. They would cache them under the little station, there patiently and safely to await their return. It was always hard to walk through the water and on one dire occasion when the stream was outdoing itself, having burst all bounds and spread far up on the road, poor Nan goose stepped too far and fell backwards in the water. Fortunately it was on her homeward journey and she could get to Valhalla and change her dripping garments. She came across the following limerick of Frost's which she gleefully learned, feeling that it suited her case exactly: "'There was once a gay red flamingo Who said: By the Great Jumping Jingo! I've been in this clime An uncommon long time But have not yet mastered their lingo.'" CHAPTER XI PARADISE It was astonishing how quickly that winter of 1916 and '17 passed for those sojourners in Valhalla in spite of the fact that they were at times thoroughly uncomfortable. It is not an easy matter for persons, brought up in a modern, steam-heated house with three bath rooms, every form of convenience and plenty of trained servants, to adapt themselves to the simplicity of country life and that in its most primitive state. Hard as the life was it agreed with them, one and all. Douglas and Bobby walked to school, rain or shine, but their road lay in the uplands where the mud rarely got more than ankle deep. Nan and Lucy had to contend with much more serious conditions, but thanks to their flamingo legs they got by. The weather wasn't always bad by any means. There were wonderful clear sparkling days with the ground frozen hard, and then came the snow that meant sleigh rides with the Suttons and grand coasting parties. Mr. Carter was growing very robust from his labors of stopping up cracks and cutting fire wood. He gradually mended the leaks in the roof; puttied in the window panes; replaced the broken hinges and fastenings to doors and shutters; propped up sagging porch floors; and patched the cracked and fallen plastering. The Misses Grant viewed his efforts with mingled satisfaction and embarrassment. "We have intended to do all this for you, Mr. Carter, but Ella was so stubborn about the carpenter. She never would agree to having that new man at Preston, who is really quite capable," Miss Louise would explain. "Certainly not! We knew nothing about him and have always employed Dave Trigg----" "But you know perfectly well that Dave Trigg is doubled up with rheumatism," snapped Miss Louise. "Yes, and you know perfectly well, too, that that man at Preston has moved away," retaliated her tall sister, and so on would they wrangle. "I enjoy doing it," Mr. Carter would assure them. "My only fear is that I will get the place in such good order that you will raise our rent." Which sally would delight the souls of the ladies who were in danger of agreeing about one more thing, and that was the altogether desirability of the Carters and the especial desirability of Mr. Carter. Accepting Mrs. Carter at the extremely high valuation of her patient family, they were ever kind and considerate of her. Many were the dainty little dishes they sent to Valhalla from the great house to tempt the palate of their semi-invalid tenant, vying with each other in their attentions. "An' she jes' sets back an' takes it," Chloe would mutter. "Mis' Carter done set back so much that settin' back come nachel ter her now. "'My name is Jimmie An' I take all yer gimme.' "That's my ol' Mis'." Chloe and Helen had continued the lessons in reading and writing. The whitewashed kitchen walls bore evidence to much hard work on part of both teacher and pupil. Chloe had learned to cook many simple dishes and to write and spell all she cooked. By slow stages, so slow they were almost imperceptible, the girl was becoming an efficient servant. Her wages were raised to eight dollars a month in spite of the remonstrances of her sister Tempy, who thought she must serve as long as she had before she could make as much. "Sis Tempy been a-goin' over ter night school at the count's ev'y time she gits a chanst but she ain't ter say larned nothin'." Helen and Chloe were engaged in the delectable task of making mince pies for Christmas. Chloe had just electrified Helen by writing on the wall of her own accord: "Reseat fer miCe Pize." "What does she learn?" asked Helen, smiling as she deftly rolled the pastry. "She say they done started a kinder 'batin' siety an' ain't ter say foolin' much with readin' an' writin' an' sich. The secondary ain't so patient as what you is, an' he uster git kinder worked up whin the niggers wint ter sleep in school." "I fancy that would be trying." "They's drillin' 'em now an' they likes that 'cause the secondary done promised them from the count that some day he'll gib 'em uniforms. Niggers is allus keen on begalia." "Does Tempy drill, too?" "Lawsamussy, no! Women folks jes' sets an' watches. Tempy say she done march aroun' enough fer Miss Ellanlouise, an' as fer flingin' broomsticks--she does enough of that 'thout no German gemmun a-showin' her nothin' 'bout how ter do it." "Do they drill with broomsticks?" "Yassum, that's what they tell me, but they do say----" "Say what?" asked Helen as the colored girl hesitated. "They don't say nothin'!" "You started to tell me something they say about broomsticks." "I ain't started ter tell a thing!" and Chloe shut her mouth very tight and rolled her eyes back in a way she had that made you think she was going to turn herself inside out. "What do they debate about?" asked Helen amused at Chloe's sudden reserve. "They 'spute 'bout the pros an' cons of racin'." "Horse racing?" "I ain't so sho', but from what Sis Tempy done tol' me it mought be an' agin it moughtn't." "Does Tempy debate?" "Sis Tempy! Yi! Yi!" and Chloe went off in peals of laughter. "Sis Tempy can't argyfy with nothin' but a rollin' pin. She done put up a right good argymint only las' Sunday with her beau, that big slue-footed nigger, Jeemes Hanks." "What was the argument about?" "Jeemes he done say he's jes' as good as any white folks an' some better'n a heap er them. He say his vote don't count none an' he ain't able ter buy no good lan' jes' 'cause de white folks won't sell him none up clost ter they homes,--an' Sis Tempy ups an' tells him that his vote ain't no count 'cause he ain't no count hisse'f. She tells him that buzzards lays buzzard eggs an' buzzard eggs hatches out mo' buzzards; an' that made him hoppin' mad 'cause that nigger Jeemes sho' do set great sto' by hisse'f." "Does James feel that white people ought to sell him land whether they want to or not?" "'Zactly! He been wantin' ter buy a strip from Miss Ellanlouise up yander by the clarin', not so fur from the great house. They's glad enough ter sell some er that rocky lan' off over by the gravel pit, but they don't want no niggers fer clost neighbors." "And what did Tempy say?" "She never said nothin'. She jes' up'n driv him out'n the cabin with the rollin' pin. She tells him while she's a-lickin' him, though, that he's a-larnin' his a-b-c's upside down at the count's school an' fer her part she ain't a-goin' back." "Do you think the count is responsible for James's nonsense?" asked Helen. "I can't see how he got such notions from a gentleman like the count." "I ain't a-sayin'! I ain't a-sayin'!" and once more Chloe's mouth went shut with a determined click and she rolled her great eyes. Helen thought no more about it. Darkies were funny creatures, anyhow. Of course it was hard on James Hanks if he wanted to buy good ground and no one would sell it to him, but on the other hand one could hardly expect the Misses Grant to sell off their ancestral acres just to accommodate the slue-footed beau of their cook. Miss Ella and Louise were entirely unreconstructed as far as the colored people were concerned. They were kind to them when they were ill and helped them in many ways, but they never for an instant lost sight of the fact that they were of an inferior race nor did they let the darkies lose sight of the fact. They were not very popular with their negro neighbors although they were mutually dependent. Grantly had to depend on colored labor and many families among them got their entire living from Grantly. The medicine chest at the great house furnished castor oil and paregoric for all the sick pickaninnies for miles around; Miss Louise had to make up great jars of her wintergreen ointment so that the aching joints of many an old aunty or uncle might find some ease; while Miss Ella's willow bark and wild cherry tonic warded off chills and fevers from the mosquito infested districts down in the settlement in the swamps. The older members of the community of negroes appreciated the real goodness and kindness of the two old ladies and overlooked their overbearing ways, but the younger generation, who cared not for the ointment or tonic, could see nothing but arrogance in the really harmless old spinsters. Most of the former slaves, who had at one time belonged to Grantly, had passed away. The few who remained were old and feeble and these had many arguments with the younger ones, trying to make them see the real kindness and goodness of Miss Ellanlouise. "You done got fat on castor ile out'n the chist at Grantly whin you was a sickly baby," old Uncle Abe Hanks would say to his refractory grandson Jeemes. "An' you an' yo' paw befo' you was pulled from the grabe by parrygoric from dat same chist, an' now you set up here an' say: 'Down with southe'n 'ristocrats!' Humph! You'd better be a-sayin': 'Down with the castor ile an' parrygoric!' 'Down with the good strong soup an' fat back Miss Ellanlouise done sent yo' ol' gran'pap las' winter whin there warn't hide or har er his own flesh an' blood come nigh him!' Yes! They went down all right--down the red lane. You free niggers is got the notion you kin live 'thout the 'ristocrats. Why don't you go an' live 'thout 'em then? Nobody ain't a-holdin' you. As fer me--gib me 'ristocrats ev'y time!" "The Count de Lestis is as 'ristocratical as those ol' tabbies," the grandson would reply sullenly, "and he doesn't treat a colored gemman like he was a houn' dog." "'Ristocratical much! That furrener? You ain't got good sinse, boy. That there pretty little count didn't even come from Virginny an' all the 'ristocrats done come from Virginny one time er anudder. I done hear Ol' Marster say dat time an' time agin." "The count say he gonter sell us all the lan' we want. An' he say he gonter fetch over some nice, kind white folks ter live neighbors to us; white folks what is jes' as good as these white folks 'roun' here but who ain't a-gonter hol' theyselves so proudified like." "Yes! I kin see him now tu'nnin' loose a lot er po' white Guinnies what will take the bread out'n the mouth er the nigger. Them po' white furreners kin live on buzzard meat, an' dey don' min' wuckin' day in an' day out, an' if'n dey gits a holt in the lan' the nigger'll hab ter go. As fer a-livin' long side er niggers,--I tell you now, son, that the white folks what don't min' a-livin' long side er niggers is wuss'n niggers, an' I can't say no mo' scurrilous thing about them than that--wuss'n niggers!" A strong discontent was certainly brewing among the younger generation of negroes. Conversations similar to the one between Uncle Abe Hanks and James were not uncommon in the settlement that lay midway between Grantly and Weston. This settlement was known by the exceedingly appropriate name of Paradise. There were about a dozen cabins there, some of them quite comfortable and neat, others very poor and forlorn. There was a church, the pride of their simple hearts because it was built of brick; also a ramshackled old building known as "The Club." This club had originally been a tobacco barn, built, of course, without windows, for the curing of tobacco. In converting it into a club house, windows had been cut in the sides but with no fixed plan. Wherever a member decided it would be nice to have a window, a window was cut. No two were the same size or on the same level. Most of them were more or less on the slant, giving the building the appearance of having survived an earthquake. In this club house the secret societies met to hold their mysterious rites. Here they had their festivals and bazaars and sometimes, when the effects of protracted meetings had worn off and the ungodly were again to the fore, they would have dances that threatened to bring down the walls and roof of the rickety building. It was whispered through the county that a blind tiger was also operated there but this was not proven. Certainly there was much drunkenness at times in Paradise, considering the state was dry. Count de Lestis was very popular in Paradise. He always had a kind word for old and young. Then, too, he had work for them and paid them well. His fame spread and actually there was a boom in Paradise. Other negroes in settlements near by were anxious to move to Paradise. Town lots were in demand and the club had a waiting list for membership. The church was full to overflowing when on Sunday Brother Si took his stand in the little pulpit. Night school at Weston was something new and something to do, so the darkies flocked to it. Herz, the secretary, had his hands full trying to teach the mob that congregated three times a week to sit at the feet of learning. He did get angry occasionally when his pupils, tired out no doubt after a hard day's work, would fall asleep with audible attestations. CHAPTER XII HERZ Herz was in such strong contrast to his employer, the count, that he gave Helen and Douglas quite a shock when they first met him. They had walked over to Weston with their father, who had been prevailed upon to take the order for the restoration of the old mansion. Dr. Wright had been consulted as to the advisability of his trying to do this work and had approved of it as being something to occupy his patient without making him nervous. It meant many trips to Weston on the part of Mr. Carter and equally many to Valhalla on the part of the count. De Lestis had done very little talking about Herz, mentioning him usually rather in the tone of one speaking of a servant, but Helen came to the opinion the moment she looked at him that there was nothing servile about him; on the contrary, he was evidently the more intellectual of the two men. He was a little younger than the count, much taller, with broad spare shoulders and a back as straight as a board. His blue eyes were very near sighted, necessitating the wearing of very thick lenses in his large gold-rimmed spectacles. His hair was yellow and grew straight up on his head like wheat stubble. His brow was broad and high and well shaped. He really was a handsome man except that his mouth was too full lipped and so very red. His English was perfect with no touch of accent as with the count. He said he had been born in Cincinnati and his father was a naturalized American, so even Douglas, the strong pro ally, had to accept him as German in name only. Weston was a good three miles from Grantly by the road, but much closer if one took a path through the woods, skirting Paradise and approaching the old house from the rear. Truly it had been a grand estate in its day and de Lestis was determined to restore it to its pristine glory. He had owned the place about a year and had accomplished much in that time. The fences and gates were in perfect repair; the fields showed that good farming theories had already been put into practice; the woods, that some knowledge of forestry had been applied, as the undergrowth had been cleared away and useless timber been cut down to give room to valuable trees. "What a lot of money must have been spent here," said Douglas, noting the new fencing and well-built barns as they approached the house. "Yes, de Lestis seems to have unlimited supplies of cash. I fancy he is a man of great wealth," said Mr. Carter. "I have ordered a Delco light to be installed in his house. He spares no expense in restoring the old place. I was rather opposed to having the new lighting system. It seems such an anomaly in a colonial mansion." "But, Daddy, you wouldn't want the count to grope his way around with tallow dips," laughed Helen. "I fancy that was what was used when Weston was first built." "I'd have him do it rather than ruin the architectural effect of such a wonderful old house; but de Lestis has his own ideas about things and all he wants of me, after all, is to do the work of a contractor. As for Herz,--he has better taste than de Lestis, I believe." "Tell us about Herz, Daddy. You never have told us what he is like," demanded Helen. "You judge for yourselves," answered the father. The truth was that Mr. Carter had not known just what to make of Herz. Clever he was certainly and no underling, as they had gathered from de Lestis. This was the girls' first visit to Weston although the count had urged their coming many times. Douglas's school was dismissed for the Christmas holidays and she felt like a bird out of the cage: two whole weeks of delightful freedom ahead of her! Teaching had come easy to her and she had conquered Bobby and the other unruly pupils and felt that she was in a way getting on top of her work. The days passed rapidly and her school was in a fine condition, enthusiastic pupils and eager students. Nevertheless it was great to be having a holiday and she meant to make the most of it. She and Helen were planning a trip to Richmond after Christmas to visit Cousin Elizabeth Somerville. Lewis was stationed there with his company and his duties not being so very arduous, he hoped to spend much time with his favorite cousin. Valhalla was very lovely and the girls had grown very fond of it. Their plans for their father were working out and they knew they had done right in taking the place and moving the family to the country, but nevertheless they were looking forward with pleasure to the visit to Richmond and release from all of their duties for a few days. What glowing girls they were! Robert Carter looked at them with pardonable pride as they tramped through the woods, their cheeks crimson with the exercise in the cold air. How they had shown the "mettle of their pasture" when the time came for them to take hold! He had always known that Douglas had a certain bulldog tenacity that would make her keep her grip no matter what happened, but Helen had astonished him. When something had snapped in his tired brain he had instinctively turned to Douglas as the person to decide for the family welfare, but Helen had shown herself capable far beyond his hopes. He well knew that her part of the work was most difficult, and he saw with wonder her patience with her mother and with the seemingly impossible Chloe. "I'll make it all up to them," he said to himself. The doctor's prescription of country life and freedom from care with plenty of occupation for his hands was working wonders. This work he had been doing for de Lestis was not taxing his mind at all, and he suddenly realized that it was not because it was so easy but because his mind was in working order again. He felt his old power coming back to him, the power of concentration, of initiative. Sometimes he would try to lie awake at night just for the pleasure of feeling himself to be well. His illness had been a blessing in disguise since it had brought out all this latent fineness in his girls. It had somehow made them more beautiful, too, at least they seemed so in the eyes of their doting father. Approaching Weston from the rear, no one was in sight. Smoke arising from the kitchen chimney gave evidence of a servant's being somewhere. The yard was in perfect order, with no unsightly ash pile or tin cans to offend the eye. To one side Mr. Carter pointed out the rose garden that the count had taken much care of, spending hundreds of dollars on every known variety that would flourish in that latitude. Beyond were greenhouses and hot beds that furnished lettuce and cauliflower and spinach through the winter for the master's delicate palate. "Isn't it lovely?" gasped Helen. "It must be splendid to be rich." Mounting the broad steps leading to the pillared gallery they heard voices speaking in some foreign language, they could not tell whether it was German or not, and then a loud laugh and "Ach Gott!" in the count's unmistakable baritone. Through the window they saw the two men, de Lestis and Herz, bending over a table spread with papers. Herz was pointing out something to his employer which seemed to delight him, as he was laughing heartily. This was gathered only by one glance, as immediately the Carters passed beyond the angle through which they could view the interior of the room and Mr. Carter knocked on the front door. The door was not opened for several minutes. Evidently the count employed servants for such tasks and did not believe in opening doors with his own august hands. Helen gave an impatient rat tat again. She was not fond of waiting. The door was opened suddenly and by the count. "Ah! My good friends!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I did not expect you until tomorrow, my dear Mr. Carter." "I came a day sooner because my daughters could come with me." "And what an honor!" He ushered them into the room where they had viewed him for the moment in passing. There were no papers on the table now and everything was in perfect order. The secretary was standing at attention, awaiting an introduction to the ladies. He bowed from his waist up, shutting up like a jack-knife. He had not the easy, graceful manners of the count, but seemed much blunter and less polished. One could not fancy his kissing the hand of a lady as the count was famous for doing. Love at first sight is supposed to happen only in books but it does happen sometimes in real life, and on that frosty day in December it came to pass in the library at Weston, came like a flash of lightning, came without warning and without being wanted. Certainly the secretary had not wanted to stop the work he was engaged in that seemed to be so engrossing; he did not even want to meet these Carter girls but had been forced into it by his employer. What good would it do him to fall in love? He cared not a whit for women, anyhow, despised them in fact. But the little blind god, Cupid, took none of these things into consideration. He simply let fly his dart and as Adolph Herz straightened himself up after making his stiff, jack-knife bow, the arrow hit him square in his heart. It was a toss of the penny which sister it should be; both of them were lovely, both of them rosy and charming. He looked at Douglas first, however, and never saw Helen at all, at least, seemed not to. He did not take his eyes from Douglas's face during the entire call. "Has the lighting system come yet?" asked Mr. Carter. "It should have been here by now." "Did you order one?" asked the count. "I understood I was to send the order and have done so. You sent it off, did you not, Herz?" "Certainly! A week ago!" "But you told me to order it," insisted Mr. Carter. "I am sure you did." "Why, that is all right, my dear fellow," said the count very kindly. "If both of them come it will make no difference. I can install one of them in the barn and garage." "Oh, but I cannot let you have the expense of both if I was at fault," and Mr. Carter looked distressed. Was his head not behaving as it should, after all? "Why, my dear Mr. Carter, it might easily have been my mistake and I cannot have you bothered about it. The expense is trifling. Miss Helen, help me to persuade your father that it is nothing." The count's manner was so kindly and he seemed so anxious to make Mr. Carter feel that if any mistake had been made he, the count, had made it that Helen was deeply grateful. How much she liked this foreign nobleman, anyhow. He was always so gracious, so suave, so elegant. His heart must be tender, his disposition good, or how could he make all of the poor colored people like him so much? Helen was fully aware of the fact that the count was attracted by her, but there had been times when she was sure he was equally taken with Douglas, and certainly his manner to Nan on several occasions had been one of devotion. He always seemed to be coming out on the train with Nan and Lucy, and Lucy had intimated that he had caused Billy Sutton many sad hours by "hogging" the seat by Nan. Could he be a flirt? Helen put the thought from her. She hated a male flirt. Nevertheless she was conscious of the fact that she had a little tiny twinge of jealousy, so tiny that it was only a speck, but it was there. "It's Douglas's hair and Nan's eyes," she thought. "I believe he thinks I'm more interesting than they are, though," and then she took herself to task for a foolish, vain girl. "What difference does it make to me, anyhow? What do we know of this stranger and what is he to us?" Now the girls gave their attention to the estate, for they were naturally interested in the work their father had undertaken. The workmen were through, carpenters, plasterers and painters, and the place had been turned over to Count de Lestis. Very beautiful it was and one for any owner to be proud of. The spacious hall, with its waxed floor and beautiful stairway with mahogany treads and bannisters, was as fine an example of southern colonial as one could find in the whole of Virginia. The furnishings were in keeping with the general plan of the house, as at Mr. Carter's suggestion an antique dealer and decorator from Richmond had had his finger in the pie. Much of the furniture had been bought with the house, being old mahogany that had been at Weston for more than a century. "How lovely it is!" gasped Helen as the doors to the great dining-room were thrown open. "I am so glad you like it," whispered the count in a very meaning tone. "I have your father to thank for its being so complete. Never have I seen work carried on so rapidly. I was afraid I would be living in the discomfort of shavings and mortar beds for months to come." "Daddy is always like that," said Helen smiling. Nothing pleased Helen so much as praise of her father. "He can always make workmen work. They say in Richmond that not even plumbers disappoint him. He always turns over his houses on time unless there is something absolutely unforeseen, like a strike or something." "I am indeed fortunate in having prevailed upon him to do this for me." "But he has enjoyed doing it so much. You see Daddy has not been able to work for so long and I think he had begun to feel that maybe he had lost out, and this proves that he hasn't. He does not know how to be idle. Why last summer when he was supposed to do nothing but rest he drew the plans and built bird houses for Bobby." "Ah, indeed! I am so glad you reminded me of something. Mr. Carter," he called to that gentleman who was critically examining some electric wiring recently put in ready for the Delco batteries which were on the way, "I want now some plans for bird houses if such trivial work is not beneath you. I want bird houses for every kind of feathered songster that can be attracted and persuaded to live at Weston." "How wonderful!" cried Helen and Douglas in chorus. Douglas had been engaged in conversation by the secretary, who was limbering up in an amazing manner. He was most attentive, showing her into every nook and cranny of the old house. He opened sideboards and cabinets to reveal the exquisite finish of the satinwood drawers and shelves; he took down bits of rare old china from the plate rack in the dining-room, explaining the marks on the bottoms. He was so kind that Douglas almost liked him, but not quite. "Adolph Herz is too German in sound," the Anglo-Saxon in her cried out. "And then his mouth! It is so red!" "Certainly I'll enjoy drawing plans for bird houses," laughed Mr. Carter. "I shall even take pleasure in carpentering them. They are really lots of fun to make." "I agree with you," said Herz. "Simply drawing a design is never so much pleasure as carrying it out. How a sculptor can be willing to do only the clay modeling of his statue and then let someone else carve the marble is more than I can understand. When I think of something to be done, I must do it myself--trust it to no one." "Well, I am a lazy bones myself and anyone can do my work," laughed the count. "Now Adolph here has drawn the plan for a pigeon house and he wants to build it himself. I tell him it is absurd, that any carpenter can carry out his ideas, but he will not listen to me. Adolph is a very stubborn man, Miss Carter." He addressed this remark to Douglas who smiled at the young secretary. He was frowning heavily and his full lips were drawn into a hard red line. The count caught his eye and gave him a bantering look in return. "Come on, Adolph, and show Mr. Carter your plans for the pigeon house!" "They are not completed," he answered sullenly. "I am quite a pigeon fancier," went on the master of Weston. "They are charming birds to raise and one can make much money on squabs. We are going into pigeon raising quite seriously. I think we shall build a very large house. Eh, Adolph?" "Where will you put the pigeon house?" asked Mr. Carter. "Right there on the roof, about in the centre of the house," said the count, pointing to the top of the mansion. "Not there! Surely you would not do such a thing!" cried Helen incredulously. "Why not?" "It would ruin the architectural effect of Weston," declared Mr. Carter. "I think not!" "Well, I know it would," maintained the architect stoutly. "Why, de Lestis, all of my work would be as nothing if you should put a pigeon house there. I beg of you not to!" "But, my dear Mr. Carter, I am a pigeon fancier and want my pigeons at a point where I can watch them twirling and dipping. I love their cooing, too." "All right! It is your house and you can do as you choose with it, but please do not mention me as the architect who restored the place. I cannot stand for such a piece of Philistinism." Mr. Carter laughed as he made the above remark, but his daughters knew by a certain look in his eyes that he was angry. "Are you to have carrier pigeons?" asked Douglas, hoping to relieve the company of an embarrassment that seemed to have fallen upon it. The secretary still had his mouth drawn in a stern line although he had smoothed his frowning brow. Helen was plainly put out at the count's daring to go against her father's artistic taste, while Count de Lestis seemed to be taking a kind of delight in teasing everybody. "If you will promise to send me a message, I will," he answered gallantly. "Oh, that would be great fun! I have never seen a carrier pigeon." The count then devoted himself to Douglas for the rest of the visit, showing her the pantry shelves that he had on one occasion expressed himself as desirous for Helen to pass on. "All we need now is a lady of the manor," he said in a low tone. "It is not meet for man to live alone." Douglas looked at him quite frankly, her blue eyes steady as she gazed into his black ones. "Can't your mother come and keep house for you?" she asked quite simply. There was no flirting in Douglas Carter's make-up. Herz, who refused to go far from her in spite of the count's sudden devoted attentions, relaxed his grim expression that he had held ever since the pigeon house had been the subject of conversation. His mouth broke into a smile and his easy manner returned. The Carters soon took their departure, although the master of the house was insistent that they should stay to tea with them. "We must get back to Valhalla," declared Douglas. "Valhalla! Is that the name of your place?" asked Herz. "That is the name my sister Nan gave it. She says we are all more or less dead warriors when the day is over. I don't like giving it such a German name myself, but Nan says poetry is universal and---- Oh! I beg your pardon!" The girl had forgotten that her companion was of German birth. "Do you dislike the Germans so much?" he asked. "Not the German people----" she stammered. "Just the Imperial Government!" "But aren't the people the Government?" "I hope not." "Ah, so Miss Carter has opened fire on you, too, has she?" laughed de Lestis. "If there were more fighters like her among the Allies, poor Germany would have her banners trailing in the dust by now." "I did not mean to be rude to Mr. Herz," said Douglas. "I am too prejudiced in favor of France and England to remember my manners. If I have injured you, I beg your pardon," and she gave the secretary her hand in good-by. He blushed like a schoolgirl and stammered out some unintelligible something. De Lestis renewed his attentions to Helen just as though he had not been hovering over her sister with tender nothings. "He is a flirt!" thought Helen. "I think I can give him as good as he sends, but I am beginning to hate him." She dimpled to his remarks, however, and as she bade him good-by at the door she smiled saucily into his eyes. "To think of that man's being willing to ruin his roof line," sighed Mr. Carter as he and his daughters started on their homeward walk. "Just look how beautiful it is," pointing to the old chimneys where the roof melted into the sky. "It is a shame," cried Helen. "But how cold it is! There now, I left my gloves on the library table." "Run back and get them, honey; Douglas and I will wait for you here by the stile." Helen ran back. Once more she glanced into the library where on their arrival they had caught a glimpse of the two men bending over the papers. Now what was her astonishment to see the secretary actually shaking the count, who was laughing heartily. The secretary's eyes were flashing as he blurted out the words: "Fool! Fool!" The count opened the door quickly this time at her knock. "Your gloves! I found them and almost hoped you would leave them with me, but the little hands would have been so cold. Indeed, they are so cold," and he gallantly kissed them. Helen seized her gloves and with glowing cheeks raced back to her father and sister. She gave her hands a vigorous rubbing on her grey corduroy skirt before she put on her gloves as though she might rub off the kiss. In the excitement over the dénouement of the visit she forgot for the time being that she had caught the secretary shaking his employer and calling him a fool. CHAPTER XIII GOOSE STEPPING The winter wore on. Our warriors were fighting the good fight and each night as they gathered round the cheerful fire in the great chimney in the living-room at Valhalla they had tales to tell of difficulties overcome. Of course there were failures, many of them, but each failure meant a lesson learned and better luck next time. Douglas had days when the little ideas refused to shoot and her pupils seemed to be just so many wooden dolls, but she learned the rare lesson, that teachers must learn if they are to be successful: when a class won't learn, and can't learn, and doesn't want to learn, there is something the matter with the teacher. When she came to this realization she took herself to task, and the dark days came farther and farther apart. The letter she had written Dr. Wright had had a most salutary effect on Bobby. That young physician had taken the naughty boy for a long ride and had given him a man to man talk, first temporarily dismissing him from his employ and sternly forbidding him to hold out his hand when they were going around corners. He was not allowed to blow the horn at dangerous curves and all of his honors were stripped from him. "It nearly killed me to do it," George Wright confessed to Helen. "I couldn't look him in the eye for fear of weakening, but he took it like the little man he is. I fancy Douglas will have no more trouble with him for a while. I am glad she asked me to help her out. It is no joke to teach your own flesh and blood. Bobby says he thought that Douglas was just playing school and he didn't know he was really bothering her. He knows now and is even prepared to lick any boy not twice his size who disturbs his sister." Count de Lestis seemed to have much business that took him away from Weston. Sometimes he was gone for several weeks at a time, but when he returned he would drop in at Valhalla as though he had not been away at all. He was always a welcome visitor. Mrs. Carter greeted him as a long lost friend. He seemed to be the incarnation of the social world to the poor little lady, destined to spend her days out of her element. Mr. Carter had almost forgiven him the pigeon house, but not quite. "There is something lacking, somehow, in a man who would do such a thing," he had declared to Helen. The pigeon house was built by the secretary, according to his own plans and specifications, and placed on the roof, where it loomed an eyesore to the artistic. Truly they seemed to be going into pigeon raising in good earnest. It was a huge affair, large enough to accommodate many pigeons; and then, with the careless expenditure of money that seemed to characterize the master of Weston, crates of pigeons arrived and were installed in their new quarters. "The carrier pigeons have not come, but when they do I'll bring one to you," the count said to Douglas, "and you must promise to send me a message." The girl laughingly promised. The count was still doing what Helen called "browsing." He flitted from sister to sister, whispering his tender nothings and for the moment seeming all devotion to the one with whom he happened to be. "Thank goodness, I found out in time what a flirt he is!" Helen whispered to her inmost self. "Once, for just a fraction of a second, I was jealous of Douglas and of Nan, too. His house is so lovely and he is so rich and handsome and so fascinating, and I do so hate to be poor! But I can't abide a male flirt!" Nevertheless, Helen was very glad to see the count when he called at Valhalla and she was very successful in hiding her real feelings from that gentleman, who twirled his saucy moustache in masculine satisfaction when he thought of the attractive girl who so courteously received his attentions. Douglas's indifference rather piqued him and he was constantly trying to break through it, but no matter what flattering remarks he made to her she never seemed to know they were intended for her, Douglas Carter. "That young soldier is at the bottom of it!" he would exclaim to himself after trying his best to get an answering spark from this girl who appeared so altogether lovely in his eyes, more lovely and desirable because of her indifference, and then, too, because he knew instinctively that Herz was hopelessly in love with her; and many men are like sheep and go where others lead. The secretary was becoming a real nuisance to Douglas, who in a way liked him, but who never got over his very German name and his red, red mouth. He so often seemed to know exactly the moment when she was to dismiss school and would appear as she locked the schoolhouse door and quietly join her on the walk home. He was very interesting and Douglas much preferred him to the count, who could not be with any female for more than a few moments without bordering on love-making of some kind. Herz had a great deal of information and this he would impart to Douglas in quite the manner of a professor as he walked stiffly by her side. Bobby was not at all in favor of sharing the walks home with this tall, stiff stranger. Ever since Dr. Wright's talk with him he had considered himself Douglas's protector, and he liked to pretend that as they went along the lonesome road and skirted the dark pine woods he was going to shoot imaginary bandits who infested their path. He couldn't play any such game with this matter-of-fact man stalking along by their side, explaining to Douglas some intricate point in philosophy. "Say, kin you goose step?" he asked one day when Herz was especially irritating to him. Bobby had a "bowanarrow" hid in the bushes by the branch, with which he had intended to kill many Indians on their homeward walk. "Yes, of course!" came rather impatiently from Herz, who thought children should be seen and not heard and that this especial child would be well neither seen nor heard. "Well, do it!" "Bobby, don't bother Mr. Herz," Douglas admonished. "He kin talk an' goose step at the same time," Bobby insisted. Herz began solemnly to goose step, expounding his philosophy as he went. Bobby shrieked with delight. This wasn't such a bad companion, after all. It was so ridiculous that Douglas could hardly refrain from shouting as loud as Bobby. "Is that the way the German soldiers really walk?" asked Bobby. "So I am told." "Where did you learn to do it?" asked Douglas. "I--I--at a school where I was educated." "Oh, but you are an American, so the count told me." "I am an American." This was uttered in a very dead tone. The man suddenly turned on his heel and with a muttered good-by disappeared. "Ain't he a nut, though?" exclaimed Bobby. "He is peculiar," agreed Douglas. "Do you like for him to walk home with you, Dug?" "I don't know whether I do or not." "Well, I don't like it a bit, 'cep'n, of co'se, when he goose steps an' then it's great. I seen a colored fellow a-goose steppin' the other day, an' he says he learned it at the count's school what Mr. Herz is a-teachin'. He says they call it settin' up exercises, but he would like to do some settin' down exercise. I reckon he was tryin' to make a kinder joke." CHAPTER XIV AN EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY Every American will always remember that winter of 1917 as being one of extreme unrest. Would we or would we not be plunged into the World War? Should we get in the game or should we sit quietly by and see Germany overrun land and sea? Valhalla was not too much out of the world to share in the excitement, and like most of the world was divided in its opinions. Douglas and her father were for the sword and no more pens. Helen and Mrs. Carter felt it was a pity to mix up in a row that was not ours, although in her secret soul Helen knew full well that the row was ours and if war was to be declared she would be as good a fighter as the next. Nan was an out and out pacifist and declared the world was too beautiful to mar with all of this bloodshed. Lucy insisted that Nan got her sentiments from Count de Lestis, who had been "hogging" a seat by her sister quite often in the weeks before that day in March when diplomatic relations with Germany were broken off by our country. As for Lucy: she could tell you all about the causes of the war and was quite up on Bismarck's policy, etc. She delighted her father with her knowledge of history and her logical views of the present situation. She and Mag were determined to go as Red Cross nurses if we did declare war, certain that if they tucked up their hair and let down their dresses no one would dream they were only fourteen. Bobby walked on his toes and held his head very high, trying to look tall, hoping he could go as a drummer boy or something if he could only stretch himself a bit. "Good news, girls!" cried Helen one evening in February when they had drawn their seats around the roaring fire piled high with wood cut by Mr. Carter, whose muscles were getting as hard as iron from his outdoor work. "What?" in a chorus from the girls, always ready for any kind of news, good or bad. "The count is going to have a ball!" "Really? When?" "On the twenty-second of February! He says if he gives a party on Washington's birthday nobody can doubt his patriotism." "Humph! I don't see what business he has with patriotism about our Washington," muttered Lucy. "But he does feel patriotic about the United States, he told me he did," said Nan. "I think he means to take out his naturalization papers in the near future," said Mr. Carter. "He tells me he feels very lonesome now that he is in a way debarred from his own country," sighed Mrs. Carter. "That book he wrote has made the Kaiser very angry." "Well, after the war is over that book will raise him in the estimation of all democracies," suggested Douglas. "Mag says that Billy wrote to Brentano's to try and get him that book and they say they can't find it; never heard of it," blurted out Lucy. "It has perhaps not been translated into English," said Helen loftily. "Mag says that that's no matter. Brentano will get you any old book in any old language if it is in existence." "How can they when a book has been suppressed? I reckon the Kaiser is about as efficient about suppressing as he is about everything else. Well, book or no book, I'm glad to be going to a ball. He says we must ask our friends from Richmond and he is going to invite everybody in the county and have a great big splendid affair, music from Richmond, and supper, too." "Kin I go?" asked Bobby, curling up in Helen's lap, a way he had of doing when there was no company to see him and sleep was getting the better of him. "Of course you can, if you take a good nap in the daytime." "Daddy and Mumsy, you will go, surely," said Douglas. "Yes, indeed, if your mother wants to! I'm not much of a dancer these days, but I bet she can outdance any of you girls. Eh, Mother?" "Not as delicate as I am now; but of course I shall go to the ball to chaperone my girls," said the little lady plaintively. "I doubt my dancing, however." "He says we must ask Dr. Wright and Lewis and any other people we want. He says he is really giving this ball to us because we have been so hospitable to him," continued Helen. "We haven't been any nicer to him than Miss Ella and Miss Louise," said Lucy, who seemed bent on obstructing. "But they are too old to have balls given to them," laughed Helen. "They are going, though. I went to see them this afternoon with Count de Lestis and they are just as much interested as I am. They asked the privilege of making the cakes for the supper and he was so tactful that he did not tell them he was to have a grand caterer to do the whole thing. The old ladies just love to do it, and one is to make angel's food and one devil's food. "The Suttons are going," and Helen held the floor without interruptions because of the subject that was interesting to all the family. "Mr. Sutton says if the roads permit he will send his big car to take our whole family, and if the roads are too bum he will have the carriage out for Mrs. Sutton and Mumsy, and all of us can go in the hay wagon." "Grand! I hope the roads will be muddy up to the hubs!" cried Lucy. "Hay wagons are lots more fun than automobiles." "Hard on one's clothes, though," and Helen looked a little rueful. The question of dress was important when one had nothing but old last year's things that were so much too narrow. "What are you going to wear to the ball?" asked Douglas that night when she and Helen were snuggling down in their bed in the little room up under the roof. "I haven't anything but my rose chiffon. It is pretty faded looking and hopelessly out of style, but I am going to try to freshen it up a bit. Ah me! I don't mind working, but I do wish I were not an unproductive consumer. I'd like to make some money myself and sometimes buy something." Douglas patted her sister consolingly. "Poor old Helen! I do feel so bad about you." "Well, you needn't! But I did see such a love of a dancing frock when we were down town that day with Cousin Elizabeth: white tulle over a silver cloth with silver girdle and trimmings. It was awfully simple but so effective. I could just see myself in it. I ought to be ashamed to let clothes make so much difference with me, but I can't help it. I am better about it than I was at first, don't you think?" "I think you are splendid and I also think you have the hardest job of all to do: working all the time and never making any money." The next morning Douglas held a whispered conversation with Nan before they got off to their respective schools. "See what it costs but don't let Helen know. She will be eighteen tomorrow, and if it isn't worth a million, I am going to take some of my last month's salary and get it for her." When Nan, who was not much of a shopper, approached the great windows of Richmond's leading department store, what was her joy to see the very gown that Douglas had described to her displayed on Broad Street and marked down to a sum in the reach of a district school teacher. "It looks so like Helen, somehow, that I can almost see her wearing it in place of the wax dummy," exclaimed Nan. "Must I charge it, Miss Carter?" asked the pleasant saleswoman as she took the precious dress out of the show-window. "Please, Miss Luly, somehow I'd rather not charge it, but I haven't the money today. Couldn't you fix it up somehow so I could take it with me and bring you the money tomorrow? We don't charge any more, but if I don't buy it right now I'm so afraid somebody else might get it." The smiling saleswoman, who had been waiting on the Carters ever since the pretty Annette Sevier came a bride to Richmond, held a conference with the head of the firm on how this could be managed. "Miss Nan Carter is very anxious not to charge, but can't pay until tomorrow." "Ummm! A little irregular! What Carter is it?" "Mr. Robert Carter's daughter!" "Let her have it and anything else she wants on any terms she wishes. Robert Carter's name on a firm's books is the same as money in the bank. I have wondered why his account has been withdrawn from our store," and the head of the firm immediately dictated a letter to his former patron, requesting in polite terms that he should run up as big a bill as he wished and that he could pay whenever he got ready. So very polite was the letter that one almost gathered he need not pay at all. Mr. Carter laughed aloud when he read the letter, remembering those days not yet a year gone by when the bills used to pile in on the first of every month and he would feel that they must be paid immediately and the only way to do it was redouble his energy and work far into the night. The flat box with the precious dancing dress was not an easy thing to carry on stilts, but the lane was muddy and Nan had to do it somehow. With much juggling she got safely over the dangers of the road and smuggled it into the house without Helen's seeing it. "I got it!" Nan whispered to Douglas when she could get her alone. "But you didn't have the money! I asked you to find out the price first," said Douglas, fearing Nan, in her zeal, had overstepped the limit in price. "I didn't want anything charged. I am so afraid we might get started to doing it again." "Never! I just kind of borrowed it until tomorrow. You see I struck a sale and they couldn't save it for me because there were only a few of them. I told them I couldn't charge but would bring the money tomorrow, and Miss Luly fixed it up for me, somehow, and told me I could have the whole department store on any terms I saw fit to dictate." Morning dawned on Helen's eighteenth birthday but found her in not very jubilant spirits. It isn't much fun to have an eighteenth birthday when you have to bounce out of bed and rush into your clothes to see that a poor ignorant country servant doesn't make the toast and scramble the eggs before she even puts a kettle of water on for coffee. Chloe always progressed backwards unless Helen was there to do the head work. Helen found Chloe had already descended her perilous ladder and had the stove hot and the kettle on as a birthday present to her beloved mistress. Chloe really adored Helen and did her best to learn and remember. The breakfast table was set, too, and Chloe's eyes were shining as though she had something to say but wild horses would not make her say it. The sisters came in at the first tap of the bell and her father was in his place, too. Helen started to seat herself at her accustomed place, but at a shout from Lucy looked before she sat. Her chair was piled high with parcels. "Happy birthday, honey!" said Douglas. "Happy birthday, daughter!" from Mr. Carter. "Happy birthday! Happy birthday!" shouted all of them in chorus. "Why, I didn't know anybody remembered!" cried Helen. "Not remember your eighteenth birthday! Well, rather!" said Mr. Carter. Then began the opening of the boxes while Chloe stood in the corner grinning for dear life. A pearl pin from Mrs. Carter, one she had worn when she first met her husband, was in the small box on top. An old-fashioned filigree gold bracelet was Mr. Carter's gift. It had belonged to his mother, for whom Helen was named. "It will look very lovely on your arm, my dear," he said when Helen kissed him in thanks. Cousin Elizabeth Somerville had sent her ten dollars in gold; Lewis, some new gloves; there was a vanity box from Lucy with a saucy message about always powdering her nose; a little thread lace collar from Nan, made by her own hands; and to balance all was a five-pound box of candy from Dr. Wright. "I had a big marble for you, but it done slipt out'n my pocket," said Bobby, and then he had to give a big hug and a kiss, which Helen declared was better than even a marble. "But you haven't opened your big box, the one at the bottom," insisted Nan. It had got covered up with papers and Helen had overlooked it. "Please hurry up and open it because Lucy and I have to beat it. It will be train time before we know it." As Helen untied the strings and unwrapped the tissue paper that was packed around the contents of the big box you could have heard a pin drop in that dining-room at Valhalla. She eagerly pulled aside the papers and then shook out the glimmering gown. "Oh, Douglas! Douglas! You shouldn't have done it! It is even prettier than I remembered it to be!" "Mind out, don't splash on it," warned Nan just in time to keep the two great tears that welled up into Helen's eyes from spotting the exquisite creation. "My Miss Helen's gwinter look like a angel whin she goes ter de count's jamboree," declared Chloe. "Well, your Miss Douglas is the angel and she's going to have to have a new dress with slits in the shoulder-blades to let her wings come through," sobbed Helen, laughing at the same time as she held the dress up in front of her and danced around the table. She had thought nobody remembered her eighteenth birthday and now found nobody had forgotten it. "You shouldn't have afforded it, Douglas. I can't keep it. It would be too selfish of me." "Marked down goods not sent on approval," drawled Nan. CHAPTER XV BLACK SOCIALISM Sergeant Somerville and Private Tinsley accepted the invitation to the count's ball with alacrity. Their company had been mustered out just in the nick of time for them to obtain indefinite leave. It was rumored that they were to be taken in again, this time as regulars, but the certainty of having no military duties to perform for the time being was very pleasant to our two young men. The Carter girls had taken the count at his word and invited several friends from Richmond to stay at Valhalla and attend the ball. Dr. Wright was eager to come and with the recklessness of physicians who use their cars for business and not for pleasure, he made the trip in his automobile. He had a new five-seated car, taking the place of his former runabout. "M. D.'s and R. F. D.'s have to travel whether roads are good or bad," he had declared. The two young soldiers and Tillie Wingo had the hardihood to risk their necks with him, and at the last minute he picked up Skeeter Halsey and Frank Maury, who had been invited by Lucy so that she and Mag would not have to be wall flowers. Six persons in a five-passenger car insures them from much jolting, as there is no room to bounce. Tillie was in her element with five pairs of masculine ears to chatter in. She and Bill were still engaged "in a way," as she expressed it, although neither one of them seemed to regard it very seriously. Tillie insisted upon making a secret of it as much as she was capable, so that in Bill's absence she might not be laid on the shelf. "The fellows don't think much of an engaged girl," she said frankly, "and I have no idea of taking a back seat yet awhile." The recklessness of the guests in coming over Virginia roads in an automobile in the month of February was nothing to the recklessness of the Carters in inviting six persons to spend the night with them when they possessed but one small guest chamber. "We can manage somehow," Helen declared, "and, besides, we will be out so late dancing there won't be much use in having a place to sleep, because we won't have any time to sleep." "Only think of all of those bedrooms at Grantly with nobody in them!" exclaimed Lucy. "Those old ladies might just as well ask some of us up there, but they will never think of it, I know." "If they do, they will disagree about which ones to ask and which rooms to put them in, and we will never get the invitation," laughed Helen. "Anyhow, they are dear old ladies and I am mighty fond of them." Helen often ran up to the great house to ask advice from the Misses Grant about household affairs and was ever welcome to the lonely old women. "They are certainly going to the ball, aren't they?" asked Douglas. "They wouldn't miss it for worlds. They are having a time just now, though, because Tempy has left them. They can't find out what her reason is and feel sure she didn't really want to go; now her sister Chloe is so near she seemed quite content, but for weeks she has been in a peculiar frame of mind and the last few days they have caught her in tears again and again. They sent for Dr. Allison, who lives miles and miles from here, but Miss Ella and Miss Louise will trust no other doctor. He says as far as he can tell she is not ill. Anyhow, she has gone home, and today their man-servant departed, also. Of course they might draw on the field hands for servants, but they hate to do it because they are so very rough. They have had this man-servant for years and years, ever since he was a little boy, and they can't account for his going, either. He had a face as long as a ham when he left them and gave absolutely no excuse except that his maw was sick, and as Miss Ella says, 'His mother has been dead for ten years, and she ought to know, since she furnished the clothes in which she was buried.' Miss Louise said she had only been dead eight, and they were her clothes, but they agree that she is dead at least, and can't account for Sam's excuse." "Poor old ladies, I am sorry for them," said Douglas. On the day of the ball, there was much furbishing up of finery at Valhalla. Mr. Carter's dress suit had to be pressed and his seldom used dress studs unearthed. Mrs. Carter forgot all about being an invalid and was as busy and happy as possible, trying dresses on her daughters to see that their underskirts were exactly the right length and even running tucks in with her own helpless little hands. "It is a good thing I don't have to think about my own outsides," said Helen, "as all of my time must be spent in planning for our guests' insides. I tell you, six more mouths to fill is going to keep Chloe and me hustling." "It sho' is an' all them dishes ter wash is goin' ter keep me hustlin' some mo'," grumbled Chloe. "An' then I gotter go ter the count's an' stir my stumps." "I am sorry, but I am going to give you a nice holiday after it is all over," said her young mistress kindly. The count had asked Helen to bring Chloe to look after the ladies in the dressing-room. "I ain't a-mindin' 'bout dishes. I's jes' a-foolin'---- Say, Miss Helen, what does potatriotic mean?" "Patriotic? That means loving your country and being willing to give up things for it and help save it. Everybody should be patriotic." "But s'posin' yer ain't got no country?" "Why, Chloe, everybody has a country, either the place where you were born or the place where you have been living long enough to love and feel that it is yours." "But niggers is been livin' here foreveraneveramen, an' still they ain't ter say got no country." "Why, you have! Don't you think Uncle Sam would look after you and fight for you if you needed his help?" "I ain't got no Uncle Sam, but I hear tell that he wouldn't raise his han' ter save a nigger, but yit if'n they's a war that he'll 'spec' the niggers ter go git shot up fer him." "Why, Chloe! How can you say such a thing?" "I ain't er sayin' it--I's jes' a-sayin' I hears tell." "Who told it to you?" "Nobody ain't tol' it ter me. I jes' hearn it." "Well, it's not true." "I hearn, too, that they's plenty er money ter go 'roun' in this country, but some folks what thinks they's better'n other folks has hoarded an' hoarded 'til po' folks can't git they han's on a nickel. An' I hearn that they's gonter be distress an' misery, an' wailin' an' snatchin' er teeth 'til some strong man arouses an' makes these here rich folks gib up they tin. Nobody ain't a-gonter know who dat leader will be, he mought be white an' thin agin he mought be black, but he's a-gonter be a kinder sabior." "How is he going to manage?" asked Helen, amused at what sounded like a sermon the girl might have heard from the rickety pulpit of the brick church. "I ain't hearn, but I done gib out ter all these niggers that my white folks ain't got no tin put away here in this Hogwallow or whatever Miss Nan done named it. They keeps their money hot a-spendin' it, I tells 'em all." Helen laughed, and with a final touch at the supper table and a last peep at the sally lunn muffins, which were rising as they should, she started to go help her mother with the dancing frocks and their petticoats that would show discrepancies. "Say, Miss Helen, is you sho' Miss Ellanlouise is goin' ternight?" asked Chloe, following her up the steps. "Yes, Chloe, I'm sure." "An', Miss Helen, if'n folks ain't got no country ter love what ought they do?" "Why, love one another, I reckon. Love the people of their own race, and try to help them." "Oughtn't folks ter love they own color better'n any other?" "Why, certainly!" "If'n some of yo' folks got into trouble, what would you do?" "Why, I'd help them out if I could." "Even if'n they done wrong?" "Of course! They would still be my own people." "If they ain't ter say done it but is a-gonter do it, thin what would you do?" "I'd try to stop them." "Would you tell on 'em?" "I'd try to stop them first. Who has done wrong or is going to do it, Chloe?" "Nobody ain't done wrong an' I ain't a-never said they is. I ain't said a word. This talk was jes' some foolishness I done made up out'n my haid. But say, Miss Helen,--I'd kinder like ter stop at Mammy's cabin over to Paradise befo' I gits ter de count's. I kin take my foot in my han' an' strike through the woods an' beat the hay wagin thar, it goin' roun' by the road." "All right, Chloe!" Helen rather fancied that Chloe wanted to see her sister, who was evidently contemplating some imprudence. She had been threatening to marry James Hanks, but her people had shown themselves very much opposed to it. Perhaps the girl was on the eve of an elopement which had called forth all of the above conversation from her sister. Where did she get all of those strange socialistic ideas? Was Lewis Somerville right and was the little learning a dangerous thing for these poor colored people? Surely she had helped Chloe by the little teaching she had given her. The girl was like another creature. She seemed now to have self-respect, and Helen felt instinctively that her loyalty to her and her family was almost a religion with her. CHAPTER XVI DRESSING FOR THE BALL "How are Miss Ella and Louise going?" asked Douglas, as she stooped for a parting glance in the mirror which the sloping ceiling necessitated hanging so low that a girl as tall as Douglas could not see above her nose without bending double. "In their phaeton," answered Helen. "They don't mind driving themselves. I asked them. You see with Sam gone they can't get out the big old rockaway." "They must keep along near the hay wagon. Such old ladies should not be alone on the road," said Douglas. "I dare you to tell them that! They have no fear of anything or anybody. They say they have lived alone in this county for so many, many years that they are sure nobody will ever harm them." "Well, I am sure nobody ever would," said Nan. The girls had decided that the only way to take care of so many guests was to double up "in layers," as Lucy called it. Bobby was sent over into the new house with Lewis and Bill, his old tent mates, for whom Nan and Lucy had vacated their room while they came over to the old house and brought Tillie Wingo with them. "Three in a double bed and two in a single bed wouldn't be so bad after a ball," Nan had declared. Dressing for the ball was the more difficult feat, however. The ceiling was so low and sloping and Tillie Wingo did take up so much room with her fluffy ruffles. The Carter girls were glad to see the voluble Tillie. She was such a gay, good-natured person and seemed so pleased to be included in this pleasure party. She looked as pretty as a pink in a much beruffled painted chiffon; and while they were dressing, she obligingly showed Helen the very latest steps in dancing. Helen was charming in her birthday present dress. Nan declared she looked like the princess in the fairy tale with the dress like the moonlight. "With all my finery, I don't look nearly so well as you do, Douglas," Helen declared. Indeed Douglas was beautiful. She had on the graduating dress, the price of which had caused her so much concern the spring before. With careful ripping out of sleeves and snipping down of neck, Mrs. Carter had converted it into an evening dress with the help of a wonderful lace fichu, something left over from her own former splendor. The sight of her eldest daughter all dressed in the ball gown brought tears of regret to poor Mrs. Carter's eyes. "What a débutante you would have made!" she sighed. "You have a queenly something about you that is quite rare in a débutante and might have made the hit of the season." "Oh, Mumsy, I'm a much better district school teacher!" and Douglas blushed with pleasure at her mother's rare praise. The girl had seen a subtle difference in her mother's manner to her ever since she had felt it her duty to take a stand about their affairs. Mrs. Carter was ever gentle, ever courteous, but Douglas knew that she looked upon her no longer as her daughter somehow,--rather as a kind of taskmistress that Fate had set over her. The young men were gathered in the living-room waiting for the girls and when they burst upon them in all the glory of ball gowns they quite dazzled them. "Douglas!" gasped Lewis in an ill-concealed whisper, "you somehow make me think of an Easter lily." "Well, I don't feel like one a bit. I can't fancy an Easter lily's dancing, and I mean to dance every dance I get a chance and all the others, too." "I reckon I can promise you that," grinned her cousin. Bill Tinsley made no ado of taking the pretty Tillie in his arms and opening the ball with a whistled fox trot. "I'm going to get the first dance with you, and to make sure I'll just take it now, please." "Don't you like my dress?" asked Helen, twirling around on her toe before Dr. Wright, whose eyes plainly showed that he not only liked the dress but what was in the dress rather more than was good for the peace of mind of a rising young nerve specialist. "Lovely!" he exclaimed, not looking at the dress at all, but at the charming face above the dress. "Douglas gave it to me for a birthday present,--it was her extravagance, not mine. I think she is about the sweetest thing in all the world. The only thing that worries me is mashing it all up in the Suttons' hay wagon." "Are the roads so very bad? Why not go in my car?" "They are pretty bad, but no worse than the road from Richmond. It certainly is strange how that road changes. It was fine when the agent brought us out here to see the place. Wasn't it?" "It was, but I don't think it is such a very bad road now. It may be because I like to travel on it. But come on and go with me in my car. If you will trust your dress and neck to me." "I will, since you put my dress first! Somehow that makes me feel you will be careful of it and respect it." A rattle of wheels and Billy Sutton came driving up in a great hay wagon filled with nice, clean straw, and close on his heels were Mr. and Mrs. Sutton in their carriage, which was to take Mr. and Mrs. Carter sedately to the ball. "Helen and I are going in my car. Does anyone want to occupy the back seat?" asked George Wright, hoping he would be paid for his politeness by a refusal. "No indeed, I adore a hay wagon! It's so nice and informal," cried Tillie. Douglas did want to go, but felt perhaps it was up to her to chaperone the youngsters in the hay wagon, so for once Dr. Wright thought he was to get Helen for a few moments to himself. "Chloe must go with us," declared Helen. "She wants to stop in Paradise to see her mother." Dr. Wright cracked a grim joke to himself which concerned Chloe and the antipodes of Paradise, but he smothered his feelings and opened the door for the delighted colored girl, who had never been in an automobile before. What a gay crowd they were in that hay wagon! Billy Sutton had contrived to get Nan on the front seat with him, where she was enthroned high above the others, looking down on the horses' backs as they strained and pulled the great wagon through the half-frozen mud. Billy had some friends out from town who immediately attached themselves to Tillie Wingo, who was to beaux just as a honey-pot to bees. They stopped and picked up two families of young folks on the way to the count's, and by the time they got them all in, the wagon was quite full. "I am glad Helen didn't trust her new dress to this," Douglas whispered to Lewis. "Well, I am glad you didn't have on such fine clothes and came this way," he whispered back. "Wright is too reckless for me on these country roads. Not that I am afraid myself, but I certainly should hate to see you turned over." "Whar Miss Ellanlouise?" asked Chloe, when she could get her breath after the first mad plunge into the delights of motoring. "Oh, there! How selfish of me! I should have thought of it and asked them to go with us," said Helen. "We can go back for them," suggested the doctor, who had begun to feel that he never would have a chance to see Helen alone. "Oh, no, we needn't mind. They are coming in their phaeton, and no doubt have started long before this. They are so good to me, I should have thought of them." Chloe was put out at Paradise, assuring her mistress she would come up through the woods in a few moments and no doubt be at her post in the dressing-room before the guests should arrive. Paradise was very dark and lonesome. The few scattered cabins showed not a gleam. There was a dim light trickling from the windows of the club, but as they approached that rickety building, that disappeared. Helen saw some dark forms up close to the wall when she looked back after passing that place of entertainment. "I reckon they are going to initiate someone tonight," she thought. "Chloe had such a strange talk with me today," she told her companion and then repeated the conversation she had had with the colored girl. "I can't quite understand her." "Perhaps this count is instilling some kind of silly socialistic notions in their heads," suggested the doctor, who held the same opinion Lewis Somerville did of the gentleman who was to be their host for the evening. Indeed, he so cordially mistrusted him that only the fact he was to be with Helen had reconciled him to spending an evening under his roof. "Oh, no, I can hardly think that, and besides, the count does not do the teaching. That is done by a Mr. Herz, his secretary. He is an American, born in Cincinnati. He seems to be very intelligent and certainly has taken a shine to Douglas. I don't know just what she thinks of him, but she lets him walk home from school with her every now and then." "I don't like the name much!" "Well, the poor man can't help his name. You speak as though we were already at war with Germany. I am trying to preserve our neutrality until war is declared." "My neutrality has been nothing but a farce since I have realized that Germany is at war with us." "You sound just like Douglas and Father. Will you go to war if it comes?" "Why, of course! Would you have me do otherwise?" "I--I--don't know," and Helen wished she had not asked the question that had called forth this query. This night was to be one of pleasure, feasting and dancing. War had no place in her thoughts when she had on her new dress and the music was coming from Richmond. CHAPTER XVII THE BALL "Music and lights put me all in a flutter!" exclaimed Helen as they approached the broad and hospitable mansion. Already there were several buggies and carriages in the gravelled driveway. The guests were arriving early, as sensible country people should. Let the city folks wait until far in the night to begin their revels, but those living in the country as a rule feel that balls should start early and break up early. "Do you care so much for parties?" "I think I must. I have not been to very many balls, because you see I am not out in society yet. I reckon I'll never make my début now," and Helen gave a little sigh. "Does it make so very much difference to you?" "Well, not so much as it would have a year ago. I used to feel that making one's début was a goal that was of the utmost importance, but somehow now I do feel that there are things a little bit more worth while." "What for instance?" "Getting Father well, and--and----" "And what?" "You might think I am silly if I tell you,--silly to talk about it." "I promise to think you are you no matter what else it is, and you are--well, never mind what you are." "Well, somehow I have begun to feel that helping people to be gay is important, like cheering up Miss Ella and Miss Louise. They have such stupid times. I really believe they quarrel just to make life a little gayer. I go to see them every day and it makes me feel good all over to know how much they like to have me come." "And you were afraid I'd think that was silly?" asked George Wright as he halted his car down under a great willow oak, well away from the other vehicles. How he wished they were to stay out under that tree all evening! Music and dancing were nothing to him compared to the pleasure he obtained from talking to this girl. "Let's sit here until the others come," he suggested. "And waste all that good music!" Dr. Wright began to envy the Misses Grant whom Helen wanted to make happy. "Of course not! I forgot how seldom you have a chance to dance." Weston was wonderfully beautiful. The electric lights may have been an anomaly, but they certainly helped to make the old house show what it was capable of. The dead and gone colonials who had built the place had been forced either to have their balls by daylight or to content themselves with flickering candles, which no doubt dropped wax or even tallow on the handsome gowns of the beauties and belles. The broad hall with the great rooms on each side seemed to be made for dancing. The floor was polished to a dangerous point for the unwary, but the unwary had no business on a ballroom floor. The count seemed in his element as he received his guests, but Herz looked thoroughly out of place and ill at ease. "Ah, Miss Helen! I am so glad to welcome you--and Dr. Wright--it is indeed kind of you to come! I am depending upon you, Miss Helen, to help me entertain these people who have come so promptly. They neither dance nor speak. Herz is about as much use to me on this occasion as a porcupine would be. Only look around the room at my guests!" They did indeed look most forlorn. One old farmer was almost asleep while his wife sat bolt upright by his side with a long sad face and a deep regret in her eyes. No doubt, she was regretting the comfortable grey wrapper she had discarded for the stiff, best, green silk, and the broad easy slippers that had been replaced by the creaking shoes. Several girls with shining eyes and alert expressions were evidently wondering what ailed the young men who stood against the wall as though it might fall down if they budged an inch. "Why are they wasting all this good music?" demanded Helen. "As you say in America: 'Seek me!'" laughed the host. "Search me, you mean." "Ah, but is it not almost the same? What do you say, Dr. Wright?" "Well, I'd rather someone would seek me than search me." "So! And now, Miss Helen, if you will discard your wraps and return quickly and help me I shall be most grateful. If these poor people do not get started they will go to sleep." Helen flew up to the dressing-room which, sure enough, Chloe had reached before her. The girl was huddled down in a corner of the room looking the picture of woe. "Did you see Tempy?" asked Helen, taking for granted that Chloe had been speaking of her sister when she had asked about one's duty to one's own people. "No'm!" "Wasn't she at your mother's?" "I don't know, 'm!" "Was your mother there?" "Yassum!" There was never any use in trying to make Chloe talk when she had decided not to, so Helen threw off her wraps and with a peep in the mirror where one could see from top to toe, she hastened to the aid of Count de Lestis. "Mother will be along soon and she can do wonders with people who are bashful," declared Helen, "but I'll try my hand at it until she comes. They must dance, then they will thaw out." "Certainly, and will you dance with me to show them how?" Helen forgot all about the fact that she had come with Dr. Wright and he might reasonably expect to claim the first dance. "Yes, but you must introduce me to all these people and I'll ask some of the girls to dance while you go get the young men to come fall in the breach." The shiny-eyed girls were willing enough and the young men seemed to think if the count didn't mind his walls falling down, far be it from them to hold them up, so in a few moments the sad crowd were in a gale of good humor. The old farmer waked up and his wife looked as though she might try her new creaky shoes on the waxed floor if anyone would only ask her. Dr. Wright looked on rather grimly as Helen was whisked from under his very nose. He might have stood it better if the count had not been such a perfect dancer and so very handsome. He had a way of whispering to his partner during the dance that was also a sore trial to the young physician. "What could he be saying to Helen to make her dimple and blush?" The arrival of the carriage containing Mrs. Sutton and Mrs. Carter with their rather bored husbands was a welcome interruption to the poor young man. Soon came the lumbering hay wagon with its giggling, chattering load, and then Helen was at liberty to dance with him, since the count perforce must again play the gracious host. "Isn't it perfect?" she exclaimed. "The floor, the music, and everything!" "Not quite so perfect now as when you had the count for a partner, I am afraid," he muttered, bending over to make her hear. He was too tall to converse while dancing with Helen. He had never regretted his inches before. "Nonsense! You dance just as well as he does, and he talks so much while he is dancing. I hate to dance and talk, too,--just dancing is enough for me." "Me, too, then!" and once more he felt the satisfaction that a man who measures over six feet can't help feeling. Helen was right. Mrs. Carter was a born entertainer and she had hardly taken the social reins in her hands before the ball was running smoothly. Even Bobby found a partner, a funny little girl with such bushy hair that anyone could tell at a glance it had been put up in curl papers for several days. She looked like a pink hollyhock in her starched book-muslin that stood out like a paper lamp shade. Her round black eyes seemed very lovely to the gallant Bobby, who took her into the back hall where they turned round and round in imitation of the dance, and when dancing palled on them they showed each other how to make rabbits out of their handkerchiefs. "This is the kind of party I like," said the wholesome Mrs. Sutton. "Every Jill has her Jack and there are some Jacks to spare. Deliver me from parties where girls must sit against the wall and wait for partners to be released." "When you get the vote you can do the asking, and then parties where the females predominate will be more popular," teased her husband. "Nonsense! We can still do the asking if we care to. Come on and dance with me, sir!" and Mr. Sutton delightedly complied. Mrs. Carter did not have to spend all the evening making other people have a good time. She was asked to dance by the count and her pretty little figure and graceful bearing attracted other partners, and she was soon tripping the light fantastic toe as untiringly as any of her daughters. Tillie Wingo herself did not get broken in on oftener. Herz stood in corners, looking like one of the men out of Noah's ark, Nan declared, so stiff and wooden. "I don't know which one he resembles most, Shem, Ham, or Japheth," she whispered to Billy Sutton, "but I wonder if you licked him if the paint would come off." "I don't know, but I'd like to try. I can't abide that Dutchman. I believe he thinks he is superior to all of us, even his precious count. Jehoshaphat! I believe he is asking Douglas to dance." So he was. The secretary was stalking across the room, determination on his noble brow and his full mouth drawn together in a tight red line. He stopped in front of Douglas and placing one hand on his breast and the other one on his waist line in the back, he shut up like a jack-knife. Douglas looked a little astonished, not knowing exactly what the young man wanted, and then the memory of the early days at dancing school came to her when the little boys were forced to bow to the little girls before they danced with them. "Certainly," she said, excusing herself from Lewis, who looked a little sullen, having expected to claim this particular waltz with his cousin, but who had neglected to do so, being too intent on gazing at her pretty flushed face. Herz clasped her around the waist and began to twirl in a most astonishing manner. She could hardly keep her footing and very early lost her breath. Skilful guiding was not necessary, although when they arose to dance the floor was well filled with other couples, but these, knowing full well that discretion was the better part of valor, gave the spinning pair the right of way. The man never lost his gravity or dignity, but his mouth broke from the hard red line to its usual full-lipped curve. Douglas felt as though that dance would never end. His strong arm held her like an iron ring as round and round they went. "'Hi! Lee! Hi! Low! Hi! Lee! Hi! Low! I jus' come over, I jus' come over-- Hi! Lee! Hi! Low! Hi! Lee! Hi! Low! I jus' come over the sea,'" sang Billy Sutton, as he and Nan watched the gyrations of their host's secretary. "Did you ever see such a proof of foreign blood in any man who pretends to be American born?" "Why, Billy, he is American born. The count says he was born and raised in Cincinnati." "Yes, and the count says he himself was born and raised in Hungary, but I bet you anything they may have been born where they say they were but they were raised in Berlin. Look at that fellow and tell me if he doesn't dance like Old Heidelberg." "The count doesn't, anyhow. I never saw such divine dancing as the count's." As though he had heard her, the handsome smiling de Lestis came to claim her for the rest of the dance. "Aren't these foreigners the limit?" said the boy, seeking the disconsolate Lewis. "I know I oughtn't to say anything about a fellow when I am in his house, but somehow that count gets my goat." "Mine, too! Who is this Herz?" "Oh, he is a kind of lady's maid or secretary or something for his nibs. Says he is an American, but I have my doubts. I don't see how Miss Douglas Carter can stand for him, but she lets him walk home from school with her any time, so I hear," announced Billy, absolutely unconscious of the fact he was retailing very unwelcome news to his companion. "Humph!" was all Lewis could say, but that monosyllable had a world of meaning in it. And so although the music was gay and the lights were bright and the laughter was merry in that ballroom, there were several sore hearts, and the little green-eyed monster was waltzing or fox trotting or one stepping every dance. "I wonder why Miss Ella and Louise don't get here," Helen said to Dr. Wright, who had at last persuaded her to sit out one dance with him. "They have had plenty of time even with their slow old horse." They had found a sofa in the back hall behind a clump of palms. There were many plants artistically grouped by the florist from town, who had tastefully decorated the whole mansion. "The telephone has been ringing a great deal since we came. Could they be trying to get the count? I always feel like jumping when the 'phone rings, feeling that it must be for me." "Oh, no! The ring for Weston is two long and three short rings. These country 'phones are hard to learn, but I often answer the one at Grantly for my old friends." "Listen, there goes the bell again! Goodness! I believe one of these 'phones that rings everybody's number would send me crazy." "They say you get used to them. That is four shorts and a long. That's for Dr. Allison, who lives miles and miles from here. Don't you remember Page Allison, that lovely girl who came to Greendale with the Tucker twins? It is her father." "Of course I do, and I know Dr. Allison, too! A delightful gentleman!" "I believe I'll call up Miss Ella and see what is the matter,--why they don't come on." George Wright sighed. There always seemed to be something to keep Helen from talking to him tête-à-tête. Still, he felt glad to think that Helen was so fond of these old ladies and so thoughtful of them. The telephone was under the stairway, quite near their retired nook. Helen rang the number for Grantly and there was a quick response. "Hello!" came in Miss Louise's contralto notes. "Miss Louise, this is Helen Carter! Why haven't you started yet? Don't you know the count can't give a ball without you and Miss Ella?" "Oh, my dear, my sister is ill, very ill,--fainted just as we were getting ready to leave. You see she would make that cake, that angel's food, although I told her I was going to make a fruit cake, but you know Ella---- Oh, but how can I rattle along this way? I have been trying so hard to get Dr. Allison and he doesn't answer." "Wait a minute, Miss Louise," and Helen put her hand over the receiver and turned to Dr. Wright. "Dr. Wright, will you take me to Grantly? Miss Ella has had a fainting fit--a stroke, I am afraid it is." "Take you! My dear, I'll take you anywhere you want to go." "Miss Louise, Dr. Wright is going to bring me to Grantly in his automobile immediately. Don't worry; we will be there soon." She rang off quickly and flew upstairs for her wraps. Chloe was not in the dressing-room, but she quickly unearthed her cape and hood from the bed where the many shawls and cloaks had been piled. On the way out she whispered to Nan where she was going, but told her not to tell the others, as she did not want to break up the ball or to cast a shadow on the happiness of the dancers. CHAPTER XVIII ANGEL'S FOOD Not a sound or glimmer of light in Paradise as they speeded silently through the settlement! The club, too, was deserted. "I think you are splendid to be willing to give up this ball to go to the aid of these old ladies," said Dr. Wright, drawing the rug more closely around Helen, as the air was quite nipping. "Why, the idea of my not doing it! You must think I'm nothing but a heartless butterfly." "I think you are anything but one. You love dancing, though, so much. I should have come alone. Somehow I couldn't make up my mind to forego the ride alone with you. Isn't it a beautiful night?" The stars were shining brightly but the lazy moon had not yet gotten up. "If we find the poor old lady not too ill, I'll take you back to the dance after we have made her comfortable. There will be a moon to light our way later on." "That will be fine! Maybe they won't even miss us. But somehow I have a feeling that Miss Ella is very ill." "Five minutes more will decide the question. Hasn't my new car eaten up distance, though? Just think, in old days what a time sick persons had to wait for a physician without telephones and without cars!" "Dr. Allison still drives a fast horse to a light buggy. Page says he will none of horseless carriages. I believe it is only recently that he has submitted to a telephone." "It is a good thing his medical theories have not kept pace with his means of locomotion, or he would be a back number sure." Valhalla was very quiet, peacefully sleeping under the stars. What a haven of refuge it had been to the Carters! Helen looked lovingly at the picturesque roof lines as the car glided rapidly past. "Do you know, I think that must be the most restful place in all the world? I have grown so attached to the little tumbledown house, leaks and cracks, smoking stove and all." "Hasn't it been awfully hard on you?" "Not any harder on me than on the others!" "I can't tell you what I think of all of you Carter girls for the way you have grappled with the winter in the country. I think you have had the hot end of it, too." There flashed through Helen's mind a picture of the first time she saw the young doctor, in the library of their pretty home in Richmond. There had been no approval in his cold glance then, nothing but censure and severity. She had deserved it all. Did she deserve the praise he gave her now? "The hot end is better than the cold end during the winter months," she laughed. "At least I can stay snugly in the kitchen and not have to go out in all weathers like poor Douglas and the other girls." Miss Louise met them at the door, tears rolling down her fat cheeks. She still was dressed in her stiff black silk but had tied on a great gingham apron over her best dress. "How good of you to come to us!" was all she could sob out. "You should have sent for us immediately," said Helen, putting her arms around the trembling old woman. "Ella always wants Dr. Allison, and I hated so to break up the pleasure of the young people." "Where is your sister?" asked Dr. Wright, taking off his gloves and great coat, and extracting a small leather case from its pocket. "I got her to bed after she came to." "She is conscious then?" "Yes, but very low, very low. She has been so docile I am afraid she is going to die," and the poor lady began to weep anew. "Let me go in with the doctor," insisted Helen. "I can do what is necessary and you might scare Miss Ella. She mustn't be made to think she is so ill." The tall form of Miss Ella was stretched on the great four-posted bed, and so still was it that for a moment Helen was afraid to go near. "She might be dead! She might be dead!" her heart cried out, but she shut her mouth very tight and advanced bravely up to the bedside. "Miss Ella, Dr. Wright has come to see you. Dr. Allison will be here later on perhaps." "I'll be better in a few moments. I must have fainted," she said weakly. "I ought not to have tried the angel food cake. It is so tedious. Louise told me not to, but I was very headstrong." Helen looked up apprehensively at the doctor, who was feeling the patient's pulse. It did seem rather ominous for Miss Ella to be so humble and to confess that Louise's judgment was of any importance. "What did you eat for dinner?" asked the doctor. "I--I--don't remember." "Think!" "I reckon I ate some bread." "Nothing else?" "I can't remember." At a nod from the doctor Helen went out to seek this information from Miss Louise, whom she found huddled up on the hall sofa. "Eat for dinner! I am sure I don't know. She wouldn't eat when I did and I do believe she didn't eat anything." "How about supper?" "Oh, we neither one of us ate any supper. We felt it would be discourteous to the count after all the trouble and expense he must have gone to, with caterers from Richmond and all." Helen flew back to the bedside of Miss Ella. "She ate no dinner that Miss Louise can remember and neither one of them ate any supper," she cried. "Well, of course she fainted then. Can you take the matter in hand and get some toast and tea for both of them? Miss Louise will be toppling over next." Helen was intimate enough with the old sisters to know just where they kept everything and in short order she had a tray ready for poor half-starved Miss Ella. "It was not a stroke at all," Dr. Wright assured the anxious sister. "Nothing but hunger." "I told her to eat," and Miss Louise looked venomously at the invalid. "I came to get my dinner and you had taken all the breast of the chicken. I wasn't going to eat your leavings," declared Miss Ella, color coming back into her wan cheeks and the fire of battle to her faded eyes. Helen laughed happily. The sisters were quarreling again and everything was assuming a more normal aspect. "Now both of you ladies must get to bed," insisted the doctor, after Miss Louise had been persuaded to eat some of Helen's good toast. "I think you have had ball enough for tonight." He looked at his watch. "I will take you back to Weston," he whispered to Helen. Helen would not go until both of her old friends were tucked peacefully in their great bed and then, kissing them good-night, she stole quietly from the room. She was greatly relieved that things had turned out so well and delighted that she was to be taken back to the ball. "It's pretty nice to do your duty and still have a good time," she said to herself. Dr. Wright was waiting in the hall for her. He silently bundled her up in her cape and hood and together they stepped on the gallery. The lazy moon was up now and outshining the faithful stars. The great box bushes and thick hedge cast deep shadows across the lawn. The two stood for a moment in silence, drinking in the beauty of the scene. "We can't lock the front door," said Dr. Wright finally. "I see it has an old-fashioned great brass key and the only way to lock it is to fasten the old ladies in the house." "Why, nothing will ever hurt those dear old folks," laughed Helen. "There are as safe as can be. They tell me they often go to bed without locking doors. They usually have a quarrel about whether the front door has been locked or not, and get so excited they both forget to do it." CHAPTER XIX A LITTLE LEARNING "Listen! What is that?" A low rumble of voices was heard, coming from the rear of Grantly. "Could it be the dancers coming home?" suggested Helen. "No, not from that direction!" The rumble increased to a roar, low but continuous. Evidently a great many persons were talking or muttering and they were getting closer and closer. "Let's have a light, so we kin see!" said a voice louder and clearer than the rest, and then there was a guffaw from many throats. "A lot of darkies!" gasped Helen. "What can they be doing here?" "You go inside and I'll see," commanded the young man. "I'll do no such thing! I'll go with you and see. If I go in the house again I'll wake Miss Ella and Miss Louise up, and you said yourself that it was most important for them to have a night of unbroken rest." "Helen, I insist!" "But I'm not going to be sent back in the house while you go get shot up or something, so there!" "Shot up! The idea! It is nothing but some late revelers going home. Perhaps the darkies have been having a ball somewhere, too." "Perhaps, but they have no business coming through Grantly." There was a hoarse shout from the rear and suddenly a light shot up into the sky. "The straw stack! They are burning the straw stack!" cried Helen. George Wright quietly opened the great front door and picking Helen up in his arms, carried her into the hall. He put her down and hastily closed the door. Helen heard the great brass key turn in the lock. It was very dark in the hall. She groped her way along the wall. It was all she could do to keep from screaming, but remembering her two old friends, now no doubt peacefully snoozing, she held herself in check. Suddenly she bumped square into the telephone. "I'll give a hurry call for the whole neighborhood," she cried, and no sooner thought than done. It was said afterwards that no such ringing of a 'phone had ever been heard before in the county. "_Grantly on fire and a great crowd of negro brutes in the yard!_" was the message that was sent abroad. The two old ladies slept peacefully on. Helen could hear the deep stertorous snore, Miss Louise's specialty, and the high steam-whistle pipe that Miss Ella was given to. "I can't stand this!" cried the girl. "They may be killing him this minute; and he expects me to stay shut up in this house while he gets shot to death!" She felt her way back to the kitchen where she could see well enough, thanks to the fire that the desperadoes had kindled. She cautiously unlocked the door and stepped out on the back porch. The negroes were dancing around the burning stack, led by a tall gangling man whom Helen recognized as Tempy's slue-footed admirer, James Hanks. Some of them seemed to be rather the worse for drink, and all of them were wild-eyed and excited-looking. "Come on, gent'men!" cried the leader. "Let's git our loot while we's got light a-plenty. The ol' tabbies is safe at the count's ball, safe an' stuffin'." There was a shout of laughter at this witticism. Helen was trembling with fright, but not fright for herself. The dear old ladies were uppermost in her mind, and the doctor! Her doctor! Where was he? Would he tackle all of those crazy, half-drunk brutes single-handed and not even armed? A sudden thought came to her. She slipped back into the kitchen. Remembering the box tacked to the wall, just over the kerosene stove where the matches were kept, she felt along the wall until her hand touched it. Then armed with these matches she crept back through the house to the great parlor where the trophies of the dead and gone great-uncle, the traveler in the Orient, were. She cautiously struck a match, thankful that the parlor was on the other side of the house from the fire, and seized at random what old arms she could lay her hands on: a great sword, that Richard the Lion-Hearted might have wielded, an Arabian scimiter and a light, curiously wrought shield. The sword was heavy but she managed to stagger along the hall with her load. "Now remember, friends an' citizens!" James Hanks was saying as he harangued the crowd. "This here prop'ty by rights b'longs to us. Ain't we an' our fo'bars done worked this here lan' from time in memoriam? Ain't we tilled the sile an' hoed the craps fur these ol' tabbies an' what is we got to show fur it? Nothin'! Nothin', I say! All we is a-doin' on this sacred night is takin' what is ourn. 'Tain't meet nor right fur two ol' women to hab control of all these fair lands, livin' in luxry, wallowin' in honey an' rollin' in butter, while we colored ladies an' gent'men is fo'ced to habit pig stys an' thankful to git sorghum an' drippin's. Don't none of you go into this here undertakin' 'thout you is satisfied you is actin' up to principles. All what considers it they bounden duty to git back what is by rights theirn, jes' step forward." Helen counted fifteen men as they reeled forward. Where was Dr. Wright? Was he hearing the speech that the perfidious James was making? And the old ladies--were they still sleeping? The back porch was littered up with various barrels and boxes, and behind these Helen crouched. Of course she realized that the darkies thought that Grantly was empty and that they intended to break in and take what treasures they could find. Would they be scared off when they found someone was in the house, or would they feel that they had gone too far to retreat in their infamous undertaking? Whatever was to be the outcome, she must find the doctor and help him, die by his side if necessary. What an ending to the ball, the ball where she had danced so gaily and happily! Had they missed them yet? She had not been able to tell what 'phones had answered her hurry call. She had only known that several persons got on the line and that her message had reached some ears, but whose she could not say. The mob had started towards the front. "Yes, we'll go in the front way, now an' ever after," growled the leader. "Only las' week that ol' skinny Ella done driv me to the back do'. I come up the front way jes' to tes' her an' she sent me roun' to the back jes' lak some dog. Whin we gits through, I reckon she'll be glad enough if she's got a back do' to go in." Helen waited to hear no more but streaked around the opposite side of the house, bearing her ancient weapons. Peeping through the railing of the great gallery in front she espied George Wright calmly standing in the doorway which was flooded with moonlight. CHAPTER XX IN THE MEANTIME Nan and Billy Sutton were the only persons at Weston who knew that Helen and Dr. Wright had left the house, and they, according to instructions, had kept mum. "I hate for Helen to miss one teensy bit of the ball," Nan said. "She does so adore dancing." "I should think she would. Anybody who can dance like that ought to like it. I think she is a ripper to go to those old grouches." "Now, Billy, that is no way to talk! Those old ladies are really lovely. You would have gone to them in a minute." "Well, maybe! But I wouldn't have enjoyed leaving this to go." "Perhaps they will be able to come back. Miss Louise is an awful alarmist." Supper was served, the waiters from Richmond taking affairs into their own hands, so that the untrained country servants at Weston were pushed into the background. "Miss Helen done said I's got quite a el'gant air in serving," grumbled Chloe, when she was not allowed to bear in the trays of dainties to the hungry guests. "I reckon these here town niggers thinks they is the king bees. I don't care what they says, I's gonter git a sicond hep ter my Miss Helen." The girl filled a tray with salad, croquettes, sandwiches and what not and made her way into the parlors. She peered around for her young mistress. The rooms were well filled with the country guests and many couples were having their supper in the nooks made by the skilful decorators of clumps of palms and evergreens. Chloe peeped behind them all and not finding her Miss Helen she went to Douglas. "Whar Miss Helen?" "Why, I don't know, Chloe! What do you want?" "I want my Miss Helen ter git her fill er victuals she ain't had ter mess in." "I haven't seen her," laughed Douglas. "Ask Miss Nan." "Miss Nan, whar Miss Helen?" "Why, Chloe, she has gone away but may be back later." "Whar she gone?" "She told me not to tell, because she doesn't want to disturb the others, but she has gone with Dr. Wright to see Miss Ella Grant, who is ill." "Miss Ellanlouise is here to the ball, ain't they?" "No, they didn't come." "Miss Helen ain't gone ter Grantly, is she?" "Of course!" Then poor Chloe dropped her tray, laden with goodies for her beloved mistress, and a mixture of salad and croquettes and sandwiches rolled over the floor. "My Gawd! My Gawd!" shrieked the girl. "Whar the count? Whar Mr. Carter? Whar that secondary?" "What is it?" demanded the count sternly, as he stepped over the débris. "My Miss Helen done gone ter Grantly!" "Is that so? Why did she leave?" His calm tones quieted the girl a little. "She done gone with Dr. Wright----" "Miss Ella Grant is ill and Helen went with Dr. Wright to look after her," put in Nan. "I don't know why Chloe is so excited." By this time the guests were crowding around the corner where Nan and Billy had ensconced themselves for what they thought was to be a quiet little supper. "'Cited! I tell you, you'd better git a move on you, you count and you secondary. The niggers is planning no good fur Grantly this night." "What negroes?" asked the count. "'Tain't no diffunce what niggers! You git out that little red devil of a mobile an' you licksplit ter Grantly as fas' as you kin, an' you take mo'n one gun." If everybody had not been wrought up to a high pitch of excitement, they would have been amused to see this ignorant country black girl handing out orders to the Count de Lestis as though she were a duchess and he a stable boy. The count motioned to Herz and they turned and left the room. "I get in on this!" cried Lewis Somerville. "And I! And I!" from every male throat in the room. Many of the farmers had pistols with them, deeming it more prudent to go armed on midnight drives through the lonely districts. Mrs. Carter fainted when it was explained to her where her daughter had gone and what the danger was. For once in her life, however, her husband had no thought for her. He left her to the ministrations of the farmer's wife in the stiff green silk, and hastened out to climb on the running-board of the count's little car, which was already under way. In what seemed like a moment since the poor Chloe had dropped her tray, there was not a single white male left at Weston, except Bobby Carter and he was only left because Lucy held him, scratching and fighting to go to the rescue of his precious sister. Even the musicians from Richmond had joined the posse. The negro waiters stepped gingerly around with many superior airs, congratulating themselves that they were as they were and not as the ignorant country blacks. Chloe sat on the floor and rocked and moaned, refusing to be comforted. "I done what she tol' me was right!" was her cryptic remark which none understood. "Why do we wait here?" asked Douglas, who was pale as death. Mrs. Carter had been revived and was lying on a sofa. "Why, indeed! Let's get in the hay wagon and go," said Nan. "Who can drive it?" "I!" cried the redoubtable Mrs. Sutton. Almost all of the carriages and buggies had been requisitioned by the masculine element but the hay wagon remained and a few other vehicles. The horses were quickly unblanketed by the women with the help of the waiters. Mrs. Carter and Douglas were the last to leave the house, as the poor nervous lady was kept quiet until they were ready to start. Just as they were going out the door Douglas heard a violent ringing of the telephone. Knowing the peculiarities of a country connection and its way of ringing at every house, and also knowing that the long, violent, protracted ringing meant emergency of some sort, Douglas ran to answer it. She distinctly heard Helen's voice crying the alarm: "_Grantly on fire and a great crowd of negro brutes in the yard!_" "What is it, my dear?" feebly asked Mrs. Carter. "Nothing at all!" said Douglas calmly. She felt that such a message would only upset her poor mother more, and it was best to keep it locked within her own panting breast. If any of the persons in that hay wagon should live to be a thousand years old they could never forget that terrible ride over the rough, muddy roads on that twenty-second of February, 1917. "Look, the moon is up!" whispered Lucy to Mag, both of them remembering the gay ride to the ball only a few hours before and how they had remarked that it would be so jolly going back because the moon would be up. "Something's on fire!" someone cried, and then the heavens were lit by the burning straw stack. A straw stack can make more light in the sky than a Woolworth building if both should be set afire; but the straw burns out so quickly that it is little more than a flash in the pan. Mrs. Sutton proved a famous Jehu. She managed her team quite as well as Billy. Nan sat up on the high seat by her, looking with admiration at the strong, capable hands. "Do you think they will be in time?" Nan whispered to her valiant companion. "Sure they will, my dear! They are there by this time and I believe that fire is nothing but a straw stack. Look, even now how it is dying down! Poor Miss Ella and Miss Louise! They seem to have the faculty of not getting along with the darkies. They are as kind as can be to them when they are sick or in want, but they always have an overbearing manner with them when they are well. I wonder what that girl meant by saying she had done just as Helen had told her." "I don't know. Helen has been so patient with Chloe and has really made a pretty good cook of her. She simply adores Helen. She comes to her with all kinds of questions to answer and problems of life to solve. Do you think these colored men would want to kill Helen just because they are angry with the Misses Grant?" "No, my dear, I don't think these colored men would want to kill anybody. God grant they are not drunk! That is the only danger I am fearing. I am not afraid of any sober negro alive, but a drunken one is to be avoided like a rattlesnake." "Well, Mrs. Sutton, I just feel somehow that God and Dr. Wright are going to take care of Helen,--and Miss Ella and Miss Louise, too." "I am sure of it, my dear. I am so sure of it that I am thanking God for having sent Dr. Wright and Helen to Grantly,--otherwise the poor, foolish old ladies might have been found there by the darkies when they expected the house to be empty, with everyone gone to the ball, and then there is no telling what would have happened." Mrs. Sutton shuddered as though she were cold. "I keep on thinking of Dr. Wright's face,--his keen blue eyes and his jaw,--somehow, I believe that jaw will pull them out safely." CHAPTER XXI THE FLAMING SWORD And what a time we have had to keep Helen peeping through the railings at Dr. Wright as he stood in the brilliant moonlight on the gallery at Grantly, while the crazed mob of darkies advanced jauntily to the front of the old mansion! It was their intention to enter and claim the spoils thereof: treasures that they had begun to think belonged to them by reason of their long service and the service of their fathers and fathers' fathers. Confident that the mansion was empty, they made no endeavor to be quiet. All the white folks for miles and miles around were feasting at the count's ball; as for the burning rick,--they had not thought that the fire would do more than warm things up for their deed. "Now fur the loot!" cried James Hanks. "An' we mus' hurry up, 'cause whin the ol' tabbies gits home from the ball they mus'n't be hide or har of the house lef' standin'." "Bus' open the bar'l er coal ile!" suggested one black brute, "so's we can pour her on." "They keep the coal ile in the woodshed," a little bandy-legged man remarked. "Now see hyar! Befo' we enter this here domicyle, they's to be a reg'lar understandin' 'bout the findin's," continued James Hanks. "The money is to be 'vided ekal an' the silvo and chino an' other little value bowles is to be portioned out 'cordin' to they valubility." "Sho'! Sho'! We's all 'greed to that!" came in a chorus. "I goes fust, as the man 'pinted by Gawd as yo' leader." As James Hanks started up the broad steps he was dumfounded when Dr. Wright came forward. He retreated down the steps and the crowd of darkies behind him surged backward. "What is it you want?" asked the young physician quite simply, in a voice as cool and natural as though he were a soda clerk dealing out soft drinks. "We--er--we--we didn't know any of the white folks was in." "Exactly!" and Dr. Wright came closer to the nonplussed darky. "Perhaps God has appointed me to defend this home." "We is hyar fur our rights," came from the extreme edge of the crowd in a growling voice. "Your rights!" "Yessah!" and James Hanks spoke up more bravely, emboldened by the support he felt the crowd was able to give him. "Aw go on, Jeemes! He ain't even armed," cried the black brute who had been so free in his suggestions about breaking open the barrel of kerosene. "Gawd wouldn't send nobody 'thout even a razor." Helen saw the crowd pushing forward. She felt a choking in her throat and loosened the cord that fastened her evening wrap. The heavy cape and hood fell to the ground. She was over the railing in a twinkling of an eye, dragging her ancient weapons of offense and defense with her. The hood had loosened her hairpins and now her hair fell around her shoulders in a heavy shower. She ran along the gallery, dragging the sword with one hand and with the other clutching the shield and scimiter. Without a word she thrust the great sword in the outstretched hand of the young man. He looked at her in astonishment and terror. Having locked her in the hall he had thought of course she would remain there. At least, he had so devoutly hoped so that he had made himself believe that was where he would find her when this wretched affair was over. His face blanched and his knees trembled visibly. The fear that he had not felt for himself was intense for this girl, but he grasped the sword and waved it over the crowd. At sight of Helen the crowd set up a groan. They sank on their knees or fell prone to the earth. God had sent an angel of vengeance with a flaming sword for their undoing. Indeed less superstitious persons than those poor darkies might have been startled by the sudden appearance of Helen Carter. Her dress, that Nan had described as like the moon, might well have been the garb of an angel. Her long light brown hair, usually so carefully coiffed but now falling below her waist, added to the make-up, as did also the ancient shield and the crescent scimiter. With the shield held forward, as though to guard the doctor, and the scimiter raised aloft, she stood gazing on the trembling crowd. "Gawd save this nigger! Gawd save this nigger!" cried the abject one with the bandy legs. "A angel of destruction, carryin' a flamin' sword! Lemme git out'n this!" wailed another. "'Twas Jeemes Hanks set fire to the straw stack! Not me! Not me!" from one who knelt and rocked himself back and forth. "I ain't teched a thing what don't b'long to me!" "I jes' come along to see the fun! I ain't nebber had no idee er harmin' Miss Ellanlouise!" "Me neither! Me neither!" "Jeemes Hanks, He's the one, good Gawd! He's the one!" James Hanks, goaded to desperation by the backslidings of his followers, turned on them in fury: "You low down sneaks! Can't you see that this ain't no angel of the Lawd? This is one of them gals come to live in the ol' tumble-down overseer's house, jes' a play actin' to scare you. If'n we can't down them we ain't worth of the name of Loyal Af'cans. Come on, boys, an' let's finish 'em an' thin we can git our loot. I ain't afraid of them. A flamin' sword ain't in it with a gun." He reached for his hip pocket. Dr. Wright grabbed the angel of the Lord most unceremoniously and held her behind him. The kneeling and groveling mob was divided in its feelings as to whether Helen was or was not a celestial visitor, but they were one and all anxious to be through with the night's work without bloodshed. This was an outcome they had not bargained for. To go to Grantly and get all the money that they ignorantly supposed the old ladies to possess, to steal the silver and whatever else they fancied and then to set fire to the ancient pile, thereby destroying all trace of their burglary, so that when the white folks came home from the count's fine ball there would be naught to tell the tale, was a very different matter from this thing of having to get rid of two persons, perhaps kill them and then be found out. "Jeemes, you is foolish in de haid," spoke up Bandy-Legs. "Indeed you are!" came in clear ringing tones from Helen as she waved her scimiter, the moonlight flashing on it. "This minute the whole county knows that Grantly is on fire and that all of you are here." "Oh, rats! Whatcher tryin' ter give us?" from the scornful, incredulous leader. "I am telling you what is so. As soon as I heard you in the yard and saw the light from the straw stack, I gave a hurry call and got the neighbors on the 'phone." "An' what was you an' the young man a-doin' of in Grantly?" sneered James, coming up quite close to Helen. "Looks like whin Miss Ellanlouise is to the ball, it's a strange place----" but James was not allowed to finish what he had to say. Dr. Wright's powerful fist shot out and the darky received a scientifically dealt blow square on his jaw bone that sent him backwards down the steps, where he lay in a huddled heap and like the Heathen Chinee: "Subsequent proceedings interested him no more"--at least, not for a while. Their leader down and out, the crowd began to melt away, but in a tone that commanded instant obedience George Wright bade them to halt. "Listen, you fools! If one of you budges from this spot until I give him permission I will lick him to within an inch of his life. Miss Ella Grant had a fainting spell and could not go to the ball, and Miss Carter and I came over here from Weston when her sister telephoned us the trouble she was in. We were just leaving the house when you arrived." "Is Miss Ellanlouise in dar now?" asked a trembling old man. "Yes!" "Praise be ter Gawd fer stayin' our han'! Praise be ter Gawd!" "Yes, you had better give praise. I am not going to tell you what I think of you for attempting this terrible thing. You know yourselves how wicked and foolish you are." Just then a light shot across the yard and in a moment the red car belonging to the count came whizzing into view. "Now you may go, all but you, and you, and you!" indicating the ones who had been so glib about the kerosene and their rights, and the one who had known so well that God would not have sent an angel without even a razor. The men pointed out tremblingly obeyed, coming up to the steps as though drawn by a magnet. The rest of the mob simply disappeared, dodging behind the box bushes and losing themselves in the convenient labyrinth. That little red car had brought over six men: the count and his secretary, Mr. Carter, Mr. Sutton, Lewis Somerville and Bill Tinsley. Hardly a word had been spoken on that ride. The count had pushed the powerful engine to its utmost ability and it had taken the car through heavy mud, up hills and down dales, through mire and ruts with a speed truly remarkable. "Some car!" remarked Lewis. "Some!" grunted Bill. Mr. Carter's mouth was close set and his eyes looked like steel points. All of his girls were dear to him but Helen had always seemed closer for some reason; perhaps her very wilfulness was the reason. And now as he thought of her in danger, it seemed as though he could single-handed tackle any number of foes. He prayed continuously as he stood on the running-board of that speeding car, but his prayer was perhaps not very devout: "Oh, God, let me get at them! Let me get at them!" The relief of finding his dear girl alive and unharmed was so great that Mr. Carter sobbed. When Helen saw him jump from the car, she flew down the box-bordered walk and threw herself into his arms. "Daddy! Daddy! We saved Miss Ella and Miss Louise!" "And who saved you?" "Dr. Wright saved me and I saved him." Mr. Sutton, who was magistrate for the district, made short order in arresting James Hanks and his companions. As the vehicles arrived with the other members of the posse there was some whisper of a lynching, but Mr. Sutton downed the whisper with contempt. "There hasn't been a lynching in Virginia for eighteen years and I should hate our county to be the one to break the record. It will have a much more salutary effect to have these poor fools locked up in jail and be brought to trial with all of their deviltry exposed and aired in the papers. After all, the only real harm done is the burning of an old rotting straw stack that was not fit for bedding, as I remember." The count and Herz were most solicitous in their endeavors to help in any possible way. It was decided that Grantly must be patrolled for the rest of the night, as it was feared that some of the darkies might return. Dr. Wright smiled at the suggestion. He knew full well that the poor negroes who had been allowed to depart would not be seen or heard of for many a day. He had seen too great and abject a fear in their rolling eyes to have any apprehension of danger from them. James Hanks showed signs of returning life. The young physician leaned over him and felt his pulse. "Umm hum! You had better be glad I didn't break your jaw. You'll be all right in a few days and in the meantime the quiet of the lock-up will be very good for your nerves." "Ah, then that is some work that Herz and I can do," cried the count. "These men must be taken to jail, and why should not we attend to it? Eh, Adolph!" "Certainly!" Herz had been looking very grim ever since Chloe had dropped the tray of second helpings for Helen. "I wish we had handcuffs," said Mr. Sutton. "Why, that is hardly necessary. I should think Herz and I with pistols could take four poor devils, unarmed, to jail. Especially since one of those devils has been already put out of business by this skilful surgeon," laughed the count. "Yes, and I'll go along with you," sighed Mr. Sutton who was accustomed to early retiring. This midnight rioting was not much to his taste, but he was determined as magistrate of the district to see the matter safely through. "Why, my dear man, there is not a bit of use in your going. You can trust Herz and me to land them safely." "Well, all right, but I feel responsible for the good of the community and these black devils must be locked up in the court-house jail before many hours." "You had better take my car," suggested Dr. Wright. "It will hold the six of you more comfortably." "Oh, not at all! Mine brought six of us over here from Weston and can take six away. The prisoners can stand on the running-boards, all but the injured one, and he can sit by me. If any of them attempts to escape we can wing him quite easily." Dr. Wright felt rather relieved that his offer was turned down. No man would relish his perfectly new car being used to carry four bad darkies to jail over roads that were quite as vile as the prisoners. Everyone felt grateful to the count for his unselfish offer, everyone but Skeeter Halsey and Frank Maury. They had fondly hoped to have a hand in the undertaking. The night had been a thrilling one for the two boys. They bitterly regretted that they had not got there in time to rush in and save Miss Helen. "I felt like I could 'a' killed at least six niggers," Skeeter said to Lucy and Mag. "Humph! Only six? I could have put a dozen out of business," scoffed Frank; and Lucy and Mag were sure they could. The boys were allowed to divide the patrol duties with Lewis and Bill, and very proud they were as they stalked up and down in front of the mansion and around the barnyard, keeping a sharp lookout for skulking blacks. Almost everything has an amusing side if one can see it. Witness: the jokes that are cracked by the men in the trenches in the midst of the tremendous world tragedy. The amusing thing about that night's happenings was that Miss Ella and Miss Louise slept right through it. Worn out by their cake making and wrangling, intensely relieved that it was nothing but hunger and not a stroke that had befallen one of them, they had slept like two children. CHAPTER XXII A NEAT TRICK The court-house was due south of Grantly and towards it the count turned his powerful little car. After running about two miles, he made a deviation to the west and then to the north. "How much gasoline have we?" he asked Herz. "The tank is full." "Good! I take it you grasp my intentions." "Of course! I'm no fool. It would never do to have these idiots testify in court. Where to?" "Richmond! There we can turn them loose with money enough to get north." "Boss, ain't yer gonter han' us over?" asked James Hanks, who was rapidly recovering. "Naturally not! You can thank your stars that you are too big a fool to be trusted to face a judge," snarled Herz. The three negroes who were hanging to the car were jubilant at the news. "I sho' is lucky," said one. "I ain't nebber had no sinse an' it looks lak it done he'p me out a heap ter be so foolish lak." "It would be much easier to shoot them all and testify that they endeavored to escape," suggested Herz with a humorous twist to his ugly mouth. "Oh, boss! Please don't do no sich a deed," whined James Hanks. "I ain't never a-goin' ter let on that you----" "I know you are not!" and Herz put a cold revolver against the negro's temple. "You are not even going to let on anything here in this car. Now you keep your mouth shut, and shut tight or I'll blow your head off. We've got no use for people who fail." "Heavens! What a Prussian you are, Herz!" laughed the count. Richmond was reached in safety. Money was handed out to each one of the grateful negroes with instructions to take the first train north and then to separate. "They'll catch you sure if you stick together. But if they do catch you, you keep your black mouths shut about anything connected with the Count de Lestis or me,--do you understand?" They understood and made off as quickly as they could. "Ain't he a tur'ble slave driver, though?" said the bandy-legged one, and the others agreed. No time for rest for the occupants of the little red car. Back they went over the muddy roads as fast as the wonderful engine could take them. It was just dawn when they reached a certain spot in the road on the way to the court-house where they considered it most likely they could work their machinations. There was a sharp curve with a steep embankment on the outer edge. The car was carefully steered until two wheels were almost over the precipice. Then the count alighted, first turning off his engine. With shoulders to the wheel, the two men pushed until the machine toppled over into the ditch. "There, my darling! I hated to do it. I hope you are not much hurt," said the count whimsically. "Now roll on after her," and Herz pushed his employer over the embankment. Then he jumped down himself and wallowed in the mud. "Here's blood a-plenty for both of us. You can furnish blue blood but I have good red blood for two." He deliberately gashed his arm with his penknife and smeared his face with blood, and then rubbed it all over the countenance of the laughing count, who seemed to look upon the whole affair as a kind of college boy's prank. "Now your ankle is sprained and you can't walk, so I'll go to the nearest farmhouse for assistance and there telephone Mr. Sutton that his prisoners have escaped. You were pinioned under the car and I had to dig you out,--remember!" "All right, but I wish you would have the sprained ankle and let me go for aid. I'm beastly hungry and besides I don't want to be laid up just now. I rather wanted to take a walk with Miss Douglas Carter this afternoon. Heavens! Wasn't she beautiful last night?" "Humph!" "Much more beautiful than her sister, although I tell you that that Helen was very wonderful, especially after her hair came down and she had played angel. I wish I could have taken that stupid doctor's car instead of my own little red devil. I should have enjoyed ditching his car, but we needed the endurance and speed of my own darling." "You had better be having some pain now in case a traveler comes along the road. I'll get help as soon as possible;" and Herz went off without any comment on the comparative beauty of the two Misses Carter. Douglas was to him the most beautiful person in all the world, but he hated himself for loving her, feeling instinctively that his love was hopeless. His very name was against him and should she ever know the truth--but pshaw! These stupid people never would find out things. They were as easy to hoodwink as the darkies themselves. Mr. Sutton's fury knew no bounds when he got the message from Herz that the prisoners had escaped. It was with difficulty that he composed himself sufficiently to ask after the welfare of the two gentlemen who had undertaken the job of landing the negroes safely in jail. "The Count de Lestis has sprained his ankle and his face is all smeared with blood,--I could not tell how great were his injuries," lied the unblushing one over the telephone. "I spent hours getting him from under the car. Fortunately the mud was soft and deep and he is not seriously injured." "Just where was the accident?" "At that sharp curve in the road about two miles this side of the court-house,--just beyond the bridge." "Umhum! Do you need any assistance?" "No, I thank you. I'll get some mules to right the car. I think I am mechanic enough to repair the engine." "How about a doctor for your friend? Dr. Wright is still with the Carters." "Oh--er--ah--I think he can get along very well without calling in a physician. I have bandaged his ankle." "You did a good deal before you gave warning as to the escape of the prisoners." There was no answer to this remark, so without further ceremony Mr. Sutton hung up the receiver. There was to be no rest for the weary, it seemed. A search party must be called and the country scoured for the missing men. CHAPTER XXIII VISITORS AT PRESTON Dr. Wright was pretty sure that James Hanks would not have been able to travel very far after the knockout blow he had received, so when they could not find him in the woods near by it was decided he must be in hiding in some cabin. The search continued but no trace was found of the missing men. "Sounds shady to me," declared Lewis Somerville. "The idea! You can't mean that the count and Mr. Herz deliberately let the men get away!" exclaimed Douglas. "I believe they are capable of it." "Lewis! How can you?" "I tell you I mistrust them both. I don't like their names--I don't like their looks--I don't like their actions." "Nor do I," declared Billy Sutton, who had dropped in that morning to have a chat after the ball. Everybody was too exhausted to think of going on with any very arduous work. "Well, I think that after you accepted the count's hospitality you have no right to say things about him," broke in Nan. "Well, hasn't he accepted the hospitality of this country, and what is he doing? Don't you know it is that fool darky school that got all those poor nigs thinking that Grantly belonged to them? I bet Miss Helen agrees with me." "I--I--don't know," said Helen faintly. "I am all mixed up about the whole thing. Why should the count want to make trouble?" The matter was discussed up and down by the young people. The males for the most part sided against the count and his secretary, the females, with the exception of Lucy and Mag, taking up for them. Mrs. Carter was most indignant that anyone should say anything disagreeable about a gentleman of such fine presence and engaging manners as the Count de Lestis, one who knew so well how to entertain and who was so lavish. As for the other man, that Herz, no doubt he was fully capable of any mischief. He could not dance, had no small talk, and held his fork in a very awkward way when at the table. The count's ankle did not keep him in very long. He was soon around, although he limped quite painfully. His only difficulty was in remembering which foot was injured. He renewed his attentions towards the ladies at Valhalla. His protestations of concern for the Misses Grant were warm and convincing. He offered to come stay with them or let Herz come until they were sure that the county had settled down into its usual state of safety and peace. Those ladies were not in the least afraid, however, but still declared that nobody would ever hurt them. It turned out that on the night of what came so near being such a tragedy they had had in the house exactly three dollars and twenty cents. What an angry crowd it would have been when they began the division! Now came stirring news in the daily papers. Diplomatic relations were broken with Germany and the declaration of war imminent! Excitement and unrest were on every hand. Sometimes Nan and Lucy would come home laden with extras with headlines of terror and bloodshed. Mr. Carter occasionally went to town with them. "I feel as though I must find out what people are saying and thinking," he would declare. The truth of the matter was that Mr. Carter was well,--as well as ever, and the mere chopping of wood and stopping of cracks was not enough to occupy him. It had seemed to him as he went on that mad ride to the rescue of his beloved Helen that he was absolutely himself again. No longer could he let people plan his life for him. He was a man and meant to take the reins into his own hands. Not that his girls had not driven the family coach excellently well. They were wonderful, but he was able to do it for himself now and he intended to start. He consulted Dr. Wright: "I tell you, Wright, I am as fit as a fiddle and can get to work now." "Of course you are! Didn't I give you a year? You have not taken quite a year but the time is almost up. The shock that night of the ball helped you on to a complete recovery a little ahead of time. Sometimes a nervous patient gets a shock that does more than rest. The trouble is, one can't tell whether it will kill or cure." "Well, this one cured all right. Why, man, I could build a cathedral tomorrow!" "Good!" "I never can thank you enough for your kindness to me and my family. If there is ever anything I can do for you----" "No doubt there will be," was the doctor's cryptic remark. Herz kept up his walks with Douglas, although the girl did nothing to encourage him. She did everything to discourage him, in fact, except actually ask him to let her alone. She would find him waiting on the road after school. Sometimes he would even come to the school door for her if for any reason she was detained. These walks were usually taken when the count was off on one of his many business trips. In Virginia, March means spring, although sometimes a very blustering spring. If one wanders in the woods it is quite usual to find hepatica and arbutus making their way up through the leaves. The tender green begins to make its appearance on hedge and tree, and in the old gardens jonquils and daffodils and crocuses pop up their saucy heads, defying possible late snows and frosts. The roads were still muddy but not quite so bad as in the winter, and now, more than ever, Douglas with her faithful protector, Bobby, could enjoy the walks to and from school. The stilts did not have to be used nearly so often, although Nan and Lucy had become such adepts on their flamingo legs that they often mounted them merely for the pleasure and not because of the mud. Valhalla was growing lovelier day by day. The gaunt trees had taken on a veil of green. The nations were at war. The United States was being forced into the game in spite of her attempts at neutrality; but Mother Nature's slogan was: "Business as usual!" and she was attending to it exactly as she had from the beginning and as she will until the end of time. Spring had come in good earnest, and with her the myriads of little creatures who must work so hard for a mere existence. Strange scratchings had begun in the chimneys at Valhalla. The swallows were back and gave the Carters to understand that they had been tenants in that old overseer's house long before those city folks ever thought of such a thing as spending the winter in such a place. The robins were hopping about the lawn, trying to decide where they would build, while the mocking-birds were already busy in the honeysuckle hedge. One Saturday, the Saturday before war was actually declared, the Count de Lestis came to call, bringing with him in a lovely wicker cage a carrier pigeon for Douglas. "You promised that sometimes you would send me a message, remember," he said with the sentimental glance that Douglas refused to respond to. "Certainly I will. I'll send a note asking you to come to dinner. Would that do?" "Anything you send will do," he sighed. The pigeon was a beautiful little creature with glossy plumage and dainty red legs. "He will come back straight to Weston because he has young in the nest. He is not like some men who are up and away at the smallest excuse." "But how cruel to take him away from his young!" "Ah, but the hausfrau is there! She will see that no harm befalls the babies. And, too, she will remain faithful until her lord returns. As faithful as a pigeon means true unto death." The pigeon house had continued to be a thorn in the flesh to Mr. Carter. It was painted white, as that is what the pigeons like, and it was so large and so out of tone with the fine lines of the roof that Mr. Carter declared he could not bear to go to Weston any more. No trace of the lost negroes was found, although Mr. Sutton had detectives from Richmond to work on the case. They had evidently got away and well away. The farmer who had been so nearly asleep when Helen and Dr. Wright arrived at the ball, the farmer whose wife wore the stiff, green silk, declared he had passed that road on the way home that night and he had seen no sign of a red car turned turtle down a ditch. Of course the neighbors all said he had been driving in his sleep. Mr. Sutton made a trip into Richmond and had a conference with the governor. He told him that the bloodhounds employed to trace the darkies had never left the scene of the accident, although they had had many things belonging to the escaped men as a clue to tracing them. The governor told Mr. Sutton something that made him open his honest eyes very wide. At the same time he was cautioned to keep his honest mouth shut very tight. He came back to Preston with an air of mystery about him that disconcerted his good wife greatly. "Margaret, could you accommodate a guest just now?" "Why, certainly, if it is necessary, but who is the guest?" "A gentleman I have never met, maybe there will be two of them,--but we must pretend they are our very good friends." "Why, William, are you crazy?" "No, ma'am!" and then he whispered something to her, although they were alone, and she, too, opened her eyes very wide but promised to keep her mouth shut. The visitors came, two quiet gentlemen with good manners and simple habits. Mr. and Mrs. Sutton decided they should be some long lost cousins from the west who were in the country for their health. Thus they explained their visitors to Billy and Mag and their neighbors. They brought a small Ford runabout which they used a great deal. Mr. Sutton had a long conference with Mr. Carter. There was some more opening of eyes and shutting of mouths. "What a fool I have been!" cried that gentleman. "I can see it all now. Lewis Somerville tried to make me see but I was quite hard on the boy. Well! Well! What is to be done?" "Nothing! Just bide our time." "See here, Sutton, I believe there was method in that man's madness when he got two electric light systems. He told me to order one and then said his secretary had ordered one, too. Pretended he had not told me to, and then was tremendously kind and magnanimous about it. I began to think maybe I had not understood,--you see my head hadn't been very clear for business for many months and I mistrusted myself. I'll wager anything that that extra battery is running a wireless station at Weston." "Geewhilikins!" exclaimed the elder Sutton in very much the same tone his son might have used. "This business is growing very exciting." Sometimes the two quiet gentlemen visitors at Preston would go out for an airing in their little car, and finding a secluded spot in a pine woods, one of them would cleverly convert himself into an Armenian pedlar with a pack filled with cheap lace and jewelry. Then he would make the rounds of the cabins. He could speak almost no English when doing this part and seemed not to understand any at all. He visited every house in Paradise and from there made his way to Weston. His heavy, blue-black beard and long straggling hair so completely disguised him that the count never dreamed the man he saw at his kitchen door haggling with his colored cook over some coarse pillow shams was the same smooth-faced gentleman he had met that morning driving with his neighbor Sutton. As a book agent, the clever detective gained access to the count's library and actually sold him a set of Ruskin. As telephone inspector, he got much information desired, and as a government agricultural expert, he was favored with a long, intimate talk with the owner of Weston. Old Blitz, the German farmer near Preston, came in for his share of visits, too, from pedlars and book agents, etc. The mills of the government were grinding slowly but they were grinding exceeding small. The neighborhood was in absolute ignorance of the fact that their delightful count was being watched. His comings and goings were known. He had few secrets. It was learned by the detectives that he was not a Hungarian at all but his father was Austrian, his mother Prussian. He had been sent to this country by his government to make trouble among the negroes and to buy up tracts of land for future emigration. When the world was to be Prussianized, fair Virginia was not to be neglected. The raid on Grantly was traced absolutely to his lectures and the teachings of Herz, the so-called secretary. The only thing that had gone wrong was that the negroes had acted sooner than their masters had planned. Their object had been to have a general uprising and they wanted it to be timed about when war was declared. Their schemes had not been directed against poor old Grantly especially, but against all the whites, with a view of keeping the darkies out of the army. Herz turned out to be a full-blooded Prussian, who had lived in Cincinnati for about five years. He was a trusted spy of his government and had done wonderful work for them in Mexico. He was really the brains of the partnership and de Lestis the mixer. When de Lestis went off on his long business trips to Chicago and New York it developed he had been across the water several times, bearing with him maps and information that must be personally conducted. A wireless station was suspected but it was difficult to locate. "Look in the pigeon house," suggested Mr. Carter, still bearing a grudge against the atrocity that had ruined his beloved roof line. There it was, as neatly installed an instrument as one could find with the extra batteries doing the work perfectly. The telephone inspector found it quite easily. The pigeon house was a hollow sham. There was a reason for making it so large since the wireless was to have an inner chamber. The net was drawing more closely around the two men but they, scornful of the intelligence of the stupid Americans, went unconcernedly on, laying their plans and hatching their deviltries. Many a laugh they had over the automobile accident. "Those darkies before a clever lawyer would have been our undoing," they admitted to one another. The night school was discontinued for the time being and the poor colored people got back into their one time rut. Tempy resumed her labors at Grantly, a sadder and wiser girl. She no longer slept amidst the unwashed dishes but seemed anxious to become as good a servant as her sister Chloe. Sam, the factotum, returned in time to put in the garden. CHAPTER XXIV THE CARRIER PIGEON There came a day in mid-April that will always be remembered by the dwellers in Valhalla. Herz had walked home from school with Douglas, and contrary to his custom, had come in when they reached the house. He was in a strange, fierce humor and it seemed to Douglas as though his near-sighted eyes were boring holes in her. She could not keep her mind and talk off the war and whenever war was mentioned he became very glum. "Now that we are at war, will you not enlist?" she asked. "If you are a true American, I do not see how you can help it." "My eyes would debar me. Near-sighted men can't always serve where they would like to," he answered rather bitterly. "You see good in no one but a soldier." "Why, not at all!" blushed Douglas. "Of course, when my country is at war I want our young men to be willing to fight. Being a girl is all that keeps me here. You might work in a munition factory and help that way." "Ah, I should like that! Would you think more of me if I could help your country in some way?" "Your country, too!" Herz had come so close to her as they stood in the middle of the quaint old living-room that Douglas felt a desire to run away. She welcomed the sight of Helen running across the lawn from the direction of Grantly. "Guess!" panted Helen, bursting in on them. "I have seen James Hanks! He was sneaking out of the kitchen at Grantly. Had been in to see Tempy, I reckon. The man is crazy about her. Miss Louise saw him, too, and has 'phoned Mr. Sutton. I fancy he is on the way over here now with those western cousins of his. Funny men, aren't they? Miss Ella says she never heard of either Mr. or Mrs. Sutton's having any western kin, and she has known them and all their people for pretty near a century. I believe they are detectives myself, trying to find those runaway darkies." While Helen was giving out this information, Herz stood as though he had turned to stone. His face was white with a red spot on each high cheek bone. "Where is your carrier pigeon?" he asked Douglas abruptly. "The cage hangs on the porch." He drew from his pocket a small note-book and wrote rapidly in it. Tearing out the sheet, he strode to the porch, and with a small rubber band he quickly attached the note to the foot of the docile bird that he had grabbed from the cage without even a "by your leave." "What are you doing?" demanded Douglas. Was the man crazy? "Stop!" cried Helen. "Count de Lestis gave that bird to my sister." "Yes, and she was to send him a message. This is the message. It is as he would have it, I am sure. You remember he told you he would rather someone would seek him than search him. He shall have his choice." He carried the pigeon out on the lawn and freed it. The clever bird rose in a spiral flight and then started straight towards Weston and its mate. Without a word, Herz left the girls and started towards Weston, too, taking a line almost as straight as the one the pigeon had chosen. "Is he crazy, Douglas?" "I think he is something worse. I believe he is afraid of detectives." The count and his confederate got away,--although they were captured later on in North Carolina. The faithful red car carried them off rapidly. De Lestis was waiting for his one time secretary at the cross roads by Paradise. "Did you destroy the papers and maps?" gasped that gentleman as he sprang into the car. "How could I when your call was so urgent? I brought all the money, though. Those fools will never find the wireless. They have no imagination. And I have the grey paint to put my darling here in her uniform." That night, after having speeded for hours, the two men drew the little red car into the woods where they painted her a dingy grey. The count had purchased the paint only the day before at the country store. "In case of an emergency!" he had told Herz. Little did he dream that one of the visitors at Mr. Sutton's found out before night that he had bought the paint, and that when messages were sent in every direction to look out for two German spies, information was also given that they would be in a red car that had more than likely been painted grey. When Weston was thoroughly searched, many things besides the wireless station were brought to light. One of the detectives brought to Douglas a letter addressed in Lewis Somerville's writing. "Where did you find it?" blushed Douglas. "In the count's desk! I am sorry to have to tell you that it was my duty to read it before giving it to you." It was the letter Lewis had written from the Mexican border and no wonder Douglas blushed. He had made most violent love to her in this letter and had also spoken quite openly of the situation in Mexico from a soldier's standpoint. "Nothing is too small for them!" cried Douglas. "But what an escape we have made!" exclaimed Helen. "I bet you that man has made love to every one of us except Lucy." "He had better not say anything sweet to me," said that young lady. "Mag and I never could abide him." "Well, I liked him a whole lot," sighed Nan. "He appreciated poetry so thoroughly." There were three young men who were secretly glad when the count and Herz were caught: Dr. Wright, Lewis Somerville and Billy Sutton. They did not wish to be ungenerous, but it _was_ hard to have your especial girl monopolized on every occasion. The Misses Grant never could be made to understand that their precious count was a spy. "He was a charming gentleman and we want to hear nothing unkind about him," they actually agreed. Mrs. Carter insisted it was all the doings of that common Herz, who did not know how to conduct himself in a ballroom and who held his fork so awkwardly at the table. And Mr. Carter, true to his professional instinct, declared he had had his doubts about de Lestis from the moment he sacrificed his roof line to the pigeon house. But whatever the opinion held by the various members of the Carter family, all agreed that the surprising summer at Valhalla was one long to be remembered. Fascinating as had been its mysteries, its uncertainties, its new friendships and responsibilities however, not one of the family was sorry to return to Richmond. There, as fall advanced into winter, new doors of opportunity were opened and old associations renewed. Once more there were numbered among the city's happily busy people "The Carter Girls of Carter House." THE END [Illustration] The Girl Scouts Series BY EDITH LAVELL A new copyright series of Girl Scouts stories by an author of wide experience in Scouts' craft, as Director of Girl Scouts of Philadelphia. Clothbound, with Attractive Color Designs. PRICE, 65 CENTS EACH. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT MISS ALLEN'S SCHOOL THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP THE GIRL SCOUTS' GOOD TURN THE GIRL SCOUTS' CANOE TRIP THE GIRL SCOUTS' RIVALS THE GIRL SCOUTS ON THE RANCH THE GIRL SCOUTS' VACATION ADVENTURES THE GIRL SCOUTS' MOTOR TRIP For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the Publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK [Illustration] Marjorie Dean High School Series BY PAULINE LESTER Author of the Famous Marjorie Dean College Series These are clean, wholesome stories that will be of great interest to all girls of high school age. 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All Cloth Bound Copyright Titles PRICE, 65 CENTS EACH CAPTAIN JACK LORIMER; or, The Young Athlete of Millvale High. Jack Lorimer is a fine example of the all-around American high-school boys. His fondness for clean, honest sport of all kinds will strike a chord of sympathy among athletic youths. JACK LORIMER'S CHAMPIONS; or, Sports on Land and Lake. There is a lively story woven in with the athletic achievements, which are all right, since the book has been O. K'd. by Chadwick, the Nestor of American Sporting journalism. JACK LORIMER'S HOLIDAYS; or, Millvale High in Camp. It would be well not to put this book into a boy's hands until the chores are finished, otherwise they might be neglected. JACK LORIMER'S SUBSTITUTE; or, The Acting Captain of the Team. On the sporting side, this book takes up football, wrestling, and tobogganing. There is a good deal of fun in this book and plenty of action. JACK LORIMER, FRESHMAN; or, From Millvale High to Exmouth. Jack and some friends he makes crowd innumerable happenings into an exciting freshman year at one of the leading Eastern colleges. The book is typical of the American college boy's life, and there is a lively story, interwoven with feats on the gridiron, hockey, basketball and other clean honest sports for which Jack Lorimer stands. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the Publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK Transcriber's Note In this text-version italics has been indicated with _italics_ and bold with =bold=. Small capitals has been changed to all capitals. A few obvious printer's errors have been corrected. Otherwise the original has been preserved, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation or accentuation. 
11057	----	The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays Charles W. Chesnutt 1899 INTRODUCTION Charles Waddell Chesnutt (1858-1932)--African-American educator, lawyer, and activist--was the most prominent black prose author of his day. In both his fiction and his essays, he addressed the thorny issues of the "color line" and racism in an outspoken way. Despite the critical acclaim resulting from several works of fiction and non-fiction published between 1898 and 1905, he was unable to make a living as an author. He kept writing, however, and several works which were not published during his lifetime have been rediscovered (and published) in recent years. He was awarded the Springarn Medal for distinguished literary achievement by the NAACP in 1928. The library at Fayetteville State University, in North Carolina, is named after him. The Wife of His Youth (1899) was Chesnutt's second collection of short stories, drawing upon his mixed race heritage. These deal largely with race relations, the far-reaching effects of Jim Crow laws, and color prejudice among African Americans toward darker-skinned blacks. Eric J. Sundquist wrote: "Chesnutt's color-line stories, like his conjure tales, are at their best haunting, psychologically and philosophically astute studies of the nation's betrayal of the promise of racial equality and its descent into a brutal world of segregation. [He] made the family a means of delineating America's racial crisis, during slavery and afterward." For our PG edition, I have added three of Chesnutt's essays on the "color line" in an Appendix to this collection. Suzanne Shell, Project Gutenberg Project Manager CONTENTS The Wife of His Youth Her Virginia Mammy The Sheriff's Children A Matter of Principle Cicely's Dream The Passing of Grandison Uncle Wellington's Wives The Bouquet The Web of Circumstance APPENDIX Three Essays on the Color Line: What is a White Man? (1889) The Future American (1900) The Disfranchisement of the Negro (1903) The Wife of His Youth I Mr. Ryder was going to give a ball. There were several reasons why this was an opportune time for such an event. Mr. Ryder might aptly be called the dean of the Blue Veins. The original Blue Veins were a little society of colored persons organized in a certain Northern city shortly after the war. Its purpose was to establish and maintain correct social standards among a people whose social condition presented almost unlimited room for improvement. By accident, combined perhaps with some natural affinity, the society consisted of individuals who were, generally speaking, more white than black. Some envious outsider made the suggestion that no one was eligible for membership who was not white enough to show blue veins. The suggestion was readily adopted by those who were not of the favored few, and since that time the society, though possessing a longer and more pretentious name, had been known far and wide as the "Blue Vein Society," and its members as the "Blue Veins." The Blue Veins did not allow that any such requirement existed for admission to their circle, but, on the contrary, declared that character and culture were the only things considered; and that if most of their members were light-colored, it was because such persons, as a rule, had had better opportunities to qualify themselves for membership. Opinions differed, too, as to the usefulness of the society. There were those who had been known to assail it violently as a glaring example of the very prejudice from which the colored race had suffered most; and later, when such critics had succeeded in getting on the inside, they had been heard to maintain with zeal and earnestness that the society was a lifeboat, an anchor, a bulwark and a shield,--a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, to guide their people through the social wilderness. Another alleged prerequisite for Blue Vein membership was that of free birth; and while there was really no such requirement, it is doubtless true that very few of the members would have been unable to meet it if there had been. If there were one or two of the older members who had come up from the South and from slavery, their history presented enough romantic circumstances to rob their servile origin of its grosser aspects. While there were no such tests of eligibility, it is true that the Blue Veins had their notions on these subjects, and that not all of them were equally liberal in regard to the things they collectively disclaimed. Mr. Ryder was one of the most conservative. Though he had not been among the founders of the society, but had come in some years later, his genius for social leadership was such that he had speedily become its recognized adviser and head, the custodian of its standards, and the preserver of its traditions. He shaped its social policy, was active in providing for its entertainment, and when the interest fell off, as it sometimes did, he fanned the embers until they burst again into a cheerful flame. There were still other reasons for his popularity. While he was not as white as some of the Blue Veins, his appearance was such as to confer distinction upon them. His features were of a refined type, his hair was almost straight; he was always neatly dressed; his manners were irreproachable, and his morals above suspicion. He had come to Groveland a young man, and obtaining employment in the office of a railroad company as messenger had in time worked himself up to the position of stationery clerk, having charge of the distribution of the office supplies for the whole company. Although the lack of early training had hindered the orderly development of a naturally fine mind, it had not prevented him from doing a great deal of reading or from forming decidedly literary tastes. Poetry was his passion. He could repeat whole pages of the great English poets; and if his pronunciation was sometimes faulty, his eye, his voice, his gestures, would respond to the changing sentiment with a precision that revealed a poetic soul and disarmed criticism. He was economical, and had saved money; he owned and occupied a very comfortable house on a respectable street. His residence was handsomely furnished, containing among other things a good library, especially rich in poetry, a piano, and some choice engravings. He generally shared his house with some young couple, who looked after his wants and were company for him; for Mr. Ryder was a single man. In the early days of his connection with the Blue Veins he had been regarded as quite a catch, and young ladies and their mothers had manoeuvred with much ingenuity to capture him. Not, however, until Mrs. Molly Dixon visited Groveland had any woman ever made him wish to change his condition to that of a married man. Mrs. Dixon had come to Groveland from Washington in the spring, and before the summer was over she had won Mr. Ryder's heart. She possessed many attractive qualities. She was much younger than he; in fact, he was old enough to have been her father, though no one knew exactly how old he was. She was whiter than he, and better educated. She had moved in the best colored society of the country, at Washington, and had taught in the schools of that city. Such a superior person had been eagerly welcomed to the Blue Vein Society, and had taken a leading part in its activities. Mr. Ryder had at first been attracted by her charms of person, for she was very good looking and not over twenty-five; then by her refined manners and the vivacity of her wit. Her husband had been a government clerk, and at his death had left a considerable life insurance. She was visiting friends in Groveland, and, finding the town and the people to her liking, had prolonged her stay indefinitely. She had not seemed displeased at Mr. Ryder's attentions, but on the contrary had given him every proper encouragement; indeed, a younger and less cautious man would long since have spoken. But he had made up his mind, and had only to determine the time when he would ask her to be his wife. He decided to give a ball in her honor, and at some time during the evening of the ball to offer her his heart and hand. He had no special fears about the outcome, but, with a little touch of romance, he wanted the surroundings to be in harmony with his own feelings when he should have received the answer he expected. Mr. Ryder resolved that this ball should mark an epoch in the social history of Groveland. He knew, of course,--no one could know better,--the entertainments that had taken place in past years, and what must be done to surpass them. His ball must be worthy of the lady in whose honor it was to be given, and must, by the quality of its guests, set an example for the future. He had observed of late a growing liberality, almost a laxity, in social matters, even among members of his own set, and had several times been forced to meet in a social way persons whose complexions and callings in life were hardly up to the standard which he considered proper for the society to maintain. He had a theory of his own. "I have no race prejudice," he would say, "but we people of mixed blood are ground between the upper and the nether millstone. Our fate lies between absorption by the white race and extinction in the black. The one does n't want us yet, but may take us in time. The other would welcome us, but it would be for us a backward step. 'With malice towards none, with charity for all,' we must do the best we can for ourselves and those who are to follow us. Self-preservation is the first law of nature." His ball would serve by its exclusiveness to counteract leveling tendencies, and his marriage with Mrs. Dixon would help to further the upward process of absorption he had been wishing and waiting for. II The ball was to take place on Friday night. The house had been put in order, the carpets covered with canvas, the halls and stairs decorated with palms and potted plants; and in the afternoon Mr. Ryder sat on his front porch, which the shade of a vine running up over a wire netting made a cool and pleasant lounging place. He expected to respond to the toast "The Ladies" at the supper, and from a volume of Tennyson--his favorite poet--was fortifying himself with apt quotations. The volume was open at "A Dream of Fair Women." His eyes fell on these lines, and he read them aloud to judge better of their effect:---- "At length I saw a lady within call, Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there; A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair." He marked the verse, and turning the page read the stanza beginning,---- "O sweet pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret." He weighed the passage a moment, and decided that it would not do. Mrs. Dixon was the palest lady he expected at the ball, and she was of a rather ruddy complexion, and of lively disposition and buxom build. So he ran over the leaves until his eye rested on the description of Queen Guinevere:---- "She seem'd a part of joyous Spring; A gown of grass-green silk she wore, Buckled with golden clasps before; A light-green tuft of plumes she bore Closed in a golden ring. * * * * * "She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd The rein with dainty finger-tips, A man had given all other bliss, And all his worldly worth for this, To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips." As Mr. Ryder murmured these words audibly, with an appreciative thrill, he heard the latch of his gate click, and a light footfall sounding on the steps. He turned his head, and saw a woman standing before his door. She was a little woman, not five feet tall, and proportioned to her height. Although she stood erect, and looked around her with very bright and restless eyes, she seemed quite old; for her face was crossed and recrossed with a hundred wrinkles, and around the edges of her bonnet could be seen protruding here and there a tuft of short gray wool. She wore a blue calico gown of ancient cut, a little red shawl fastened around her shoulders with an old-fashioned brass brooch, and a large bonnet profusely ornamented with faded red and yellow artificial flowers. And she was very black,--so black that her toothless gums, revealed when she opened her mouth to speak, were not red, but blue. She looked like a bit of the old plantation life, summoned up from the past by the wave of a magician's wand, as the poet's fancy had called into being the gracious shapes of which Mr. Ryder had just been reading. He rose from his chair and came over to where she stood. "Good-afternoon, madam," he said. "Good-evenin', suh," she answered, ducking suddenly with a quaint curtsy. Her voice was shrill and piping, but softened somewhat by age. "Is dis yere whar Mistuh Ryduh lib, suh?" she asked, looking around her doubtfully, and glancing into the open windows, through which some of the preparations for the evening were visible. "Yes," he replied, with an air of kindly patronage, unconsciously flattered by her manner, "I am Mr. Ryder. Did you want to see me?" "Yas, suh, ef I ain't 'sturbin' of you too much." "Not at all. Have a seat over here behind the vine, where it is cool. What can I do for you?" "'Scuse me, suh," she continued, when she had sat down on the edge of a chair, "'scuse me, suh, I 's lookin' for my husban'. I heerd you wuz a big man an' had libbed heah a long time, an' I 'lowed you would n't min' ef I 'd come roun' an' ax you ef you 'd ever heerd of a merlatter man by de name er Sam Taylor 'quirin' roun' in de chu'ches ermongs' de people fer his wife 'Liza Jane?" Mr. Ryder seemed to think for a moment. "There used to be many such cases right after the war," he said, "but it has been so long that I have forgotten them. There are very few now. But tell me your story, and it may refresh my memory." She sat back farther in her chair so as to be more comfortable, and folded her withered hands in her lap. "My name 's 'Liza," she began, "'Liza Jane. W'en I wuz young I us'ter b'long ter Marse Bob Smif, down in ole Missoura. I wuz bawn down dere. Wen I wuz a gal I wuz married ter a man named Jim. But Jim died, an' after dat I married a merlatter man named Sam Taylor. Sam wuz free-bawn, but his mammy and daddy died, an' de w'ite folks 'prenticed him ter my marster fer ter work fer 'im 'tel he wuz growed up. Sam worked in de fiel', an' I wuz de cook. One day Ma'y Ann, ole miss's maid, came rushin' out ter de kitchen, an' says she, ''Liza Jane, ole marse gwine sell yo' Sam down de ribber.' "'Go way f'm yere,' says I; 'my husban' 's free!' "'Don' make no diff'ence. I heerd ole marse tell ole miss he wuz gwine take yo' Sam 'way wid 'im ter-morrow, fer he needed money, an' he knowed whar he could git a t'ousan' dollars fer Sam an' no questions axed.' "W'en Sam come home f'm de fiel' dat night, I tole him 'bout ole marse gwine steal 'im, an' Sam run erway. His time wuz mos' up, an' he swo' dat w'en he wuz twenty-one he would come back an' he'p me run erway, er else save up de money ter buy my freedom. An' I know he 'd 'a' done it, fer he thought a heap er me, Sam did. But w'en he come back he didn' fin' me, fer I wuzn' dere. Ole marse had heerd dat I warned Sam, so he had me whip' an' sol' down de ribber. "Den de wah broke out, an' w'en it wuz ober de cullud folks wuz scattered. I went back ter de ole home; but Sam wuzn' dere, an' I could n' l'arn nuffin' 'bout 'im. But I knowed he 'd be'n dere to look fer me an' had n' foun' me, an' had gone erway ter hunt fer me. "I 's be'n lookin' fer 'im eber sence," she added simply, as though twenty-five years were but a couple of weeks, "an' I knows he 's be'n lookin' fer me. Fer he sot a heap er sto' by me, Sam did, an' I know he 's be'n huntin' fer me all dese years,--'less'n he 's be'n sick er sump'n, so he could n' work, er out'n his head, so he could n' 'member his promise. I went back down de ribber, fer I 'lowed he 'd gone down dere lookin' fer me. I 's be'n ter Noo Orleens, an' Atlanty, an' Charleston, an' Richmon'; an' w'en I 'd be'n all ober de Souf I come ter de Norf. Fer I knows I 'll fin' 'im some er dese days," she added softly, "er he 'll fin' me, an' den we 'll bofe be as happy in freedom as we wuz in de ole days befo' de wah." A smile stole over her withered countenance as she paused a moment, and her bright eyes softened into a far-away look. This was the substance of the old woman's story. She had wandered a little here and there. Mr. Ryder was looking at her curiously when she finished. "How have you lived all these years?" he asked. "Cookin', suh. I 's a good cook. Does you know anybody w'at needs a good cook, suh? I 's stoppin' wid a cullud fam'ly roun' de corner yonder 'tel I kin git a place." "Do you really expect to find your husband? He may be dead long ago." She shook her head emphatically. "Oh no, he ain' dead. De signs an' de tokens tells me. I dremp three nights runnin' on'y dis las' week dat I foun' him." "He may have married another woman. Your slave marriage would not have prevented him, for you never lived with him after the war, and without that your marriage does n't count." "Would n' make no diff'ence wid Sam. He would n' marry no yuther 'ooman 'tel he foun' out 'bout me. I knows it," she added. "Sump'n 's be'n tellin' me all dese years dat I 's gwine fin' Sam 'fo' I dies." "Perhaps he 's outgrown you, and climbed up in the world where he would n't care to have you find him." "No, indeed, suh," she replied, "Sam ain' dat kin' er man. He wuz good ter me, Sam wuz, but he wuz n' much good ter nobody e'se, fer he wuz one er de triflin'es' han's on de plantation. I 'spec's ter haf ter suppo't 'im w'en I fin' 'im, fer he nebber would work 'less'n he had ter. But den he wuz free, an' he did n' git no pay fer his work, an' I don' blame 'im much. Mebbe he 's done better sence he run erway, but I ain' 'spectin' much." "You may have passed him on the street a hundred times during the twenty-five years, and not have known him; time works great changes." She smiled incredulously. "I 'd know 'im 'mongs' a hund'ed men. Fer dey wuz n' no yuther merlatter man like my man Sam, an' I could n' be mistook. I 's toted his picture roun' wid me twenty-five years." "May I see it?" asked Mr. Ryder. "It might help me to remember whether I have seen the original." As she drew a small parcel from her bosom he saw that it was fastened to a string that went around her neck. Removing several wrappers, she brought to light an old-fashioned daguerreotype in a black case. He looked long and intently at the portrait. It was faded with time, but the features were still distinct, and it was easy to see what manner of man it had represented. He closed the case, and with a slow movement handed it back to her. "I don't know of any man in town who goes by that name," he said, "nor have I heard of any one making such inquiries. But if you will leave me your address, I will give the matter some attention, and if I find out anything I will let you know." She gave him the number of a house in the neighborhood, and went away, after thanking him warmly. He wrote the address on the fly-leaf of the volume of Tennyson, and, when she had gone, rose to his feet and stood looking after her curiously. As she walked down the street with mincing step, he saw several persons whom she passed turn and look back at her with a smile of kindly amusement. When she had turned the corner, he went upstairs to his bedroom, and stood for a long time before the mirror of his dressing-case, gazing thoughtfully at the reflection of his own face. III At eight o'clock the ballroom was a blaze of light and the guests had begun to assemble; for there was a literary programme and some routine business of the society to be gone through with before the dancing. A black servant in evening dress waited at the door and directed the guests to the dressing-rooms. The occasion was long memorable among the colored people of the city; not alone for the dress and display, but for the high average of intelligence and culture that distinguished the gathering as a whole. There were a number of school-teachers, several young doctors, three or four lawyers, some professional singers, an editor, a lieutenant in the United States army spending his furlough in the city, and others in various polite callings; these were colored, though most of them would not have attracted even a casual glance because of any marked difference from white people. Most of the ladies were in evening costume, and dress coats and dancing pumps were the rule among the men. A band of string music, stationed in an alcove behind a row of palms, played popular airs while the guests were gathering. The dancing began at half past nine. At eleven o'clock supper was served. Mr. Ryder had left the ballroom some little time before the intermission, but reappeared at the supper-table. The spread was worthy of the occasion, and the guests did full justice to it. When the coffee had been served, the toast-master, Mr. Solomon Sadler, rapped for order. He made a brief introductory speech, complimenting host and guests, and then presented in their order the toasts of the evening. They were responded to with a very fair display of after-dinner wit. "The last toast," said the toast-master, when he reached the end of the list, "is one which must appeal to us all. There is no one of us of the sterner sex who is not at some time dependent upon woman,--in infancy for protection, in manhood for companionship, in old age for care and comforting. Our good host has been trying to live alone, but the fair faces I see around me to-night prove that he too is largely dependent upon the gentler sex for most that makes life worth living,--the society and love of friends,--and rumor is at fault if he does not soon yield entire subjection to one of them. Mr. Ryder will now respond to the toast,--The Ladies." There was a pensive look in Mr. Ryder's eyes as he took the floor and adjusted his eyeglasses. He began by speaking of woman as the gift of Heaven to man, and after some general observations on the relations of the sexes he said: "But perhaps the quality which most distinguishes woman is her fidelity and devotion to those she loves. History is full of examples, but has recorded none more striking than one which only to-day came under my notice." He then related, simply but effectively, the story told by his visitor of the afternoon. He gave it in the same soft dialect, which came readily to his lips, while the company listened attentively and sympathetically. For the story had awakened a responsive thrill in many hearts. There were some present who had seen, and others who had heard their fathers and grandfathers tell, the wrongs and sufferings of this past generation, and all of them still felt, in their darker moments, the shadow hanging over them. Mr. Ryder went on:---- "Such devotion and confidence are rare even among women. There are many who would have searched a year, some who would have waited five years, a few who might have hoped ten years; but for twenty-five years this woman has retained her affection for and her faith in a man she has not seen or heard of in all that time. "She came to me to-day in the hope that I might be able to help her find this long-lost husband. And when she was gone I gave my fancy rein, and imagined a case I will put to you. "Suppose that this husband, soon after his escape, had learned that his wife had been sold away, and that such inquiries as he could make brought no information of her whereabouts. Suppose that he was young, and she much older than he; that he was light, and she was black; that their marriage was a slave marriage, and legally binding only if they chose to make it so after the war. Suppose, too, that he made his way to the North, as some of us have done, and there, where he had larger opportunities, had improved them, and had in the course of all these years grown to be as different from the ignorant boy who ran away from fear of slavery as the day is from the night. Suppose, even, that he had qualified himself, by industry, by thrift, and by study, to win the friendship and be considered worthy the society of such people as these I see around me to-night, gracing my board and filling my heart with gladness; for I am old enough to remember the day when such a gathering would not have been possible in this land. Suppose, too, that, as the years went by, this man's memory of the past grew more and more indistinct, until at last it was rarely, except in his dreams, that any image of this bygone period rose before his mind. And then suppose that accident should bring to his knowledge the fact that the wife of his youth, the wife he had left behind him,--not one who had walked by his side and kept pace with him in his upward struggle, but one upon whom advancing years and a laborious life had set their mark,--was alive and seeking him, but that he was absolutely safe from recognition or discovery, unless he chose to reveal himself. My friends, what would the man do? I will presume that he was one who loved honor, and tried to deal justly with all men. I will even carry the case further, and suppose that perhaps he had set his heart upon another, whom he had hoped to call his own. What would he do, or rather what ought he to do, in such a crisis of a lifetime? "It seemed to me that he might hesitate, and I imagined that I was an old friend, a near friend, and that he had come to me for advice; and I argued the case with him. I tried to discuss it impartially. After we had looked upon the matter from every point of view, I said to him, in words that we all know:---- "'This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.' "Then, finally, I put the question to him, 'Shall you acknowledge her?' "And now, ladies and gentlemen, friends and companions, I ask you, what should he have done?" There was something in Mr. Ryder's voice that stirred the hearts of those who sat around him. It suggested more than mere sympathy with an imaginary situation; it seemed rather in the nature of a personal appeal. It was observed, too, that his look rested more especially upon Mrs. Dixon, with a mingled expression of renunciation and inquiry. She had listened, with parted lips and streaming eyes. She was the first to speak: "He should have acknowledged her." "Yes," they all echoed, "he should have acknowledged her." "My friends and companions," responded Mr. Ryder, "I thank you, one and all. It is the answer I expected, for I knew your hearts." He turned and walked toward the closed door of an adjoining room, while every eye followed him in wondering curiosity. He came back in a moment, leading by the hand his visitor of the afternoon, who stood startled and trembling at the sudden plunge into this scene of brilliant gayety. She was neatly dressed in gray, and wore the white cap of an elderly woman. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "this is the woman, and I am the man, whose story I have told you. Permit me to introduce to you the wife of my youth." Her Virginia Mammy I The pianist had struck up a lively two-step, and soon the floor was covered with couples, each turning on its own axis, and all revolving around a common centre, in obedience perhaps to the same law of motion that governs the planetary systems. The dancing-hall was a long room, with a waxed floor that glistened with the reflection of the lights from the chandeliers. The walls were hung in paper of blue and white, above a varnished hard wood wainscoting; the monotony of surface being broken by numerous windows draped with curtains of dotted muslin, and by occasional engravings and colored pictures representing the dances of various nations, judiciously selected. The rows of chairs along the two sides of the room were left unoccupied by the time the music was well under way, for the pianist, a tall colored woman with long fingers and a muscular wrist, played with a verve and a swing that set the feet of the listeners involuntarily in motion. The dance was sure to occupy the class for a quarter of an hour at least, and the little dancing-mistress took the opportunity to slip away to her own sitting-room, which was on the same floor of the block, for a few minutes of rest. Her day had been a hard one. There had been a matinee at two o'clock, a children's class at four, and at eight o'clock the class now on the floor had assembled. When she reached the sitting-room she gave a start of pleasure. A young man rose at her entrance, and advanced with both hands extended--a tall, broad-shouldered, fair-haired young man, with a frank and kindly countenance, now lit up with the animation of pleasure. He seemed about twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. His face was of the type one instinctively associates with intellect and character, and it gave the impression, besides, of that intangible something which we call race. He was neatly and carefully dressed, though his clothing was not without indications that he found it necessary or expedient to practice economy. "Good-evening, Clara," he said, taking her hands in his; "I 've been waiting for you five minutes. I supposed you would be in, but if you had been a moment later I was going to the hall to look you up. You seem tired to-night," he added, drawing her nearer to him and scanning her features at short range. "This work is too hard; you are not fitted for it. When are you going to give it up?" "The season is almost over," she answered, "and then I shall stop for the summer." He drew her closer still and kissed her lovingly. "Tell me, Clara," he said, looking down into her face,--he was at least a foot taller than she,--"when I am to have my answer." "Will you take the answer you can get to-night?" she asked with a wan smile. "I will take but one answer, Clara. But do not make me wait too long for that. Why, just think of it! I have known you for six months." "That is an extremely long time," said Clara, as they sat down side by side. "It has been an age," he rejoined. "For a fortnight of it, too, which seems longer than all the rest, I have been waiting for my answer. I am turning gray under the suspense. Seriously, Clara dear, what shall it be? or rather, when shall it be? for to the other question there is but one answer possible." He looked into her eyes, which slowly filled with tears. She repulsed him gently as he bent over to kiss them away. "You know I love you, John, and why I do not say what you wish. You must give me a little more time to make up my mind before I can consent to burden you with a nameless wife, one who does not know who her mother was"---- "She was a good woman, and beautiful, if you are at all like her." "Or her father"---- "He was a gentleman and a scholar, if you inherited from him your mind or your manners." "It is good of you to say that, and I try to believe it. But it is a serious matter; it is a dreadful thing to have no name." "You are known by a worthy one, which was freely given you, and is legally yours." "I know--and I am grateful for it. After all, though, it is not my real name; and since I have learned that it was not, it seems like a garment--something external, accessory, and not a part of myself. It does not mean what one's own name would signify." "Take mine, Clara, and make it yours; I lay it at your feet. Some honored men have borne it." "Ah yes, and that is what makes my position the harder. Your great-grandfather was governor of Connecticut." "I have heard my mother say so." "And one of your ancestors came over in the Mayflower." "In some capacity--I have never been quite clear whether as ship's cook or before the mast." "Now you are insincere, John; but you cannot deceive me. You never spoke in that way about your ancestors until you learned that I had none. I know you are proud of them, and that the memory of the governor and the judge and the Harvard professor and the Mayflower pilgrim makes you strive to excel, in order to prove yourself worthy of them." "It did until I met you, Clara. Now the one inspiration of my life is the hope to make you mine." "And your profession?" "It will furnish me the means to take you out of this; you are not fit for toil." "And your book--your treatise that is to make you famous?" "I have worked twice as hard on it and accomplished twice as much since I have hoped that you might share my success." "Oh! if I but knew the truth!" she sighed, "or could find it out! I realize that I am absurd, that I ought to be happy. I love my parents--my foster-parents--dearly. I owe them everything. Mother--poor, dear mother!--could not have loved me better or cared for me more faithfully had I been her own child. Yet--I am ashamed to say it--I always felt that I was not like them, that there was a subtle difference between us. They were contented in prosperity, resigned in misfortune; I was ever restless, and filled with vague ambitions. They were good, but dull. They loved me, but they never said so. I feel that there is warmer, richer blood coursing in my veins than the placid stream that crept through theirs." "There will never be any such people to me as they were," said her lover, "for they took you and brought you up for me." "Sometimes," she went on dreamily, "I feel sure that I am of good family, and the blood of my ancestors seems to call to me in clear and certain tones. Then again when my mood changes, I am all at sea--I feel that even if I had but simply to turn my hand to learn who I am and whence I came, I should shrink from taking the step, for fear that what I might learn would leave me forever unhappy." "Dearest," he said, taking her in his arms, while from the hall and down the corridor came the softened strains of music, "put aside these unwholesome fancies. Your past is shrouded in mystery. Take my name, as you have taken my love, and I 'll make your future so happy that you won't have time to think of the past. What are a lot of musty, mouldy old grandfathers, compared with life and love and happiness? It 's hardly good form to mention one's ancestors nowadays, and what 's the use of them at all if one can't boast of them?" "It 's all very well of you to talk that way," she rejoined. "But suppose you should marry me, and when you become famous and rich, and patients flock to your office, and fashionable people to your home, and every one wants to know who you are and whence you came, you 'll be obliged to bring out the governor, and the judge, and the rest of them. If you should refrain, in order to forestall embarrassing inquiries about _my_ ancestry, I should have deprived you of something you are entitled to, something which has a real social value. And when people found out all about you, as they eventually would from some source, they would want to know--we Americans are a curious people--who your wife was, and you could only say"---- "The best and sweetest woman on earth, whom I love unspeakably." "You know that is not what I mean. You could only say--a Miss Nobody, from Nowhere." "A Miss Hohlfelder, from Cincinnati, the only child of worthy German parents, who fled from their own country in '49 to escape political persecution--an ancestry that one surely need not be ashamed of." "No; but the consciousness that it was not true would be always with me, poisoning my mind, and darkening my life and yours." "Your views of life are entirely too tragic, Clara," the young man argued soothingly. "We are all worms of the dust, and if we go back far enough, each of us has had millions of ancestors; peasants and serfs, most of them; thieves, murderers, and vagabonds, many of them, no doubt; and therefore the best of us have but little to boast of. Yet we are all made after God's own image, and formed by his hand, for his ends; and therefore not to be lightly despised, even the humblest of us, least of all by ourselves. For the past we can claim no credit, for those who made it died with it. Our destiny lies in the future." "Yes," she sighed, "I know all that. But I am not like you. A woman is not like a man; she cannot lose herself in theories and generalizations. And there are tests that even all your philosophy could not endure. Suppose you should marry me, and then some time, by the merest accident, you should learn that my origin was the worst it could be--that I not only had no name, but was not entitled to one." "I cannot believe it," he said, "and from what we do know of your history it is hardly possible. If I learned it, I should forget it, unless, perchance, it should enhance your value in my eyes, by stamping you as a rare work of nature, an exception to the law of heredity, a triumph of pure beauty and goodness over the grosser limitations of matter. I cannot imagine, now that I know you, anything that could make me love you less. I would marry you just the same--even if you were one of your dancing-class to-night." "I must go back to them," said Clara, as the music ceased. "My answer," he urged, "give me my answer!" "Not to-night, John," she pleaded. "Grant me a little longer time to make up my mind--for your sake." "Not for my sake, Clara, no." "Well--for mine." She let him take her in his arms and kiss her again. "I have a patient yet to see to-night," he said as he went out. "If I am not detained too long, I may come back this way--if I see the lights in the hall still burning. Do not wonder if I ask you again for my answer, for I shall be unhappy until I get it." II A stranger entering the hall with Miss Hohlfelder would have seen, at first glance, only a company of well-dressed people, with nothing to specially distinguish them from ordinary humanity in temperate climates. After the eye had rested for a moment and begun to separate the mass into its component parts, one or two dark faces would have arrested its attention; and with the suggestion thus offered, a closer inspection would have revealed that they were nearly all a little less than white. With most of them this fact would not have been noticed, while they were alone or in company with one another, though if a fair white person had gone among them it would perhaps have been more apparent. From the few who were undistinguishable from pure white, the colors ran down the scale by minute gradations to the two or three brown faces at the other extremity. It was Miss Hohlfelder's first colored class. She had been somewhat startled when first asked to take it. No person of color had ever applied to her for lessons; and while a woman of that race had played the piano for her for several months, she had never thought of colored people as possible pupils. So when she was asked if she would take a class of twenty or thirty, she had hesitated, and begged for time to consider the application. She knew that several of the more fashionable dancing-schools tabooed all pupils, singly or in classes, who labored under social disabilities--and this included the people of at least one other race who were vastly farther along in the world than the colored people of the community where Miss Hohlfelder lived. Personally she had no such prejudice, except perhaps a little shrinking at the thought of personal contact with the dark faces of whom Americans always think when "colored people" are spoken of. Again, a class of forty pupils was not to be despised, for she taught for money, which was equally current and desirable, regardless of its color. She had consulted her foster-parents, and after them her lover. Her foster-parents, who were German-born, and had never become thoroughly Americanized, saw no objection. As for her lover, he was indifferent. "Do as you please," he said. "It may drive away some other pupils. If it should break up the business entirely, perhaps you might be willing to give me a chance so much the sooner." She mentioned the matter to one or two other friends, who expressed conflicting opinions. She decided at length to take the class, and take the consequences. "I don't think it would be either right or kind to refuse them for any such reason, and I don't believe I shall lose anything by it." She was somewhat surprised, and pleasantly so, when her class came together for their first lesson, at not finding them darker and more uncouth. Her pupils were mostly people whom she would have passed on the street without a second glance, and among them were several whom she had known by sight for years, but had never dreamed of as being colored people. Their manners were good, they dressed quietly and as a rule with good taste, avoiding rather than choosing bright colors and striking combinations--whether from natural preference, or because of a slightly morbid shrinking from criticism, of course she could not say. Among them, the dancing-mistress soon learned, there were lawyers and doctors, teachers, telegraph operators, clerks, milliners and dressmakers, students of the local college and scientific school, and, somewhat to her awe at the first meeting, even a member of the legislature. They were mostly young, although a few light-hearted older people joined the class, as much for company as for the dancing. "Of course, Miss Hohlfelder," explained Mr. Solomon Sadler, to whom the teacher had paid a compliment on the quality of the class, "the more advanced of us are not numerous enough to make the fine distinctions that are possible among white people; and of course as we rise in life we can't get entirely away from our brothers and our sisters and our cousins, who don't always keep abreast of us. We do, however, draw certain lines of character and manners and occupation. You see the sort of people we are. Of course we have no prejudice against color, and we regard all labor as honorable, provided a man does the best he can. But we must have standards that will give our people something to aspire to." The class was not a difficult one, as many of the members were already fairly good dancers. Indeed the class had been formed as much for pleasure as for instruction. Music and hall rent and a knowledge of the latest dances could be obtained cheaper in this way than in any other. The pupils had made rapid progress, displaying in fact a natural aptitude for rhythmic motion, and a keen susceptibility to musical sounds. As their race had never been criticised for these characteristics, they gave them full play, and soon developed, most of them, into graceful and indefatigable dancers. They were now almost at the end of their course, and this was the evening of the last lesson but one. Miss Hohlfelder had remarked to her lover more than once that it was a pleasure to teach them. "They enter into the spirit of it so thoroughly, and they seem to enjoy themselves so much." "One would think," he suggested, "that the whitest of them would find their position painful and more or less pathetic; to be so white and yet to be classed as black--so near and yet so far." "They don't accept our classification blindly. They do not acknowledge any inferiority; they think they are a great deal better than any but the best white people," replied Miss Hohlfelder. "And since they have been coming here, do you know," she went on, "I hardly think of them as any different from other people. I feel perfectly at home among them." "It is a great thing to have faith in one's self," he replied. "It is a fine thing, too, to be able to enjoy the passing moment. One of your greatest charms in my eyes, Clara, is that in your lighter moods you have this faculty. You sing because you love to sing. You find pleasure in dancing, even by way of work. You feel the _joie de vivre_--the joy of living. You are not always so, but when you are so I think you most delightful." Miss Hohlfelder, upon entering the hall, spoke to the pianist and then exchanged a few words with various members of the class. The pianist began to play a dreamy Strauss waltz. When the dance was well under way Miss Hohlfelder left the hall again and stepped into the ladies' dressing-room. There was a woman seated quietly on a couch in a corner, her hands folded on her lap. "Good-evening, Miss Hohlfelder. You do not seem as bright as usual to-night." Miss Hohlfelder felt a sudden yearning for sympathy. Perhaps it was the gentle tones of the greeting; perhaps the kindly expression of the soft though faded eyes that were scanning Miss Hohlfelder's features. The woman was of the indefinite age between forty and fifty. There were lines on her face which, if due to years, might have carried her even past the half-century mark, but if caused by trouble or ill health might leave her somewhat below it. She was quietly dressed in black, and wore her slightly wavy hair low over her ears, where it lay naturally in the ripples which some others of her sex so sedulously seek by art. A little woman, of clear olive complexion and regular features, her face was almost a perfect oval, except as time had marred its outline. She had been in the habit of coming to the class with some young women of the family she lived with, part boarder, part seamstress and friend of the family. Sometimes, while waiting for her young charges, the music would jar her nerves, and she would seek the comparative quiet of the dressing-room. "Oh, I 'm all right, Mrs. Harper," replied the dancing-mistress, with a brave attempt at cheerfulness,--"just a little tired, after a hard day's work." She sat down on the couch by the elder woman's side. Mrs. Harper took her hand and stroked it gently, and Clara felt soothed and quieted by her touch. "There are tears in your eyes and trouble in your face. I know it, for I have shed the one and known the other. Tell me, child, what ails you? I am older than you, and perhaps I have learned some things in the hard school of life that may be of comfort or service to you." Such a request, coming from a comparative stranger, might very properly have been resented or lightly parried. But Clara was not what would be called self-contained. Her griefs seemed lighter when they were shared with others, even in spirit. There was in her nature a childish strain that craved sympathy and comforting. She had never known--or if so it was only in a dim and dreamlike past--the tender, brooding care that was her conception of a mother's love. Mrs. Hohlfelder had been fond of her in a placid way, and had given her every comfort and luxury her means permitted. Clara's ideal of maternal love had been of another and more romantic type; she had thought of a fond, impulsive mother, to whose bosom she could fly when in trouble or distress, and to whom she could communicate her sorrows and trials; who would dry her tears and soothe her with caresses. Now, when even her kind foster-mother was gone, she felt still more the need of sympathy and companionship with her own sex; and when this little Mrs. Harper spoke to her so gently, she felt her heart respond instinctively. "Yes, Mrs. Harper," replied Clara with a sigh, "I am in trouble, but it is trouble that you nor any one else can heal." "You do not know, child. A simple remedy can sometimes cure a very grave complaint. Tell me your trouble, if it is something you are at liberty to tell." "I have a story," said Clara, "and it is a strange one,--a story I have told to but one other person, one very dear to me." "He must be dear to you indeed, from the tone in which you speak of him. Your very accents breathe love." "Yes, I love him, and if you saw him--perhaps you have seen him, for he has looked in here once or twice during the dancing-lessons--you would know why I love him. He is handsome, he is learned, he is ambitious, he is brave, he is good; he is poor, but he will not always be so; and he loves me, oh, so much!" The other woman smiled. "It is not so strange to love, nor yet to be loved. And all lovers are handsome and brave and fond." "That is not all of my story. He wants to marry me." Clara paused, as if to let this statement impress itself upon the other. "True lovers always do," said the elder woman. "But sometimes, you know, there are circumstances which prevent them." "Ah yes," murmured the other reflectively, and looking at the girl with deeper interest, "circumstances which prevent them. I have known of such a case." "The circumstance which prevents us from marrying is my story." "Tell me your story, child, and perhaps, if I cannot help you otherwise, I can tell you one that will make yours seem less sad." "You know me," said the young woman, "as Miss Hohlfelder; but that is not actually my name. In fact I do not know my real name, for I am not the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hohlfelder, but only an adopted child. While Mrs. Hohlfelder lived, I never knew that I was not her child. I knew I was very different from her and father,--I mean Mr. Hohlfelder. I knew they were fair and I was dark; they were stout and I was slender; they were slow and I was quick. But of course I never dreamed of the true reason of this difference. When mother--Mrs. Hohlfelder--died, I found among her things one day a little packet, carefully wrapped up, containing a child's slip and some trinkets. The paper wrapper of the packet bore an inscription that awakened my curiosity. I asked father Hohlfelder whose the things had been, and then for the first time I learned my real story. "I was not their own daughter, he stated, but an adopted child. Twenty-three years ago, when he had lived in St. Louis, a steamboat explosion had occurred up the river, and on a piece of wreckage floating down stream, a girl baby had been found. There was nothing on the child to give a hint of its home or parentage; and no one came to claim it, though the fact that a child had been found was advertised all along the river. It was believed that the infant's parents must have perished in the wreck, and certainly no one of those who were saved could identify the child. There had been a passenger list on board the steamer, but the list, with the officer who kept it, had been lost in the accident. The child was turned over to an orphan asylum, from which within a year it was adopted by the two kind-hearted and childless German people who brought it up as their own. I was that child." The woman seated by Clara's side had listened with strained attention. "Did you learn the name of the steamboat?" she asked quietly, but quickly, when Clara paused. "The Pride of St. Louis," answered Clara. She did not look at Mrs. Harper, but was gazing dreamily toward the front, and therefore did not see the expression that sprang into the other's face,--a look in which hope struggled with fear, and yearning love with both,--nor the strong effort with which Mrs. Harper controlled herself and moved not one muscle while the other went on. "I was never sought," Clara continued, "and the good people who brought me up gave me every care. Father and mother--I can never train my tongue to call them anything else--were very good to me. When they adopted me they were poor; he was a pharmacist with a small shop. Later on he moved to Cincinnati, where he made and sold a popular 'patent' medicine and amassed a fortune. Then I went to a fashionable school, was taught French, and deportment, and dancing. Father Hohlfelder made some bad investments, and lost most of his money. The patent medicine fell off in popularity. A year or two ago we came to this city to live. Father bought this block and opened the little drug store below. We moved into the rooms upstairs. The business was poor, and I felt that I ought to do something to earn money and help support the family. I could dance; we had this hall, and it was not rented all the time, so I opened a dancing-school." "Tell me, child," said the other woman, with restrained eagerness, "what were the things found upon you when you were taken from the river?" "Yes," answered the girl, "I will. But I have not told you all my story, for this is but the prelude. About a year ago a young doctor rented an office in our block. We met each other, at first only now and then, and afterwards oftener; and six months ago he told me that he loved me." She paused, and sat with half opened lips and dreamy eyes, looking back into the past six months. "And the things found upon you"---- "Yes, I will show them to you when you have heard all my story. He wanted to marry me, and has asked me every week since. I have told him that I love him, but I have not said I would marry him. I don't think it would be right for me to do so, unless I could clear up this mystery. I believe he is going to be great and rich and famous, and there might come a time when he would be ashamed of me. I don't say that I shall never marry him; for I have hoped--I have a presentiment that in some strange way I shall find out who I am, and who my parents were. It may be mere imagination on my part, but somehow I believe it is more than that." "Are you sure there was no mark on the things that were found upon you?" said the elder woman. "Ah yes," sighed Clara, "I am sure, for I have looked at them a hundred times. They tell me nothing, and yet they suggest to me many things. Come," she said, taking the other by the hand, "and I will show them to you." She led the way along the hall to her sitting-room, and to her bedchamber beyond. It was a small room hung with paper showing a pattern of morning-glories on a light ground, with dotted muslin curtains, a white iron bedstead, a few prints on the wall, a rocking-chair--a very dainty room. She went to the maple dressing-case, and opened one of the drawers. As they stood for a moment, the mirror reflecting and framing their image, more than one point of resemblance between them was emphasized. There was something of the same oval face, and in Clara's hair a faint suggestion of the wave in the older woman's; and though Clara was fairer of complexion, and her eyes were gray and the other's black, there was visible, under the influence of the momentary excitement, one of those indefinable likenesses which are at times encountered,--sometimes marking blood relationship, sometimes the impress of a common training; in one case perhaps a mere earmark of temperament, and in another the index of a type. Except for the difference in color, one might imagine that if the younger woman were twenty years older the resemblance would be still more apparent. Clara reached her hand into the drawer and drew out a folded packet, which she unwrapped, Mrs. Harper following her movements meanwhile with a suppressed intensity of interest which Clara, had she not been absorbed in her own thoughts, could not have failed to observe. When the last fold of paper was removed there lay revealed a child's muslin slip. Clara lifted it and shook it gently until it was unfolded before their eyes. The lower half was delicately worked in a lacelike pattern, revealing an immense amount of patient labor. The elder woman seized the slip with hands which could not disguise their trembling. Scanning the garment carefully, she seemed to be noting the pattern of the needlework, and then, pointing to a certain spot, exclaimed:---- "I thought so! I was sure of it! Do you not see the letters--M.S.?" "Oh, how wonderful!" Clara seized the slip in turn and scanned the monogram. "How strange that you should see that at once and that I should not have discovered it, who have looked at it a hundred times! And here," she added, opening a small package which had been inclosed in the other, "is my coral necklace. Perhaps your keen eyes can find something in that." It was a simple trinket, at which the older woman gave but a glance--a glance that added to her emotion. "Listen, child," she said, laying her trembling hand on the other's arm. "It is all very strange and wonderful, for that slip and necklace, and, now that I have seen them, your face and your voice and your ways, all tell me who you are. Your eyes are your father's eyes, your voice is your father's voice. The slip was worked by your mother's hand." "Oh!" cried Clara, and for a moment the whole world swam before her eyes. "I was on the Pride of St. Louis, and I knew your father--and your mother." Clara, pale with excitement, burst into tears, and would have fallen had not the other woman caught her in her arms. Mrs. Harper placed her on the couch, and, seated by her side, supported her head on her shoulder. Her hands seemed to caress the young woman with every touch. "Tell me, oh, tell me all!" Clara demanded, when the first wave of emotion had subsided. "Who were my father and my mother, and who am I?" The elder woman restrained her emotion with an effort, and answered as composedly as she could,---- "There were several hundred passengers on the Pride of St. Louis when she left Cincinnati on that fateful day, on her regular trip to New Orleans. Your father and mother were on the boat--and I was on the boat. We were going down the river, to take ship at New Orleans for France, a country which your father loved." "Who was my father?" asked Clara. The woman's words fell upon her ear like water on a thirsty soil. "Your father was a Virginia gentleman, and belonged to one of the first families, the Staffords, of Melton County." Clara drew herself up unconsciously, and into her face there came a frank expression of pride which became it wonderfully, setting off a beauty that needed only this to make it all but perfect of its type. "I knew it must be so," she murmured. "I have often felt it. Blood will always tell. And my mother?" "Your mother--also belonged to one of the first families of Virginia, and in her veins flowed some of the best blood of the Old Dominion." "What was her maiden name?" "Mary Fairfax. As I was saying, your father was a Virginia gentleman. He was as handsome a man as ever lived, and proud, oh, so proud!--and good, and kind. He was a graduate of the University and had studied abroad." "My mother--was she beautiful?" "She was much admired, and your father loved her from the moment he first saw her. Your father came back from Europe, upon his father's sudden death, and entered upon his inheritance. But he had been away from Virginia so long, and had read so many books, that he had outgrown his home. He did not believe that slavery was right, and one of the first things he did was to free his slaves. His views were not popular, and he sold out his lands a year before the war, with the intention of moving to Europe." "In the mean time he had met and loved and married my mother?" "In the mean time he had met and loved your mother." "My mother was a Virginia belle, was she not?" "The Fairfaxes," answered Mrs. Harper, "were the first of the first families, the bluest of the blue-bloods. The Miss Fairfaxes were all beautiful and all social favorites." "What did my father do then, when he had sold out in Virginia?" "He went with your mother and you--you were then just a year old--to Cincinnati, to settle up some business connected with his estate. When he had completed his business, he embarked on the Pride of St. Louis with you and your mother and a colored nurse." "And how did you know about them?" asked Clara. "I was one of the party. I was"---- "You were the colored nurse?--my 'mammy,' they would have called you in my old Virginia home?" "Yes, child, I was--your mammy. Upon my bosom you have rested; my breasts once gave you nourishment; my hands once ministered to you; my arms sheltered you, and my heart loved you and mourned you like a mother loves and mourns her firstborn." "Oh, how strange, how delightful!" exclaimed Clara. "Now I understand why you clasped me so tightly, and were so agitated when I told you my story. It is too good for me to believe. I am of good blood, of an old and aristocratic family. My presentiment has come true. I can marry my lover, and I shall owe all my happiness to you. How can I ever repay you?" "You can kiss me, child, kiss your mammy." Their lips met, and they were clasped in each other's arms. One put into the embrace all of her new-found joy, the other all the suppressed feeling of the last half hour, which in turn embodied the unsatisfied yearning of many years. The music had ceased and the pupils had left the hall. Mrs. Harper's charges had supposed her gone, and had left for home without her. But the two women, sitting in Clara's chamber, hand in hand, were oblivious to external things and noticed neither the hour nor the cessation of the music. "Why, dear mammy," said the young woman musingly, "did you not find me, and restore me to my people?" "Alas, child! I was not white, and when I was picked up from the water, after floating miles down the river, the man who found me kept me prisoner for a time, and, there being no inquiry for me, pretended not to believe that I was free, and took me down to New Orleans and sold me as a slave. A few years later the war set me free. I went to St. Louis but could find no trace of you. I had hardly dared to hope that a child had been saved, when so many grown men and women had lost their lives. I made such inquiries as I could, but all in vain." "Did you go to the orphan asylum?" "The orphan asylum had been burned and with it all the records. The war had scattered the people so that I could find no one who knew about a lost child saved from a river wreck. There were many orphans in those days, and one more or less was not likely to dwell in the public mind." "Did you tell my people in Virginia?" "They, too, were scattered by the war. Your uncles lost their lives on the battlefield. The family mansion was burned to the ground. Your father's remaining relatives were reduced to poverty, and moved away from Virginia." "What of my mother's people?" "They are all dead. God punished them. They did not love your father, and did not wish him to marry your mother. They helped to drive him to his death." "I am alone in the world, then, without kith or kin," murmured Clara, "and yet, strange to say, I am happy. If I had known my people and lost them, I should be sad. They are gone, but they have left me their name and their blood. I would weep for my poor father and mother if I were not so glad." Just then some one struck a chord upon the piano in the hall, and the sudden breaking of the stillness recalled Clara's attention to the lateness of the hour. "I had forgotten about the class," she exclaimed. "I must go and attend to them." They walked along the corridor and entered the hall. Dr. Winthrop was seated at the piano, drumming idly on the keys. "I did not know where you had gone," he said. "I knew you would be around, of course, since the lights were not out, and so I came in here to wait for you." "Listen, John, I have a wonderful story to tell you." Then she told him Mrs. Harper's story. He listened attentively and sympathetically, at certain points taking his eyes from Clara's face and glancing keenly at Mrs. Harper, who was listening intently. As he looked from one to the other he noticed the resemblance between them, and something in his expression caused Mrs. Harper's eyes to fall, and then glance up appealingly. "And now," said Clara, "I am happy. I know my name. I am a Virginia Stafford. I belong to one, yes, to two of what were the first families of Virginia. John, my family is as good as yours. If I remember my history correctly, the Cavaliers looked down upon the Roundheads." "I admit my inferiority," he replied. "If you are happy I am glad." "Clara Stafford," mused the girl. "It is a pretty name." "You will never have to use it," her lover declared, "for now you will take mine." "Then I shall have nothing left of all that I have found"---- "Except your husband," asserted Dr. Winthrop, putting his arm around her, with an air of assured possession. Mrs. Harper was looking at them with moistened eyes in which joy and sorrow, love and gratitude, were strangely blended. Clara put out her hand to her impulsively. "And my mammy," she cried, "my dear Virginia mammy." The Sheriffs Children Branson County, North Carolina, is in a sequestered district of one of the staidest and most conservative States of the Union. Society in Branson County is almost primitive in its simplicity. Most of the white people own the farms they till, and even before the war there were no very wealthy families to force their neighbors, by comparison, into the category of "poor whites." To Branson County, as to most rural communities in the South, the war is the one historical event that overshadows all others. It is the era from which all local chronicles are dated,--births, deaths, marriages, storms, freshets. No description of the life of any Southern community would be perfect that failed to emphasize the all pervading influence of the great conflict. Yet the fierce tide of war that had rushed through the cities and along the great highways of the country had comparatively speaking but slightly disturbed the sluggish current of life in this region, remote from railroads and navigable streams. To the north in Virginia, to the west in Tennessee, and all along the seaboard the war had raged; but the thunder of its cannon had not disturbed the echoes of Branson County, where the loudest sounds heard were the crack of some hunter's rifle, the baying of some deep-mouthed hound, or the yodel of some tuneful negro on his way through the pine forest. To the east, Sherman's army had passed on its march to the sea; but no straggling band of "bummers" had penetrated the confines of Branson County. The war, it is true, had robbed the county of the flower of its young manhood; but the burden of taxation, the doubt and uncertainty of the conflict, and the sting of ultimate defeat, had been borne by the people with an apathy that robbed misfortune of half its sharpness. The nearest approach to town life afforded by Branson County is found in the little village of Troy, the county seat, a hamlet with a population of four or five hundred. Ten years make little difference in the appearance of these remote Southern towns. If a railroad is built through one of them, it infuses some enterprise; the social corpse is galvanized by the fresh blood of civilization that pulses along the farthest ramifications of our great system of commercial highways. At the period of which I write, no railroad had come to Troy. If a traveler, accustomed to the bustling life of cities, could have ridden through Troy on a summer day, he might easily have fancied himself in a deserted village. Around him he would have seen weather-beaten houses, innocent of paint, the shingled roofs in many instances covered with a rich growth of moss. Here and there he would have met a razor-backed hog lazily rooting his way along the principal thoroughfare; and more than once he would probably have had to disturb the slumbers of some yellow dog, dozing away the hours in the ardent sunshine, and reluctantly yielding up his place in the middle of the dusty road. On Saturdays the village presented a somewhat livelier appearance, and the shade trees around the court house square and along Front Street served as hitching-posts for a goodly number of horses and mules and stunted oxen, belonging to the farmer-folk who had come in to trade at the two or three local stores. A murder was a rare event in Branson County. Every well-informed citizen could tell the number of homicides committed in the county for fifty years back, and whether the slayer, in any given instance, had escaped, either by flight or acquittal, or had suffered the penalty of the law. So, when it became known in Troy early one Friday morning in summer, about ten years after the war, that old Captain Walker, who had served in Mexico under Scott, and had left an arm on the field of Gettysburg, had been foully murdered during the night, there was intense excitement in the village. Business was practically suspended, and the citizens gathered in little groups to discuss the murder, and speculate upon the identity of the murderer. It transpired from testimony at the coroner's inquest, held during the morning, that a strange mulatto had been seen going in the direction of Captain Walker's house the night before, and had been met going away from Troy early Friday morning, by a farmer on his way to town. Other circumstances seemed to connect the stranger with the crime. The sheriff organized a posse to search for him, and early in the evening, when most of the citizens of Troy were at supper, the suspected man was brought in and lodged in the county jail. By the following morning the news of the capture had spread to the farthest limits of the county. A much larger number of people than usual came to town that Saturday,--bearded men in straw hats and blue homespun shirts, and butternut trousers of great amplitude of material and vagueness of outline; women in homespun frocks and slat-bonnets, with faces as expressionless as the dreary sandhills which gave them a meagre sustenance. The murder was almost the sole topic of conversation. A steady stream of curious observers visited the house of mourning, and gazed upon the rugged face of the old veteran, now stiff and cold in death; and more than one eye dropped a tear at the remembrance of the cheery smile, and the joke--sometimes superannuated, generally feeble, but always good-natured--with which the captain had been wont to greet his acquaintances. There was a growing sentiment of anger among these stern men, toward the murderer who had thus cut down their friend, and a strong feeling that ordinary justice was too slight a punishment for such a crime. Toward noon there was an informal gathering of citizens in Dan Tyson's store. "I hear it 'lowed that Square Kyahtah's too sick ter hol' co'te this evenin'," said one, "an' that the purlim'nary hearin' 'll haf ter go over 'tel nex' week." A look of disappointment went round the crowd. "Hit 's the durndes', meanes' murder ever committed in this caounty," said another, with moody emphasis. "I s'pose the nigger 'lowed the Cap'n had some green-backs," observed a third speaker. "The Cap'n," said another, with an air of superior information, "has left two bairls of Confedrit money, which he 'spected 'ud be good some day er nuther." This statement gave rise to a discussion of the speculative value of Confederate money; but in a little while the conversation returned to the murder. "Hangin' air too good fer the murderer," said one; "he oughter be burnt, stidier bein' hung." There was an impressive pause at this point, during which a jug of moonlight whiskey went the round of the crowd. "Well," said a round-shouldered farmer, who, in spite of his peaceable expression and faded gray eye, was known to have been one of the most daring followers of a rebel guerrilla chieftain, "what air yer gwine ter do about it? Ef you fellers air gwine ter set down an' let a wuthless nigger kill the bes' white man in Branson, an' not say nuthin' ner do nuthin', _I 'll_ move outen the caounty." This speech gave tone and direction to the rest of the conversation. Whether the fear of losing the round-shouldered farmer operated to bring about the result or not is immaterial to this narrative; but, at all events, the crowd decided to lynch the negro. They agreed that this was the least that could be done to avenge the death of their murdered friend, and that it was a becoming way in which to honor his memory. They had some vague notions of the majesty of the law and the rights of the citizen, but in the passion of the moment these sunk into oblivion; a white man had been killed by a negro. "The Cap'n was an ole sodger," said one of his friends solemnly. "He 'll sleep better when he knows that a co'te-martial has be'n hilt an' jestice done." By agreement the lynchers were to meet at Tyson's store at five o'clock in the afternoon, and proceed thence to the jail, which was situated down the Lumberton Dirt Road (as the old turnpike antedating the plank-road was called), about half a mile south of the court-house. When the preliminaries of the lynching had been arranged, and a committee appointed to manage the affair, the crowd dispersed, some to go to their dinners, and some to secure recruits for the lynching party. It was twenty minutes to five o'clock, when an excited negro, panting and perspiring, rushed up to the back door of Sheriff Campbell's dwelling, which stood at a little distance from the jail and somewhat farther than the latter building from the court-house. A turbaned colored woman came to the door in response to the negro's knock. "Hoddy, Sis' Nance." "Hoddy, Brer Sam." "Is de shurff in," inquired the negro. "Yas, Brer Sam, he 's eatin' his dinner," was the answer. "Will yer ax 'im ter step ter de do' a minute, Sis' Nance?" The woman went into the dining-room, and a moment later the sheriff came to the door. He was a tall, muscular man, of a ruddier complexion than is usual among Southerners. A pair of keen, deep-set gray eyes looked out from under bushy eyebrows, and about his mouth was a masterful expression, which a full beard, once sandy in color, but now profusely sprinkled with gray, could not entirely conceal. The day was hot; the sheriff had discarded his coat and vest, and had his white shirt open at the throat. "What do you want, Sam?" he inquired of the negro, who stood hat in hand, wiping the moisture from his face with a ragged shirt-sleeve. "Shurff, dey gwine ter hang de pris'ner w'at 's lock' up in de jail. Dey 're comin' dis a-way now. I wuz layin' down on a sack er corn down at de sto', behine a pile er flour-bairls, w'en I hearn Doc' Cain en Kunnel Wright talkin' erbout it. I slip' outen de back do', en run here as fas' as I could. I hearn you say down ter de sto' once't dat you would n't let nobody take a pris'ner 'way fum you widout walkin' over yo' dead body, en I thought I 'd let you know 'fo' dey come, so yer could pertec' de pris'ner." The sheriff listened calmly, but his face grew firmer, and a determined gleam lit up his gray eyes. His frame grew more erect, and he unconsciously assumed the attitude of a soldier who momentarily expects to meet the enemy face to face. "Much obliged, Sam," he answered. "I 'll protect the prisoner. Who 's coming?" "I dunno who-all _is_ comin'," replied the negro. "Dere 's Mistah McSwayne, en Doc' Cain, en Maje' McDonal', en Kunnel Wright, en a heap er yuthers. I wuz so skeered I done furgot mo' d'n half un em. I spec' dey mus' be mos' here by dis time, so I 'll git outen de way, fer I don' want nobody fer ter think I wuz mix' up in dis business." The negro glanced nervously down the road toward the town, and made a movement as if to go away. "Won't you have some dinner first?" asked the sheriff. The negro looked longingly in at the open door, and sniffed the appetizing odor of boiled pork and collards. "I ain't got no time fer ter tarry, Shurff," he said, "but Sis' Nance mought gin me sump'n I could kyar in my han' en eat on de way." A moment later Nancy brought him a huge sandwich of split corn-pone, with a thick slice of fat bacon inserted between the halves, and a couple of baked yams. The negro hastily replaced his ragged hat on his head, dropped the yams in the pocket of his capacious trousers, and, taking the sandwich in his hand, hurried across the road and disappeared in the woods beyond. The sheriff reëntered the house, and put on his coat and hat. He then took down a double-barreled shotgun and loaded it with buckshot. Filling the chambers of a revolver with fresh cartridges, he slipped it into the pocket of the sack-coat which he wore. A comely young woman in a calico dress watched these proceedings with anxious surprise. "Where are you going, father?" she asked. She had not heard the conversation with the negro. "I am goin' over to the jail," responded the sheriff. "There 's a mob comin' this way to lynch the nigger we 've got locked up. But they won't do it," he added, with emphasis. "Oh, father! don't go!" pleaded the girl, clinging to his arm; "they 'll shoot you if you don't give him up." "You never mind me, Polly," said her father reassuringly, as he gently unclasped her hands from his arm. "I 'll take care of myself and the prisoner, too. There ain't a man in Branson County that would shoot me. Besides, I have faced fire too often to be scared away from my duty. You keep close in the house," he continued, "and if any one disturbs you just use the old horse-pistol in the top bureau drawer. It 's a little old-fashioned, but it did good work a few years ago." The young girl shuddered at this sanguinary allusion, but made no further objection to her father's departure. The sheriff of Branson was a man far above the average of the community in wealth, education, and social position. His had been one of the few families in the county that before the war had owned large estates and numerous slaves. He had graduated at the State University at Chapel Hill, and had kept up some acquaintance with current literature and advanced thought. He had traveled some in his youth, and was looked up to in the county as an authority on all subjects connected with the outer world. At first an ardent supporter of the Union, he had opposed the secession movement in his native State as long as opposition availed to stem the tide of public opinion. Yielding at last to the force of circumstances, he had entered the Confederate service rather late in the war, and served with distinction through several campaigns, rising in time to the rank of colonel. After the war he had taken the oath of allegiance, and had been chosen by the people as the most available candidate for the office of sheriff, to which he had been elected without opposition. He had filled the office for several terms, and was universally popular with his constituents. Colonel or Sheriff Campbell, as he was indifferently called, as the military or civil title happened to be most important in the opinion of the person addressing him, had a high sense of the responsibility attaching to his office. He had sworn to do his duty faithfully, and he knew what his duty was, as sheriff, perhaps more clearly than he had apprehended it in other passages of his life. It was, therefore, with no uncertainty in regard to his course that he prepared his weapons and went over to the jail. He had no fears for Polly's safety. The sheriff had just locked the heavy front door of the jail behind him when a half dozen horsemen, followed by a crowd of men on foot, came round a bend in the road and drew near the jail. They halted in front of the picket fence that surrounded the building, while several of the committee of arrangements rode on a few rods farther to the sheriff's house. One of them dismounted and rapped on the door with his riding-whip. "Is the sheriff at home?" he inquired. "No, he has just gone out," replied Polly, who had come to the door. "We want the jail keys," he continued. "They are not here," said Polly. "The sheriff has them himself." Then she added, with assumed indifference, "He is at the jail now." The man turned away, and Polly went into the front room, from which she peered anxiously between the slats of the green blinds of a window that looked toward the jail. Meanwhile the messenger returned to his companions and announced his discovery. It looked as though the sheriff had learned of their design and was preparing to resist it. One of them stepped forward and rapped on the jail door. "Well, what is it?" said the sheriff, from within. "We want to talk to you, Sheriff," replied the spokesman. There was a little wicket in the door; this the sheriff opened, and answered through it. "All right, boys, talk away. You are all strangers to me, and I don't know what business you can have." The sheriff did not think it necessary to recognize anybody in particular on such an occasion; the question of identity sometimes comes up in the investigation of these extra-judicial executions. "We 're a committee of citizens and we want to get into the jail." "What for? It ain't much trouble to get into jail. Most people want to keep out." The mob was in no humor to appreciate a joke, and the sheriff's witticism fell dead upon an unresponsive audience. "We want to have a talk with the nigger that killed Cap'n Walker." "You can talk to that nigger in the court-house, when he 's brought out for trial. Court will be in session here next week. I know what you fellows want, but you can't get my prisoner to-day. Do you want to take the bread out of a poor man's mouth? I get seventy-five cents a day for keeping this prisoner, and he 's the only one in jail. I can't have my family suffer just to please you fellows." One or two young men in the crowd laughed at the idea of Sheriff Campbell's suffering for want of seventy-five cents a day; but they were frowned into silence by those who stood near them. "Ef yer don't let us in," cried a voice, "we 'll bu's' the do' open." "Bust away," answered the sheriff, raising his voice so that all could hear. "But I give you fair warning. The first man that tries it will be filled with buckshot. I 'm sheriff of this county; I know my duty, and I mean to do it." "What 's the use of kicking, Sheriff," argued one of the leaders of the mob. "The nigger is sure to hang anyhow; he richly deserves it; and we 've got to do something to teach the niggers their places, or white people won't be able to live in the county." "There 's no use talking, boys," responded the sheriff. "I 'm a white man outside, but in this jail I 'm sheriff; and if this nigger 's to be hung in this county, I propose to do the hanging. So you fellows might as well right-about-face, and march back to Troy. You 've had a pleasant trip, and the exercise will be good for you. You know _me_. I 've got powder and ball, and I 've faced fire before now, with nothing between me and the enemy, and I don't mean to surrender this jail while I 'm able to shoot." Having thus announced his determination, the sheriff closed and fastened the wicket, and looked around for the best position from which to defend the building. The crowd drew off a little, and the leaders conversed together in low tones. The Branson County jail was a small, two-story brick building, strongly constructed, with no attempt at architectural ornamentation. Each story was divided into two large cells by a passage running from front to rear. A grated iron door gave entrance from the passage to each of the four cells. The jail seldom had many prisoners in it, and the lower windows had been boarded up. When the sheriff had closed the wicket, he ascended the steep wooden stairs to the upper floor. There was no window at the front of the upper passage, and the most available position from which to watch the movements of the crowd below was the front window of the cell occupied by the solitary prisoner. The sheriff unlocked the door and entered the cell. The prisoner was crouched in a corner, his yellow face, blanched with terror, looking ghastly in the semi-darkness of the room. A cold perspiration had gathered on his forehead, and his teeth were chattering with affright. "For God's sake, Sheriff," he murmured hoarsely, "don't let 'em lynch me; I did n't kill the old man." The sheriff glanced at the cowering wretch with a look of mingled contempt and loathing. "Get up," he said sharply. "You will probably be hung sooner or later, but it shall not be to-day, if I can help it. I 'll unlock your fetters, and if I can't hold the jail, you 'll have to make the best fight you can. If I 'm shot, I 'll consider my responsibility at an end." There were iron fetters on the prisoner's ankles, and handcuffs on his wrists. These the sheriff unlocked, and they fell clanking to the floor. "Keep back from the window," said the sheriff. "They might shoot if they saw you." The sheriff drew toward the window a pine bench which formed a part of the scanty furniture of the cell, and laid his revolver upon it. Then he took his gun in hand, and took his stand at the side of the window where he could with least exposure of himself watch the movements of the crowd below. The lynchers had not anticipated any determined resistance. Of course they had looked for a formal protest, and perhaps a sufficient show of opposition to excuse the sheriff in the eye of any stickler for legal formalities. They had not however come prepared to fight a battle, and no one of them seemed willing to lead an attack upon the jail. The leaders of the party conferred together with a good deal of animated gesticulation, which was visible to the sheriff from his outlook, though the distance was too great for him to hear what was said. At length one of them broke away from the group, and rode back to the main body of the lynchers, who were restlessly awaiting orders. "Well, boys," said the messenger, "we 'll have to let it go for the present. The sheriff says he 'll shoot, and he 's got the drop on us this time. There ain't any of us that want to follow Cap'n Walker jest yet. Besides, the sheriff is a good fellow, and we don't want to hurt 'im. But," he added, as if to reassure the crowd, which began to show signs of disappointment, "the nigger might as well say his prayers, for he ain't got long to live." There was a murmur of dissent from the mob, and several voices insisted that an attack be made on the jail. But pacific counsels finally prevailed, and the mob sullenly withdrew. The sheriff stood at the window until they had disappeared around the bend in the road. He did not relax his watchfulness when the last one was out of sight. Their withdrawal might be a mere feint, to be followed by a further attempt. So closely, indeed, was his attention drawn to the outside, that he neither saw nor heard the prisoner creep stealthily across the floor, reach out his hand and secure the revolver which lay on the bench behind the sheriff, and creep as noiselessly back to his place in the corner of the room. A moment after the last of the lynching party had disappeared there was a shot fired from the woods across the road; a bullet whistled by the window and buried itself in the wooden casing a few inches from where the sheriff was standing. Quick as thought, with the instinct born of a semi-guerrilla army experience, he raised his gun and fired twice at the point from which a faint puff of smoke showed the hostile bullet to have been sent. He stood a moment watching, and then rested his gun against the window, and reached behind him mechanically for the other weapon. It was not on the bench. As the sheriff realized this fact, he turned his head and looked into the muzzle of the revolver. "Stay where you are, Sheriff," said the prisoner, his eyes glistening, his face almost ruddy with excitement. The sheriff mentally cursed his own carelessness for allowing him to be caught in such a predicament. He had not expected anything of the kind. He had relied on the negro's cowardice and subordination in the presence of an armed white man as a matter of course. The sheriff was a brave man, but realized that the prisoner had him at an immense disadvantage. The two men stood thus for a moment, fighting a harmless duel with their eyes. "Well, what do you mean to do?" asked the sheriff with apparent calmness. "To get away, of course," said the prisoner, in a tone which caused the sheriff to look at him more closely, and with an involuntary feeling of apprehension; if the man was not mad, he was in a state of mind akin to madness, and quite as dangerous. The sheriff felt that he must speak the prisoner fair, and watch for a chance to turn the tables on him. The keen-eyed, desperate man before him was a different being altogether from the groveling wretch who had begged so piteously for life a few minutes before. At length the sheriff spoke:---- "Is this your gratitude to me for saving your life at the risk of my own? If I had not done so, you would now be swinging from the limb of some neighboring tree." "True," said the prisoner, "you saved my life, but for how long? When you came in, you said Court would sit next week. When the crowd went away they said I had not long to live. It is merely a choice of two ropes." "While there 's life there 's hope," replied the sheriff. He uttered this commonplace mechanically, while his brain was busy in trying to think out some way of escape. "If you are innocent you can prove it." The mulatto kept his eye upon the sheriff. "I did n't kill the old man," he replied; "but I shall never be able to clear myself. I was at his house at nine o'clock. I stole from it the coat that was on my back when I was taken. I would be convicted, even with a fair trial, unless the real murderer were discovered beforehand." The sheriff knew this only too well. While he was thinking what argument next to use, the prisoner continued:---- "Throw me the keys--no, unlock the door." The sheriff stood a moment irresolute. The mulatto's eye glittered ominously. The sheriff crossed the room and unlocked the door leading into the passage. "Now go down and unlock the outside door." The heart of the sheriff leaped within him. Perhaps he might make a dash for liberty, and gain the outside. He descended the narrow stairs, the prisoner keeping close behind him. The sheriff inserted the huge iron key into the lock. The rusty bolt yielded slowly. It still remained for him to pull the door open. "Stop!" thundered the mulatto, who seemed to divine the sheriff's purpose. "Move a muscle, and I 'll blow your brains out." The sheriff obeyed; he realized that his chance had not yet come. "Now keep on that side of the passage, and go back upstairs." Keeping the sheriff under cover of the revolver, the mulatto followed him up the stairs. The sheriff expected the prisoner to lock him into the cell and make his own escape. He had about come to the conclusion that the best thing he could do under the circumstances was to submit quietly, and take his chances of recapturing the prisoner after the alarm had been given. The sheriff had faced death more than once upon the battlefield. A few minutes before, well armed, and with a brick wall between him and them he had dared a hundred men to fight; but he felt instinctively that the desperate man confronting him was not to be trifled with, and he was too prudent a man to risk his life against such heavy odds. He had Polly to look after, and there was a limit beyond which devotion to duty would be quixotic and even foolish. "I want to get away," said the prisoner, "and I don't want to be captured; for if I am I know I will be hung on the spot. I am afraid," he added somewhat reflectively, "that in order to save myself I shall have to kill you." "Good God!" exclaimed the sheriff in involuntary terror; "you would not kill the man to whom you owe your own life." "You speak more truly than you know," replied the mulatto. "I indeed owe my life to you." The sheriff started, he was capable of surprise, even in that moment of extreme peril. "Who are you?" he asked in amazement. "Tom, Cicely's son," returned the other. He had closed the door and stood talking to the sheriff through the grated opening. "Don't you remember Cicely--Cicely whom you sold, with her child, to the speculator on his way to Alabama?" The sheriff did remember. He had been sorry for it many a time since. It had been the old story of debts, mortgages, and bad crops. He had quarreled with the mother. The price offered for her and her child had been unusually large, and he had yielded to the combination of anger and pecuniary stress. "Good God!" he gasped, "you would not murder your own father?" "My father?" replied the mulatto. "It were well enough for me to claim the relationship, but it comes with poor grace from you to ask anything by reason of it. What father's duty have you ever performed for me? Did you give me your name, or even your protection? Other white men gave their colored sons freedom and money, and sent them to the free States. _You_ sold _me_ to the rice swamps." "I at least gave you the life you cling to," murmured the sheriff. "Life?" said the prisoner, with a sarcastic laugh. "What kind of a life? You gave me your own blood, your own features,--no man need look at us together twice to see that,--and you gave me a black mother. Poor wretch! She died under the lash, because she had enough womanhood to call her soul her own. You gave me a white man's spirit, and you made me a slave, and crushed it out." "But you are free now," said the sheriff. He had not doubted, could not doubt, the mulatto's word. He knew whose passions coursed beneath that swarthy skin and burned in the black eyes opposite his own. He saw in this mulatto what he himself might have become had not the safeguards of parental restraint and public opinion been thrown around him. "Free to do what?" replied the mulatto. "Free in name, but despised and scorned and set aside by the people to whose race I belong far more than to my mother's." "There are schools," said the sheriff. "You have been to school." He had noticed that the mulatto spoke more eloquently and used better language than most Branson County people. "I have been to school, and dreamed when I went that it would work some marvelous change in my condition. But what did I learn? I learned to feel that no degree of learning or wisdom will change the color of my skin and that I shall always wear what in my own country is a badge of degradation. When I think about it seriously I do not care particularly for such a life. It is the animal in me, not the man, that flees the gallows. I owe you nothing," he went on, "and expect nothing of you; and it would be no more than justice if I should avenge upon you my mother's wrongs and my own. But still I hate to shoot you; I have never yet taken human life--for I did _not_ kill the old captain. Will you promise to give no alarm and make no attempt to capture me until morning, if I do not shoot?" So absorbed were the two men in their colloquy and their own tumultuous thoughts that neither of them had heard the door below move upon its hinges. Neither of them had heard a light step come stealthily up the stairs, nor seen a slender form creep along the darkening passage toward the mulatto. The sheriff hesitated. The struggle between his love of life and his sense of duty was a terrific one. It may seem strange that a man who could sell his own child into slavery should hesitate at such a moment, when his life was trembling in the balance. But the baleful influence of human slavery poisoned the very fountains of life, and created new standards of right. The sheriff was conscientious; his conscience had merely been warped by his environment. Let no one ask what his answer would have been; he was spared the necessity of a decision. "Stop," said the mulatto, "you need not promise. I could not trust you if you did. It is your life for mine; there is but one safe way for me; you must die." He raised his arm to fire, when there was a flash--a report from the passage behind him. His arm fell heavily at his side, and the pistol dropped at his feet. The sheriff recovered first from his surprise, and throwing open the door secured the fallen weapon. Then seizing the prisoner he thrust him into the cell and locked the door upon him; after which he turned to Polly, who leaned half-fainting against the wall, her hands clasped over her heart. "Oh, father, I was just in time!" she cried hysterically, and, wildly sobbing, threw herself into her father's arms. "I watched until they all went away," she said. "I heard the shot from the woods and I saw you shoot. Then when you did not come out I feared something had happened, that perhaps you had been wounded. I got out the other pistol and ran over here. When I found the door open, I knew something was wrong, and when I heard voices I crept upstairs, and reached the top just in time to hear him say he would kill you. Oh, it was a narrow escape!" When she had grown somewhat calmer, the sheriff left her standing there and went back into the cell. The prisoner's arm was bleeding from a flesh wound. His bravado had given place to a stony apathy. There was no sign in his face of fear or disappointment or feeling of any kind. The sheriff sent Polly to the house for cloth, and bound up the prisoner's wound with a rude skill acquired during his army life. "I 'll have a doctor come and dress the wound in the morning," he said to the prisoner. "It will do very well until then, if you will keep quiet. If the doctor asks you how the wound was caused, you can say that you were struck by the bullet fired from the woods. It would do you no good to have it known that you were shot while attempting to escape." The prisoner uttered no word of thanks or apology, but sat in sullen silence. When the wounded arm had been bandaged, Polly and her father returned to the house. The sheriff was in an unusually thoughtful mood that evening. He put salt in his coffee at supper, and poured vinegar over his pancakes. To many of Polly's questions he returned random answers. When he had gone to bed he lay awake for several hours. In the silent watches of the night, when he was alone with God, there came into his mind a flood of unaccustomed thoughts. An hour or two before, standing face to face with death, he had experienced a sensation similar to that which drowning men are said to feel--a kind of clarifying of the moral faculty, in which the veil of the flesh, with its obscuring passions and prejudices, is pushed aside for a moment, and all the acts of one's life stand out, in the clear light of truth, in their correct proportions and relations,--a state of mind in which one sees himself as God may be supposed to see him. In the reaction following his rescue, this feeling had given place for a time to far different emotions. But now, in the silence of midnight, something of this clearness of spirit returned to the sheriff. He saw that he had owed some duty to this son of his,--that neither law nor custom could destroy a responsibility inherent in the nature of mankind. He could not thus, in the eyes of God at least, shake off the consequences of his sin. Had he never sinned, this wayward spirit would never have come back from the vanished past to haunt him. As these thoughts came, his anger against the mulatto died away, and in its place there sprang up a great pity. The hand of parental authority might have restrained the passions he had seen burning in the prisoner's eyes when the desperate man spoke the words which had seemed to doom his father to death. The sheriff felt that he might have saved this fiery spirit from the slough of slavery; that he might have sent him to the free North, and given him there, or in some other land, an opportunity to turn to usefulness and honorable pursuits the talents that had run to crime, perhaps to madness; he might, still less, have given this son of his the poor simulacrum of liberty which men of his caste could possess in a slave-holding community; or least of all, but still something, he might have kept the boy on the plantation, where the burdens of slavery would have fallen lightly upon him. The sheriff recalled his own youth. He had inherited an honored name to keep untarnished; he had had a future to make; the picture of a fair young bride had beckoned him on to happiness. The poor wretch now stretched upon a pallet of straw between the brick walls of the jail had had none of these things,--no name, no father, no mother--in the true meaning of motherhood,--and until the past few years no possible future, and then one vague and shadowy in its outline, and dependent for form and substance upon the slow solution of a problem in which there were many unknown quantities. From what he might have done to what he might yet do was an easy transition for the awakened conscience of the sheriff. It occurred to him, purely as a hypothesis, that he might permit his prisoner to escape; but his oath of office, his duty as sheriff, stood in the way of such a course, and the sheriff dismissed the idea from his mind. He could, however, investigate the circumstances of the murder, and move Heaven and earth to discover the real criminal, for he no longer doubted the prisoner's innocence; he could employ counsel for the accused, and perhaps influence public opinion in his favor. An acquittal once secured, some plan could be devised by which the sheriff might in some degree atone for his crime against this son of his--against society--against God. When the sheriff had reached this conclusion he fell into an unquiet slumber, from which he awoke late the next morning. He went over to the jail before breakfast and found the prisoner lying on his pallet, his face turned to the wall; he did not move when the sheriff rattled the door. "Good-morning," said the latter, in a tone intended to waken the prisoner. There was no response. The sheriff looked more keenly at the recumbent figure; there was an unnatural rigidity about its attitude. He hastily unlocked the door and, entering the cell, bent over the prostrate form. There was no sound of breathing; he turned the body over--it was cold and stiff. The prisoner had torn the bandage from his wound and bled to death during the night. He had evidently been dead several hours. A Matter of Principle I "What our country needs most in its treatment of the race problem," observed Mr. Cicero Clayton at one of the monthly meetings of the Blue Vein Society, of which he was a prominent member, "is a clearer conception of the brotherhood of man." The same sentiment in much the same words had often fallen from Mr. Clayton's lips,--so often, in fact, that the younger members of the society sometimes spoke of him--among themselves of course--as "Brotherhood Clayton." The sobriquet derived its point from the application he made of the principle involved in this oft-repeated proposition. The fundamental article of Mr. Clayton's social creed was that he himself was not a negro. "I know," he would say, "that the white people lump us all together as negroes, and condemn us all to the same social ostracism. But I don't accept this classification, for my part, and I imagine that, as the chief party in interest, I have a right to my opinion. People who belong by half or more of their blood to the most virile and progressive race of modern times have as much right to call themselves white as others have to call them negroes." Mr. Clayton spoke warmly, for he was well informed, and had thought much upon the subject; too much, indeed, for he had not been able to escape entirely the tendency of too much concentration upon one subject to make even the clearest minds morbid. "Of course we can't enforce our claims, or protect ourselves from being robbed of our birthright; but we can at least have principles, and try to live up to them the best we can. If we are not accepted as white, we can at any rate make it clear that we object to being called black. Our protest cannot fail in time to impress itself upon the better class of white people; for the Anglo-Saxon race loves justice, and will eventually do it, where it does not conflict with their own interests." Whether or not the fact that Mr. Clayton meant no sarcasm, and was conscious of no inconsistency in this eulogy, tended to establish the racial identity he claimed may safely be left to the discerning reader. In living up to his creed Mr. Clayton declined to associate to any considerable extent with black people. This was sometimes a little inconvenient, and occasionally involved a sacrifice of some pleasure for himself and his family, because they would not attend entertainments where many black people were likely to be present. But they had a social refuge in a little society of people like themselves; they attended, too, a church, of which nearly all the members were white, and they were connected with a number of the religious and benevolent associations open to all good citizens, where they came into contact with the better class of white people, and were treated, in their capacity of members, with a courtesy and consideration scarcely different from that accorded to other citizens. Mr. Clayton's racial theory was not only logical enough, but was in his own case backed up by substantial arguments. He had begun life with a small patrimony, and had invested his money in a restaurant, which by careful and judicious attention had grown from a cheap eating-house into the most popular and successful confectionery and catering establishment in Groveland. His business occupied a double store on Oakwood Avenue. He owned houses and lots, and stocks and bonds, had good credit at the banks, and lived in a style befitting his income and business standing. In person he was of olive complexion, with slightly curly hair. His features approached the Cuban or Latin-American type rather than the familiar broad characteristics of the mulatto, this suggestion of something foreign being heightened by a Vandyke beard and a carefully waxed and pointed mustache. When he walked to church on Sunday mornings with his daughter Alice, they were a couple of such striking appearance as surely to attract attention. Miss Alice Clayton was queen of her social set. She was young, she was handsome. She was nearly white; she frankly confessed her sorrow that she was not entirely so. She was accomplished and amiable, dressed in good taste, and had for her father by all odds the richest colored man--the term is used with apologies to Mr. Clayton, explaining that it does not necessarily mean a negro--in Groveland. So pronounced was her superiority that really she had but one social rival worthy of the name,--Miss Lura Watkins, whose father kept a prosperous livery stable and lived in almost as good style as the Claytons. Miss Watkins, while good-looking enough, was not so young nor quite so white as Miss Clayton. She was popular, however, among their mutual acquaintances, and there was a good-natured race between the two as to which should make the first and best marriage. Marriages among Miss Clayton's set were serious affairs. Of course marriage is always a serious matter, whether it be a success or a failure, and there are those who believe that any marriage is better than no marriage. But among Miss Clayton's friends and associates matrimony took on an added seriousness because of the very narrow limits within which it could take place. Miss Clayton and her friends, by reason of their assumed superiority to black people, or perhaps as much by reason of a somewhat morbid shrinking from the curiosity manifested toward married people of strongly contrasting colors, would not marry black men, and except in rare instances white men would not marry them. They were therefore restricted for a choice to the young men of their own complexion. But these, unfortunately for the girls, had a wider choice. In any State where the laws permit freedom of the marriage contract, a man, by virtue of his sex, can find a wife of whatever complexion he prefers; of course he must not always ask too much in other respects, for most women like to better their social position when they marry. To the number thus lost by "going on the other side," as the phrase went, add the worthless contingent whom no self-respecting woman would marry, and the choice was still further restricted; so that it had become fashionable, when the supply of eligible men ran short, for those of Miss Clayton's set who could afford it to go traveling, ostensibly for pleasure, but with the serious hope that they might meet their fate away from home. Miss Clayton had perhaps a larger option than any of her associates. Among such men as there were she could have taken her choice. Her beauty, her position, her accomplishments, her father's wealth, all made her eminently desirable. But, on the other hand, the same things rendered her more difficult to reach, and harder to please. To get access to her heart, too, it was necessary to run the gauntlet of her parents, which, until she had reached the age of twenty-three, no one had succeeded in doing safely. Many had called, but none had been chosen. There was, however, one spot left unguarded, and through it Cupid, a veteran sharpshooter, sent a dart. Mr. Clayton had taken into his service and into his household a poor relation, a sort of cousin several times removed. This boy--his name was Jack--had gone into Mr. Clayton's service at a very youthful age,--twelve or thirteen. He had helped about the housework, washed the dishes, swept the floors, taken care of the lawn and the stable for three or four years, while he attended school. His cousin had then taken him into the store, where he had swept the floor, washed the windows, and done a class of work that kept fully impressed upon him the fact that he was a poor dependent. Nevertheless he was a cheerful lad, who took what he could get and was properly grateful, but always meant to get more. By sheer force of industry and affability and shrewdness, he forced his employer to promote him in time to a position of recognized authority in the establishment. Any one outside of the family would have perceived in him a very suitable husband for Miss Clayton; he was of about the same age, or a year or two older, was as fair of complexion as she, when she was not powdered, and was passably good-looking, with a bearing of which the natural manliness had been no more warped than his training and racial status had rendered inevitable; for he had early learned the law of growth, that to bend is better than to break. He was sometimes sent to accompany Miss Clayton to places in the evening, when she had no other escort, and it is quite likely that she discovered his good points before her parents did. That they should in time perceive them was inevitable. But even then, so accustomed were they to looking down upon the object of their former bounty, that they only spoke of the matter jocularly. "Well, Alice," her father would say in his bluff way, "you 'll not be absolutely obliged to die an old maid. If we can't find anything better for you, there 's always Jack. As long as he does n't take to some other girl, you can fall back on him as a last chance. He 'd be glad to take you to get into the business." Miss Alice had considered the joke a very poor one when first made, but by occasional repetition she became somewhat familiar with it. In time it got around to Jack himself, to whom it seemed no joke at all. He had long considered it a consummation devoutly to be wished, and when he became aware that the possibility of such a match had occurred to the other parties in interest, he made up his mind that the idea should in due course of time become an accomplished fact. He had even suggested as much to Alice, in a casual way, to feel his ground; and while she had treated the matter lightly, he was not without hope that she had been impressed by the suggestion. Before he had had time, however, to follow up this lead, Miss Clayton, in the spring of 187-, went away on a visit to Washington. The occasion of her visit was a presidential inauguration. The new President owed his nomination mainly to the votes of the Southern delegates in the convention, and was believed to be correspondingly well disposed to the race from which the Southern delegates were for the most part recruited. Friends of rival and unsuccessful candidates for the nomination had more than hinted that the Southern delegates were very substantially rewarded for their support at the time when it was given; whether this was true or not the parties concerned know best. At any rate the colored politicians did not see it in that light, for they were gathered from near and far to press their claims for recognition and patronage. On the evening following the White House inaugural ball, the colored people of Washington gave an "inaugural" ball at a large public hall. It was under the management of their leading citizens, among them several high officials holding over from the last administration, and a number of professional and business men. This ball was the most noteworthy social event that colored circles up to that time had ever known. There were many visitors from various parts of the country. Miss Clayton attended the ball, the honors of which she carried away easily. She danced with several partners, and was introduced to innumerable people whom she had never seen before, and whom she hardly expected ever to meet again. She went away from the ball, at four o'clock in the morning, in a glow of triumph, and with a confused impression of senators and representatives and lawyers and doctors of all shades, who had sought an introduction, led her through the dance, and overwhelmed her with compliments. She returned home the next day but one, after the most delightful week of her life. II One afternoon, about three weeks after her return from Washington, Alice received a letter through the mail. The envelope bore the words "House of Representatives" printed in one corner, and in the opposite corner, in a bold running hand, a Congressman's frank, "Hamilton M. Brown, M.C." The letter read as follows:---- House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., March 30, 187-. Miss Alice Clayton, Groveland. Dear Friend (if I may be permitted to call you so after so brief an acquaintance),--I remember with sincerest pleasure our recent meeting at the inaugural ball, and the sensation created by your beauty, your amiable manners, and your graceful dancing. Time has so strengthened the impression I then received, that I should have felt inconsolable had I thought it impossible ever to again behold the charms which had brightened the occasion of our meeting and eclipsed by their brilliancy the leading belles of the capital. I had hoped, however, to have the pleasure of meeting you again, and circumstances have fortunately placed it in my power to do so at an early date. You have doubtless learned that the contest over the election in the Sixth Congressional District of South Carolina has been decided in my favor, and that I now have the honor of representing my native State at the national capital. I have just been appointed a member of a special committee to visit and inspect the Sault River and the Straits of Mackinac, with reference to the needs of lake navigation. I have made arrangements to start a week ahead of the other members of the committee, whom I am to meet in Detroit on the 20th. I shall leave here on the 2d, and will arrive in Groveland on the 3d, by the 7.30 evening express. I shall remain in Groveland several days, in the course of which I shall be pleased to call, and renew the acquaintance so auspiciously begun in Washington, which it is my fondest hope may ripen into a warmer friendship. If you do not regard my visit as presumptuous, and do not write me in the mean while forbidding it, I shall do myself the pleasure of waiting on you the morning after my arrival in Groveland. With renewed expressions of my sincere admiration and profound esteem, I remain, Sincerely yours, Hamilton M. Brown, M.C. To Alice, and especially to her mother, this bold and flowery letter had very nearly the force of a formal declaration. They read it over again and again, and spent most of the afternoon discussing it. There were few young men in Groveland eligible as husbands for so superior a person as Alice Clayton, and an addition to the number would be very acceptable. But the mere fact of his being a Congressman was not sufficient to qualify him; there were other considerations. "I 've never heard of this Honorable Hamilton M. Brown," said Mr. Clayton. The letter had been laid before him at the supper-table. "It 's strange, Alice, that you have n't said anything about him before. You must have met lots of swell folks not to recollect a Congressman." "But he was n't a Congressman then," answered Alice; "he was only a claimant. I remember Senator Bruce, and Mr. Douglass; but there were so many doctors and lawyers and politicians that I could n't keep track of them all. Still I have a faint impression of a Mr. Brown who danced with me." She went into the parlor and brought out the dancing programme she had used at the Washington ball. She had decorated it with a bow of blue ribbon and preserved it as a souvenir of her visit. "Yes," she said, after examining it, "I must have danced with him. Here are the initials--'H.M.B.'" "What color is he?" asked Mr. Clayton, as he plied his knife and fork. "I have a notion that he was rather dark--darker than any one I had ever danced with before." "Why did you dance with him?" asked her father. "You were n't obliged to go back on your principles because you were away from home." "Well, father, 'when you 're in Rome'--you know the rest. Mrs. Clearweather introduced me to several dark men, to him among others. They were her friends, and common decency required me to be courteous." "If this man is black, we don't want to encourage him. If he 's the right sort, we 'll invite him to the house." "And make him feel at home," added Mrs. Clayton, on hospitable thoughts intent. "We must ask Sadler about him to-morrow," said Mr. Clayton, when he had drunk his coffee and lighted his cigar. "If he 's the right man he shall have cause to remember his visit to Groveland. We 'll show him that Washington is not the only town on earth." The uncertainty of the family with regard to Mr. Brown was soon removed. Mr. Solomon Sadler, who was supposed to know everything worth knowing concerning the colored race, and everybody of importance connected with it, dropped in after supper to make an evening call. Sadler was familiar with the history of every man of negro ancestry who had distinguished himself in any walk of life. He could give the pedigree of Alexander Pushkin, the titles of scores of Dumas's novels (even Sadler had not time to learn them all), and could recite the whole of Wendell Phillips's lecture on Toussaint l'Ouverture. He claimed a personal acquaintance with Mr. Frederick Douglass, and had been often in Washington, where he was well known and well received in good colored society. "Let me see," he said reflectively, when asked for information about the Honorable Hamilton M. Brown. "Yes, I think I know him. He studied at Oberlin just after the war. He was about leaving there when I entered. There were two H.M. Browns there--a Hamilton M. Brown and a Henry M. Brown. One was stout and dark and the other was slim and quite light; you could scarcely tell him from a dark white man. They used to call them 'light Brown' and 'dark Brown.' I did n't know either of them except by sight, for they were there only a few weeks after I went in. As I remember them, Hamilton was the fair one--a very good-looking, gentlemanly fellow, and, as I heard, a good student and a fine speaker." "Do you remember what kind of hair he had?" asked Mr. Clayton. "Very good indeed; straight, as I remember it. He looked something like a Spaniard or a Portuguese." "Now that you describe him," said Alice, "I remember quite well dancing with such a gentleman; and I 'm wrong about my 'H.M.B.' The dark man must have been some one else; there are two others on my card that I can't remember distinctly, and he was probably one of those." "I guess he 's all right, Alice," said her father when Sadler had gone away. "He evidently means business, and we must treat him white. Of course he must stay with us; there are no hotels in Groveland while he is here. Let 's see--he 'll be here in three days. That is n't very long, but I guess we can get ready. I 'll write a letter this afternoon--or you write it, and invite him to the house, and say I 'll meet him at the depot. And you may have _carte blanche_ for making the preparations." "We must have some people to meet him." "Certainly; a reception is the proper thing. Sit down immediately and write the letter and I 'll mail it first thing in the morning, so he 'll get it before he has time to make other arrangements. And you and your mother put your heads together and make out a list of guests, and I 'll have the invitations printed to-morrow. We will show the darkeys of Groveland how to entertain a Congressman." It will be noted that in moments of abstraction or excitement Mr. Clayton sometimes relapsed into forms of speech not entirely consistent with his principles. But some allowance must be made for his atmosphere; he could no more escape from it than the leopard can change his spots, or the--In deference to Mr. Clayton's feelings the quotation will be left incomplete. Alice wrote the letter on the spot and it was duly mailed, and sped on its winged way to Washington. The preparations for the reception were made as thoroughly and elaborately as possible on so short a notice. The invitations were issued; the house was cleaned from attic to cellar; an orchestra was engaged for the evening; elaborate floral decorations were planned and the flowers ordered. Even the refreshments, which ordinarily, in the household of a caterer, would be mere matter of familiar detail, became a subject of serious consultation and study. The approaching event was a matter of very much interest to the fortunate ones who were honored with invitations, and this for several reasons. They were anxious to meet this sole representative of their race in the --th Congress, and as he was not one of the old-line colored leaders, but a new star risen on the political horizon, there was a special curiosity to see who he was and what he looked like. Moreover, the Claytons did not often entertain a large company, but when they did, it was on a scale commensurate with their means and position, and to be present on such an occasion was a thing to remember and to talk about. And, most important consideration of all, some remarks dropped by members of the Clayton family had given rise to the rumor that the Congressman was seeking a wife. This invested his visit with a romantic interest, and gave the reception a practical value; for there were other marriageable girls besides Miss Clayton, and if one was left another might be taken. III On the evening of April 3d, at fifteen minutes of six o'clock, Mr. Clayton, accompanied by Jack, entered the livery carriage waiting at his gate and ordered the coachman to drive to the Union Depot. He had taken Jack along, partly for company, and partly that Jack might relieve the Congressman of any trouble about his baggage, and make himself useful in case of emergency. Jack was willing enough to go, for he had foreseen in the visitor a rival for Alice's hand,--indeed he had heard more or less of the subject for several days,--and was glad to make a reconnaissance before the enemy arrived upon the field of battle. He had made--at least he had thought so--considerable progress with Alice during the three weeks since her return from Washington, and once or twice Alice had been perilously near the tender stage. This visit had disturbed the situation and threatened to ruin his chances; but he did not mean to give up without a struggle. Arrived at the main entrance, Mr. Clayton directed the carriage to wait, and entered the station with Jack. The Union Depot at Groveland was an immense oblong structure, covering a dozen parallel tracks and furnishing terminal passenger facilities for half a dozen railroads. The tracks ran east and west, and the depot was entered from the south, at about the middle of the building. On either side of the entrance, the waiting-rooms, refreshment rooms, baggage and express departments, and other administrative offices, extended in a row for the entire length of the building; and beyond them and parallel with them stretched a long open space, separated from the tracks by an iron fence or _grille_. There were two entrance gates in the fence, at which tickets must be shown before access could be had to trains, and two other gates, by which arriving passengers came out. Mr. Clayton looked at the blackboard on the wall underneath the station clock, and observed that the 7.30 train from Washington was five minutes late. Accompanied by Jack he walked up and down the platform until the train, with the usual accompaniment of panting steam and clanging bell and rumbling trucks, pulled into the station, and drew up on the third or fourth track from the iron railing. Mr. Clayton stationed himself at the gate nearest the rear end of the train, reasoning that the Congressman would ride in a parlor car, and would naturally come out by the gate nearest the point at which he left the train. "You 'd better go and stand by the other gate, Jack," he said to his companion, "and stop him if he goes out that way." The train was well filled and a stream of passengers poured through. Mr. Clayton scanned the crowd carefully as they approached the gate, and scrutinized each passenger as he came through, without seeing any one that met the description of Congressman Brown, as given by Sadler, or any one that could in his opinion be the gentleman for whom he was looking. When the last one had passed through he was left to the conclusion that his expected guest had gone out by the other gate. Mr. Clayton hastened thither. "Did n't he come out this way, Jack?" he asked. "No, sir," replied the young man, "I have n't seen him." "That 's strange," mused Mr. Clayton, somewhat anxiously. "He would hardly fail to come without giving us notice. Surely we must have missed him. We 'd better look around a little. You go that way and I 'll go this." Mr. Clayton turned and walked several rods along the platform to the men's waiting-room, and standing near the door glanced around to see if he could find the object of his search. The only colored person in the room was a stout and very black man, wearing a broadcloth suit and a silk hat, and seated a short distance from the door. On the seat by his side stood a couple of valises. On one of them, the one nearest him, on which his arm rested, was written, in white letters, plainly legible,---- "H.M. Brown, M.C. Washington, D.C." Mr. Clayton's feelings at this discovery can better be imagined than described. He hastily left the waiting-room, before the black gentleman, who was looking the other way, was even aware of his presence, and, walking rapidly up and down the platform, communed with himself upon what course of action the situation demanded. He had invited to his house, had come down to meet, had made elaborate preparations to entertain on the following evening, a light-colored man,--a white man by his theory, an acceptable guest, a possible husband for his daughter, an avowed suitor for her hand. If the Congressman had turned out to be brown, even dark brown, with fairly good hair, though he might not have desired him as a son-in-law, yet he could have welcomed him as a guest. But even this softening of the blow was denied him, for the man in the waiting-room was palpably, aggressively black, with pronounced African features and woolly hair, without apparently a single drop of redeeming white blood. Could he, in the face of his well-known principles, his lifelong rule of conduct, take this negro into his home and introduce him to his friends? Could he subject his wife and daughter to the rude shock of such a disappointment? It would be bad enough for them to learn of the ghastly mistake, but to have him in the house would be twisting the arrow in the wound. Mr. Clayton had the instincts of a gentleman, and realized the delicacy of the situation. But to get out of his difficulty without wounding the feelings of the Congressman required not only diplomacy but dispatch. Whatever he did must be done promptly; for if he waited many minutes the Congressman would probably take a carriage and be driven to Mr. Clayton's residence. A ray of hope came for a moment to illumine the gloom of the situation. Perhaps the black man was merely sitting there, and not the owner of the valise! For there were two valises, one on each side of the supposed Congressman. For obvious reasons he did not care to make the inquiry himself, so he looked around for his companion, who came up a moment later. "Jack," he exclaimed excitedly, "I 'm afraid we 're in the worst kind of a hole, unless there 's some mistake! Run down to the men's waiting-room and you 'll see a man and a valise, and you 'll understand what I mean. Ask that darkey if he is the Honorable Mr. Brown, Congressman from South Carolina. If he says yes, come back right away and let me know, without giving him time to ask any questions, and put your wits to work to help me out of the scrape." "I wonder what 's the matter?" said Jack to himself, but did as he was told. In a moment he came running back. "Yes, sir," he announced; "he says he 's the man." "Jack," said Mr. Clayton desperately, "if you want to show your appreciation of what I 've done for you, you must suggest some way out of this. I 'd never dare to take that negro to my house, and yet I 'm obliged to treat him like a gentleman." Jack's eyes had worn a somewhat reflective look since he had gone to make the inquiry. Suddenly his face brightened with intelligence, and then, as a newsboy ran into the station calling his wares, hardened into determination. "Clarion, special extry 'dition! All about de epidemic er dipt'eria!" clamored the newsboy with shrill childish treble, as he made his way toward the waiting-room. Jack darted after him, and saw the man to whom he had spoken buy a paper. He ran back to his employer, and dragged him over toward the ticket-seller's window. "I have it, sir!" he exclaimed, seizing a telegraph blank and writing rapidly, and reading aloud as he wrote. "How's this for a way out?"---- "Dear Sir,--I write you this note here in the depot to inform you of an unfortunate event which has interfered with my plans and those of my family for your entertainment while in Groveland. Yesterday my daughter Alice complained of a sore throat, which by this afternoon had developed into a case of malignant diphtheria. In consequence our house has been quarantined; and while I have felt myself obliged to come down to the depot, I do not feel that I ought to expose you to the possibility of infection, and I therefore send you this by another hand. The bearer will conduct you to a carriage which I have ordered placed at your service, and unless you should prefer some other hotel, you will be driven to the Forest Hill House, where I beg you will consider yourself my guest during your stay in the city, and make the fullest use of every convenience it may offer. From present indications I fear no one of our family will be able to see you, which we shall regret beyond expression, as we have made elaborate arrangements for your entertainment. I still hope, however, that you may enjoy your visit, as there are many places of interest in the city, and many friends will doubtless be glad to make your acquaintance. "With assurances of my profound regret, I am Sincerely yours, Cicero Clayton." "Splendid!" cried Mr. Clayton. "You 've helped me out of a horrible scrape. Now, go and take him to the hotel and see him comfortably located, and tell them to charge the bill to me." "I suspect, sir," suggested Jack, "that I 'd better not go up to the house, and you 'll have to stay in yourself for a day or two, to keep up appearances. I 'll sleep on the lounge at the store, and we can talk business over the telephone." "All right, Jack, we 'll arrange the details later. But for Heaven's sake get him started, or he 'll be calling a hack to drive up to the house. I 'll go home on a street car." "So far so good," sighed Mr. Clayton to himself as he escaped from the station. "Jack is a deuced clever fellow, and I 'll have to do something more for him. But the tug-of-war is yet to come. I 've got to bribe a doctor, shut up the house for a day or two, and have all the ill-humor of two disappointed women to endure until this negro leaves town. Well, I 'm sure my wife and Alice will back me up at any cost. No sacrifice is too great to escape having to entertain him; of course I have no prejudice against his color,--he can't help that,--but it is the _principle_ of the thing. If we received him it would be a concession fatal to all my views and theories. And I am really doing him a kindness, for I 'm sure that all the world could not make Alice and her mother treat him with anything but cold politeness. It 'll be a great mortification to Alice, but I don't see how else I could have got out of it." He boarded the first car that left the depot, and soon reached home. The house was lighted up, and through the lace curtains of the parlor windows he could see his wife and daughter, elegantly dressed, waiting to receive their distinguished visitor. He rang the bell impatiently, and a servant opened the door. "The gentleman did n't come?" asked the maid. "No," he said as he hung up his hat. This brought the ladies to the door. "He did n't come?" they exclaimed. "What 's the matter?" "I 'll tell you," he said. "Mary," this to the servant, a white girl, who stood in open-eyed curiosity, "we shan't need you any more to-night." Then he went into the parlor, and, closing the door, told his story. When he reached the point where he had discovered the color of the honorable Mr. Brown, Miss Clayton caught her breath, and was on the verge of collapse. "That nigger," said Mrs. Clayton indignantly, "can never set foot in this house. But what did you do with him?" Mr. Clayton quickly unfolded his plan, and described the disposition he had made of the Congressman. "It 's an awful shame," said Mrs. Clayton. "Just think of the trouble and expense we have gone to! And poor Alice 'll never get over it, for everybody knows he came to see her and that he 's smitten with her. But you 've done just right; we never would have been able to hold up our heads again if we had introduced a black man, even a Congressman, to the people that are invited here to-morrow night, as a sweetheart of Alice. Why, she would n't marry him if he was President of the United States and plated with gold an inch thick. The very idea!" "Well," said Mr. Clayton, "then we 'we got to act quick. Alice must wrap up her throat--by the way, Alice, how _is_ your throat?" "It 's sore," sobbed Alice, who had been in tears almost from her father's return, "and I don't care if I do have diphtheria and die, no, I don't!" and she wept on. "Wrap up your throat and go to bed, and I 'll go over to Doctor Pillsbury's and get a diphtheria card to nail up on the house. In the morning, first thing, we 'll have to write notes recalling the invitations for to-morrow evening, and have them delivered by messenger boys. We were fools for not finding out all about this man from some one who knew, before we invited him here. Sadler don't know more than half he thinks he does, anyway. And we 'll have to do this thing thoroughly, or our motives will be misconstrued, and people will say we are prejudiced and all that, when it is only a matter of principle with us." The programme outlined above was carried out to the letter. The invitations were recalled, to the great disappointment of the invited guests. The family physician called several times during the day. Alice remained in bed, and the maid left without notice, in such a hurry that she forgot to take her best clothes. Mr. Clayton himself remained at home. He had a telephone in the house, and was therefore in easy communication with his office, so that the business did not suffer materially by reason of his absence from the store. About ten o'clock in the morning a note came up from the hotel, expressing Mr. Brown's regrets and sympathy. Toward noon Mr. Clayton picked up the morning paper, which he had not theretofore had time to read, and was glancing over it casually, when his eye fell upon a column headed "A Colored Congressman." He read the article with astonishment that rapidly turned to chagrin and dismay. It was an interview describing the Congressman as a tall and shapely man, about thirty-five years old, with an olive complexion not noticeably darker than many a white man's, straight hair, and eyes as black as sloes. "The bearing of this son of South Carolina reveals the polished manners of the Southern gentleman, and neither from his appearance nor his conversation would one suspect that the white blood which flows in his veins in such preponderating measure had ever been crossed by that of a darker race," wrote the reporter, who had received instructions at the office that for urgent business considerations the lake shipping interest wanted Representative Brown treated with marked consideration. There was more of the article, but the introductory portion left Mr. Clayton in such a state of bewilderment that the paper fell from his hand. What was the meaning of it? Had he been mistaken? Obviously so, or else the reporter was wrong, which was manifestly improbable. When he had recovered himself somewhat, he picked up the newspaper and began reading where he had left off. "Representative Brown traveled to Groveland in company with Bishop Jones of the African Methodist Jerusalem Church, who is _en route_ to attend the general conference of his denomination at Detroit next week. The bishop, who came in while the writer was interviewing Mr. Brown, is a splendid type of the pure negro. He is said to be a man of great power among his people, which may easily be believed after one has looked upon his expressive countenance and heard him discuss the questions which affect the welfare of his church and his race." Mr. Clayton stared at the paper. "'The bishop,'" he repeated, "'is a splendid type of the pure negro.' I must have mistaken the bishop for the Congressman! But how in the world did Jack get the thing balled up? I 'll call up the store and demand an explanation of him. "Jack," he asked, "what kind of a looking man was the fellow you gave the note to at the depot?" "He was a very wicked-looking fellow, sir," came back the answer. "He had a bad eye, looked like a gambler, sir. I am not surprised that you did n't want to entertain him, even if he was a Congressman." "What color was he--that 's what I want to know--and what kind of hair did he have?" "Why, he was about my complexion, sir, and had straight black hair." The rules of the telephone company did not permit swearing over the line. Mr. Clayton broke the rules. "Was there any one else with him?" he asked when he had relieved his mind. "Yes, sir, Bishop Jones of the African Methodist Jerusalem Church was sitting there with him; they had traveled from Washington together. I drove the bishop to his stopping-place after I had left Mr. Brown at the hotel. I did n't suppose you 'd mind." Mr. Clayton fell into a chair, and indulged in thoughts unutterable. He folded up the paper and slipped it under the family Bible, where it was least likely to be soon discovered. "I 'll hide the paper, anyway," he groaned. "I 'll never hear the last of this till my dying day, so I may as well have a few hours' respite. It 's too late to go back, and we 've got to play the farce out. Alice is really sick with disappointment, and to let her know this now would only make her worse. Maybe he 'll leave town in a day or two, and then she 'll be in condition to stand it. Such luck is enough to disgust a man with trying to do right and live up to his principles." Time hung a little heavy on Mr. Clayton's hands during the day. His wife was busy with the housework. He answered several telephone calls about Alice's health, and called up the store occasionally to ask how the business was getting on. After lunch he lay down on a sofa and took a nap, from which he was aroused by the sound of the door-bell. He went to the door. The evening paper was lying on the porch, and the newsboy, who had not observed the diphtheria sign until after he had rung, was hurrying away as fast as his legs would carry him. Mr. Clayton opened the paper and looked it through to see if there was any reference to the visiting Congressman. He found what he sought and more. An article on the local page contained a resume of the information given in the morning paper, with the following additional paragraph:---- "A reporter, who called at the Forest Hill this morning to interview Representative Brown, was informed that the Congressman had been invited to spend the remainder of his time in Groveland as the guest of Mr. William Watkins, the proprietor of the popular livery establishment on Main Street. Mr. Brown will remain in the city several days, and a reception will be tendered him at Mr. Watkins's on Wednesday evening." "That ends it," sighed Mr. Clayton. "The dove of peace will never again rest on my roof-tree." But why dwell longer on the sufferings of Mr. Clayton, or attempt to describe the feelings or chronicle the remarks of his wife and daughter when they learned the facts in the case? As to Representative Brown, he was made welcome in the hospitable home of Mr. William Watkins. There was a large and brilliant assemblage at the party on Wednesday evening, at which were displayed the costumes prepared for the Clayton reception. Mr. Brown took a fancy to Miss Lura Watkins, to whom, before the week was over, he became engaged to be married. Meantime poor Alice, the innocent victim of circumstances and principles, lay sick abed with a supposititious case of malignant diphtheria, and a real case of acute disappointment and chagrin. "Oh, Jack!" exclaimed Alice, a few weeks later, on the way home from evening church in company with the young man, "what a dreadful thing it all was! And to think of that hateful Lura Watkins marrying the Congressman!" The street was shaded by trees at the point where they were passing, and there was no one in sight. Jack put his arm around her waist, and, leaning over, kissed her. "Never mind, dear," he said soothingly, "you still have your 'last chance' left, and I 'll prove myself a better man than the Congressman." * * * * * Occasionally, at social meetings, when the vexed question of the future of the colored race comes up, as it often does, for discussion, Mr. Clayton may still be heard to remark sententiously:---- "What the white people of the United States need most, in dealing with this problem, is a higher conception of the brotherhood of man. For of one blood God made all the nations of the earth." Cicely's Dream I The old woman stood at the back door of the cabin, shading her eyes with her hand, and looking across the vegetable garden that ran up to the very door. Beyond the garden she saw, bathed in the sunlight, a field of corn, just in the ear, stretching for half a mile, its yellow, pollen-laden tassels overtopping the dark green mass of broad glistening blades; and in the distance, through the faint morning haze of evaporating dew, the line of the woods, of a still darker green, meeting the clear blue of the summer sky. Old Dinah saw, going down the path, a tall, brown girl, in a homespun frock, swinging a slat-bonnet in one hand and a splint basket in the other. "Oh, Cicely!" she called. The girl turned and answered in a resonant voice, vibrating with youth and life,---- "Yes, granny!" "Be sho' and pick a good mess er peas, chile, fer yo' gran'daddy's gwine ter be home ter dinner ter-day." The old woman stood a moment longer and then turned to go into the house. What she had not seen was that the girl was not only young, but lithe and shapely as a sculptor's model; that her bare feet seemed to spurn the earth as they struck it; that though brown, she was not so brown but that her cheek was darkly red with the blood of another race than that which gave her her name and station in life; and the old woman did not see that Cicely's face was as comely as her figure was superb, and that her eyes were dreamy with vague yearnings. Cicely climbed the low fence between the garden and the cornfield, and started down one of the long rows leading directly away from the house. Old Needham was a good ploughman, and straight as an arrow ran the furrow between the rows of corn, until it vanished in the distant perspective. The peas were planted beside alternate hills of corn, the cornstalks serving as supports for the climbing pea-vines. The vines nearest the house had been picked more or less clear of the long green pods, and Cicely walked down the row for a quarter of a mile, to where the peas were more plentiful. And as she walked she thought of her dream of the night before. She had dreamed a beautiful dream. The fact that it was a beautiful dream, a delightful dream, her memory retained very vividly. She was troubled because she could not remember just what her dream had been about. Of one other fact she was certain, that in her dream she had found something, and that her happiness had been bound up with the thing she had found. As she walked down the corn-row she ran over in her mind the various things with which she had always associated happiness. Had she found a gold ring? No, it was not a gold ring--of that she felt sure. Was it a soft, curly plume for her hat? She had seen town people with them, and had indulged in day-dreams on the subject; but it was not a feather. Was it a bright-colored silk dress? No; as much as she had always wanted one, it was not a silk dress. For an instant, in a dream, she had tasted some great and novel happiness, and when she awoke it was dashed from her lips, and she could not even enjoy the memory of it, except in a vague, indefinite, and tantalizing way. Cicely was troubled, too, because dreams were serious things. Dreams had certain meanings, most of them, and some dreams went by contraries. If her dream had been a prophecy of some good thing, she had by forgetting it lost the pleasure of anticipation. If her dream had been one of those that go by contraries, the warning would be in vain, because she would not know against what evil to provide. So, with a sigh, Cicely said to herself that it was a troubled world, more or less; and having come to a promising point, began to pick the tenderest pea-pods and throw them into her basket. By the time she had reached the end of the line the basket was nearly full. Glancing toward the pine woods beyond the rail fence, she saw a brier bush loaded with large, luscious blackberries. Cicely was fond of blackberries, so she set her basket down, climbed the fence, and was soon busily engaged in gathering the fruit, delicious even in its wild state. She had soon eaten all she cared for. But the berries were still numerous, and it occurred to her that her granddaddy would like a blackberry pudding for dinner. Catching up her apron, and using it as a receptacle for the berries, she had gathered scarcely more than a handful when she heard a groan. Cicely was not timid, and her curiosity being aroused by the sound, she stood erect, and remained in a listening attitude. In a moment the sound was repeated, and, gauging the point from which it came, she plunged resolutely into the thick underbrush of the forest. She had gone but a few yards when she stopped short with an exclamation of surprise and concern. Upon the ground, under the shadow of the towering pines, a man lay at full length,--a young man, several years under thirty, apparently, so far as his age could be guessed from a face that wore a short soft beard, and was so begrimed with dust and incrusted with blood that little could be seen of the underlying integument. What was visible showed a skin browned by nature or by exposure. His hands were of even a darker brown, almost as dark as Cicely's own. A tangled mass of very curly black hair, matted with burs, dank with dew, and clotted with blood, fell partly over his forehead, on the edge of which, extending back into the hair, an ugly scalp wound was gaping, and, though apparently not just inflicted, was still bleeding slowly, as though reluctant to stop, in spite of the coagulation that had almost closed it. Cicely with a glance took in all this and more. But, first of all, she saw the man was wounded and bleeding, and the nurse latent in all womankind awoke in her to the requirements of the situation. She knew there was a spring a few rods away, and ran swiftly to it. There was usually a gourd at the spring, but now it was gone. Pouring out the blackberries in a little heap where they could be found again, she took off her apron, dipped one end of it into the spring, and ran back to the wounded man. The apron was clean, and she squeezed a little stream of water from it into the man's mouth. He swallowed it with avidity. Cicely then knelt by his side, and with the wet end of her apron washed the blood from the wound lightly, and the dust from the man's face. Then she looked at her apron a moment, debating whether she should tear it or not. "I 'm feared granny 'll be mad," she said to herself. "I reckon I 'll jes' use de whole apron." So she bound the apron around his head as well as she could, and then sat down a moment on a fallen tree trunk, to think what she should do next. The man already seemed more comfortable; he had ceased moaning, and lay quiet, though breathing heavily. "What shall I do with that man?" she reflected. "I don' know whether he 's a w'ite man or a black man. Ef he 's a w'ite man, I oughter go an' tell de w'ite folks up at de big house, an' dey 'd take keer of 'im. If he 's a black man, I oughter go tell granny. He don' look lack a black man somehow er nuther, an' yet he don' look lack a w'ite man; he 's too dahk, an' his hair's too curly. But I mus' do somethin' wid 'im. He can't be lef' here ter die in de woods all by hisse'f. Reckon I 'll go an' tell granny." She scaled the fence, caught up the basket of peas from where she had left it, and ran, lightly and swiftly as a deer, toward the house. Her short skirt did not impede her progress, and in a few minutes she had covered the half mile and was at the cabin door, a slight heaving of her full and yet youthful breast being the only sign of any unusual exertion. Her story was told in a moment. The old woman took down a black bottle from a high shelf, and set out with Cicely across the cornfield, toward the wounded man. As they went through the corn Cicely recalled part of her dream. She had dreamed that under some strange circumstances--what they had been was still obscure--she had met a young man--a young man whiter than she and yet not all white--and that he had loved her and courted her and married her. Her dream had been all the sweeter because in it she had first tasted the sweetness of love, and she had not recalled it before because only in her dream had she known or thought of love as something supremely desirable. With the memory of her dream, however, her fears revived. Dreams were solemn things. To Cicely the fabric of a vision was by no means baseless. Her trouble arose from her not being able to recall, though she was well versed in dream-lore, just what event was foreshadowed by a dream of finding a wounded man. If the wounded man were of her own race, her dream would thus far have been realized, and having met the young man, the other joys might be expected to follow. If he should turn out to be a white man, then her dream was clearly one of the kind that go by contraries, and she could expect only sorrow and trouble and pain as the proper sequences of this fateful discovery. II The two women reached the fence that separated the cornfield from the pine woods. "How is I gwine ter git ovuh dat fence, chile?" asked the old woman. "Wait a minute, granny," said Cicely; "I 'll take it down." It was only an eight-rail fence, and it was a matter of but a few minutes for the girl to lift down and lay to either side the ends of the rails that formed one of the angles. This done, the old woman easily stepped across the remaining two or three rails. It was only a moment before they stood by the wounded man. He was lying still, breathing regularly, and seemingly asleep. "What is he, granny," asked the girl anxiously, "a w'ite man, or not?" Old Dinah pushed back the matted hair from the wounded man's brow, and looked at the skin beneath. It was fairer there, but yet of a decided brown. She raised his hand, pushed back the tattered sleeve from his wrist, and then she laid his hand down gently. "Mos' lackly he 's a mulatter man f'om up de country somewhar. He don' look lack dese yer niggers roun' yere, ner yet lack a w'ite man. But de po' boy's in a bad fix, w'ateber he is, an' I 'spec's we bettah do w'at we kin fer 'im, an' w'en he comes to he 'll tell us w'at he is--er w'at he calls hisse'f. Hol' 'is head up, chile, an' I 'll po' a drop er dis yer liquor down his th'oat; dat 'll bring 'im to quicker 'n anything e'se I knows." Cicely lifted the sick man's head, and Dinah poured a few drops of the whiskey between his teeth. He swallowed it readily enough. In a few minutes he opened his eyes and stared blankly at the two women. Cicely saw that his eyes were large and black, and glistening with fever. "How you feelin', suh?" asked the old woman. There was no answer. "Is you feelin' bettah now?" The wounded man kept on staring blankly. Suddenly he essayed to put his hand to his head, gave a deep groan, and fell back again unconscious. "He 's gone ag'in," said Dinah. "I reckon we 'll hafter tote 'im up ter de house and take keer er 'im dere. W'ite folks would n't want ter fool wid a nigger man, an' we doan know who his folks is. He 's outer his head an' will be fer some time yet, an' we can't tell nuthin' 'bout 'im tel he comes ter his senses." Cicely lifted the wounded man by the arms and shoulders. She was strong, with the strength of youth and a sturdy race. The man was pitifully emaciated; how much, the two women had not suspected until they raised him. They had no difficulty whatever, except for the awkwardness of such a burden, in lifting him over the fence and carrying him through the cornfield to the cabin. They laid him on Cicely's bed in the little lean-to shed that formed a room separate from the main apartment of the cabin. The old woman sent Cicely to cook the dinner, while she gave her own attention exclusively to the still unconscious man. She brought water and washed him as though he were a child. "Po' boy," she said, "he doan feel lack he 's be'n eatin' nuff to feed a sparrer. He 'pears ter be mos' starved ter def." She washed his wound more carefully, made some lint,--the art was well known in the sixties,--and dressed his wound with a fair degree of skill. "Somebody must 'a' be'n tryin' ter put yo' light out, chile," she muttered to herself as she adjusted the bandage around his head. "A little higher er a little lower, an' you would n' 'a' be'n yere ter tell de tale. Dem clo's," she argued, lifting the tattered garments she had removed from her patient, "don' b'long 'roun' yere. Dat kinder weavin' come f'om down to'ds Souf Ca'lina. I wish Needham 'u'd come erlong. He kin tell who dis man is, an' all erbout 'im." She made a bowl of gruel, and fed it, drop by drop, to the sick man. This roused him somewhat from his stupor, but when Dinah thought he had enough of the gruel, and stopped feeding him, he closed his eyes again and relapsed into a heavy sleep that was so closely akin to unconsciousness as to be scarcely distinguishable from it. When old Needham came home at noon, his wife, who had been anxiously awaiting his return, told him in a few words the story of Cicely's discovery and of the subsequent events. Needham inspected the stranger with a professional eye. He had been something of a plantation doctor in his day, and was known far and wide for his knowledge of simple remedies. The negroes all around, as well as many of the poorer white people, came to him for the treatment of common ailments. "He 's got a fevuh," he said, after feeling the patient's pulse and laying his hand on his brow, "an' we 'll hafter gib 'im some yarb tea an' nuss 'im tel de fevuh w'ars off. I 'spec'," he added, "dat I knows whar dis boy come f'om. He 's mos' lackly one er dem bright mulatters, f'om Robeson County--some of 'em call deyse'ves Croatan Injins--w'at's been conscripted an' sent ter wu'k on de fo'tifications down at Wimbleton er some'er's er nuther, an' done 'scaped, and got mos' killed gittin' erway, an' wuz n' none too well fed befo', an' nigh 'bout starved ter def sence. We 'll hafter hide dis man, er e'se we is lackly ter git inter trouble ou'se'ves by harb'rin' 'im. Ef dey ketch 'im yere, dey 's liable ter take 'im out an' shoot 'im--an' des ez lackly us too." Cicely was listening with bated breath. "Oh, gran'daddy," she cried with trembling voice, "don' let 'em ketch 'im! Hide 'im somewhar." "I reckon we 'll leave 'im yere fer a day er so. Ef he had come f'om roun' yere I 'd be skeered ter keep 'im, fer de w'ite folks 'u'd prob'ly be lookin' fer 'im. But I knows ev'ybody w'at's be'n conscripted fer ten miles 'roun', an' dis yere boy don' b'long in dis neighborhood. W'en 'e gits so 'e kin he'p 'isse'f we 'll put 'im up in de lof an' hide 'im till de Yankees come. Fer dey 're comin', sho'. I dremp' las' night dey wuz close ter han', and I hears de w'ite folks talkin' ter deyse'ves 'bout it. An' de time is comin' w'en de good Lawd gwine ter set his people free, an' it ain' gwine ter be long, nuther." Needham's prophecy proved true. In less than a week the Confederate garrison evacuated the arsenal in the neighboring town of Patesville, blew up the buildings, destroyed the ordnance and stores, and retreated across the Cape Fear River, burning the river bridge behind them,--two acts of war afterwards unjustly attributed to General Sherman's army, which followed close upon the heels of the retreating Confederates. When there was no longer any fear for the stranger's safety, no more pains were taken to conceal him. His wound had healed rapidly, and in a week he had been able with some help to climb up the ladder into the loft. In all this time, however, though apparently conscious, he had said no word to any one, nor had he seemed to comprehend a word that was spoken to him. Cicely had been his constant attendant. After the first day, during which her granny had nursed him, she had sat by his bedside, had fanned his fevered brow, had held food and water and medicine to his lips. When it was safe for him to come down from the loft and sit in a chair under a spreading oak, Cicely supported him until he was strong enough to walk about the yard. When his strength had increased sufficiently to permit of greater exertion, she accompanied him on long rambles in the fields and woods. In spite of his gain in physical strength, the newcomer changed very little in other respects. For a long time he neither spoke nor smiled. To questions put to him he simply gave no reply, but looked at his questioner with the blank unconsciousness of an infant. By and by he began to recognize Cicely, and to smile at her approach. The next step in returning consciousness was but another manifestation of the same sentiment. When Cicely would leave him he would look his regret, and be restless and uneasy until she returned. The family were at a loss what to call him. To any inquiry as to his name he answered no more than to other questions. "He come jes' befo' Sherman," said Needham, after a few weeks, "lack John de Baptis' befo' de Lawd. I reckon we bettah call 'im John." So they called him John. He soon learned the name. As time went on Cicely found that he was quick at learning things. She taught him to speak her own negro English, which he pronounced with absolute fidelity to her intonations; so that barring the quality of his voice, his speech was an echo of Cicely's own. The summer wore away and the autumn came. John and Cicely wandered in the woods together and gathered walnuts, and chinquapins and wild grapes. When harvest time came, they worked in the fields side by side,--plucked the corn, pulled the fodder, and gathered the dried peas from the yellow pea-vines. Cicely was a phenomenal cotton-picker, and John accompanied her to the fields and stayed by her hours at a time, though occasionally he would complain of his head, and sit under a tree and rest part of the day while Cicely worked, the two keeping one another always in sight. They did not have a great deal of intercourse with other people. Young men came to the cabin sometimes to see Cicely, but when they found her entirely absorbed in the stranger they ceased their visits. For a time Cicely kept him away, as much as possible, from others, because she did not wish them to see that there was anything wrong about him. This was her motive at first, but after a while she kept him to herself simply because she was happier so. He was hers--hers alone. She had found him, as Pharaoh's daughter had found Moses in the bulrushes; she had taught him to speak, to think, to love. She had not taught him to remember; she would not have wished him to; she would have been jealous of any past to which he might have proved bound by other ties. Her dream so far had come true. She had found him; he loved her. The rest of it would as surely follow, and that before long. For dreams were serious things, and time had proved hers to have been not a presage of misfortune, but one of the beneficent visions that are sent, that we may enjoy by anticipation the good things that are in store for us. III But a short interval of time elapsed after the passage of the warlike host that swept through North Carolina, until there appeared upon the scene the vanguard of a second army, which came to bring light and the fruits of liberty to a land which slavery and the havoc of war had brought to ruin. It is fashionable to assume that those who undertook the political rehabilitation of the Southern States merely rounded out the ruin that the war had wrought--merely ploughed up the desolate land and sowed it with salt. Perhaps the gentler judgments of the future may recognize that their task was a difficult one, and that wiser and honester men might have failed as egregiously. It may even, in time, be conceded that some good came out of the carpet-bag governments, as, for instance, the establishment of a system of popular education in the former slave States. Where it had been a crime to teach people to read or write, a schoolhouse dotted every hillside, and the State provided education for rich and poor, for white and black alike. Let us lay at least this token upon the grave of the carpet-baggers. The evil they did lives after them, and the statute of limitations does not seem to run against it. It is but just that we should not forget the good. Long, however, before the work of political reconstruction had begun, a brigade of Yankee schoolmasters and schoolma'ams had invaded Dixie, and one of the latter had opened a Freedman's Bureau School in the town of Patesville, about four miles from Needham Green's cabin on the neighboring sandhills. It had been quite a surprise to Miss Chandler's Boston friends when she had announced her intention of going South to teach the freedmen. Rich, accomplished, beautiful, and a social favorite, she was giving up the comforts and luxuries of Northern life to go among hostile strangers, where her associates would be mostly ignorant negroes. Perhaps she might meet occasionally an officer of some Federal garrison, or a traveler from the North; but to all intents and purposes her friends considered her as going into voluntary exile. But heroism was not rare in those days, and Martha Chandler was only one of the great multitude whose hearts went out toward an oppressed race, and who freely poured out their talents, their money, their lives,--whatever God had given them,--in the sublime and not unfruitful effort to transform three millions of slaves into intelligent freemen. Miss Chandler's friends knew, too, that she had met a great sorrow, and more than suspected that out of it had grown her determination to go South. When Cicely Green heard that a school for colored people had been opened at Patesville she combed her hair, put on her Sunday frock and such bits of finery as she possessed, and set out for town early the next Monday morning. There were many who came to learn the new gospel of education, which was to be the cure for all the freedmen's ills. The old and gray-haired, the full-grown man and woman, the toddling infant,--they came to acquire the new and wonderful learning that was to make them the equals of the white people. It was the teacher's task, by no means an easy one, to select from this incongruous mass the most promising material, and to distribute among them the second-hand books and clothing that were sent, largely by her Boston friends, to aid her in her work; to find out what they knew, to classify them by their intelligence rather than by their knowledge, for they were all lamentably ignorant. Some among them were the children of parents who had been free before the war, and of these some few could read and one or two could write. One paragon, who could repeat the multiplication table, was immediately promoted to the position of pupil teacher. Miss Chandler took a liking to the tall girl who had come so far to sit under her instruction. There was a fine, free air in her bearing, a lightness in her step, a sparkle in her eye, that spoke of good blood,--whether fused by nature in its own alembic, out of material despised and spurned of men, or whether some obscure ancestral strain, the teacher could not tell. The girl proved intelligent and learned rapidly, indeed seemed almost feverishly anxious to learn. She was quiet, and was, though utterly untrained, instinctively polite, and profited from the first day by the example of her teacher's quiet elegance. The teacher dressed in simple black. When Cicely came back to school the second day, she had left off her glass beads and her red ribbon, and had arranged her hair as nearly like the teacher's as her skill and its quality would permit. The teacher was touched by these efforts at imitation, and by the intense devotion Cicely soon manifested toward her. It was not a sycophantic, troublesome devotion, that made itself a burden to its object. It found expression in little things done rather than in any words the girl said. To the degree that the attraction was mutual, Martha recognized in it a sort of freemasonry of temperament that drew them together in spite of the differences between them. Martha felt sometimes, in the vague way that one speculates about the impossible, that if she were brown, and had been brought up in North Carolina, she would be like Cicely; and that if Cicely's ancestors had come over in the Mayflower, and Cicely had been reared on Beacon Street, in the shadow of the State House dome, Cicely would have been very much like herself. Miss Chandler was lonely sometimes. Her duties kept her occupied all day. On Sundays she taught a Bible class in the schoolroom. Correspondence with bureau officials and friends at home furnished her with additional occupation. At times, nevertheless, she felt a longing for the company of women of her own race; but the white ladies of the town did not call, even in the most formal way, upon the Yankee school-teacher. Miss Chandler was therefore fain to do the best she could with such companionship as was available. She took Cicely to her home occasionally, and asked her once to stay all night. Thinking, however, that she detected a reluctance on the girl's part to remain away from home, she did not repeat her invitation. Cicely, indeed, was filling a double rôle. The learning acquired from Miss Chandler she imparted to John at home. Every evening, by the light of the pine-knots blazing on Needham's ample hearth, she taught John to read the simple words she had learned during the day. Why she did not take him to school she had never asked herself; there were several other pupils as old as he seemed to be. Perhaps she still thought it necessary to protect him from curious remark. He worked with Needham by day, and she could see him at night, and all of Saturdays and Sundays. Perhaps it was the jealous selfishness of love. She had found him; he was hers. In the spring, when school was over, her granny had said that she might marry him. Till then her dream would not yet have come true, and she must keep him to herself. And yet she did not wish him to lose this golden key to the avenues of opportunity. She would not take him to school, but she would teach him each day all that she herself had learned. He was not difficult to teach, but learned, indeed, with what seemed to Cicely marvelous ease,--always, however, by her lead, and never of his own initiative. For while he could do a man's work, he was in most things but a child, without a child's curiosity. His love for Cicely appeared the only thing for which he needed no suggestion; and even that possessed an element of childish dependence that would have seemed, to minds trained to thoughtful observation, infinitely pathetic. The spring came and cotton-planting time. The children began to drop out of Miss Chandler's school one by one, as their services were required at home. Cicely was among those who intended to remain in school until the term closed with the "exhibition," in which she was assigned a leading part. She had selected her recitation, or "speech," from among half a dozen poems that her teacher had suggested, and to memorizing it she devoted considerable time and study. The exhibition, as the first of its kind, was sure to be a notable event. The parents and friends of the children were invited to attend, and a colored church, recently erected,--the largest available building,--was secured as the place where the exercises should take place. On the morning of the eventful day, uncle Needham, assisted by John, harnessed the mule to the two-wheeled cart, on which a couple of splint-bottomed chairs were fastened to accommodate Dinah and Cicely. John put on his best clothes,--an ill-fitting suit of blue jeans,--a round wool hat, a pair of coarse brogans, a homespun shirt, and a bright blue necktie. Cicely wore her best frock, a red ribbon at her throat, another in her hair, and carried a bunch of flowers in her hand. Uncle Needham and aunt Dinah were also in holiday array. Needham and John took their seats on opposite sides of the cart-frame, with their feet dangling down, and thus the equipage set out leisurely for the town. Cicely had long looked forward impatiently to this day. She was going to marry John the next week, and then her dream would have come entirely true. But even this anticipated happiness did not overshadow the importance of the present occasion, which would be an epoch in her life, a day of joy and triumph. She knew her speech perfectly, and timidity was not one of her weaknesses. She knew that the red ribbons set off her dark beauty effectively, and that her dress fitted neatly the curves of her shapely figure. She confidently expected to win the first prize, a large morocco-covered Bible, offered by Miss Chandler for the best exercise. Cicely and her companions soon arrived at Patesville. Their entrance into the church made quite a sensation, for Cicely was not only an acknowledged belle, but a general favorite, and to John there attached a tinge of mystery which inspired a respect not bestowed upon those who had grown up in the neighborhood. Cicely secured a seat in the front part of the church, next to the aisle, in the place reserved for the pupils. As the house was already partly filled by townspeople when the party from the country arrived, Needham and his wife and John were forced to content themselves with places somewhat in the rear of the room, from which they could see and hear what took place on the platform, but where they were not at all conspicuously visible to those at the front of the church. The schoolmistress had not yet arrived, and order was preserved in the audience by two of the elder pupils, adorned with large rosettes of red, white, and blue, who ushered the most important visitors to the seats reserved for them. A national flag was gracefully draped over the platform, and under it hung a lithograph of the Great Emancipator, for it was thus these people thought of him. He had saved the Union, but the Union had never meant anything good to them. He had proclaimed liberty to the captive, which meant all to them; and to them he was and would ever be the Great Emancipator. The schoolmistress came in at a rear door and took her seat upon the platform. Martha was dressed in white; for once she had laid aside the sombre garb in which alone she had been seen since her arrival at Patesville. She wore a yellow rose at her throat, a bunch of jasmine in her belt. A sense of responsibility for the success of the exhibition had deepened the habitual seriousness of her face, yet she greeted the audience with a smile. "Don' Miss Chan'ler look sweet," whispered the little girls to one another, devouring her beauty with sparkling eyes, their lips parted over a wealth of ivory. "De Lawd will bress dat chile," said one old woman, in soliloquy. "I t'ank de good Marster I 's libbed ter see dis day." Even envy could not hide its noisome head: a pretty quadroon whispered to her neighbor:---- "I don't b'liebe she 's natch'ly ez white ez dat. I 'spec' she 's be'n powd'rin'! An' I know all dat hair can't be her'n; she 's got on a switch, sho 's you bawn." "You knows dat ain' so, Ma'y 'Liza Smif," rejoined the other, with a look of stern disapproval; "you _knows_ dat ain' so. You 'd gib yo' everlastin' soul 'f you wuz ez white ez Miss Chan'ler, en yo' ha'r wuz ez long ez her'n." "By Jove, Maxwell!" exclaimed a young officer, who belonged to the Federal garrison stationed in the town, "but that girl is a beauty." The speaker and a companion were in fatigue uniform, and had merely dropped in for an hour between garrison duty. The ushers had wished to give them seats on the platform, but they had declined, thinking that perhaps their presence there might embarrass the teacher. They sought rather to avoid observation by sitting behind a pillar in the rear of the room, around which they could see without attracting undue attention. "To think," the lieutenant went on, "of that Junonian figure, those lustrous orbs, that golden coronal, that flower of Northern civilization, being wasted on these barbarians!" The speaker uttered an exaggerated but suppressed groan. His companion, a young man of clean-shaven face and serious aspect, nodded assent, but whispered reprovingly,---- "'Sh! some one will hear you. The exercises are going to begin." When Miss Chandler stepped forward to announce the hymn to be sung by the school as the first exercise, every eye in the room was fixed upon her, except John's, which saw only Cicely. When the teacher had uttered a few words, he looked up to her, and from that moment did not take his eyes off Martha's face. After the singing, a little girl, dressed in white, crossed by ribbons of red and blue, recited with much spirit a patriotic poem. When Martha announced the third exercise, John's face took on a more than usually animated expression, and there was a perceptible deepening of the troubled look in his eyes, never entirely absent since Cicely had found him in the woods. A little yellow boy, with long curls, and a frightened air, next ascended the platform. "Now, Jimmie, be a man, and speak right out," whispered his teacher, tapping his arm reassuringly with her fan as he passed her. Jimmie essayed to recite the lines so familiar to a past generation of schoolchildren:---- "I knew a widow very poor, Who four small children had; The eldest was but six years old, A gentle, modest lad." He ducked his head hurriedly in a futile attempt at a bow; then, following instructions previously given him, fixed his eyes upon a large cardboard motto hanging on the rear wall of the room, which admonished him in bright red letters to "ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH," and started off with assumed confidence "I knew a widow very poor, Who"---- At this point, drawn by an irresistible impulse, his eyes sought the level of the audience. Ah, fatal blunder! He stammered, but with an effort raised his eyes and began again: "I knew a widow very poor, Who four"---- Again his treacherous eyes fell, and his little remaining self-possession utterly forsook him. He made one more despairing effort:---- "I knew a widow very poor, Who four small"---- and then, bursting into tears, turned and fled amid a murmur of sympathy. Jimmie's inglorious retreat was covered by the singing in chorus of "The Star-spangled Banner," after which Cicely Green came forward to recite her poem. "By Jove, Maxwell!" whispered the young officer, who was evidently a connoisseur of female beauty, "that is n't bad for a bronze Venus. I 'll tell you"---- "'Sh!" said the other. "Keep still." When Cicely finished her recitation, the young officers began to applaud, but stopped suddenly in some confusion as they realized that they were the only ones in the audience so engaged. The colored people had either not learned how to express their approval in orthodox fashion, or else their respect for the sacred character of the edifice forbade any such demonstration. Their enthusiasm found vent, however, in a subdued murmur, emphasized by numerous nods and winks and suppressed exclamations. During the singing that followed Cicely's recitation the two officers quietly withdrew, their duties calling them away at this hour. At the close of the exercises, a committee on prizes met in the vestibule, and unanimously decided that Cicely Green was entitled to the first prize. Proudly erect, with sparkling eyes and cheeks flushed with victory, Cicely advanced to the platform to receive the coveted reward. As she turned away, her eyes, shining with gratified vanity, sought those of her lover. John sat bent slightly forward in an attitude of strained attention; and Cicely's triumph lost half its value when she saw that it was not at her, but at Miss Chandler, that his look was directed. Though she watched him thenceforward, not one glance did he vouchsafe to his jealous sweetheart, and never for an instant withdrew his eyes from Martha, or relaxed the unnatural intentness of his gaze. The imprisoned mind, stirred to unwonted effort, was struggling for liberty; and from Martha had come the first ray of outer light that had penetrated its dungeon. Before the audience was dismissed, the teacher rose to bid her school farewell. Her intention was to take a vacation of three months; but what might happen in that time she did not know, and there were duties at home of such apparent urgency as to render her return to North Carolina at least doubtful; so that in her own heart her _au revoir_ sounded very much like a farewell. She spoke to them of the hopeful progress they had made, and praised them for their eager desire to learn. She told them of the serious duties of life, and of the use they should make of their acquirements. With prophetic finger she pointed them to the upward way which they must climb with patient feet to raise themselves out of the depths. Then, an unusual thing with her, she spoke of herself. Her heart was full; it was with difficulty that she maintained her composure; for the faces that confronted her were kindly faces, and not critical, and some of them she had learned to love right well. "I am going away from you, my children," she said; "but before I go I want to tell you how I came to be in North Carolina; so that if I have been able to do anything here among you for which you might feel inclined, in your good nature, to thank me, you may thank not me alone, but another who came before me, and whose work I have but taken up where _he_ laid it down. I had a friend,--a dear friend,--why should I be ashamed to say it?--a lover, to whom I was to be married,--as I hope all you girls may some day be happily married. His country needed him, and I gave him up. He came to fight for the Union and for Freedom, for he believed that all men are brothers. He did not come back again--he gave up his life for you. Could I do less than he? I came to the land that he sanctified by his death, and I have tried in my weak way to tend the plant he watered with his blood, and which, in the fullness of time, will blossom forth into the perfect flower of liberty." She could say no more, and as the whole audience thrilled in sympathy with her emotion, there was a hoarse cry from the men's side of the room, and John forced his way to the aisle and rushed forward to the platform. "Martha! Martha!" "Arthur! O Arthur!" Pent-up love burst the flood-gates of despair and oblivion, and caught these two young hearts in its torrent. Captain Arthur Carey, of the 1st Massachusetts, long since reported missing, and mourned as dead, was restored to reason and to his world. It seemed to him but yesterday that he had escaped from the Confederate prison at Salisbury; that in an encounter with a guard he had received a wound in the head; that he had wandered on in the woods, keeping himself alive by means of wild berries, with now and then a piece of bread or a potato from a friendly negro. It seemed but the night before that he had laid himself down, tortured with fever, weak from loss of blood, and with no hope that he would ever rise again. From that moment his memory of the past was a blank until he recognized Martha on the platform and took up again the thread of his former existence where it had been broken off. * * * * * And Cicely? Well, there is often another woman, and Cicely, all unwittingly to Carey or to Martha, had been the other woman. For, after all, her beautiful dream had been one of the kind that go by contraries. The Passing of Grandison I When it is said that it was done to please a woman, there ought perhaps to be enough said to explain anything; for what a man will not do to please a woman is yet to be discovered. Nevertheless, it might be well to state a few preliminary facts to make it clear why young Dick Owens tried to run one of his father's negro men off to Canada. In the early fifties, when the growth of anti-slavery sentiment and the constant drain of fugitive slaves into the North had so alarmed the slaveholders of the border States as to lead to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, a young white man from Ohio, moved by compassion for the sufferings of a certain bondman who happened to have a "hard master," essayed to help the slave to freedom. The attempt was discovered and frustrated; the abductor was tried and convicted for slave-stealing, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the penitentiary. His death, after the expiration of only a small part of the sentence, from cholera contracted while nursing stricken fellow prisoners, lent to the case a melancholy interest that made it famous in anti-slavery annals. Dick Owens had attended the trial. He was a youth of about twenty-two, intelligent, handsome, and amiable, but extremely indolent, in a graceful and gentlemanly way; or, as old Judge Fenderson put it more than once, he was lazy as the Devil,--a mere figure of speech, of course, and not one that did justice to the Enemy of Mankind. When asked why he never did anything serious, Dick would good-naturedly reply, with a well-modulated drawl, that he did n't have to. His father was rich; there was but one other child, an unmarried daughter, who because of poor health would probably never marry, and Dick was therefore heir presumptive to a large estate. Wealth or social position he did not need to seek, for he was born to both. Charity Lomax had shamed him into studying law, but notwithstanding an hour or so a day spent at old Judge Fenderson's office, he did not make remarkable headway in his legal studies. "What Dick needs," said the judge, who was fond of tropes, as became a scholar, and of horses, as was befitting a Kentuckian, "is the whip of necessity, or the spur of ambition. If he had either, he would soon need the snaffle to hold him back." But all Dick required, in fact, to prompt him to the most remarkable thing he accomplished before he was twenty-five, was a mere suggestion from Charity Lomax. The story was never really known to but two persons until after the war, when it came out because it was a good story and there was no particular reason for its concealment. Young Owens had attended the trial of this slave-stealer, or martyr,--either or both,--and, when it was over, had gone to call on Charity Lomax, and, while they sat on the veranda after sundown, had told her all about the trial. He was a good talker, as his career in later years disclosed, and described the proceedings very graphically. "I confess," he admitted, "that while my principles were against the prisoner, my sympathies were on his side. It appeared that he was of good family, and that he had an old father and mother, respectable people, dependent upon him for support and comfort in their declining years. He had been led into the matter by pity for a negro whose master ought to have been run out of the county long ago for abusing his slaves. If it had been merely a question of old Sam Briggs's negro, nobody would have cared anything about it. But father and the rest of them stood on the principle of the thing, and told the judge so, and the fellow was sentenced to three years in the penitentiary." Miss Lomax had listened with lively interest. "I 've always hated old Sam Briggs," she said emphatically, "ever since the time he broke a negro's leg with a piece of cordwood. When I hear of a cruel deed it makes the Quaker blood that came from my grandmother assert itself. Personally I wish that all Sam Briggs's negroes would run away. As for the young man, I regard him as a hero. He dared something for humanity. I could love a man who would take such chances for the sake of others." "Could you love me, Charity, if I did something heroic?" "You never will, Dick. You 're too lazy for any use. You 'll never do anything harder than playing cards or fox-hunting." "Oh, come now, sweetheart! I 've been courting you for a year, and it 's the hardest work imaginable. Are you never going to love me?" he pleaded. His hand sought hers, but she drew it back beyond his reach. "I 'll never love you, Dick Owens, until you have done something. When that time comes, I 'll think about it." "But it takes so long to do anything worth mentioning, and I don't want to wait. One must read two years to become a lawyer, and work five more to make a reputation. We shall both be gray by then." "Oh, I don't know," she rejoined. "It does n't require a lifetime for a man to prove that he is a man. This one did something, or at least tried to." "Well, I 'm willing to attempt as much as any other man. What do you want me to do, sweetheart? Give me a test." "Oh, dear me!" said Charity, "I don't care what you _do_, so you do _something_. Really, come to think of it, why should I care whether you do anything or not?" "I 'm sure I don't know why you should, Charity," rejoined Dick humbly, "for I 'm aware that I 'm not worthy of it." "Except that I do hate," she added, relenting slightly, "to see a really clever man so utterly lazy and good for nothing." "Thank you, my dear; a word of praise from you has sharpened my wits already. I have an idea! Will you love me if I run a negro off to Canada?" "What nonsense!" said Charity scornfully. "You must be losing your wits. Steal another man's slave, indeed, while your father owns a hundred!" "Oh, there 'll be no trouble about that," responded Dick lightly; "I 'll run off one of the old man's; we 've got too many anyway. It may not be quite as difficult as the other man found it, but it will be just as unlawful, and will demonstrate what I am capable of." "Seeing 's believing," replied Charity. "Of course, what you are talking about now is merely absurd. I 'm going away for three weeks, to visit my aunt in Tennessee. If you 're able to tell me, when I return, that you 've done something to prove your quality, I 'll--well, you may come and tell me about it." II Young Owens got up about nine o'clock next morning, and while making his toilet put some questions to his personal attendant, a rather bright looking young mulatto of about his own age. "Tom," said Dick. "Yas, Mars Dick," responded the servant. "I 'm going on a trip North. Would you like to go with me?" Now, if there was anything that Tom would have liked to make, it was a trip North. It was something he had long contemplated in the abstract, but had never been able to muster up sufficient courage to attempt in the concrete. He was prudent enough, however, to dissemble his feelings. "I would n't min' it, Mars Dick, ez long ez you 'd take keer er me an' fetch me home all right." Tom's eyes belied his words, however, and his young master felt well assured that Tom needed only a good opportunity to make him run away. Having a comfortable home, and a dismal prospect in case of failure, Tom was not likely to take any desperate chances; but young Owens was satisfied that in a free State but little persuasion would be required to lead Tom astray. With a very logical and characteristic desire to gain his end with the least necessary expenditure of effort, he decided to take Tom with him, if his father did not object. Colonel Owens had left the house when Dick went to breakfast, so Dick did not see his father till luncheon. "Father," he remarked casually to the colonel, over the fried chicken, "I 'm feeling a trifle run down. I imagine my health would be improved somewhat by a little travel and change of scene." "Why don't you take a trip North?" suggested his father. The colonel added to paternal affection a considerable respect for his son as the heir of a large estate. He himself had been "raised" in comparative poverty, and had laid the foundations of his fortune by hard work; and while he despised the ladder by which he had climbed, he could not entirely forget it, and unconsciously manifested, in his intercourse with his son, some of the poor man's deference toward the wealthy and well-born. "I think I 'll adopt your suggestion, sir," replied the son, "and run up to New York; and after I 've been there awhile I may go on to Boston for a week or so. I 've never been there, you know." "There are some matters you can talk over with my factor in New York," rejoined the colonel, "and while you are up there among the Yankees, I hope you 'll keep your eyes and ears open to find out what the rascally abolitionists are saying and doing. They 're becoming altogether too active for our comfort, and entirely too many ungrateful niggers are running away. I hope the conviction of that fellow yesterday may discourage the rest of the breed. I 'd just like to catch any one trying to run off one of my darkeys. He 'd get short shrift; I don't think any Court would have a chance to try him." "They are a pestiferous lot," assented Dick, "and dangerous to our institutions. But say, father, if I go North I shall want to take Tom with me." Now, the colonel, while a very indulgent father, had pronounced views on the subject of negroes, having studied them, as he often said, for a great many years, and, as he asserted oftener still, understanding them perfectly. It is scarcely worth while to say, either, that he valued more highly than if he had inherited them the slaves he had toiled and schemed for. "I don't think it safe to take Tom up North," he declared, with promptness and decision. "He 's a good enough boy, but too smart to trust among those low-down abolitionists. I strongly suspect him of having learned to read, though I can't imagine how. I saw him with a newspaper the other day, and while he pretended to be looking at a woodcut, I 'm almost sure he was reading the paper. I think it by no means safe to take him." Dick did not insist, because he knew it was useless. The colonel would have obliged his son in any other matter, but his negroes were the outward and visible sign of his wealth and station, and therefore sacred to him. "Whom do you think it safe to take?" asked Dick. "I suppose I 'll have to have a body-servant." "What 's the matter with Grandison?" suggested the colonel. "He 's handy enough, and I reckon we can trust him. He 's too fond of good eating, to risk losing his regular meals; besides, he 's sweet on your mother's maid, Betty, and I 've promised to let 'em get married before long. I 'll have Grandison up, and we 'll talk to him. Here, you boy Jack," called the colonel to a yellow youth in the next room who was catching flies and pulling their wings off to pass the time, "go down to the barn and tell Grandison to come here." "Grandison," said the colonel, when the negro stood before him, hat in hand. "Yas, marster." "Have n't I always treated you right?" "Yas, marster." "Have n't you always got all you wanted to eat?" "Yas, marster." "And as much whiskey and tobacco as was good for you, Grandison?" "Y-a-s, marster." "I should just like to know, Grandison, whether you don't think yourself a great deal better off than those poor free negroes down by the plank road, with no kind master to look after them and no mistress to give them medicine when they 're sick and--and"---- "Well, I sh'd jes' reckon I is better off, suh, dan dem low-down free niggers, suh! Ef anybody ax 'em who dey b'long ter, dey has ter say nobody, er e'se lie erbout it. Anybody ax me who I b'longs ter, I ain' got no 'casion ter be shame' ter tell 'em, no, suh, 'deed I ain', suh!" The colonel was beaming. This was true gratitude, and his feudal heart thrilled at such appreciative homage. What cold-blooded, heartless monsters they were who would break up this blissful relationship of kindly protection on the one hand, of wise subordination and loyal dependence on the other! The colonel always became indignant at the mere thought of such wickedness. "Grandison," the colonel continued, "your young master Dick is going North for a few weeks, and I am thinking of letting him take you along. I shall send you on this trip, Grandison, in order that you may take care of your young master. He will need some one to wait on him, and no one can ever do it so well as one of the boys brought up with him on the old plantation. I am going to trust him in your hands, and I 'm sure you 'll do your duty faithfully, and bring him back home safe and sound--to old Kentucky." Grandison grinned. "Oh yas, marster, I 'll take keer er young Mars Dick." "I want to warn you, though, Grandison," continued the colonel impressively, "against these cussed abolitionists, who try to entice servants from their comfortable homes and their indulgent masters, from the blue skies, the green fields, and the warm sunlight of their southern home, and send them away off yonder to Canada, a dreary country, where the woods are full of wildcats and wolves and bears, where the snow lies up to the eaves of the houses for six months of the year, and the cold is so severe that it freezes your breath and curdles your blood; and where, when runaway niggers get sick and can't work, they are turned out to starve and die, unloved and uncared for. I reckon, Grandison, that you have too much sense to permit yourself to be led astray by any such foolish and wicked people." "'Deed, suh, I would n' low none er dem cussed, low-down abolitioners ter come nigh me, suh. I 'd--I 'd--would I be 'lowed ter hit 'em, suh?" "Certainly, Grandison," replied the colonel, chuckling, "hit 'em as hard as you can. I reckon they 'd rather like it. Begad, I believe they would! It would serve 'em right to be hit by a nigger!" "Er ef I did n't hit 'em, suh," continued Grandison reflectively, "I 'd tell Mars Dick, en _he 'd_ fix 'em. He 'd smash de face off'n 'em, suh, I jes' knows he would." "Oh yes, Grandison, your young master will protect you. You need fear no harm while he is near." "Dey won't try ter steal me, will dey, marster?" asked the negro, with sudden alarm. "I don't know, Grandison," replied the colonel, lighting a fresh cigar. "They 're a desperate set of lunatics, and there 's no telling what they may resort to. But if you stick close to your young master, and remember always that he is your best friend, and understands your real needs, and has your true interests at heart, and if you will be careful to avoid strangers who try to talk to you, you 'll stand a fair chance of getting back to your home and your friends. And if you please your master Dick, he 'll buy you a present, and a string of beads for Betty to wear when you and she get married in the fall." "Thanky, marster, thanky, suh," replied Grandison, oozing gratitude at every pore; "you is a good marster, to be sho', suh; yas, 'deed you is. You kin jes' bet me and Mars Dick gwine git 'long jes' lack I wuz own boy ter Mars Dick. En it won't be my fault ef he don' want me fer his boy all de time, w'en we come back home ag'in." "All right, Grandison, you may go now. You need n't work any more to-day, and here 's a piece of tobacco for you off my own plug." "Thanky, marster, thanky, marster! You is de bes' marster any nigger ever had in dis worl'." And Grandison bowed and scraped and disappeared round the corner, his jaws closing around a large section of the colonel's best tobacco. "You may take Grandison," said the colonel to his son. "I allow he 's abolitionist-proof." III Richard Owens, Esq., and servant, from Kentucky, registered at the fashionable New York hostelry for Southerners in those days, a hotel where an atmosphere congenial to Southern institutions was sedulously maintained. But there were negro waiters in the dining-room, and mulatto bell-boys, and Dick had no doubt that Grandison, with the native gregariousness and garrulousness of his race, would foregather and palaver with them sooner or later, and Dick hoped that they would speedily inoculate him with the virus of freedom. For it was not Dick's intention to say anything to his servant about his plan to free him, for obvious reasons. To mention one of them, if Grandison should go away, and by legal process be recaptured, his young master's part in the matter would doubtless become known, which would be embarrassing to Dick, to say the least. If, on the other hand, he should merely give Grandison sufficient latitude, he had no doubt he would eventually lose him. For while not exactly skeptical about Grandison's perfervid loyalty, Dick had been a somewhat keen observer of human nature, in his own indolent way, and based his expectations upon the force of the example and argument that his servant could scarcely fail to encounter. Grandison should have a fair chance to become free by his own initiative; if it should become necessary to adopt other measures to get rid of him, it would be time enough to act when the necessity arose; and Dick Owens was not the youth to take needless trouble. The young master renewed some acquaintances and made others, and spent a week or two very pleasantly in the best society of the metropolis, easily accessible to a wealthy, well-bred young Southerner, with proper introductions. Young women smiled on him, and young men of convivial habits pressed their hospitalities; but the memory of Charity's sweet, strong face and clear blue eyes made him proof against the blandishments of the one sex and the persuasions of the other. Meanwhile he kept Grandison supplied with pocket-money, and left him mainly to his own devices. Every night when Dick came in he hoped he might have to wait upon himself, and every morning he looked forward with pleasure to the prospect of making his toilet unaided. His hopes, however, were doomed to disappointment, for every night when he came in Grandison was on hand with a bootjack, and a nightcap mixed for his young master as the colonel had taught him to mix it, and every morning Grandison appeared with his master's boots blacked and his clothes brushed, and laid his linen out for the day. "Grandison," said Dick one morning, after finishing his toilet, "this is the chance of your life to go around among your own people and see how they live. Have you met any of them?" "Yas, suh, I 's seen some of 'em. But I don' keer nuffin fer 'em, suh. Dey 're diffe'nt f'm de niggers down ou' way. Dey 'lows dey 're free, but dey ain' got sense 'nuff ter know dey ain' half as well off as dey would be down Souf, whar dey 'd be 'predated." When two weeks had passed without any apparent effect of evil example upon Grandison, Dick resolved to go on to Boston, where he thought the atmosphere might prove more favorable to his ends. After he had been at the Revere House for a day or two without losing Grandison, he decided upon slightly different tactics. Having ascertained from a city directory the addresses of several well-known abolitionists, he wrote them each a letter something like this:---- Dear Friend and Brother:---- A wicked slaveholder from Kentucky, stopping at the Revere House, has dared to insult the liberty-loving people of Boston by bringing his slave into their midst. Shall this be tolerated? Or shall steps be taken in the name of liberty to rescue a fellow-man from bondage? For obvious reasons I can only sign myself, A Friend of Humanity. That his letter might have an opportunity to prove effective, Dick made it a point to send Grandison away from the hotel on various errands. On one of these occasions Dick watched him for quite a distance down the street. Grandison had scarcely left the hotel when a long-haired, sharp-featured man came out behind him, followed him, soon overtook him, and kept along beside him until they turned the next corner. Dick's hopes were roused by this spectacle, but sank correspondingly when Grandison returned to the hotel. As Grandison said nothing about the encounter, Dick hoped there might be some self-consciousness behind this unexpected reticence, the results of which might develop later on. But Grandison was on hand again when his master came back to the hotel at night, and was in attendance again in the morning, with hot water, to assist at his master's toilet. Dick sent him on further errands from day to day, and upon one occasion came squarely up to him--inadvertently of course--while Grandison was engaged in conversation with a young white man in clerical garb. When Grandison saw Dick approaching, he edged away from the preacher and hastened toward his master, with a very evident expression of relief upon his countenance. "Mars Dick," he said, "dese yer abolitioners is jes' pesterin' de life out er me tryin' ter git me ter run away. I don' pay no 'tention ter 'em, but dey riles me so sometimes dat I 'm feared I 'll hit some of 'em some er dese days, an' dat mought git me inter trouble. I ain' said nuffin' ter you 'bout it, Mars Dick, fer I did n' wanter 'sturb yo' min'; but I don' like it, suh; no, suh, I don'! Is we gwine back home 'fo' long, Mars Dick?" "We 'll be going back soon enough," replied Dick somewhat shortly, while he inwardly cursed the stupidity of a slave who could be free and would not, and registered a secret vow that if he were unable to get rid of Grandison without assassinating him, and were therefore compelled to take him back to Kentucky, he would see that Grandison got a taste of an article of slavery that would make him regret his wasted opportunities. Meanwhile he determined to tempt his servant yet more strongly. "Grandison," he said next morning, "I 'm going away for a day or two, but I shall leave you here. I shall lock up a hundred dollars in this drawer and give you the key. If you need any of it, use it and enjoy yourself,--spend it all if you like,--for this is probably the last chance you 'll have for some time to be in a free State, and you 'd better enjoy your liberty while you may." When he came back a couple of days later and found the faithful Grandison at his post, and the hundred dollars intact, Dick felt seriously annoyed. His vexation was increased by the fact that he could not express his feelings adequately. He did not even scold Grandison; how could he, indeed, find fault with one who so sensibly recognized his true place in the economy of civilization, and kept it with such touching fidelity? "I can't say a thing to him," groaned Dick. "He deserves a leather medal, made out of his own hide tanned. I reckon I 'll write to father and let him know what a model servant he has given me." He wrote his father a letter which made the colonel swell with pride and pleasure. "I really think," the colonel observed to one of his friends, "that Dick ought to have the nigger interviewed by the Boston papers, so that they may see how contented and happy our darkeys really are." Dick also wrote a long letter to Charity Lomax, in which he said, among many other things, that if she knew how hard he was working, and under what difficulties, to accomplish something serious for her sake, she would no longer keep him in suspense, but overwhelm him with love and admiration. Having thus exhausted without result the more obvious methods of getting rid of Grandison, and diplomacy having also proved a failure, Dick was forced to consider more radical measures. Of course he might run away himself, and abandon Grandison, but this would be merely to leave him in the United States, where he was still a slave, and where, with his notions of loyalty, he would speedily be reclaimed. It was necessary, in order to accomplish the purpose of his trip to the North, to leave Grandison permanently in Canada, where he would be legally free. "I might extend my trip to Canada," he reflected, "but that would be too palpable. I have it! I 'll visit Niagara Falls on the way home, and lose him on the Canada side. When he once realizes that he is actually free, I 'll warrant that he 'll stay." So the next day saw them westward bound, and in due course of time, by the somewhat slow conveyances of the period, they found themselves at Niagara. Dick walked and drove about the Falls for several days, taking Grandison along with him on most occasions. One morning they stood on the Canadian side, watching the wild whirl of the waters below them. "Grandison," said Dick, raising his voice above the roar of the cataract, "do you know where you are now?" "I 's wid you, Mars Dick; dat 's all I keers." "You are now in Canada, Grandison, where your people go when they run away from their masters. If you wished, Grandison, you might walk away from me this very minute, and I could not lay my hand upon you to take you back." Grandison looked around uneasily. "Let 's go back ober de ribber, Mars Dick. I 's feared I 'll lose you ovuh heah, an' den I won' hab no marster, an' won't nebber be able to git back home no mo'." Discouraged, but not yet hopeless, Dick said, a few minutes later,---- "Grandison, I 'm going up the road a bit, to the inn over yonder. You stay here until I return. I 'll not be gone a great while." Grandison's eyes opened wide and he looked somewhat fearful. "Is dey any er dem dadblasted abolitioners roun' heah, Mars Dick?" "I don't imagine that there are," replied his master, hoping there might be. "But I 'm not afraid of _your_ running away, Grandison. I only wish I were," he added to himself. Dick walked leisurely down the road to where the whitewashed inn, built of stone, with true British solidity, loomed up through the trees by the roadside. Arrived there he ordered a glass of ale and a sandwich, and took a seat at a table by a window, from which he could see Grandison in the distance. For a while he hoped that the seed he had sown might have fallen on fertile ground, and that Grandison, relieved from the restraining power of a master's eye, and finding himself in a free country, might get up and walk away; but the hope was vain, for Grandison remained faithfully at his post, awaiting his master's return. He had seated himself on a broad flat stone, and, turning his eyes away from the grand and awe-inspiring spectacle that lay close at hand, was looking anxiously toward the inn where his master sat cursing his ill-timed fidelity. By and by a girl came into the room to serve his order, and Dick very naturally glanced at her; and as she was young and pretty and remained in attendance, it was some minutes before he looked for Grandison. When he did so his faithful servant had disappeared. To pay his reckoning and go away without the change was a matter quickly accomplished. Retracing his footsteps toward the Falls, he saw, to his great disgust, as he approached the spot where he had left Grandison, the familiar form of his servant stretched out on the ground, his face to the sun, his mouth open, sleeping the time away, oblivious alike to the grandeur of the scenery, the thunderous roar of the cataract, or the insidious voice of sentiment. "Grandison," soliloquized his master, as he stood gazing down at his ebony encumbrance, "I do not deserve to be an American citizen; I ought not to have the advantages I possess over you; and I certainly am not worthy of Charity Lomax, if I am not smart enough to get rid of you. I have an idea! You shall yet be free, and I will be the instrument of your deliverance. Sleep on, faithful and affectionate servitor, and dream of the blue grass and the bright skies of old Kentucky, for it is only in your dreams that you will ever see them again!" Dick retraced his footsteps towards the inn. The young woman chanced to look out of the window and saw the handsome young gentleman she had waited on a few minutes before, standing in the road a short distance away, apparently engaged in earnest conversation with a colored man employed as hostler for the inn. She thought she saw something pass from the white man to the other, but at that moment her duties called her away from the window, and when she looked out again the young gentleman had disappeared, and the hostler, with two other young men of the neighborhood, one white and one colored, were walking rapidly towards the Falls. IV Dick made the journey homeward alone, and as rapidly as the conveyances of the day would permit. As he drew near home his conduct in going back without Grandison took on a more serious aspect than it had borne at any previous time, and although he had prepared the colonel by a letter sent several days ahead, there was still the prospect of a bad quarter of an hour with him; not, indeed, that his father would upbraid him, but he was likely to make searching inquiries. And notwithstanding the vein of quiet recklessness that had carried Dick through his preposterous scheme, he was a very poor liar, having rarely had occasion or inclination to tell anything but the truth. Any reluctance to meet his father was more than offset, however, by a stronger force drawing him homeward, for Charity Lomax must long since have returned from her visit to her aunt in Tennessee. Dick got off easier than he had expected. He told a straight story, and a truthful one, so far as it went. The colonel raged at first, but rage soon subsided into anger, and anger moderated into annoyance, and annoyance into a sort of garrulous sense of injury. The colonel thought he had been hardly used; he had trusted this negro, and he had broken faith. Yet, after all, he did not blame Grandison so much as he did the abolitionists, who were undoubtedly at the bottom of it. As for Charity Lomax, Dick told her, privately of course, that he had run his father's man, Grandison, off to Canada, and left him there. "Oh, Dick," she had said with shuddering alarm, "what have you done? If they knew it they 'd send you to the penitentiary, like they did that Yankee." "But they don't know it," he had replied seriously; adding, with an injured tone, "you don't seem to appreciate my heroism like you did that of the Yankee; perhaps it 's because I was n't caught and sent to the penitentiary. I thought you wanted me to do it." "Why, Dick Owens!" she exclaimed. "You know I never dreamed of any such outrageous proceeding. "But I presume I 'll have to marry you," she concluded, after some insistence on Dick's part, "if only to take care of you. You are too reckless for anything; and a man who goes chasing all over the North, being entertained by New York and Boston society and having negroes to throw away, needs some one to look after him." "It 's a most remarkable thing," replied Dick fervently, "that your views correspond exactly with my profoundest convictions. It proves beyond question that we were made for one another." * * * * * They were married three weeks later. As each of them had just returned from a journey, they spent their honeymoon at home. A week after the wedding they were seated, one afternoon, on the piazza of the colonel's house, where Dick had taken his bride, when a negro from the yard ran down the lane and threw open the big gate for the colonel's buggy to enter. The colonel was not alone. Beside him, ragged and travel-stained, bowed with weariness, and upon his face a haggard look that told of hardship and privation, sat the lost Grandison. The colonel alighted at the steps. "Take the lines, Tom," he said to the man who had opened the gate, "and drive round to the barn. Help Grandison down,--poor devil, he 's so stiff he can hardly move!--and get a tub of water and wash him and rub him down, and feed him, and give him a big drink of whiskey, and then let him come round and see his young master and his new mistress." The colonel's face wore an expression compounded of joy and indignation,--joy at the restoration of a valuable piece of property; indignation for reasons he proceeded to state. "It 's astounding, the depths of depravity the human heart is capable of! I was coming along the road three miles away, when I heard some one call me from the roadside. I pulled up the mare, and who should come out of the woods but Grandison. The poor nigger could hardly crawl along, with the help of a broken limb. I was never more astonished in my life. You could have knocked me down with a feather. He seemed pretty far gone,--he could hardly talk above a whisper,--and I had to give him a mouthful of whiskey to brace him up so he could tell his story. It 's just as I thought from the beginning, Dick; Grandison had no notion of running away; he knew when he was well off, and where his friends were. All the persuasions of abolition liars and runaway niggers did not move him. But the desperation of those fanatics knew no bounds; their guilty consciences gave them no rest. They got the notion somehow that Grandison belonged to a nigger-catcher, and had been brought North as a spy to help capture ungrateful runaway servants. They actually kidnaped him--just think of it!--and gagged him and bound him and threw him rudely into a wagon, and carried him into the gloomy depths of a Canadian forest, and locked him in a lonely hut, and fed him on bread and water for three weeks. One of the scoundrels wanted to kill him, and persuaded the others that it ought to be done; but they got to quarreling about how they should do it, and before they had their minds made up Grandison escaped, and, keeping his back steadily to the North Star, made his way, after suffering incredible hardships, back to the old plantation, back to his master, his friends, and his home. Why, it 's as good as one of Scott's novels! Mr. Simms or some other one of our Southern authors ought to write it up." "Don't you think, sir," suggested Dick, who had calmly smoked his cigar throughout the colonel's animated recital, "that that kidnaping yarn sounds a little improbable? Is n't there some more likely explanation?" "Nonsense, Dick; it 's the gospel truth! Those infernal abolitionists are capable of anything--everything! Just think of their locking the poor, faithful nigger up, beating him, kicking him, depriving him of his liberty, keeping him on bread and water for three long, lonesome weeks, and he all the time pining for the old plantation!" There were almost tears in the colonel's eyes at the picture of Grandison's sufferings that he conjured up. Dick still professed to be slightly skeptical, and met Charity's severely questioning eye with bland unconsciousness. The colonel killed the fatted calf for Grandison, and for two or three weeks the returned wanderer's life was a slave's dream of pleasure. His fame spread throughout the county, and the colonel gave him a permanent place among the house servants, where he could always have him conveniently at hand to relate his adventures to admiring visitors. * * * * * About three weeks after Grandison's return the colonel's faith in sable humanity was rudely shaken, and its foundations almost broken up. He came near losing his belief in the fidelity of the negro to his master,--the servile virtue most highly prized and most sedulously cultivated by the colonel and his kind. One Monday morning Grandison was missing. And not only Grandison, but his wife, Betty the maid; his mother, aunt Eunice; his father, uncle Ike; his brothers, Tom and John, and his little sister Elsie, were likewise absent from the plantation; and a hurried search and inquiry in the neighborhood resulted in no information as to their whereabouts. So much valuable property could not be lost without an effort to recover it, and the wholesale nature of the transaction carried consternation to the hearts of those whose ledgers were chiefly bound in black. Extremely energetic measures were taken by the colonel and his friends. The fugitives were traced, and followed from point to point, on their northward run through Ohio. Several times the hunters were close upon their heels, but the magnitude of the escaping party begot unusual vigilance on the part of those who sympathized with the fugitives, and strangely enough, the underground railroad seemed to have had its tracks cleared and signals set for this particular train. Once, twice, the colonel thought he had them, but they slipped through his fingers. One last glimpse he caught of his vanishing property, as he stood, accompanied by a United States marshal, on a wharf at a port on the south shore of Lake Erie. On the stern of a small steamboat which was receding rapidly from the wharf, with her nose pointing toward Canada, there stood a group of familiar dark faces, and the look they cast backward was not one of longing for the fleshpots of Egypt. The colonel saw Grandison point him out to one of the crew of the vessel, who waved his hand derisively toward the colonel. The latter shook his fist impotently--and the incident was closed. Uncle Wellington's Wives I Uncle Wellington Braboy was so deeply absorbed in thought as he walked slowly homeward from the weekly meeting of the Union League, that he let his pipe go out, a fact of which he remained oblivious until he had reached the little frame house in the suburbs of Patesville, where he lived with aunt Milly, his wife. On this particular occasion the club had been addressed by a visiting brother from the North, Professor Patterson, a tall, well-formed mulatto, who wore a perfectly fitting suit of broadcloth, a shiny silk hat, and linen of dazzling whiteness,--in short, a gentleman of such distinguished appearance that the doors and windows of the offices and stores on Front Street were filled with curious observers as he passed through that thoroughfare in the early part of the day. This polished stranger was a traveling organizer of Masonic lodges, but he also claimed to be a high officer in the Union League, and had been invited to lecture before the local chapter of that organization at Patesville. The lecture had been largely attended, and uncle* Wellington Braboy had occupied a seat just in front of the platform. The subject of the lecture was "The Mental, Moral, Physical, Political, Social, and Financial Improvement of the Negro Race in America," a theme much dwelt upon, with slight variations, by colored orators. For to this struggling people, then as now, the problem of their uncertain present and their doubtful future was the chief concern of life. The period was the hopeful one. The Federal Government retained some vestige of authority in the South, and the newly emancipated race cherished the delusion that under the Constitution, that enduring rock on which our liberties are founded, and under the equal laws it purported to guarantee, they would enter upon the era of freedom and opportunity which their Northern friends had inaugurated with such solemn sanctions. The speaker pictured in eloquent language the state of ideal equality and happiness enjoyed by colored people at the North: how they sent their children to school with the white children; how they sat by white people in the churches and theatres, ate with them in the public restaurants, and buried their dead in the same cemeteries. The professor waxed eloquent with the development of his theme, and, as a finishing touch to an alluring picture, assured the excited audience that the intermarriage of the races was common, and that he himself had espoused a white woman. Uncle Wellington Braboy was a deeply interested listener. He had heard something of these facts before, but his information had always come in such vague and questionable shape that he had paid little attention to it. He knew that the Yankees had freed the slaves, and that runaway negroes had always gone to the North to seek liberty; any such equality, however, as the visiting brother had depicted, was more than uncle Wellington had ever conceived as actually existing anywhere in the world. At first he felt inclined to doubt the truth of the speaker's statements; but the cut of his clothes, the eloquence of his language, and the flowing length of his whiskers, were so far superior to anything uncle Wellington had ever met among the colored people of his native State, that he felt irresistibly impelled to the conviction that nothing less than the advantages claimed for the North by the visiting brother could have produced such an exquisite flower of civilization. Any lingering doubts uncle Wellington may have felt were entirely dispelled by the courtly bow and cordial grasp of the hand with which the visiting brother acknowledged the congratulations showered upon him by the audience at the close of his address. The more uncle Wellington's mind dwelt upon the professor's speech, the more attractive seemed the picture of Northern life presented. Uncle Wellington possessed in large measure the imaginative faculty so freely bestowed by nature upon the race from which the darker half of his blood was drawn. He had indulged in occasional day-dreams of an ideal state of social equality, but his wildest flights of fancy had never located it nearer than heaven, and he had felt some misgivings about its practical working even there. Its desirability he had never doubted, and the speech of the evening before had given a local habitation and a name to the forms his imagination had bodied forth. Giving full rein to his fancy, he saw in the North a land flowing with milk and honey,--a land peopled by noble men and beautiful women, among whom colored men and women moved with the ease and grace of acknowledged right. Then he placed himself in the foreground of the picture. What a fine figure he would have made in the world if he had been born at the free North! He imagined himself dressed like the professor, and passing the contribution-box in a white church; and most pleasant of his dreams, and the hardest to realize as possible, was that of the gracious white lady he might have called wife. Uncle Wellington was a mulatto, and his features were those of his white father, though tinged with the hue of his mother's race; and as he lifted the kerosene lamp at evening, and took a long look at his image in the little mirror over the mantelpiece, he said to himself that he was a very good-looking man, and could have adorned a much higher sphere in life than that in which the accident of birth had placed him. He fell asleep and dreamed that he lived in a two-story brick house, with a spacious flower garden in front, the whole inclosed by a high iron fence; that he kept a carriage and servants, and never did a stroke of work. This was the highest style of living in Patesville, and he could conceive of nothing finer. Uncle Wellington slept later than usual the next morning, and the sunlight was pouring in at the open window of the bedroom, when his dreams were interrupted by the voice of his wife, in tones meant to be harsh, but which no ordinary degree of passion could rob of their native unctuousness. "Git up f'm dere, you lazy, good-fuh-nuffin' nigger! Is you gwine ter sleep all de mawnin'? I 's ti'ed er dis yer runnin' 'roun' all night an' den sleepin' all day. You won't git dat tater patch hoed ovuh ter-day 'less'n you git up f'm dere an' git at it." Uncle Wellington rolled over, yawned cavernously, stretched himself, and with a muttered protest got out of bed and put on his clothes. Aunt Milly had prepared a smoking breakfast of hominy and fried bacon, the odor of which was very grateful to his nostrils. "Is breakfus' done ready?" he inquired, tentatively, as he came into the kitchen and glanced at the table. "No, it ain't ready, an' 't ain't gwine ter be ready 'tel you tote dat wood an' water in," replied aunt Milly severely, as she poured two teacups of boiling water on two tablespoonfuls of ground coffee. Uncle Wellington went down to the spring and got a pail of water, after which he brought in some oak logs for the fire place and some lightwood for kindling. Then he drew a chair towards the table and started to sit down. "Wonduh what 's de matter wid you dis mawnin' anyhow," remarked aunt Milly. "You must 'a' be'n up ter some devilment las' night, fer yo' recommemb'ance is so po' dat you fus' fergit ter git up, an' den fergit ter wash yo' face an' hands fo' you set down ter de table. I don' 'low nobody ter eat at my table dat a-way." "I don' see no use 'n washin' 'em so much," replied Wellington wearily. "Dey gits dirty ag'in right off, an' den you got ter wash 'em ovuh ag'in; it 's jes' pilin' up wuk what don' fetch in nuffin'. De dirt don' show nohow, 'n' I don' see no advantage in bein' black, ef you got to keep on washin' yo' face 'n' han's jes' lack w'ite folks." He nevertheless performed his ablutions in a perfunctory way, and resumed his seat at the breakfast-table. "Ole 'oman," he asked, after the edge of his appetite had been taken off, "how would you lack ter live at de Norf?" "I dunno nuffin' 'bout de Norf," replied aunt Milly. "It 's hard 'nuff ter git erlong heah, whar we knows all erbout it." "De brother what 'dressed de meetin' las' night say dat de wages at de Norf is twicet ez big ez dey is heah." "You could make a sight mo' wages heah ef you 'd 'ten' ter yo' wuk better," replied aunt Milly. Uncle Wellington ignored this personality, and continued, "An' he say de cullud folks got all de privileges er de w'ite folks,--dat dey chillen goes ter school tergedder, dat dey sets on same seats in chu'ch, an' sarves on jury, 'n' rides on de kyars an' steamboats wid de w'ite folks, an' eats at de fus' table." "Dat 'u'd suit you," chuckled aunt Milly, "an' you 'd stay dere fer de secon' table, too. How dis man know 'bout all dis yer foolis'ness?" she asked incredulously. "He come f'm de Norf," said uncle Wellington, "an' he 'speunced it all hisse'f." "Well, he can't make me b'lieve it," she rejoined, with a shake of her head. "An' you would n' lack ter go up dere an' 'joy all dese privileges?" asked uncle Wellington, with some degree of earnestness. The old woman laughed until her sides shook. "Who gwine ter take me up dere?" she inquired. "You got de money yo'se'f." "I ain' got no money fer ter was'e," she replied shortly, becoming serious at once; and with that the subject was dropped. Uncle Wellington pulled a hoe from under the house, and took his way wearily to the potato patch. He did not feel like working, but aunt Milly was the undisputed head of the establishment, and he did not dare to openly neglect his work. In fact, he regarded work at any time as a disagreeable necessity to be avoided as much as possible. His wife was cast in a different mould. Externally she would have impressed the casual observer as a neat, well-preserved, and good-looking black woman, of middle age, every curve of whose ample figure--and her figure was all curves--was suggestive of repose. So far from being indolent, or even deliberate in her movements, she was the most active and energetic woman in the town. She went through the physical exercises of a prayer-meeting with astonishing vigor. It was exhilarating to see her wash a shirt, and a study to watch her do it up. A quick jerk shook out the dampened garment; one pass of her ample palm spread it over the ironing-board, and a few well-directed strokes with the iron accomplished what would have occupied the ordinary laundress for half an hour. To this uncommon, and in uncle Wellington's opinion unnecessary and unnatural activity, his own habits were a steady protest. If aunt Milly had been willing to support him in idleness, he would have acquiesced without a murmur in her habits of industry. This she would not do, and, moreover, insisted on his working at least half the time. If she had invested the proceeds of her labor in rich food and fine clothing, he might have endured it better; but to her passion for work was added a most detestable thrift. She absolutely refused to pay for Wellington's clothes, and required him to furnish a certain proportion of the family supplies. Her savings were carefully put by, and with them she had bought and paid for the modest cottage which she and her husband occupied. Under her careful hand it was always neat and clean; in summer the little yard was gay with bright-colored flowers, and woe to the heedless pickaninny who should stray into her yard and pluck a rose or a verbena! In a stout oaken chest under her bed she kept a capacious stocking, into which flowed a steady stream of fractional currency. She carried the key to this chest in her pocket, a proceeding regarded by uncle Wellington with no little disfavor. He was of the opinion--an opinion he would not have dared to assert in her presence--that his wife's earnings were his own property; and he looked upon this stocking as a drunkard's wife might regard the saloon which absorbed her husband's wages. Uncle Wellington hurried over the potato patch on the morning of the conversation above recorded, and as soon as he saw aunt Milly go away with a basket of clothes on her head, returned to the house, put on his coat, and went uptown. He directed his steps to a small frame building fronting on the main street of the village, at a point where the street was intersected by one of the several creeks meandering through the town, cooling the air, providing numerous swimming-holes for the amphibious small boy, and furnishing water-power for grist-mills and saw-mills. The rear of the building rested on long brick pillars, built up from the bottom of the steep bank of the creek, while the front was level with the street. This was the office of Mr. Matthew Wright, the sole representative of the colored race at the bar of Chinquapin County. Mr. Wright came of an "old issue" free colored family, in which, though the negro blood was present in an attenuated strain, a line of free ancestry could be traced beyond the Revolutionary War. He had enjoyed exceptional opportunities, and enjoyed the distinction of being the first, and for a long time the only colored lawyer in North Carolina. His services were frequently called into requisition by impecunious people of his own race; when they had money they went to white lawyers, who, they shrewdly conjectured, would have more influence with judge or jury than a colored lawyer, however able. Uncle Wellington found Mr. Wright in his office. Having inquired after the health of the lawyer's family and all his relations in detail, uncle Wellington asked for a professional opinion. "Mistah Wright, ef a man's wife got money, whose money is dat befo' de law--his'n er her'n?" The lawyer put on his professional air, and replied:---- "Under the common law, which in default of special legislative enactment is the law of North Carolina, the personal property of the wife belongs to her husband." "But dat don' jes' tech de p'int, suh. I wuz axin' 'bout money." "You see, uncle Wellington, your education has not rendered you familiar with legal phraseology. The term 'personal property' or 'estate' embraces, according to Blackstone, all property other than land, and therefore includes money. Any money a man's wife has is his, constructively, and will be recognized as his actually, as soon as he can secure possession of it." "Dat is ter say, suh--my eddication don' quite 'low me ter understan' dat--dat is ter say"---- "That is to say, it 's yours when you get it. It is n't yours so that the law will help you get it; but on the other hand, when you once lay your hands on it, it is yours so that the law won't take it away from you." Uncle Wellington nodded to express his full comprehension of the law as expounded by Mr. Wright, but scratched his head in a way that expressed some disappointment. The law seemed to wobble. Instead of enabling him to stand up fearlessly and demand his own, it threw him back upon his own efforts; and the prospect of his being able to overpower or outwit aunt Milly by any ordinary means was very poor. He did not leave the office, but hung around awhile as though there were something further he wished to speak about. Finally, after some discursive remarks about the crops and politics, he asked, in an offhand, disinterested manner, as though the thought had just occurred to him:---- "Mistah Wright, w'ile's we 're talkin' 'bout law matters, what do it cos' ter git a defoce?" "That depends upon circumstances. It is n't altogether a matter of expense. Have you and aunt Milly been having trouble?" "Oh no, suh; I was jes' a-wond'rin'." "You see," continued the lawyer, who was fond of talking, and had nothing else to do for the moment, "a divorce is not an easy thing to get in this State under any circumstances. It used to be the law that divorce could be granted only by special act of the legislature; and it is but recently that the subject has been relegated to the jurisdiction of the courts." Uncle Wellington understood a part of this, but the answer had not been exactly to the point in his mind. "S'pos'n', den, jes' fer de argyment, me an' my ole 'oman sh'd fall out en wanter separate, how could I git a defoce?" "That would depend on what you quarreled about. It 's pretty hard work to answer general questions in a particular way. If you merely wished to separate, it would n't be necessary to get a divorce; but if you should want to marry again, you would have to be divorced, or else you would be guilty of bigamy, and could be sent to the penitentiary. But, by the way, uncle Wellington, when were you married?" "I got married 'fo' de wah, when I was livin' down on Rockfish Creek." "When you were in slavery?" "Yas, suh." "Did you have your marriage registered after the surrender?" "No, suh; never knowed nuffin' 'bout dat." After the war, in North Carolina and other States, the freed people who had sustained to each other the relation of husband and wife as it existed among slaves, were required by law to register their consent to continue in the marriage relation. By this simple expedient their former marriages of convenience received the sanction of law, and their children the seal of legitimacy. In many cases, however, where the parties lived in districts remote from the larger towns, the ceremony was neglected, or never heard of by the freedmen. "Well," said the lawyer, "if that is the case, and you and aunt Milly should disagree, it would n't be necessary for you to get a divorce, even if you should want to marry again. You were never legally married." "So Milly ain't my lawful wife, den?" "She may be your wife in one sense of the word, but not in such a sense as to render you liable to punishment for bigamy if you should marry another woman. But I hope you will never want to do anything of the kind, for you have a very good wife now." Uncle Wellington went away thoughtfully, but with a feeling of unaccustomed lightness and freedom. He had not felt so free since the memorable day when he had first heard of the Emancipation Proclamation. On leaving the lawyer's office, he called at the workshop of one of his friends, Peter Williams, a shoemaker by trade, who had a brother living in Ohio. "Is you hearn f'm Sam lately?" uncle Wellington inquired, after the conversation had drifted through the usual generalities. "His mammy got er letter f'm 'im las' week; he 's livin' in de town er Groveland now." "How 's he gittin' on?" "He says he gittin' on monst'us well. He 'low ez how he make five dollars a day w'ite-washin', an' have all he kin do." The shoemaker related various details of his brother's prosperity, and uncle Wellington returned home in a very thoughtful mood, revolving in his mind a plan of future action. This plan had been vaguely assuming form ever since the professor's lecture, and the events of the morning had brought out the detail in bold relief. Two days after the conversation with the shoemaker, aunt Milly went, in the afternoon, to visit a sister of hers who lived several miles out in the country. During her absence, which lasted until nightfall, uncle Wellington went uptown and purchased a cheap oilcloth valise from a shrewd son of Israel, who had penetrated to this locality with a stock of notions and cheap clothing. Uncle Wellington had his purchase done up in brown paper, and took the parcel under his arm. Arrived at home he unwrapped the valise, and thrust into its capacious jaws his best suit of clothes, some underwear, and a few other small articles for personal use and adornment. Then he carried the valise out into the yard, and, first looking cautiously around to see if there was any one in sight, concealed it in a clump of bushes in a corner of the yard. It may be inferred from this proceeding that uncle Wellington was preparing for a step of some consequence. In fact, he had fully made up his mind to go to the North; but he still lacked the most important requisite for traveling with comfort, namely, the money to pay his expenses. The idea of tramping the distance which separated him from the promised land of liberty and equality had never occurred to him. When a slave, he had several times been importuned by fellow servants to join them in the attempt to escape from bondage, but he had never wanted his freedom badly enough to walk a thousand miles for it; if he could have gone to Canada by stage-coach, or by rail, or on horseback, with stops for regular meals, he would probably have undertaken the trip. The funds he now needed for his journey were in aunt Milly's chest. He had thought a great deal about his right to this money. It was his wife's savings, and he had never dared to dispute, openly, her right to exercise exclusive control over what she earned; but the lawyer had assured him of his right to the money, of which he was already constructively in possession, and he had therefore determined to possess himself actually of the coveted stocking. It was impracticable for him to get the key of the chest. Aunt Milly kept it in her pocket by day and under her pillow at night. She was a light sleeper, and, if not awakened by the abstraction of the key, would certainly have been disturbed by the unlocking of the chest. But one alternative remained, and that was to break open the chest in her absence. There was a revival in progress at the colored Methodist church. Aunt Milly was as energetic in her religion as in other respects, and had not missed a single one of the meetings. She returned at nightfall from her visit to the country and prepared a frugal supper. Uncle Wellington did not eat as heartily as usual. Aunt Milly perceived his want of appetite, and spoke of it. He explained it by saying that he did not feel very well. "Is you gwine ter chu'ch ter-night?" inquired his wife. "I reckon I 'll stay home an' go ter bed," he replied. "I ain't be'n feelin' well dis evenin', an' I 'spec' I better git a good night's res'." "Well, you kin stay ef you mineter. Good preachin' 'u'd make you feel better, but ef you ain't gwine, don' fergit ter tote in some wood an' lighterd 'fo' you go ter bed. De moon is shinin' bright, an' you can't have no 'scuse 'bout not bein' able ter see." Uncle Wellington followed her out to the gate, and watched her receding form until it disappeared in the distance. Then he re-entered the house with a quick step, and taking a hatchet from a corner of the room, drew the chest from under the bed. As he applied the hatchet to the fastenings, a thought struck him, and by the flickering light of the pine-knot blazing on the hearth, a look of hesitation might have been seen to take the place of the determined expression his face had worn up to that time. He had argued himself into the belief that his present action was lawful and justifiable. Though this conviction had not prevented him from trembling in every limb, as though he were committing a mere vulgar theft, it had still nerved him to the deed. Now even his moral courage began to weaken. The lawyer had told him that his wife's property was his own; in taking it he was therefore only exercising his lawful right. But at the point of breaking open the chest, it occurred to him that he was taking this money in order to get away from aunt Milly, and that he justified his desertion of her by the lawyer's opinion that she was not his lawful wife. If she was not his wife, then he had no right to take the money; if she was his wife, he had no right to desert her, and would certainly have no right to marry another woman. His scheme was about to go to shipwreck on this rock, when another idea occurred to him. "De lawyer say dat in one sense er de word de ole 'oman is my wife, an' in anudder sense er de word she ain't my wife. Ef I goes ter de Norf an' marry a w'ite 'oman, I ain't commit no brigamy, 'caze in dat sense er de word she ain't my wife; but ef I takes dis money, I ain't stealin' it, 'caze in dat sense er de word she is my wife. Dat 'splains all de trouble away." Having reached this ingenious conclusion, uncle Wellington applied the hatchet vigorously, soon loosened the fastenings of the chest, and with trembling hands extracted from its depths a capacious blue cotton stocking. He emptied the stocking on the table. His first impulse was to take the whole, but again there arose in his mind a doubt--a very obtrusive, unreasonable doubt, but a doubt, nevertheless--of the absolute rectitude of his conduct; and after a moment's hesitation he hurriedly counted the money--it was in bills of small denominations--and found it to be about two hundred and fifty dollars. He then divided it into two piles of one hundred and twenty-five dollars each. He put one pile into his pocket, returned the remainder to the stocking, and replaced it where he had found it. He then closed the chest and shoved it under the bed. After having arranged the fire so that it could safely be left burning, he took a last look around the room, and went out into the moonlight, locking the door behind him, and hanging the key on a nail in the wall, where his wife would be likely to look for it. He then secured his valise from behind the bushes, and left the yard. As he passed by the wood-pile, he said to himself:---- "Well, I declar' ef I ain't done fergot ter tote in dat lighterd; I reckon de ole 'oman 'll ha' ter fetch it in herse'f dis time." He hastened through the quiet streets, avoiding the few people who were abroad at that hour, and soon reached the railroad station, from which a North-bound train left at nine o'clock. He went around to the dark side of the train, and climbed into a second-class car, where he shrank into the darkest corner and turned his face away from the dim light of the single dirty lamp. There were no passengers in the car except one or two sleepy negroes, who had got on at some other station, and a white man who had gone into the car to smoke, accompanied by a gigantic bloodhound. Finally the train crept out of the station. From the window uncle Wellington looked out upon the familiar cabins and turpentine stills, the new barrel factory, the brickyard where he had once worked for some time; and as the train rattled through the outskirts of the town, he saw gleaming in the moonlight the white headstones of the colored cemetery where his only daughter had been buried several years before. Presently the conductor came around. Uncle Wellington had not bought a ticket, and the conductor collected a cash fare. He was not acquainted with uncle Wellington, but had just had a drink at the saloon near the depot, and felt at peace with all mankind. "Where are you going, uncle?" he inquired carelessly. Uncle Wellington's face assumed the ashen hue which does duty for pallor in dusky countenances, and his knees began to tremble. Controlling his voice as well as he could, he replied that he was going up to Jonesboro, the terminus of the railroad, to work for a gentleman at that place. He felt immensely relieved when the conductor pocketed the fare, picked up his lantern, and moved away. It was very unphilosophical and very absurd that a man who was only doing right should feel like a thief, shrink from the sight of other people, and lie instinctively. Fine distinctions were not in uncle Wellington's line, but he was struck by the unreasonableness of his feelings, and still more by the discomfort they caused him. By and by, however, the motion of the train made him drowsy; his thoughts all ran together in confusion; and he fell asleep with his head on his valise, and one hand in his pocket, clasped tightly around the roll of money. II The train from Pittsburg drew into the Union Depot at Groveland, Ohio, one morning in the spring of 187-, with bell ringing and engine puffing; and from a smoking-car emerged the form of uncle Wellington Braboy, a little dusty and travel-stained, and with a sleepy look about his eyes. He mingled in the crowd, and, valise in hand, moved toward the main exit from the depot. There were several tracks to be crossed, and more than once a watchman snatched him out of the way of a baggage-truck, or a train backing into the depot. He at length reached the door, beyond which, and as near as the regulations would permit, stood a number of hackmen, vociferously soliciting patronage. One of them, a colored man, soon secured several passengers. As he closed the door after the last one he turned to uncle Wellington, who stood near him on the sidewalk, looking about irresolutely. "Is you goin' uptown?" asked the hackman, as he prepared to mount the box. "Yas, suh." "I 'll take you up fo' a quahtah, ef you want ter git up here an' ride on de box wid me." Uncle Wellington accepted the offer and mounted the box. The hackman whipped up his horses, the carriage climbed the steep hill leading up to the town, and the passengers inside were soon deposited at their hotels. "Whereabouts do you want to go?" asked the hackman of uncle Wellington, when the carriage was emptied of its last passengers. "I want ter go ter Brer Sam Williams's," said Wellington. "What 's his street an' number?" Uncle Wellington did not know the street and number, and the hackman had to explain to him the mystery of numbered houses, to which he was a total stranger. "Where is he from?" asked the hackman, "and what is his business?" "He is f'm Norf Ca'lina," replied uncle Wellington, "an' makes his livin' w'itewashin'." "I reckon I knows de man," said the hackman. "I 'spec' he 's changed his name. De man I knows is name' Johnson. He b'longs ter my chu'ch. I 'm gwine out dat way ter git a passenger fer de ten o'clock train, an I 'll take you by dere." They followed one of the least handsome streets of the city for more than a mile, turned into a cross street, and drew up before a small frame house, from the front of which a sign, painted in white upon a black background, announced to the reading public, in letters inclined to each other at various angles, that whitewashing and kalsomining were "dun" there. A knock at the door brought out a slatternly looking colored woman. She had evidently been disturbed at her toilet, for she held a comb in one hand, and the hair on one side of her head stood out loosely, while on the other side it was braided close to her head. She called her husband, who proved to be the Patesville shoemaker's brother. The hackman introduced the traveler, whose name he had learned on the way out, collected his quarter, and drove away. Mr. Johnson, the shoemaker's brother, welcomed uncle Wellington to Groveland, and listened with eager delight to the news of the old town, from which he himself had run away many years before, and followed the North Star to Groveland. He had changed his name from "Williams" to "Johnson," on account of the Fugitive Slave Law, which, at the time of his escape from bondage, had rendered it advisable for runaway slaves to court obscurity. After the war he had retained the adopted name. Mrs. Johnson prepared breakfast for her guest, who ate it with an appetite sharpened by his journey. After breakfast he went to bed, and slept until late in the afternoon. After supper Mr. Johnson took uncle Wellington to visit some of the neighbors who had come from North Carolina before the war. They all expressed much pleasure at meeting "Mr. Braboy," a title which at first sounded a little odd to uncle Wellington. At home he had been "Wellin'ton," "Brer Wellin'ton," or "uncle Wellin'ton;" it was a novel experience to be called "Mister," and he set it down, with secret satisfaction, as one of the first fruits of Northern liberty. "Would you lack ter look 'roun' de town a little?" asked Mr. Johnson at breakfast next morning. "I ain' got no job dis mawnin', an' I kin show you some er de sights." Uncle Wellington acquiesced in this arrangement, and they walked up to the corner to the street-car line. In a few moments a car passed. Mr. Johnson jumped on the moving car, and uncle Wellington followed his example, at the risk of life or limb, as it was his first experience of street cars. There was only one vacant seat in the car and that was between two white women in the forward end. Mr. Johnson motioned to the seat, but Wellington shrank from walking between those two rows of white people, to say nothing of sitting between the two women, so he remained standing in the rear part of the car. A moment later, as the car rounded a short curve, he was pitched sidewise into the lap of a stout woman magnificently attired in a ruffled blue calico gown. The lady colored up, and uncle Wellington, as he struggled to his feet amid the laughter of the passengers, was absolutely helpless with embarrassment, until the conductor came up behind him and pushed him toward the vacant place. "Sit down, will you," he said; and before uncle Wellington could collect himself, he was seated between the two white women. Everybody in the car seemed to be looking at him. But he came to the conclusion, after he had pulled himself together and reflected a few moments, that he would find this method of locomotion pleasanter when he got used to it, and then he could score one more glorious privilege gained by his change of residence. They got off at the public square, in the heart of the city, where there were flowers and statues, and fountains playing. Mr. Johnson pointed out the court-house, the post-office, the jail, and other public buildings fronting on the square. They visited the market near by, and from an elevated point, looked down upon the extensive lumber yards and factories that were the chief sources of the city's prosperity. Beyond these they could see the fleet of ships that lined the coal and iron ore docks of the harbor. Mr. Johnson, who was quite a fluent talker, enlarged upon the wealth and prosperity of the city; and Wellington, who had never before been in a town of more than three thousand inhabitants, manifested sufficient interest and wonder to satisfy the most exacting _cicerone_. They called at the office of a colored lawyer and member of the legislature, formerly from North Carolina, who, scenting a new constituent and a possible client, greeted the stranger warmly, and in flowing speech pointed out the superior advantages of life at the North, citing himself as an illustration of the possibilities of life in a country really free. As they wended their way homeward to dinner uncle Wellington, with quickened pulse and rising hopes, felt that this was indeed the promised land, and that it must be flowing with milk and honey. Uncle Wellington remained at the residence of Mr. Johnson for several weeks before making any effort to find employment. He spent this period in looking about the city. The most commonplace things possessed for him the charm of novelty, and he had come prepared to admire. Shortly after his arrival, he had offered to pay for his board, intimating at the same time that he had plenty of money. Mr. Johnson declined to accept anything from him for board, and expressed himself as being only too proud to have Mr. Braboy remain in the house on the footing of an honored guest, until he had settled himself. He lightened in some degree, however, the burden of obligation under which a prolonged stay on these terms would have placed his guest, by soliciting from the latter occasional small loans, until uncle Wellington's roll of money began to lose its plumpness, and with an empty pocket staring him in the face, he felt the necessity of finding something to do. During his residence in the city he had met several times his first acquaintance, Mr. Peterson, the hackman, who from time to time inquired how he was getting along. On one of these occasions Wellington mentioned his willingness to accept employment. As good luck would have it, Mr. Peterson knew of a vacant situation. He had formerly been coachman for a wealthy gentleman residing on Oakwood Avenue, but had resigned the situation to go into business for himself. His place had been filled by an Irishman, who had just been discharged for drunkenness, and the gentleman that very day had sent word to Mr. Peterson, asking him if he could recommend a competent and trustworthy coachman. "Does you know anything erbout hosses?" asked Mr. Peterson. "Yas, indeed, I does," said Wellington. "I wuz raise' 'mongs' hosses." "I tol' my ole boss I 'd look out fer a man, an' ef you reckon you kin fill de 'quirements er de situation, I 'll take yo' roun' dere ter-morrer mornin'. You wants ter put on yo' bes' clothes an' slick up, fer dey 're partic'lar people. Ef you git de place I 'll expec' you ter pay me fer de time I lose in 'tendin' ter yo' business, fer time is money in dis country, an' folks don't do much fer nuthin'." Next morning Wellington blacked his shoes carefully, put on a clean collar, and with the aid of Mrs. Johnson tied his cravat in a jaunty bow which gave him quite a sprightly air and a much younger look than his years warranted. Mr. Peterson called for him at eight o'clock. After traversing several cross streets they turned into Oakwood Avenue and walked along the finest part of it for about half a mile. The handsome houses of this famous avenue, the stately trees, the wide-spreading lawns, dotted with flower beds, fountains and statuary, made up a picture so far surpassing anything in Wellington's experience as to fill him with an almost oppressive sense of its beauty. "Hit looks lack hebben," he said softly. "It 's a pootty fine street," rejoined his companion, with a judicial air, "but I don't like dem big lawns. It 's too much trouble ter keep de grass down. One er dem lawns is big enough to pasture a couple er cows." They went down a street running at right angles to the avenue, and turned into the rear of the corner lot. A large building of pressed brick, trimmed with stone, loomed up before them. "Do de gemman lib in dis house?" asked Wellington, gazing with awe at the front of the building. "No, dat 's de barn," said Mr. Peterson with good-natured contempt; and leading the way past a clump of shrubbery to the dwelling-house, he went up the back steps and rang the door-bell. The ring was answered by a buxom Irishwoman, of a natural freshness of complexion deepened to a fiery red by the heat of a kitchen range. Wellington thought he had seen her before, but his mind had received so many new impressions lately that it was a minute or two before he recognized in her the lady whose lap he had involuntarily occupied for a moment on his first day in Groveland. "Faith," she exclaimed as she admitted them, "an' it 's mighty glad I am to see ye ag'in, Misther Payterson! An' how hev ye be'n, Misther Payterson, sence I see ye lahst?" "Middlin' well, Mis' Flannigan, middlin' well, 'ceptin' a tech er de rheumatiz. S'pose you be'n doin' well as usual?" "Oh yis, as well as a dacent woman could do wid a drunken baste about the place like the lahst coachman. O Misther Payterson, it would make yer heart bleed to see the way the spalpeen cut up a-Saturday! But Misther Todd discharged 'im the same avenin', widout a characther, bad 'cess to 'im, an' we 've had no coachman sence at all, at all. An' it 's sorry I am"---- The lady's flow of eloquence was interrupted at this point by the appearance of Mr. Todd himself, who had been informed of the men's arrival. He asked some questions in regard to Wellington's qualifications and former experience, and in view of his recent arrival in the city was willing to accept Mr. Peterson's recommendation instead of a reference. He said a few words about the nature of the work, and stated his willingness to pay Wellington the wages formerly allowed Mr. Peterson, thirty dollars a month and board and lodging. This handsome offer was eagerly accepted, and it was agreed that Wellington's term of service should begin immediately. Mr. Peterson, being familiar with the work, and financially interested, conducted the new coachman through the stables and showed him what he would have to do. The silver-mounted harness, the variety of carriages, the names of which he learned for the first time, the arrangements for feeding and watering the horses,--these appointments of a rich man's stable impressed Wellington very much, and he wondered that so much luxury should be wasted on mere horses. The room assigned to him, in the second story of the barn, was a finer apartment than he had ever slept in; and the salary attached to the situation was greater than the combined monthly earnings of himself and aunt Milly in their Southern home. Surely, he thought, his lines had fallen in pleasant places. Under the stimulus of new surroundings Wellington applied himself diligently to work, and, with the occasional advice of Mr. Peterson, soon mastered the details of his employment. He found the female servants, with whom he took his meals, very amiable ladies. The cook, Mrs. Katie Flannigan, was a widow. Her husband, a sailor, had been lost at sea. She was a woman of many words, and when she was not lamenting the late Flannigan's loss,--according to her story he had been a model of all the virtues,--she would turn the batteries of her tongue against the former coachman. This gentleman, as Wellington gathered from frequent remarks dropped by Mrs. Flannigan, had paid her attentions clearly susceptible of a serious construction. These attentions had not borne their legitimate fruit, and she was still a widow unconsoled,--hence Mrs. Flannigan's tears. The housemaid was a plump, good-natured German girl, with a pronounced German accent. The presence on washdays of a Bohemian laundress, of recent importation, added another to the variety of ways in which the English tongue was mutilated in Mr. Todd's kitchen. Association with the white women drew out all the native gallantry of the mulatto, and Wellington developed quite a helpful turn. His politeness, his willingness to lend a hand in kitchen or laundry, and the fact that he was the only male servant on the place, combined to make him a prime favorite in the servants' quarters. It was the general opinion among Wellington's acquaintances that he was a single man. He had come to the city alone, had never been heard to speak of a wife, and to personal questions bearing upon the subject of matrimony had always returned evasive answers. Though he had never questioned the correctness of the lawyer's opinion in regard to his slave marriage, his conscience had never been entirely at ease since his departure from the South, and any positive denial of his married condition would have stuck in his throat. The inference naturally drawn from his reticence in regard to the past, coupled with his expressed intention of settling permanently in Groveland, was that he belonged in the ranks of the unmarried, and was therefore legitimate game for any widow or old maid who could bring him down. As such game is bagged easiest at short range, he received numerous invitations to tea-parties, where he feasted on unlimited chicken and pound cake. He used to compare these viands with the plain fare often served by aunt Milly, and the result of the comparison was another item to the credit of the North upon his mental ledger. Several of the colored ladies who smiled upon him were blessed with good looks, and uncle Wellington, naturally of a susceptible temperament, as people of lively imagination are apt to be, would probably have fallen a victim to the charms of some woman of his own race, had it not been for a strong counter-attraction in the person of Mrs. Flannigan. The attentions of the lately discharged coachman had lighted anew the smouldering fires of her widowed heart, and awakened longings which still remained unsatisfied. She was thirty-five years old, and felt the need of some one else to love. She was not a woman of lofty ideals; with her a man was a man---- "For a' that an' a' that;" and, aside from the accident of color, uncle Wellington was as personable a man as any of her acquaintance. Some people might have objected to his complexion; but then, Mrs. Flannigan argued, he was at least half white; and, this being the case, there was no good reason why he should be regarded as black. Uncle Wellington was not slow to perceive Mrs. Flannigan's charms of person, and appreciated to the full the skill that prepared the choice tidbits reserved for his plate at dinner. The prospect of securing a white wife had been one of the principal inducements offered by a life at the North; but the awe of white people in which he had been reared was still too strong to permit his taking any active steps toward the object of his secret desire, had not the lady herself come to his assistance with a little of the native coquetry of her race. "Ah, Misther Braboy," she said one evening when they sat at the supper table alone,--it was the second girl's afternoon off, and she had not come home to supper,--"it must be an awful lonesome life ye 've been afther l'adin', as a single man, wid no one to cook fer ye, or look afther ye." "It are a kind er lonesome life, Mis' Flannigan, an' dat 's a fac'. But sence I had de privilege er eatin' yo' cookin' an' 'joyin' yo' society, I ain' felt a bit lonesome." "Yer flatthrin' me, Misther Braboy. An' even if ye mane it"---- "I means eve'y word of it, Mis' Flannigan." "An' even if ye mane it, Misther Braboy, the time is liable to come when things 'll be different; for service is uncertain, Misther Braboy. An' then you 'll wish you had some nice, clean woman, 'at knowed how to cook an' wash an' iron, ter look afther ye, an' make yer life comfortable." Uncle Wellington sighed, and looked at her languishingly. "It 'u'd all be well ernuff, Mis' Flannigan, ef I had n' met you; but I don' know whar I 's ter fin' a colored lady w'at 'll begin ter suit me after habbin' libbed in de same house wid you." "Colored lady, indade! Why, Misther Braboy, ye don't nade ter demane yerself by marryin' a colored lady--not but they 're as good as anybody else, so long as they behave themselves. There 's many a white woman 'u'd be glad ter git as fine a lookin' man as ye are." "Now _you 're_ flattrin' _me_, Mis' Flannigan," said Wellington. But he felt a sudden and substantial increase in courage when she had spoken, and it was with astonishing ease that he found himself saying:---- "Dey ain' but one lady, Mis' Flannigan, dat could injuce me ter want ter change de lonesomeness er my singleness fer de 'sponsibilities er matermony, an' I 'm feared she 'd say no ef I 'd ax her." "Ye 'd better ax her, Misther Braboy, an' not be wastin' time a-wond'rin'. Do I know the lady?" "You knows 'er better 'n anybody else, Mis' Flannigan. _You_ is de only lady I 'd be satisfied ter marry after knowin' you. Ef you casts me off I 'll spen' de rest er my days in lonesomeness an' mis'ry." Mrs. Flannigan affected much surprise and embarrassment at this bold declaration. "Oh, Misther Braboy," she said, covering him with a coy glance, "an' it 's rale 'shamed I am to hev b'en talkin' ter ye ez I hev. It looks as though I 'd b'en doin' the coortin'. I did n't drame that I 'd b'en able ter draw yer affections to mesilf." "I 's loved you ever sence I fell in yo' lap on de street car de fus' day I wuz in Groveland," he said, as he moved his chair up closer to hers. One evening in the following week they went out after supper to the residence of Rev. Cæsar Williams, pastor of the colored Baptist church, and, after the usual preliminaries, were pronounced man and wife. III According to all his preconceived notions, this marriage ought to have been the acme of uncle Wellington's felicity. But he soon found that it was not without its drawbacks. On the following morning Mr. Todd was informed of the marriage. He had no special objection to it, or interest in it, except that he was opposed on principle to having husband and wife in his employment at the same time. As a consequence, Mrs. Braboy, whose place could be more easily filled than that of her husband, received notice that her services would not be required after the end of the month. Her husband was retained in his place as coachman. Upon the loss of her situation Mrs. Braboy decided to exercise the married woman's prerogative of letting her husband support her. She rented the upper floor of a small house in an Irish neighborhood. The newly wedded pair furnished their rooms on the installment plan and began housekeeping. There was one little circumstance, however, that interfered slightly with their enjoyment of that perfect freedom from care which ought to characterize a honeymoon. The people who owned the house and occupied the lower floor had rented the upper part to Mrs. Braboy in person, it never occurring to them that her husband could be other than a white man. When it became known that he was colored, the landlord, Mr. Dennis O'Flaherty, felt that he had been imposed upon, and, at the end of the first month, served notice upon his tenants to leave the premises. When Mrs. Braboy, with characteristic impetuosity, inquired the meaning of this proceeding, she was informed by Mr. O'Flaherty that he did not care to live in the same house "wid naygurs." Mrs. Braboy resented the epithet with more warmth than dignity, and for a brief space of time the air was green with choice specimens of brogue, the altercation barely ceasing before it had reached the point of blows. It was quite clear that the Braboys could not longer live comfortably in Mr. O'Flaherty's house, and they soon vacated the premises, first letting the rent get a couple of weeks in arrears as a punishment to the too fastidious landlord. They moved to a small house on Hackman Street, a favorite locality with colored people. For a while, affairs ran smoothly in the new home. The colored people seemed, at first, well enough disposed toward Mrs. Braboy, and she made quite a large acquaintance among them. It was difficult, however, for Mrs. Braboy to divest herself of the consciousness that she was white, and therefore superior to her neighbors. Occasional words and acts by which she manifested this feeling were noticed and resented by her keen-eyed and sensitive colored neighbors. The result was a slight coolness between them. That her few white neighbors did not visit her, she naturally and no doubt correctly imputed to disapproval of her matrimonial relations. Under these circumstances, Mrs. Braboy was left a good deal to her own company. Owing to lack of opportunity in early life, she was not a woman of many resources, either mental or moral. It is therefore not strange that, in order to relieve her loneliness, she should occasionally have recourse to a glass of beer, and, as the habit grew upon her, to still stronger stimulants. Uncle Wellington himself was no tee-totaler, and did not interpose any objection so long as she kept her potations within reasonable limits, and was apparently none the worse for them; indeed, he sometimes joined her in a glass. On one of these occasions he drank a little too much, and, while driving the ladies of Mr. Todd's family to the opera, ran against a lamp-post and overturned the carriage, to the serious discomposure of the ladies' nerves, and at the cost of his situation. A coachman discharged under such circumstances is not in the best position for procuring employment at his calling, and uncle Wellington, under the pressure of need, was obliged to seek some other means of livelihood. At the suggestion of his friend Mr. Johnson, he bought a whitewash brush, a peck of lime, a couple of pails, and a hand-cart, and began work as a whitewasher. His first efforts were very crude, and for a while he lost a customer in every person he worked for. He nevertheless managed to pick up a living during the spring and summer months, and to support his wife and himself in comparative comfort. The approach of winter put an end to the whitewashing season, and left uncle Wellington dependent for support upon occasional jobs of unskilled labor. The income derived from these was very uncertain, and Mrs. Braboy was at length driven, by stress of circumstances, to the washtub, that last refuge of honest, able-bodied poverty, in all countries where the use of clothing is conventional. The last state of uncle Wellington was now worse than the first. Under the soft firmness of aunt Milly's rule, he had not been required to do a great deal of work, prompt and cheerful obedience being chiefly what was expected of him. But matters were very different here. He had not only to bring in the coal and water, but to rub the clothes and turn the wringer, and to humiliate himself before the public by emptying the tubs and hanging out the wash in full view of the neighbors; and he had to deliver the clothes when laundered. At times Wellington found himself wondering if his second marriage had been a wise one. Other circumstances combined to change in some degree his once rose-colored conception of life at the North. He had believed that all men were equal in this favored locality, but he discovered more degrees of inequality than he had ever perceived at the South. A colored man might be as good as a white man in theory, but neither of them was of any special consequence without money, or talent, or position. Uncle Wellington found a great many privileges open to him at the North, but he had not been educated to the point where he could appreciate them or take advantage of them; and the enjoyment of many of them was expensive, and, for that reason alone, as far beyond his reach as they had ever been. When he once began to admit even the possibility of a mistake on his part, these considerations presented themselves to his mind with increasing force. On occasions when Mrs. Braboy would require of him some unusual physical exertion, or when too frequent applications to the bottle had loosened her tongue, uncle Wellington's mind would revert, with a remorseful twinge of conscience, to the _dolce far niente_ of his Southern home; a film would come over his eyes and brain, and, instead of the red-faced Irishwoman opposite him, he could see the black but comely disk of aunt Milly's countenance bending over the washtub; the elegant brogue of Mrs. Braboy would deliquesce into the soft dialect of North Carolina; and he would only be aroused from this blissful reverie by a wet shirt or a handful of suds thrown into his face, with which gentle reminder his wife would recall his attention to the duties of the moment. There came a time, one day in spring, when there was no longer any question about it: uncle Wellington was desperately homesick. Liberty, equality, privileges,--all were but as dust in the balance when weighed against his longing for old scenes and faces. It was the natural reaction in the mind of a middle-aged man who had tried to force the current of a sluggish existence into a new and radically different channel. An active, industrious man, making the change in early life, while there was time to spare for the waste of adaptation, might have found in the new place more favorable conditions than in the old. In Wellington age and temperament combined to prevent the success of the experiment; the spirit of enterprise and ambition into which he had been temporarily galvanized could no longer prevail against the inertia of old habits of life and thought. One day when he had been sent to deliver clothes he performed his errand quickly, and boarding a passing street car, paid one of his very few five-cent pieces to ride down to the office of the Hon. Mr. Brown, the colored lawyer whom he had visited when he first came to the city, and who was well known to him by sight and reputation. "Mr. Brown," he said, "I ain' gitt'n' 'long very well wid my ole 'oman." "What 's the trouble?" asked the lawyer, with business-like curtness, for he did not scent much of a fee. "Well, de main trouble is she doan treat me right. An' den she gits drunk, an' wuss'n dat, she lays vi'lent han's on me. I kyars de marks er dat 'oman on my face now." He showed the lawyer a long scratch on the neck. "Why don't you defend yourself?" "You don' know Mis' Braboy, suh; you don' know dat 'oman," he replied, with a shake of the head. "Some er dese yer w'ite women is monst'us strong in de wris'." "Well, Mr. Braboy, it 's what you might have expected when you turned your back on your own people and married a white woman. You were n't content with being a slave to the white folks once, but you must try it again. Some people never know when they 've got enough. I don't see that there 's any help for you; unless," he added suggestively, "you had a good deal of money." '"Pears ter me I heared somebody say sence I be'n up heah, dat it wuz 'gin de law fer w'ite folks an' colored folks ter marry." "That was once the law, though it has always been a dead letter in Groveland. In fact, it was the law when you got married, and until I introduced a bill in the legislature last fall to repeal it. But even that law did n't hit cases like yours. It was unlawful to make such a marriage, but it was a good marriage when once made." "I don' jes' git dat th'oo my head," said Wellington, scratching that member as though to make a hole for the idea to enter. "It 's quite plain, Mr. Braboy. It 's unlawful to kill a man, but when he 's killed he 's just as dead as though the law permitted it. I 'm afraid you have n't much of a case, but if you 'll go to work and get twenty-five dollars together, I 'll see what I can do for you. We may be able to pull a case through on the ground of extreme cruelty. I might even start the case if you brought in ten dollars." Wellington went away sorrowfully. The laws of Ohio were very little more satisfactory than those of North Carolina. And as for the ten dollars,--the lawyer might as well have told him to bring in the moon, or a deed for the Public Square. He felt very, very low as he hurried back home to supper, which he would have to go without if he were not on hand at the usual supper-time. But just when his spirits were lowest, and his outlook for the future most hopeless, a measure of relief was at hand. He noticed, when he reached home, that Mrs. Braboy was a little preoccupied, and did not abuse him as vigorously as he expected after so long an absence. He also perceived the smell of strange tobacco in the house, of a better grade than he could afford to use. He thought perhaps some one had come in to see about the washing; but he was too glad of a respite from Mrs. Braboy's rhetoric to imperil it by indiscreet questions. Next morning she gave him fifty cents. "Braboy," she said, "ye 've be'n helpin' me nicely wid the washin', an' I 'm going ter give ye a holiday. Ye can take yer hook an' line an' go fishin' on the breakwater. I 'll fix ye a lunch, an' ye need n't come back till night. An' there 's half a dollar; ye can buy yerself a pipe er terbacky. But be careful an' don't waste it," she added, for fear she was overdoing the thing. Uncle Wellington was overjoyed at this change of front on the part of Mrs. Braboy; if she would make it permanent he did not see why they might not live together very comfortably. The day passed pleasantly down on the breakwater. The weather was agreeable, and the fish bit freely. Towards evening Wellington started home with a bunch of fish that no angler need have been ashamed of. He looked forward to a good warm supper; for even if something should have happened during the day to alter his wife's mood for the worse, any ordinary variation would be more than balanced by the substantial addition of food to their larder. His mouth watered at the thought of the finny beauties sputtering in the frying-pan. He noted, as he approached the house, that there was no smoke coming from the chimney. This only disturbed him in connection with the matter of supper. When he entered the gate he observed further that the window-shades had been taken down. "'Spec' de ole 'oman's been house-cleanin'," he said to himself. "I wonder she did n' make me stay an' he'p 'er." He went round to the rear of the house and tried the kitchen door. It was locked. This was somewhat of a surprise, and disturbed still further his expectations in regard to supper. When he had found the key and opened the door, the gravity of his next discovery drove away for the time being all thoughts of eating. The kitchen was empty. Stove, table, chairs, wash-tubs, pots and pans, had vanished as if into thin air. "Fo' de Lawd's sake!" he murmured in open-mouthed astonishment. He passed into the other room,--they had only two,--which had served as bedroom and sitting-room. It was as bare as the first, except that in the middle of the floor were piled uncle Wellington's clothes. It was not a large pile, and on the top of it lay a folded piece of yellow wrapping-paper. Wellington stood for a moment as if petrified. Then he rubbed his eyes and looked around him. "W'at do dis mean?" he said. "Is I er-dreamin', er does I see w'at I 'pears ter see?" He glanced down at the bunch of fish which he still held. "Heah 's de fish; heah 's de house; heah I is; but whar 's de ole 'oman, an' whar 's de fu'niture? _I_ can't figure out w'at dis yer all means." He picked up the piece of paper and unfolded it. It was written on one side. Here was the obvious solution of the mystery,--that is, it would have been obvious if he could have read it; but he could not, and so his fancy continued to play upon the subject. Perhaps the house had been robbed, or the furniture taken back by the seller, for it had not been entirely paid for. Finally he went across the street and called to a boy in a neighbor's yard. "Does you read writin', Johnnie?" "Yes, sir, I 'm in the seventh grade." "Read dis yer paper fuh me." The youngster took the note, and with much labor read the following:---- "Mr. Braboy: "In lavin' ye so suddint I have ter say that my first husban' has turned up unixpected, having been saved onbeknownst ter me from a wathry grave an' all the money wasted I spint fer masses fer ter rist his sole an' I wish I had it back I feel it my dooty ter go an' live wid 'im again. I take the furnacher because I bought it yer close is yors I leave them and wishin' yer the best of luck I remane oncet yer wife but now agin "Mrs. Katie Flannigan. "N.B. I 'm lavin town terday so it won't be no use lookin' fer me." On inquiry uncle Wellington learned from the boy that shortly after his departure in the morning a white man had appeared on the scene, followed a little later by a moving-van, into which the furniture had been loaded and carried away. Mrs. Braboy, clad in her best clothes, had locked the door, and gone away with the strange white man. The news was soon noised about the street. Wellington swapped his fish for supper and a bed at a neighbor's, and during the evening learned from several sources that the strange white man had been at his house the afternoon of the day before. His neighbors intimated that they thought Mrs. Braboy's departure a good riddance of bad rubbish, and Wellington did not dispute the proposition. Thus ended the second chapter of Wellington's matrimonial experiences. His wife's departure had been the one thing needful to convince him, beyond a doubt, that he had been a great fool. Remorse and homesickness forced him to the further conclusion that he had been knave as well as fool, and had treated aunt Milly shamefully. He was not altogether a bad old man, though very weak and erring, and his better nature now gained the ascendency. Of course his disappointment had a great deal to do with his remorse; most people do not perceive the hideousness of sin until they begin to reap its consequences. Instead of the beautiful Northern life he had dreamed of, he found himself stranded, penniless, in a strange land, among people whose sympathy he had forfeited, with no one to lean upon, and no refuge from the storms of life. His outlook was very dark, and there sprang up within him a wild longing to get back to North Carolina,--back to the little whitewashed cabin, shaded with china and mulberry trees; back to the wood-pile and the garden; back to the old cronies with whom he had swapped lies and tobacco for so many years. He longed to kiss the rod of aunt Milly's domination. He had purchased his liberty at too great a price. The next day he disappeared from Groveland. He had announced his departure only to Mr. Johnson, who sent his love to his relations in Patesville. It would be painful to record in detail the return journey of uncle Wellington--Mr. Braboy no longer--to his native town; how many weary miles he walked; how many times he risked his life on railroad tracks and between freight cars; how he depended for sustenance on the grudging hand of back-door charity. Nor would it be profitable or delicate to mention any slight deviations from the path of rectitude, as judged by conventional standards, to which he may occasionally have been driven by a too insistent hunger; or to refer in the remotest degree to a compulsory sojourn of thirty days in a city where he had no references, and could show no visible means of support. True charity will let these purely personal matters remain locked in the bosom of him who suffered them. IV Just fifteen months after the date when uncle Wellington had left North Carolina, a weather-beaten figure entered the town of Patesville after nightfall, following the railroad track from the north. Few would have recognized in the hungry-looking old brown tramp, clad in dusty rags and limping along with bare feet, the trim-looking middle-aged mulatto who so few months before had taken the train from Patesville for the distant North; so, if he had but known it, there was no necessity for him to avoid the main streets and sneak around by unfrequented paths to reach the old place on the other side of the town. He encountered nobody that he knew, and soon the familiar shape of the little cabin rose before him. It stood distinctly outlined against the sky, and the light streaming from the half-opened shutters showed it to be occupied. As he drew nearer, every familiar detail of the place appealed to his memory and to his affections, and his heart went out to the old home and the old wife. As he came nearer still, the odor of fried chicken floated out upon the air and set his mouth to watering, and awakened unspeakable longings in his half-starved stomach. At this moment, however, a fearful thought struck him; suppose the old woman had taken legal advice and married again during his absence? Turn about would have been only fair play. He opened the gate softly, and with his heart in his mouth approached the window on tiptoe and looked in. A cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth, in front of which sat the familiar form of aunt Milly--and another, at the sight of whom uncle Wellington's heart sank within him. He knew the other person very well; he had sat there more than once before uncle Wellington went away. It was the minister of the church to which his wife belonged. The preacher's former visits, however, had signified nothing more than pastoral courtesy, or appreciation of good eating. His presence now was of serious portent; for Wellington recalled, with acute alarm, that the elder's wife had died only a few weeks before his own departure for the North. What was the occasion of his presence this evening? Was it merely a pastoral call? or was he courting? or had aunt Milly taken legal advice and married the elder? Wellington remembered a crack in the wall, at the back of the house, through which he could see and hear, and quietly stationed himself there. "Dat chicken smells mighty good, Sis' Milly," the elder was saying; "I can't fer de life er me see why dat low-down husban' er yo'n could ever run away f'm a cook like you. It 's one er de beatenis' things I ever heared. How he could lib wid you an' not 'preciate you _I_ can't understan', no indeed I can't." Aunt Milly sighed. "De trouble wid Wellin'ton wuz," she replied, "dat he did n' know when he wuz well off. He wuz alluz wishin' fer change, er studyin' 'bout somethin' new." "Ez fer me," responded the elder earnestly, "I likes things what has be'n prove' an' tried an' has stood de tes', an' I can't 'magine how anybody could spec' ter fin' a better housekeeper er cook dan you is, Sis' Milly. I 'm a gittin' mighty lonesome sence my wife died. De Good Book say it is not good fer man ter lib alone, en it 'pears ter me dat you an' me mought git erlong tergether monst'us well." Wellington's heart stood still, while he listened with strained attention. Aunt Milly sighed. "I ain't denyin', elder, but what I 've be'n kinder lonesome myse'f fer quite a w'ile, an' I doan doubt dat w'at de Good Book say 'plies ter women as well as ter men." "You kin be sho' it do," averred the elder, with professional authoritativeness; "yas 'm, you kin be cert'n sho'." "But, of co'se," aunt Milly went on, "havin' los' my ole man de way I did, it has tuk me some time fer ter git my feelin's straighten' out like dey oughter be." "I kin 'magine yo' feelin's, Sis' Milly," chimed in the elder sympathetically, "w'en you come home dat night an' foun' yo' chist broke open, an' yo' money gone dat you had wukked an' slaved full f'm mawnin' 'tel night, year in an' year out, an' w'en you foun' dat no-'count nigger gone wid his clo's an' you lef' all alone in de worl' ter scuffle 'long by yo'self." "Yas, elder," responded aunt Milly, "I wa'n't used right. An' den w'en I heared 'bout his goin' ter de lawyer ter fin' out 'bout a defoce, an' w'en I heared w'at de lawyer said 'bout my not bein' his wife 'less he wanted me, it made me so mad, I made up my min' dat ef he ever put his foot on my do'sill ag'in, I 'd shet de do' in his face an' tell 'im ter go back whar he come f'm." To Wellington, on the outside, the cabin had never seemed so comfortable, aunt Milly never so desirable, chicken never so appetizing, as at this moment when they seemed slipping away from his grasp forever. "Yo' feelin's does you credit, Sis' Milly," said the elder, taking her hand, which for a moment she did not withdraw. "An' de way fer you ter close yo' do' tightes' ag'inst 'im is ter take me in his place. He ain' got no claim on you no mo'. He tuk his ch'ice 'cordin' ter w'at de lawyer tol' 'im, an' 'termine' dat he wa'n't yo' husban'. Ef he wa'n't yo' husban', he had no right ter take yo' money, an' ef he comes back here ag'in you kin hab 'im tuck up an' sent ter de penitenchy fer stealin' it." Uncle Wellington's knees, already weak from fasting, trembled violently beneath him. The worst that he had feared was now likely to happen. His only hope of safety lay in flight, and yet the scene within so fascinated him that he could not move a step. "It 'u'd serve him right," exclaimed aunt Milly indignantly, "ef he wuz sent ter de penitenchy fer life! Dey ain't nuthin' too mean ter be done ter 'im. What did I ever do dat he should use me like he did?" The recital of her wrongs had wrought upon aunt Milly's feelings so that her voice broke, and she wiped her eyes with her apron. The elder looked serenely confident, and moved his chair nearer hers in order the better to play the role of comforter. Wellington, on the outside, felt so mean that the darkness of the night was scarcely sufficient to hide him; it would be no more than right if the earth were to open and swallow him up. "An' yet aftuh all, elder," said Milly with a sob, "though I knows you is a better man, an' would treat me right, I wuz so use' ter dat ole nigger, an' libbed wid 'im so long, dat ef he 'd open dat do' dis minute an' walk in, I 'm feared I 'd be foolish ernuff an' weak ernuff to forgive 'im an' take 'im back ag'in." With a bound, uncle Wellington was away from the crack in the wall. As he ran round the house he passed the wood-pile and snatched up an armful of pieces. A moment later he threw open the door. "Ole 'oman," he exclaimed, "here 's dat wood you tol' me ter fetch in! Why, elder," he said to the preacher, who had started from his seat with surprise, "w'at's yo' hurry? Won't you stay an' hab some supper wid us?" The Bouquet Mary Myrover's friends were somewhat surprised when she began to teach a colored school. Miss Myrover's friends are mentioned here, because nowhere more than in a Southern town is public opinion a force which cannot be lightly contravened. Public opinion, however, did not oppose Miss Myrover's teaching colored children; in fact, all the colored public schools in town--and there were several--were taught by white teachers, and had been so taught since the State had undertaken to provide free public instruction for all children within its boundaries. Previous to that time, there had been a Freedman's Bureau school and a Presbyterian missionary school, but these had been withdrawn when the need for them became less pressing. The colored people of the town had been for some time agitating their right to teach their own schools, but as yet the claim had not been conceded. The reason Miss Myrover's course created some surprise was not, therefore, the fact that a Southern white woman should teach a colored school; it lay in the fact that up to this time no woman of just her quality had taken up such work. Most of the teachers of colored schools were not of those who had constituted the aristocracy of the old régime; they might be said rather to represent the new order of things, in which labor was in time to become honorable, and men were, after a somewhat longer time, to depend, for their place in society, upon themselves rather than upon their ancestors. Mary Myrover belonged to one of the proudest of the old families. Her ancestors had been people of distinction in Virginia before a collateral branch of the main stock had settled in North Carolina. Before the war, they had been able to live up to their pedigree; but the war brought sad changes. Miss Myrover's father--the Colonel Myrover who led a gallant but desperate charge at Vicksburg--had fallen on the battlefield, and his tomb in the white cemetery was a shrine for the family. On the Confederate Memorial Day, no other grave was so profusely decorated with flowers, and, in the oration pronounced, the name of Colonel Myrover was always used to illustrate the highest type of patriotic devotion and self-sacrifice. Miss Myrover's brother, too, had fallen in the conflict; but his bones lay in some unknown trench, with those of a thousand others who had fallen on the same field. Ay, more, her lover, who had hoped to come home in the full tide of victory and claim his bride as a reward for gallantry, had shared the fate of her father and brother. When the war was over, the remnant of the family found itself involved in the common ruin,--more deeply involved, indeed, than some others; for Colonel Myrover had believed in the ultimate triumph of his cause, and had invested most of his wealth in Confederate bonds, which were now only so much waste paper. There had been a little left. Mrs. Myrover was thrifty, and had laid by a few hundred dollars, which she kept in the house to meet unforeseen contingencies. There remained, too, their home, with an ample garden and a well-stocked orchard, besides a considerable tract of country land, partly cleared, but productive of very little revenue. With their shrunken resources, Miss Myrover and her mother were able to hold up their heads without embarrassment for some years after the close of the war. But when things were adjusted to the changed conditions, and the stream of life began to flow more vigorously in the new channels, they saw themselves in danger of dropping behind, unless in some way they could add to their meagre income. Miss Myrover looked over the field of employment, never very wide for women in the South, and found it occupied. The only available position she could be supposed prepared to fill, and which she could take without distinct loss of caste, was that of a teacher, and there was no vacancy except in one of the colored schools. Even teaching was a doubtful experiment; it was not what she would have preferred, but it was the best that could be done. "I don't like it, Mary," said her mother. "It 's a long step from owning such people to teaching them. What do they need with education? It will only make them unfit for work." "They 're free now, mother, and perhaps they 'll work better if they 're taught something. Besides, it 's only a business arrangement, and does n't involve any closer contact than we have with our servants." "Well, I should say not!" sniffed the old lady. "Not one of them will ever dare to presume on your position to take any liberties with us. _I_ 'll see to that." Miss Myrover began her work as a teacher in the autumn, at the opening of the school year. It was a novel experience at first. Though there had always been negro servants in the house, and though on the streets colored people were more numerous than those of her own race, and though she was so familiar with their dialect that she might almost be said to speak it, barring certain characteristic grammatical inaccuracies, she had never been brought in personal contact with so many of them at once as when she confronted the fifty or sixty faces--of colors ranging from a white almost as clear as her own to the darkest livery of the sun--which were gathered in the schoolroom on the morning when she began her duties. Some of the inherited prejudice of her caste, too, made itself felt, though she tried to repress any outward sign of it; and she could perceive that the children were not altogether responsive; they, likewise, were not entirely free from antagonism. The work was unfamiliar to her. She was not physically very strong, and at the close of the first day went home with a splitting headache. If she could have resigned then and there without causing comment or annoyance to others, she would have felt it a privilege to do so. But a night's rest banished her headache and improved her spirits, and the next morning she went to her work with renewed vigor, fortified by the experience of the first day. Miss Myrover's second day was more satisfactory. She had some natural talent for organization, though hitherto unaware of it, and in the course of the day she got her classes formed and lessons under way. In a week or two she began to classify her pupils in her own mind, as bright or stupid, mischievous or well behaved, lazy or industrious, as the case might be, and to regulate her discipline accordingly. That she had come of a long line of ancestors who had exercised authority and mastership was perhaps not without its effect upon her character, and enabled her more readily to maintain good order in the school. When she was fairly broken in, she found the work rather to her liking, and derived much pleasure from such success as she achieved as a teacher. It was natural that she should be more attracted to some of her pupils than to others. Perhaps her favorite--or, rather, the one she liked best, for she was too fair and just for conscious favoritism--was Sophy Tucker. Just the ground for the teacher's liking for Sophy might not at first be apparent. The girl was far from the whitest of Miss Myrover's pupils; in fact, she was one of the darker ones. She was not the brightest in intellect, though she always tried to learn her lessons. She was not the best dressed, for her mother was a poor widow, who went out washing and scrubbing for a living. Perhaps the real tie between them was Sophy's intense devotion to the teacher. It had manifested itself almost from the first day of the school, in the rapt look of admiration Miss Myrover always saw on the little black face turned toward her. In it there was nothing of envy, nothing of regret; nothing but worship for the beautiful white lady--she was not especially handsome, but to Sophy her beauty was almost divine--who had come to teach her. If Miss Myrover dropped a book, Sophy was the first to spring and pick it up; if she wished a chair moved, Sophy seemed to anticipate her wish; and so of all the numberless little services that can be rendered in a schoolroom. Miss Myrover was fond of flowers, and liked to have them about her. The children soon learned of this taste of hers, and kept the vases on her desk filled with blossoms during their season. Sophy was perhaps the most active in providing them. If she could not get garden flowers, she would make excursions to the woods in the early morning, and bring in great dew-laden bunches of bay, or jasmine, or some other fragrant forest flower which she knew the teacher loved. "When I die, Sophy," Miss Myrover said to the child one day, "I want to be covered with roses. And when they bury me, I 'm sure I shall rest better if my grave is banked with flowers, and roses are planted at my head and at my feet." Miss Myrover was at first amused at Sophy's devotion; but when she grew more accustomed to it, she found it rather to her liking. It had a sort of flavor of the old régime, and she felt, when she bestowed her kindly notice upon her little black attendant, some of the feudal condescension of the mistress toward the slave. She was kind to Sophy, and permitted her to play the rôle she had assumed, which caused sometimes a little jealousy among the other girls. Once she gave Sophy a yellow ribbon which she took from her own hair. The child carried it home, and cherished it as a priceless treasure, to be worn only on the greatest occasions. Sophy had a rival in her attachment to the teacher, but the rivalry was altogether friendly. Miss Myrover had a little dog, a white spaniel, answering to the name of Prince. Prince was a dog of high degree, and would have very little to do with the children of the school; he made an exception, however, in the case of Sophy, whose devotion for his mistress he seemed to comprehend. He was a clever dog, and could fetch and carry, sit up on his haunches, extend his paw to shake hands, and possessed several other canine accomplishments. He was very fond of his mistress, and always, unless shut up at home, accompanied her to school, where he spent most of his time lying under the teacher's desk, or, in cold weather, by the stove, except when he would go out now and then and chase an imaginary rabbit round the yard, presumably for exercise. At school Sophy and Prince vied with each other in their attentions to Miss Myrover. But when school was over, Prince went away with her, and Sophy stayed behind; for Miss Myrover was white and Sophy was black, which they both understood perfectly well. Miss Myrover taught the colored children, but she could not be seen with them in public. If they occasionally met her on the street, they did not expect her to speak to them, unless she happened to be alone and no other white person was in sight. If any of the children felt slighted, she was not aware of it, for she intended no slight; she had not been brought up to speak to negroes on the street, and she could not act differently from other people. And though she was a woman of sentiment and capable of deep feeling, her training had been such that she hardly expected to find in those of darker hue than herself the same susceptibility--varying in degree, perhaps, but yet the same in kind--that gave to her own life the alternations of feeling that made it most worth living. Once Miss Myrover wished to carry home a parcel of books. She had the bundle in her hand when Sophy came up. "Lemme tote yo' bundle fer yer, Miss Ma'y?" she asked eagerly. "I 'm gwine yo' way." "Thank you, Sophy," was the reply. "I 'll be glad if you will." Sophy followed the teacher at a respectful distance. When they reached Miss Myrover's home, Sophy carried the bundle to the doorstep, where Miss Myrover took it and thanked her. Mrs. Myrover came out on the piazza as Sophy was moving away. She said, in the child's hearing, and perhaps with the intention that she should hear: "Mary, I wish you would n't let those little darkeys follow you to the house. I don't want them in the yard. I should think you 'd have enough of them all day." "Very well, mother," replied her daughter. "I won't bring any more of them. The child was only doing me a favor." Mrs. Myrover was an invalid, and opposition or irritation of any kind brought on nervous paroxysms that made her miserable, and made life a burden to the rest of the household, so that Mary seldom crossed her whims. She did not bring Sophy to the house again, nor did Sophy again offer her services as porter. One day in spring Sophy brought her teacher a bouquet of yellow roses. "Dey come off'n my own bush, Miss Ma'y," she said proudly, "an' I didn' let nobody e'se pull 'em, but saved 'em all fer you, 'cause I know you likes roses so much. I 'm gwine bring 'em all ter you as long as dey las'." "Thank you, Sophy," said the teacher; "you are a very good girl." For another year Mary Myrover taught the colored school, and did excellent service. The children made rapid progress under her tuition, and learned to love her well; for they saw and appreciated, as well as children could, her fidelity to a trust that she might have slighted, as some others did, without much fear of criticism. Toward the end of her second year she sickened, and after a brief illness died. Old Mrs. Myrover was inconsolable. She ascribed her daughter's death to her labors as teacher of negro children. Just how the color of the pupils had produced the fatal effects she did not stop to explain. But she was too old, and had suffered too deeply from the war, in body and mind and estate, ever to reconcile herself to the changed order of things following the return of peace; and, with an unsound yet perfectly explainable logic, she visited some of her displeasure upon those who had profited most, though passively, by her losses. "I always feared something would happen to Mary," she said. "It seemed unnatural for her to be wearing herself out teaching little negroes who ought to have been working for her. But the world has hardly been a fit place to live in since the war, and when I follow her, as I must before long, I shall not be sorry to go." She gave strict orders that no colored people should be admitted to the house. Some of her friends heard of this, and remonstrated. They knew the teacher was loved by the pupils, and felt that sincere respect from the humble would be a worthy tribute to the proudest. But Mrs. Myrover was obdurate. "They had my daughter when she was alive," she said, "and they 've killed her. But she 's mine now, and I won't have them come near her. I don't want one of them at the funeral or anywhere around." For a month before Miss Myrover's death Sophy had been watching her rosebush--the one that bore the yellow roses--for the first buds of spring, and, when these appeared, had awaited impatiently their gradual unfolding. But not until her teacher's death had they become full-blown roses. When Miss Myrover died, Sophy determined to pluck the roses and lay them on her coffin. Perhaps, she thought, they might even put them in her hand or on her breast. For Sophy remembered Miss Myrover's thanks and praise when she had brought her the yellow roses the spring before. On the morning of the day set for the funeral, Sophy washed her face until it shone, combed and brushed her hair with painful conscientiousness, put on her best frock, plucked her yellow roses, and, tying them with the treasured ribbon her teacher had given her, set out for Miss Myrover's home. She went round to the side gate--the house stood on a corner--and stole up the path to the kitchen. A colored woman, whom she did not know, came to the door. "Wat yer want, chile?" she inquired. "Kin I see Miss Ma'y?" asked Sophy timidly. "I don't know, honey. Ole Miss Myrover say she don't want no cullud folks roun' de house endyoin' dis fun'al. I 'll look an' see if she 's roun' de front room, whar de co'pse is. You sed down heah an' keep still, an' ef she 's upstairs maybe I kin git yer in dere a minute. Ef I can't, I kin put yo' bokay 'mongs' de res', whar she won't know nuthin' erbout it." A moment after she had gone, there was a step in the hall, and old Mrs. Myrover came into the kitchen. "Dinah!" she said in a peevish tone; "Dinah!" Receiving no answer, Mrs. Myrover peered around the kitchen, and caught sight of Sophy. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. "I-I 'm-m waitin' ter see de cook, ma'am," stammered Sophy. "The cook is n't here now. I don't know where she is. Besides, my daughter is to be buried to-day, and I won't have any one visiting the servants until the funeral is over. Come back some other day, or see the cook at her own home in the evening." She stood waiting for the child to go, and under the keen glance of her eyes Sophy, feeling as though she had been caught in some disgraceful act, hurried down the walk and out of the gate, with her bouquet in her hand. "Dinah," said Mrs. Myrover, when the cook came back, "I don't want any strange people admitted here to-day. The house will be full of our friends, and we have no room for others." "Yas 'm," said the cook. She understood perfectly what her mistress meant; and what the cook thought about her mistress was a matter of no consequence. The funeral services were held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, where the Myrovers had always worshiped. Quite a number of Miss Myrover's pupils went to the church to attend the services. The building was not a large one. There was a small gallery at the rear, to which colored people were admitted, if they chose to come, at ordinary services; and those who wished to be present at the funeral supposed that the usual custom would prevail. They were therefore surprised, when they went to the side entrance, by which colored people gained access to the gallery stairs, to be met by an usher who barred their passage. "I 'm sorry," he said, "but I have had orders to admit no one until the friends of the family have all been seated. If you wish to wait until the white people have all gone in, and there 's any room left, you may be able to get into the back part of the gallery. Of course I can't tell yet whether there 'll be any room or not." Now the statement of the usher was a very reasonable one; but, strange to say, none of the colored people chose to remain except Sophy. She still hoped to use her floral offering for its destined end, in some way, though she did not know just how. She waited in the yard until the church was filled with white people, and a number who could not gain admittance were standing about the doors. Then she went round to the side of the church, and, depositing her bouquet carefully on an old mossy gravestone, climbed up on the projecting sill of a window near the chancel. The window was of stained glass, of somewhat ancient make. The church was old, had indeed been built in colonial times, and the stained glass had been brought from England. The design of the window showed Jesus blessing little children. Time had dealt gently with the window, but just at the feet of the figure of Jesus a small triangular piece of glass had been broken out. To this aperture Sophy applied her eyes, and through it saw and heard what she could of the services within. Before the chancel, on trestles draped in black, stood the sombre casket in which lay all that was mortal of her dear teacher. The top of the casket was covered with flowers; and lying stretched out underneath it she saw Miss Myrover's little white dog, Prince. He had followed the body to the church, and, slipping in unnoticed among the mourners, had taken his place, from which no one had the heart to remove him. The white-robed rector read the solemn service for the dead, and then delivered a brief address, in which he dwelt upon the uncertainty of life, and, to the believer, the certain blessedness of eternity. He spoke of Miss Myrover's kindly spirit, and, as an illustration of her love and self-sacrifice for others, referred to her labors as a teacher of the poor ignorant negroes who had been placed in their midst by an all-wise Providence, and whom it was their duty to guide and direct in the station in which God had put them. Then the organ pealed, a prayer was said, and the long cortege moved from the church to the cemetery, about half a mile away, where the body was to be interred. When the services were over, Sophy sprang down from her perch, and, taking her flowers, followed the procession. She did not walk with the rest, but at a proper and respectful distance from the last mourner. No one noticed the little black girl with the bunch of yellow flowers, or thought of her as interested in the funeral. The cortege reached the cemetery and filed slowly through the gate; but Sophy stood outside, looking at a small sign in white letters on a black background:---- "_Notice_. This cemetery is for white people only. Others please keep out." Sophy, thanks to Miss Myrover's painstaking instruction, could read this sign very distinctly. In fact, she had often read it before. For Sophy was a child who loved beauty, in a blind, groping sort of way, and had sometimes stood by the fence of the cemetery and looked through at the green mounds and shaded walks and blooming flowers within, and wished that she might walk among them. She knew, too, that the little sign on the gate, though so courteously worded, was no mere formality; for she had heard how a colored man, who had wandered into the cemetery on a hot night and fallen asleep on the flat top of a tomb, had been arrested as a vagrant and fined five dollars, which he had worked out on the streets, with a ball-and-chain attachment, at twenty-five cents a day. Since that time the cemetery gate had been locked at night. So Sophy stayed outside, and looked through the fence. Her poor bouquet had begun to droop by this time, and the yellow ribbon had lost some of its freshness. Sophy could see the rector standing by the grave, the mourners gathered round; she could faintly distinguish the solemn words with which ashes were committed to ashes, and dust to dust. She heard the hollow thud of the earth falling on the coffin; and she leaned against the iron fence, sobbing softly, until the grave was filled and rounded off, and the wreaths and other floral pieces were disposed upon it. When the mourners began to move toward the gate, Sophy walked slowly down the street, in a direction opposite to that taken by most of the people who came out. When they had all gone away, and the sexton had come out and locked the gate behind him, Sophy crept back. Her roses were faded now, and from some of them the petals had fallen. She stood there irresolute, loath to leave with her heart's desire unsatisfied, when, as her eyes sought again the teacher's last resting-place, she saw lying beside the new-made grave what looked like a small bundle of white wool. Sophy's eyes lighted up with a sudden glow. "Prince! Here, Prince!" she called. The little dog rose, and trotted down to the gate. Sophy pushed the poor bouquet between the iron bars. "Take that ter Miss Ma'y, Prince," she said, "that 's a good doggie." The dog wagged his tail intelligently, took the bouquet carefully in his mouth, carried it to his mistress's grave, and laid it among the other flowers. The bunch of roses was so small that from where she stood Sophy could see only a dash of yellow against the white background of the mass of flowers. When Prince had performed his mission he turned his eyes toward Sophy inquiringly, and when she gave him a nod of approval lay down and resumed his watch by the graveside. Sophy looked at him a moment with a feeling very much like envy, and then turned and moved slowly away. The Web of Circumstance I Within a low clapboarded hut, with an open front, a forge was glowing. In front a blacksmith was shoeing a horse, a sleek, well-kept animal with the signs of good blood and breeding. A young mulatto stood by and handed the blacksmith such tools as he needed from time to time. A group of negroes were sitting around, some in the shadow of the shop, one in the full glare of the sunlight. A gentleman was seated in a buggy a few yards away, in the shade of a spreading elm. The horse had loosened a shoe, and Colonel Thornton, who was a lover of fine horseflesh, and careful of it, had stopped at Ben Davis's blacksmith shop, as soon as he discovered the loose shoe, to have it fastened on. "All right, Kunnel," the blacksmith called out. "Tom," he said, addressing the young man, "he'p me hitch up." Colonel Thornton alighted from the buggy, looked at the shoe, signified his approval of the job, and stood looking on while the blacksmith and his assistant harnessed the horse to the buggy. "Dat 's a mighty fine whip yer got dere, Kunnel," said Ben, while the young man was tightening the straps of the harness on the opposite side of the horse. "I wush I had one like it. Where kin yer git dem whips?" "My brother brought me this from New York," said the Colonel. "You can't buy them down here." The whip in question was a handsome one. The handle was wrapped with interlacing threads of variegated colors, forming an elaborate pattern, the lash being dark green. An octagonal ornament of glass was set in the end of the handle. "It cert'n'y is fine," said Ben; "I wish I had one like it." He looked at the whip longingly as Colonel Thornton drove away. "'Pears ter me Ben gittin' mighty blooded," said one of the bystanders, "drivin' a hoss an' buggy, an' wantin' a whip like Colonel Thornton's." "What 's de reason I can't hab a hoss an' buggy an' a whip like Kunnel Tho'nton's, ef I pay fer 'em?" asked Ben. "We colored folks never had no chance ter git nothin' befo' de wah, but ef eve'y nigger in dis town had a tuck keer er his money sence de wah, like I has, an' bought as much lan' as I has, de niggers might 'a' got half de lan' by dis time," he went on, giving a finishing blow to a horseshoe, and throwing it on the ground to cool. Carried away by his own eloquence, he did not notice the approach of two white men who came up the street from behind him. "An' ef you niggers," he continued, raking the coals together over a fresh bar of iron, "would stop wastin' yo' money on 'scursions to put money in w'ite folks' pockets, an' stop buildin' fine chu'ches, an' buil' houses fer yo'se'ves, you 'd git along much faster." "You 're talkin' sense, Ben," said one of the white men. "Yo'r people will never be respected till they 've got property." The conversation took another turn. The white men transacted their business and went away. The whistle of a neighboring steam sawmill blew a raucous blast for the hour of noon, and the loafers shuffled away in different directions. "You kin go ter dinner, Tom," said the blacksmith. "An' stop at de gate w'en yer go by my house, and tell Nancy I 'll be dere in 'bout twenty minutes. I got ter finish dis yer plough p'int fus'." The young man walked away. One would have supposed, from the rapidity with which he walked, that he was very hungry. A quarter of an hour later the blacksmith dropped his hammer, pulled off his leather apron, shut the front door of the shop, and went home to dinner. He came into the house out of the fervent heat, and, throwing off his straw hat, wiped his brow vigorously with a red cotton handkerchief. "Dem collards smells good," he said, sniffing the odor that came in through the kitchen door, as his good-looking yellow wife opened it to enter the room where he was. "I 've got a monst'us good appetite ter-day. I feels good, too. I paid Majah Ransom de intrus' on de mortgage dis mawnin' an' a hund'ed dollahs besides, an' I spec's ter hab de balance ready by de fust of nex' Jiniwary; an' den we won't owe nobody a cent. I tell yer dere ain' nothin' like propputy ter make a pusson feel like a man. But w'at 's de matter wid yer, Nancy? Is sump'n' skeered yer?" The woman did seem excited and ill at ease. There was a heaving of the full bust, a quickened breathing, that betokened suppressed excitement. "I-I-jes' seen a rattlesnake out in de gyahden," she stammered. The blacksmith ran to the door. "Which way? Whar wuz he?" he cried. He heard a rustling in the bushes at one side of the garden, and the sound of a breaking twig, and, seizing a hoe which stood by the door, he sprang toward the point from which the sound came. "No, no," said the woman hurriedly, "it wuz over here," and she directed her husband's attention to the other side of the garden. The blacksmith, with the uplifted hoe, its sharp blade gleaming in the sunlight, peered cautiously among the collards and tomato plants, listening all the while for the ominous rattle, but found nothing. "I reckon he 's got away," he said, as he set the hoe up again by the door. "Whar 's de chillen?" he asked with some anxiety. "Is dey playin' in de woods?" "No," answered his wife, "dey 've gone ter de spring." The spring was on the opposite side of the garden from that on which the snake was said to have been seen, so the blacksmith sat down and fanned himself with a palm-leaf fan until the dinner was served. "Yer ain't quite on time ter-day, Nancy," he said, glancing up at the clock on the mantel, after the edge of his appetite had been taken off. "Got ter make time ef yer wanter make money. Did n't Tom tell yer I 'd be heah in twenty minutes?" "No," she said; "I seen him goin' pas'; he did n' say nothin'." "I dunno w'at 's de matter wid dat boy," mused the blacksmith over his apple dumpling. "He 's gittin' mighty keerless heah lately; mus' hab sump'n' on 'is min',--some gal, I reckon." The children had come in while he was speaking,--a slender, shapely boy, yellow like his mother, a girl several years younger, dark like her father: both bright-looking children and neatly dressed. "I seen cousin Tom down by de spring," said the little girl, as she lifted off the pail of water that had been balanced on her head. "He come out er de woods jest ez we wuz fillin' our buckets." "Yas," insisted the blacksmith, "he 's got some gal on his min'." II The case of the State of North Carolina _vs_. Ben Davis was called. The accused was led into court, and took his seat in the prisoner's dock. "Prisoner at the bar, stand up." The prisoner, pale and anxious, stood up. The clerk read the indictment, in which it was charged that the defendant by force and arms had entered the barn of one G.W. Thornton, and feloniously taken therefrom one whip, of the value of fifteen dollars. "Are you guilty or not guilty?" asked the judge. "Not guilty, yo' Honah; not guilty, Jedge. I never tuck de whip." The State's attorney opened the case. He was young and zealous. Recently elected to the office, this was his first batch of cases, and he was anxious to make as good a record as possible. He had no doubt of the prisoner's guilt. There had been a great deal of petty thieving in the county, and several gentlemen had suggested to him the necessity for greater severity in punishing it. The jury were all white men. The prosecuting attorney stated the case. "We expect to show, gentlemen of the jury, the facts set out in the indictment,--not altogether by direct proof, but by a chain of circumstantial evidence which is stronger even than the testimony of eyewitnesses. Men might lie, but circumstances cannot. We expect to show that the defendant is a man of dangerous character, a surly, impudent fellow; a man whose views of property are prejudicial to the welfare of society, and who has been heard to assert that half the property which is owned in this county has been stolen, and that, if justice were done, the white people ought to divide up the land with the negroes; in other words, a negro nihilist, a communist, a secret devotee of Tom Paine and Voltaire, a pupil of the anarchist propaganda, which, if not checked by the stern hand of the law, will fasten its insidious fangs on our social system, and drag it down to ruin." "We object, may it please your Honor," said the defendant's attorney. "The prosecutor should defer his argument until the testimony is in." "Confine yourself to the facts, Major," said the court mildly. The prisoner sat with half-open mouth, overwhelmed by this flood of eloquence. He had never heard of Tom Paine or Voltaire. He had no conception of what a nihilist or an anarchist might be, and could not have told the difference between a propaganda and a potato. "We expect to show, may it please the court, that the prisoner had been employed by Colonel Thornton to shoe a horse; that the horse was taken to the prisoner's blacksmith shop by a servant of Colonel Thornton's; that, this servant expressing a desire to go somewhere on an errand before the horse had been shod, the prisoner volunteered to return the horse to Colonel Thornton's stable; that he did so, and the following morning the whip in question was missing; that, from circumstances, suspicion naturally fell upon the prisoner, and a search was made of his shop, where the whip was found secreted; that the prisoner denied that the whip was there, but when confronted with the evidence of his crime, showed by his confusion that he was guilty beyond a peradventure." The prisoner looked more anxious; so much eloquence could not but be effective with the jury. The attorney for the defendant answered briefly, denying the defendant's guilt, dwelling upon his previous good character for honesty, and begging the jury not to pre-judge the case, but to remember that the law is merciful, and that the benefit of the doubt should be given to the prisoner. The prisoner glanced nervously at the jury. There was nothing in their faces to indicate the effect upon them of the opening statements. It seemed to the disinterested listeners as if the defendant's attorney had little confidence in his client's cause. Colonel Thornton took the stand and testified to his ownership of the whip, the place where it was kept, its value, and the fact that it had disappeared. The whip was produced in court and identified by the witness. He also testified to the conversation at the blacksmith shop in the course of which the prisoner had expressed a desire to possess a similar whip. The cross-examination was brief, and no attempt was made to shake the Colonel's testimony. The next witness was the constable who had gone with a warrant to search Ben's shop. He testified to the circumstances under which the whip was found. "He wuz brazen as a mule at fust, an' wanted ter git mad about it. But when we begun ter turn over that pile er truck in the cawner, he kinder begun ter trimble; when the whip-handle stuck out, his eyes commenced ter grow big, an' when we hauled the whip out he turned pale ez ashes, an' begun to swear he did n' take the whip an' did n' know how it got thar." "You may cross-examine," said the prosecuting attorney triumphantly. The prisoner felt the weight of the testimony, and glanced furtively at the jury, and then appealingly at his lawyer. "You say that Ben denied that he had stolen the whip," said the prisoner's attorney, on cross-examination. "Did it not occur to you that what you took for brazen impudence might have been but the evidence of conscious innocence?" The witness grinned incredulously, revealing thereby a few blackened fragments of teeth. "I 've tuck up more 'n a hundred niggers fer stealin', Kurnel, an' I never seed one yit that did n' 'ny it ter the las'." "Answer my question. Might not the witness's indignation have been a manifestation of conscious innocence? Yes or no?" "Yes, it mought, an' the moon mought fall--but it don't." Further cross-examination did not weaken the witness's testimony, which was very damaging, and every one in the court room felt instinctively that a strong defense would be required to break down the State's case. "The State rests," said the prosecuting attorney, with a ring in his voice which spoke of certain victory. There was a temporary lull in the proceedings, during which a bailiff passed a pitcher of water and a glass along the line of jury-men. The defense was then begun. The law in its wisdom did not permit the defendant to testify in his own behalf. There were no witnesses to the facts, but several were called to testify to Ben's good character. The colored witnesses made him out possessed of all the virtues. One or two white men testified that they had never known anything against his reputation for honesty. The defendant rested his case, and the State called its witnesses in rebuttal. They were entirely on the point of character. One testified that he had heard the prisoner say that, if the negroes had their rights, they would own at least half the property. Another testified that he had heard the defendant say that the negroes spent too much money on churches, and that they cared a good deal more for God than God had ever seemed to care for them. Ben Davis listened to this testimony with half-open mouth and staring eyes. Now and then he would lean forward and speak perhaps a word, when his attorney would shake a warning finger at him, and he would fall back helplessly, as if abandoning himself to fate; but for a moment only, when he would resume his puzzled look. The arguments followed. The prosecuting attorney briefly summed up the evidence, and characterized it as almost a mathematical proof of the prisoner's guilt. He reserved his eloquence for the closing argument. The defendant's attorney had a headache, and secretly believed his client guilty. His address sounded more like an appeal for mercy than a demand for justice. Then the State's attorney delivered the maiden argument of his office, the speech that made his reputation as an orator, and opened up to him a successful political career. The judge's charge to the jury was a plain, simple statement of the law as applied to circumstantial evidence, and the mere statement of the law foreshadowed the verdict. The eyes of the prisoner were glued to the jury-box, and he looked more and more like a hunted animal. In the rear of the crowd of blacks who filled the back part of the room, partly concealed by the projecting angle of the fireplace, stood Tom, the blacksmith's assistant. If the face is the mirror of the soul, then this man's soul, taken off its guard in this moment of excitement, was full of lust and envy and all evil passions. The jury filed out of their box, and into the jury room behind the judge's stand. There was a moment of relaxation in the court room. The lawyers fell into conversation across the table. The judge beckoned to Colonel Thornton, who stepped forward, and they conversed together a few moments. The prisoner was all eyes and ears in this moment of waiting, and from an involuntary gesture on the part of the judge he divined that they were speaking of him. It is a pity he could not hear what was said. "How do you feel about the case, Colonel?" asked the judge. "Let him off easy," replied Colonel Thornton. "He 's the best blacksmith in the county." The business of the court seemed to have halted by tacit consent, in anticipation of a quick verdict. The suspense did not last long. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed when there was a rap on the door, the officer opened it, and the jury came out. The prisoner, his soul in his eyes, sought their faces, but met no reassuring glance; they were all looking away from him. "Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?" "We have," responded the foreman. The clerk of the court stepped forward and took the fateful slip from the foreman's hand. The clerk read the verdict: "We, the jury impaneled and sworn to try the issues in this cause, do find the prisoner guilty as charged in the indictment." There was a moment of breathless silence. Then a wild burst of grief from the prisoner's wife, to which his two children, not understanding it all, but vaguely conscious of some calamity, added their voices in two long, discordant wails, which would have been ludicrous had they not been heartrending. The face of the young man in the back of the room expressed relief and badly concealed satisfaction. The prisoner fell back upon the seat from which he had half risen in his anxiety, and his dark face assumed an ashen hue. What he thought could only be surmised. Perhaps, knowing his innocence, he had not believed conviction possible; perhaps, conscious of guilt, he dreaded the punishment, the extent of which was optional with the judge, within very wide limits. Only one other person present knew whether or not he was guilty, and that other had slunk furtively from the court room. Some of the spectators wondered why there should be so much ado about convicting a negro of stealing a buggy-whip. They had forgotten their own interest of the moment before. They did not realize out of what trifles grow the tragedies of life. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, the hour for adjournment, when the verdict was returned. The judge nodded to the bailiff. "Oyez, oyez! this court is now adjourned until ten o'clock to-morrow morning," cried the bailiff in a singsong voice. The judge left the bench, the jury filed out of the box, and a buzz of conversation filled the court room. "Brace up, Ben, brace up, my boy," said the defendant's lawyer, half apologetically. "I did what I could for you, but you can never tell what a jury will do. You won't be sentenced till to-morrow morning. In the meantime I 'll speak to the judge and try to get him to be easy with you. He may let you off with a light fine." The negro pulled himself together, and by an effort listened. "Thanky, Majah," was all he said. He seemed to be thinking of something far away. He barely spoke to his wife when she frantically threw herself on him, and clung to his neck, as he passed through the side room on his way to jail. He kissed his children mechanically, and did not reply to the soothing remarks made by the jailer. III There was a good deal of excitement in town the next morning. Two white men stood by the post office talking. "Did yer hear the news?" "No, what wuz it?" "Ben Davis tried ter break jail las' night." "You don't say so! What a fool! He ain't be'n sentenced yit." "Well, now," said the other, "I 've knowed Ben a long time, an' he wuz a right good nigger. I kinder found it hard ter b'lieve he did steal that whip. But what 's a man's feelin's ag'in' the proof?" They spoke on awhile, using the past tense as if they were speaking of a dead man. "Ef I know Jedge Hart, Ben 'll wish he had slep' las' night, 'stidder tryin' ter break out'n jail." At ten o'clock the prisoner was brought into court. He walked with shambling gait, bent at the shoulders, hopelessly, with downcast eyes, and took his seat with several other prisoners who had been brought in for sentence. His wife, accompanied by the children, waited behind him, and a number of his friends were gathered in the court room. The first prisoner sentenced was a young white man, convicted several days before of manslaughter. The deed was done in the heat of passion, under circumstances of great provocation, during a quarrel about a woman. The prisoner was admonished of the sanctity of human life, and sentenced to one year in the penitentiary. The next case was that of a young clerk, eighteen or nineteen years of age, who had committed a forgery in order to procure the means to buy lottery tickets. He was well connected, and the case would not have been prosecuted if the judge had not refused to allow it to be nolled, and, once brought to trial, a conviction could not have been avoided. "You are a young man," said the judge gravely, yet not unkindly, "and your life is yet before you. I regret that you should have been led into evil courses by the lust for speculation, so dangerous in its tendencies, so fruitful of crime and misery. I am led to believe that you are sincerely penitent, and that, after such punishment as the law cannot remit without bringing itself into contempt, you will see the error of your ways and follow the strict path of rectitude. Your fault has entailed distress not only upon yourself, but upon your relatives, people of good name and good family, who suffer as keenly from your disgrace as you yourself. Partly out of consideration for their feelings, and partly because I feel that, under the circumstances, the law will be satisfied by the penalty I shall inflict, I sentence you to imprisonment in the county jail for six months, and a fine of one hundred dollars and the costs of this action." "The jedge talks well, don't he?" whispered one spectator to another. "Yes, and kinder likes ter hear hisse'f talk," answered the other. "Ben Davis, stand up," ordered the judge. He might have said "Ben Davis, wake up," for the jailer had to touch the prisoner on the shoulder to rouse him from his stupor. He stood up, and something of the hunted look came again into his eyes, which shifted under the stern glance of the judge. "Ben Davis, you have been convicted of larceny, after a fair trial before twelve good men of this county. Under the testimony, there can be no doubt of your guilt. The case is an aggravated one. You are not an ignorant, shiftless fellow, but a man of more than ordinary intelligence among your people, and one who ought to know better. You have not even the poor excuse of having stolen to satisfy hunger or a physical appetite. Your conduct is wholly without excuse, and I can only regard your crime as the result of a tendency to offenses of this nature, a tendency which is only too common among your people; a tendency which is a menace to civilization, a menace to society itself, for society rests upon the sacred right of property. Your opinions, too, have been given a wrong turn; you have been heard to utter sentiments which, if disseminated among an ignorant people, would breed discontent, and give rise to strained relations between them and their best friends, their old masters, who understand their real nature and their real needs, and to whose justice and enlightened guidance they can safely trust. Have you anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon you?" "Nothin', suh, cep'n dat I did n' take de whip." "The law, largely, I think, in view of the peculiar circumstances of your unfortunate race, has vested a large discretion in courts as to the extent of the punishment for offenses of this kind. Taking your case as a whole, I am convinced that it is one which, for the sake of the example, deserves a severe punishment. Nevertheless, I do not feel disposed to give you the full extent of the law, which would be twenty years in the penitentiary,[1] but, considering the fact that you have a family, and have heretofore borne a good reputation in the community, I will impose upon you the light sentence of imprisonment for five years in the penitentiary at hard labor. And I hope that this will be a warning to you and others who may be similarly disposed, and that after your sentence has expired you may lead the life of a law-abiding citizen." [Footnote 1: There are no degrees of larceny in North Carolina, and the penalty for any offense lies in the discretion of the judge, to the limit of twenty years.] "O Ben! O my husband! O God!" moaned the poor wife, and tried to press forward to her husband's side. "Keep back, Nancy, keep back," said the jailer. "You can see him in jail." Several people were looking at Ben's face. There was one flash of despair, and then nothing but a stony blank, behind which he masked his real feelings, whatever they were. Human character is a compound of tendencies inherited and habits acquired. In the anxiety, the fear of disgrace, spoke the nineteenth century civilization with which Ben Davis had been more or less closely in touch during twenty years of slavery and fifteen years of freedom. In the stolidity with which he received this sentence for a crime which he had not committed, spoke who knows what trait of inherited savagery? For stoicism is a savage virtue. IV One morning in June, five years later, a black man limped slowly along the old Lumberton plank road; a tall man, whose bowed shoulders made him seem shorter than he was, and a face from which it was difficult to guess his years, for in it the wrinkles and flabbiness of age were found side by side with firm white teeth, and eyes not sunken,--eyes bloodshot, and burning with something, either fever or passion. Though he limped painfully with one foot, the other hit the ground impatiently, like the good horse in a poorly matched team. As he walked along, he was talking to himself:---- "I wonder what dey 'll do w'en I git back? I wonder how Nancy 's s'ported the fambly all dese years? Tuck in washin', I s'ppose,--she was a monst'us good washer an' ironer. I wonder ef de chillun 'll be too proud ter reco'nize deir daddy come back f'um de penetenchy? I 'spec' Billy must be a big boy by dis time. He won' b'lieve his daddy ever stole anything. I 'm gwine ter slip roun' an' s'prise 'em." Five minutes later a face peered cautiously into the window of what had once been Ben Davis's cabin,--at first an eager face, its coarseness lit up with the fire of hope; a moment later a puzzled face; then an anxious, fearful face as the man stepped away from the window and rapped at the door. "Is Mis' Davis home?" he asked of the woman who opened the door. "Mis' Davis don' live here. You er mistook in de house." "Whose house is dis?" "It b'longs ter my husban', Mr. Smith,--Primus Smith." "'Scuse me, but I knowed de house some years ago w'en I wuz here oncet on a visit, an' it b'longed ter a man name' Ben Davis." "Ben Davis--Ben Davis?--oh yes, I 'member now. Dat wuz de gen'man w'at wuz sent ter de penitenchy fer sump'n er nuther,--sheep-stealin', I b'lieve. Primus," she called, "w'at wuz Ben Davis, w'at useter own dis yer house, sent ter de penitenchy fer?" "Hoss-stealin'," came back the reply in sleepy accents, from the man seated by the fireplace. The traveler went on to the next house. A neat-looking yellow woman came to the door when he rattled the gate, and stood looking suspiciously at him. "W'at you want?" she asked. "Please, ma'am, will you tell me whether a man name' Ben Davis useter live in dis neighborhood?" "Useter live in de nex' house; wuz sent ter de penitenchy fer killin' a man." "Kin yer tell me w'at went wid Mis' Davis?" "Umph! I 's a 'spectable 'oman, I is, en don' mix wid dem kind er people. She wuz 'n' no better 'n her husban'. She tuk up wid a man dat useter wuk fer Ben, an' dey 're livin' down by de ole wagon-ya'd, where no 'spectable 'oman ever puts her foot." "An' de chillen?" "De gal 's dead. Wuz 'n' no better 'n she oughter be'n. She fell in de crick an' got drown'; some folks say she wuz 'n' sober w'en it happen'. De boy tuck atter his pappy. He wuz 'rested las' week fer shootin' a w'ite man, an' wuz lynch' de same night. Dey wa'n't none of 'em no 'count after deir pappy went ter de penitenchy." "What went wid de proputty?" "Hit wuz sol' fer de mortgage, er de taxes, er de lawyer, er sump'n,--I don' know w'at. A w'ite man got it." The man with the bundle went on until he came to a creek that crossed the road. He descended the sloping bank, and, sitting on a stone in the shade of a water-oak, took off his coarse brogans, unwound the rags that served him in lieu of stockings, and laved in the cool water the feet that were chafed with many a weary mile of travel. After five years of unrequited toil, and unspeakable hardship in convict camps,--five years of slaving by the side of human brutes, and of nightly herding with them in vermin-haunted huts,--Ben Davis had become like them. For a while he had received occasional letters from home, but in the shifting life of the convict camp they had long since ceased to reach him, if indeed they had been written. For a year or two, the consciousness of his innocence had helped to make him resist the debasing influences that surrounded him. The hope of shortening his sentence by good behavior, too, had worked a similar end. But the transfer from one contractor to another, each interested in keeping as long as possible a good worker, had speedily dissipated any such hope. When hope took flight, its place was not long vacant. Despair followed, and black hatred of all mankind, hatred especially of the man to whom he attributed all his misfortunes. One who is suffering unjustly is not apt to indulge in fine abstractions, nor to balance probabilities. By long brooding over his wrongs, his mind became, if not unsettled, at least warped, and he imagined that Colonel Thornton had deliberately set a trap into which he had fallen. The Colonel, he convinced himself, had disapproved of his prosperity, and had schemed to destroy it. He reasoned himself into the belief that he represented in his person the accumulated wrongs of a whole race, and Colonel Thornton the race who had oppressed them. A burning desire for revenge sprang up in him, and he nursed it until his sentence expired and he was set at liberty. What he had learned since reaching home had changed his desire into a deadly purpose. When he had again bandaged his feet and slipped them into his shoes, he looked around him, and selected a stout sapling from among the undergrowth that covered the bank of the stream. Taking from his pocket a huge clasp-knife, he cut off the length of an ordinary walking stick and trimmed it. The result was an ugly-looking bludgeon, a dangerous weapon when in the grasp of a strong man. With the stick in his hand, he went on down the road until he approached a large white house standing some distance back from the street. The grounds were filled with a profusion of shrubbery. The negro entered the gate and secreted himself in the bushes, at a point where he could hear any one that might approach. It was near midday, and he had not eaten. He had walked all night, and had not slept. The hope of meeting his loved ones had been meat and drink and rest for him. But as he sat waiting, outraged nature asserted itself, and he fell asleep, with his head on the rising root of a tree, and his face upturned. And as he slept, he dreamed of his childhood; of an old black mammy taking care of him in the daytime, and of a younger face, with soft eyes, which bent over him sometimes at night, and a pair of arms which clasped him closely. He dreamed of his past,--of his young wife, of his bright children. Somehow his dreams all ran to pleasant themes for a while. Then they changed again. He dreamed that he was in the convict camp, and, by an easy transition, that he was in hell, consumed with hunger, burning with thirst. Suddenly the grinning devil who stood over him with a barbed whip faded away, and a little white angel came and handed him a drink of water. As he raised it to his lips the glass slipped, and he struggled back to consciousness. "Poo' man! Poo' man sick, an' sleepy. Dolly b'ing Powers to cover poo' man up. Poo' man mus' be hungry. Wen Dolly get him covered up, she go b'ing poo' man some cake." A sweet little child, as beautiful as a cherub escaped from Paradise, was standing over him. At first he scarcely comprehended the words the baby babbled out. But as they became clear to him, a novel feeling crept slowly over his heart. It had been so long since he had heard anything but curses and stern words of command, or the ribald songs of obscene merriment, that the clear tones of this voice from heaven cooled his calloused heart as the water of the brook had soothed his blistered feet. It was so strange, so unwonted a thing, that he lay there with half-closed eyes while the child brought leaves and flowers and laid them on his face and on his breast, and arranged them with little caressing taps. She moved away, and plucked a flower. And then she spied another farther on, and then another, and, as she gathered them, kept increasing the distance between herself and the man lying there, until she was several rods away. Ben Davis watched her through eyes over which had come an unfamiliar softness. Under the lingering spell of his dream, her golden hair, which fell in rippling curls, seemed like a halo of purity and innocence and peace, irradiating the atmosphere around her. It is true the thought occurred to Ben, vaguely, that through harm to her he might inflict the greatest punishment upon her father; but the idea came like a dark shape that faded away and vanished into nothingness as soon as it came within the nimbus that surrounded the child's person. The child was moving on to pluck still another flower, when there came a sound of hoof-beats, and Ben was aware that a horseman, visible through the shrubbery, was coming along the curved path that led from the gate to the house. It must be the man he was waiting for, and now was the time to wreak his vengeance. He sprang to his feet, grasped his club, and stood for a moment irresolute. But either the instinct of the convict, beaten, driven, and debased, or the influence of the child, which was still strong upon him, impelled him, after the first momentary pause, to flee as though seeking safety. His flight led him toward the little girl, whom he must pass in order to make his escape, and as Colonel Thornton turned the corner of the path he saw a desperate-looking negro, clad in filthy rags, and carrying in his hand a murderous bludgeon, running toward the child, who, startled by the sound of footsteps, had turned and was looking toward the approaching man with wondering eyes. A sickening fear came over the father's heart, and drawing the ever-ready revolver, which according to the Southern custom he carried always upon his person, he fired with unerring aim. Ben Davis ran a few yards farther, faltered, threw out his hands, and fell dead at the child's feet. * * * * * Some time, we are told, when the cycle of years has rolled around, there is to be another golden age, when all men will dwell together in love and harmony, and when peace and righteousness shall prevail for a thousand years. God speed the day, and let not the shining thread of hope become so enmeshed in the web of circumstance that we lose sight of it; but give us here and there, and now and then, some little foretaste of this golden age, that we may the more patiently and hopefully await its coming! APPENDIX Three essays on the Color Line: What is a White Man? (1889) The Future American (1900) The Disfranchisement of the Negro (1903) What is a White Man? The fiat having gone forth from the wise men of the South that the "all-pervading, all-conquering Anglo-Saxon race" must continue forever to exercise exclusive control and direction of the government of this so-called Republic, it becomes important to every citizen who values his birthright to know who are included in this grandiloquent term. It is of course perfectly obvious that the writer or speaker who used this expression--perhaps Mr. Grady of Georgia--did not say what he meant. It is not probable that he meant to exclude from full citizenship the Celts and Teutons and Gauls and Slavs who make up so large a proportion of our population; he hardly meant to exclude the Jews, for even the most ardent fire-eater would hardly venture to advocate the disfranchisement of the thrifty race whose mortgages cover so large a portion of Southern soil. What the eloquent gentleman really meant by this high-sounding phrase was simply the white race; and the substance of the argument of that school of Southern writers to which he belongs, is simply that for the good of the country the Negro should have no voice in directing the government or public policy of the Southern States or of the nation. But it is evident that where the intermingling of the races has made such progress as it has in this country, the line which separates the races must in many instances have been practically obliterated. And there has arisen in the United States a very large class of the population who are certainly not Negroes in an ethnological sense, and whose children will be no nearer Negroes than themselves. In view, therefore, of the very positive ground taken by the white leaders of the South, where most of these people reside, it becomes in the highest degree important to them to know what race they belong to. It ought to be also a matter of serious concern to the Southern white people; for if their zeal for good government is so great that they contemplate the practical overthrow of the Constitution and laws of the United States to secure it, they ought at least to be sure that no man entitled to it by their own argument, is robbed of a right so precious as that of free citizenship; the "all-pervading, all conquering Anglo-Saxon" ought to set as high a value on American citizenship as the all-conquering Roman placed upon the franchise of his State two thousand years ago. This discussion would of course be of little interest to the genuine Negro, who is entirely outside of the charmed circle, and must content himself with the acquisition of wealth, the pursuit of learning and such other privileges as his "best friends" may find it consistent with the welfare of the nation to allow him; but to every other good citizen the inquiry ought to be a momentous one. What is a white man? In spite of the virulence and universality of race prejudice in the United States, the human intellect long ago revolted at the manifest absurdity of classifying men fifteen-sixteenths white as black men; and hence there grew up a number of laws in different states of the Union defining the limit which separated the white and colored races, which was, when these laws took their rise and is now to a large extent, the line which separated freedom and opportunity from slavery or hopeless degradation. Some of these laws are of legislative origin; others are judge-made laws, brought out by the exigencies of special cases which came before the courts for determination. Some day they will, perhaps, become mere curiosities of jurisprudence; the "black laws" will be bracketed with the "blue laws," and will be at best but landmarks by which to measure the progress of the nation. But to-day these laws are in active operation, and they are, therefore, worthy of attention; for every good citizen ought to know the law, and, if possible, to respect it; and if not worthy of respect, it should be changed by the authority which enacted it. Whether any of the laws referred to here have been in any manner changed by very recent legislation the writer cannot say, but they are certainly embodied in the latest editions of the revised statutes of the states referred to. The colored people were divided, in most of the Southern States, into two classes, designated by law as Negroes and mulattoes respectively. The term Negro was used in its ethnological sense, and needed no definition; but the term "mulatto" was held by legislative enactment to embrace all persons of color not Negroes. The words "quadroon" and "mestizo" are employed in some of the law books, tho not defined; but the term "octoroon," as indicating a person having one-eighth of Negro blood, is not used at all, so far as the writer has been able to observe. The states vary slightly in regard to what constitutes a mulatto or person of color, and as to what proportion of white blood should be sufficient to remove the disability of color. As a general rule, less than one-fourth of Negro blood left the individual white--in theory; race questions being, however, regulated very differently in practice. In Missouri, by the code of 1855, still in operation, so far as not inconsistent with the Federal Constitution and laws, "any person other than a Negro, any one of whose grandmothers or grandfathers is or shall have been a Negro, tho all of his or her progenitors except those descended from the Negro may have been white persons, shall be deemed a mulatto." Thus the color-line is drawn at one-fourth of Negro blood, and persons with only one-eighth are white. By the Mississippi code of 1880, the color-line is drawn at one-fourth of Negro blood, all persons having less being theoretically white. Under the _code noir_ of Louisiana, the descendant of a white and a quadroon is white, thus drawing the line at one-eighth of Negro blood. The code of 1876 abolished all distinctions of color; as to whether they have been re-enacted since the Republican Party went out of power in that state the writer is not informed. Jumping to the extreme North, persons are white within the meaning of the Constitution of Michigan who have less than one-fourth of Negro blood. In Ohio the rule, as established by numerous decisions of the Supreme Court, was that a preponderance of white blood constituted a person a white man in the eye of the law, and entitled him to the exercise of all the civil rights of a white man. By a retrogressive step the color-line was extended in 1861 in the case of marriage, which by statute was forbidden between a person of pure white blood and one having a visible admixture of African blood. But by act of legislature, passed in the spring of 1887, all laws establishing or permitting distinctions of color were repealed. In many parts of the state these laws were always ignored, and they would doubtless have been repealed long ago but for the sentiment of the southern counties, separated only by the width of the Ohio River from a former slave-holding state. There was a bill introduced in the legislature during the last session to re-enact the "black laws," but it was hopelessly defeated; the member who introduced it evidently mistook his latitude; he ought to be a member of the Georgia legislature. But the state which, for several reasons, one might expect to have the strictest laws in regard to the relations of the races, has really the loosest. Two extracts from decisions of the Supreme Court of South Carolina will make clear the law of that state in regard to the color line. The definition of the term mulatto, as understood in this state, seems to be vague, signifying generally a person of mixed white or European and Negro parentage, in whatever proportions the blood of the two races may be mingled in the individual. But it is not invariably applicable to every admixture of African blood with the European, nor is one having all the features of a white to be ranked with the degraded class designated by the laws of this state as persons of color, because of some remote taint of the Negro race. The line of distinction, however, is not ascertained by any rule of law.... Juries would probably be justified in holding a person to be white in whom the admixture of African blood did not exceed the proportion of one-eighth. But it is in all cases a question for the jury, to be determined by them upon the evidence of features and complexion afforded by inspection, the evidence of reputation as to parentage, and the evidence of the rank and station in society occupied by the party. The only rule which can be laid down by the courts is that where there is a distinct and visible admixture of Negro blood, the individual is to be denominated a mulatto or person of color. In a later case the court held: "The question whether persons are colored or white, where color or feature are doubtful, is for the jury to decide by reputation, by reception into society, and by their exercise of the privileges of the white man, as well as by admixture of blood." It is an interesting question why such should have been, and should still be, for that matter, the law of South Carolina, and why there should exist in that state a condition of public opinion which would accept such a law. Perhaps it may be attributed to the fact that the colored population of South Carolina always outnumbered the white population, and the eagerness of the latter to recruit their ranks was sufficient to overcome in some measure their prejudice against the Negro blood. It is certainly true that the color-line is, in practice as in law, more loosely drawn in South Carolina than in any other Southern State, and that no inconsiderable element of the population of that state consists of these legal white persons, who were either born in the state, or, attracted thither by this feature of the laws, have come in from surrounding states, and, forsaking home and kindred, have taken their social position as white people. A reasonable degree of reticence in regard to one's antecedents is, however, usual in such cases. Before the War the color-line, as fixed by law, regulated in theory the civil and political status of persons of color. What that status was, was expressed in the Dred Scott decision. But since the War, or rather since the enfranchisement of the colored people, these laws have been mainly confined--in theory, be it always remembered--to the regulation of the intercourse of the races in schools and in the marriage relation. The extension of the color-line to places of public entertainment and resort, to inns and public highways, is in most states entirely a matter of custom. A colored man can sue in the courts of any Southern State for the violation of his common-law rights, and recover damages of say fifty cents without costs. A colored minister who sued a Baltimore steamboat company a few weeks ago for refusing him first-class accommodation, he having paid first-class fare, did not even meet with that measure of success; the learned judge, a Federal judge by the way, held that the plaintiff's rights had been invaded, and that he had suffered humiliation at the hands of the defendant company, but that "the humiliation was not sufficient to entitle him to damages." And the learned judge dismissed the action without costs to either party. Having thus ascertained what constitutes a white man, the good citizen may be curious to know what steps have been taken to preserve the purity of the white race. Nature, by some unaccountable oversight having to some extent neglected a matter so important to the future prosperity and progress of mankind. The marriage laws referred to here are in active operation, and cases under them are by no means infrequent. Indeed, instead of being behind the age, the marriage laws in the Southern States are in advance of public opinion; for very rarely will a Southern community stop to figure on the pedigree of the contracting parties to a marriage where one is white and the other is known to have any strain of Negro blood. In Virginia, under the title "Offenses against Morality," the law provides that "any white person who shall intermarry with a Negro shall be confined in jail not more than one year and fined not exceeding one hundred dollars." In a marginal note on the statute-book, attention is called to the fact that "a similar penalty is not imposed on the Negro"--a stretch of magnanimity to which the laws of other states are strangers. A person who performs the ceremony of marriage in such a case is fined two hundred dollars, one-half of which goes to the informer. In Maryland, a minister who performs the ceremony of marriage between a Negro and a white person is liable to a fine of one hundred dollars. In Mississippi, code of 1880, it is provided that "the marriage of a white person to a Negro or mulatto or person who shall have one-fourth or more of Negro blood, shall be unlawful"; and as this prohibition does not seem sufficiently emphatic, it is further declared to be "incestuous and void," and is punished by the same penalty prescribed for marriage within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity. But it is Georgia, the _alma genetrix_ of the chain-gang, which merits the questionable distinction of having the harshest set of color laws. By the law of Georgia the term "person of color" is defined to mean "all such as have an admixture of Negro blood, and the term 'Negro,' includes mulattoes." This definition is perhaps restricted somewhat by another provision, by which "all Negroes, mestizoes, and their descendants, having one-eighth of Negro or mulatto blood in their veins, shall be known in this State as persons of color." A colored minister is permitted to perform the ceremony of marriage between colored persons only, tho white ministers are not forbidden to join persons of color in wedlock. It is further provided that "the marriage relation between white persons and persons of African descent is forever prohibited, and such marriages shall be null and void." This is a very sweeping provision; it will be noticed that the term "persons of color," previously defined, is not employed, the expression "persons of African descent" being used instead. A court which was so inclined would find no difficulty in extending this provision of the law to the remotest strain of African blood. The marriage relation is forever prohibited. Forever is a long time. There is a colored woman in Georgia said to be worth $300,000--an immense fortune in the poverty stricken South. With a few hundred such women in that state, possessing a fair degree of good looks, the color-line would shrivel up like a scroll in the heat of competition for their hands in marriage. The penalty for the violation of the law against intermarriage is the same sought to be imposed by the defunct Glenn Bill for violation of its provisions; i.e., a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not to exceed six months, or twelve months in the chain-gang. Whatever the wisdom or justice of these laws, there is one objection to them which is not given sufficient prominence in the consideration of the subject, even where it is discussed at all; they make mixed blood a _prima-facie_ proof of illegitimacy. It is a fact that at present, in the United States, a colored man or woman whose complexion is white or nearly white is presumed, in the absence of any knowledge of his or her antecedents, to be the offspring of a union not sanctified by law. And by a curious but not uncommon process, such persons are not held in the same low estimation as white people in the same position. The sins of their fathers are not visited upon the children, in that regard at least; and their mothers' lapses from virtue are regarded either as misfortunes or as faults excusable under the circumstances. But in spite of all this, illegitimacy is not a desirable distinction, and is likely to become less so as these people of mixed blood advance in wealth and social standing. This presumption of illegitimacy was once, perhaps, true of the majority of such persons; but the times have changed. More than half of the colored people of the United States are of mixed blood; they marry and are given in marriage, and they beget children of complexions similar to their own. Whether or not, therefore, laws which stamp these children as illegitimate, and which by indirection establish a lower standard of morality for a large part of the population than the remaining part is judged by, are wise laws; and whether or not the purity of the white race could not be as well preserved by the exercise of virtue, and the operation of those natural laws which are so often quoted by Southern writers as the justification of all sorts of Southern "policies"--are questions which the good citizen may at least turn over in his mind occasionally, pending the settlement of other complications which have grown out of the presence of the Negro on this continent. _Independent_, May 30, 1889 The Future American WHAT THE RACE IS LIKELY TO BECOME IN THE PROCESS OF TIME The future American race is a popular theme for essayists, and has been much discussed. Most expressions upon the subject, however, have been characterized by a conscious or unconscious evasion of some of the main elements of the problem involved in the formation of a future American race, or, to put it perhaps more correctly, a future ethnic type that shall inhabit the northern part of the western continent. Some of these obvious omissions will be touched upon in these articles; and if the writer has any preconceived opinions that would affect his judgment, they are at least not the hackneyed prejudices of the past--if they lead to false conclusions, they at least furnish a new point of view, from which, taken with other widely differing views, the judicious reader may establish a parallax that will enable him to approximate the truth. The popular theory is that the future American race will consist of a harmonious fusion of the various European elements which now make up our heterogeneous population. The result is to be something infinitely superior to the best of the component elements. This perfection of type--no good American could for a moment doubt that it will be as perfect as everything else American--is to be brought about by a combination of all the best characteristics of the different European races, and the elimination, by some strange alchemy, of all their undesirable traits--for even a good American will admit that European races, now and then, have some undesirable traits when they first come over. It is a beautiful, a hopeful, and to the eye of faith, a thrilling prospect. The defect of the argument, however, lies in the incompleteness of the premises, and its obliviousness of certain facts of human nature and human history. Before putting forward any theory upon the subject, it may be well enough to remark that recent scientific research has swept away many hoary anthropological fallacies. It has been demonstrated that the shape or size of the head has little or nothing to do with the civilization or average intelligence of a race; that language, so recently lauded as an infallible test of racial origin is of absolutely no value in this connection, its distribution being dependent upon other conditions than race. Even color, upon which the social structure of the United States is so largely based, has been proved no test of race. The conception of a pure Aryan, Indo-European race has been abandoned in scientific circles, and the secret of the progress of Europe has been found in racial heterogeneity, rather than in racial purity. The theory that the Jews are a pure race has been exploded, and their peculiar type explained upon a different and much more satisfactory hypothesis. To illustrate the change of opinion and the growth of liberality in scientific circles, imagine the reception which would have been accorded to this proposition, if laid down by an American writer fifty or sixty years ago: "The European races, as a whole, show signs of a secondary or derived origin; certain characteristics, especially the texture of the hair, lead us to class them as intermediate between the extreme primary types of the Asiatic and Negro races respectively." This is put forward by the author, not as a mere hypothesis, but as a proposition fairly susceptible of proof, and is supported by an elaborate argument based upon microscopical comparisons, to which numerous authorities are cited. If this fact be borne in mind it will simplify in some degree our conception of a future American ethnic type. By modern research the unity of the human race has been proved (if it needed any proof to the careful or fair-minded observer), and the differentiation of races by selection and environment has been so stated as to prove itself. Greater emphasis has been placed upon environment as a factor in ethnic development, and what has been called "the vulgar theory of race," as accounting for progress and culture, has been relegated to the limbo of exploded dogmas. One of the most perspicuous and forceful presentations of these modern conclusions of anthropology is found in the volume above quoted, a book which owes its origin to a Boston scholar. Proceeding then upon the firm basis laid down by science and the historic parallel, it ought to be quite clear that the future American race--the future American ethnic type--will be formed of a mingling, in a yet to be ascertained proportion, of the various racial varieties which make up the present population of the United States; or, to extend the area a little farther, of the various peoples of the northern hemisphere of the western continent; for, if certain recent tendencies are an index of the future it is not safe to fix the boundaries of the future United States anywhere short of the Arctic Ocean on the north and the Isthmus of Panama on the south. But, even with the continuance of the present political divisions, conditions of trade and ease of travel are likely to gradually assimilate to one type all the countries of the hemisphere. Assuming that the country is so well settled that no great disturbance of ratios is likely to result from immigration, or any serious conflict of races, we may safely build our theory of a future American race upon the present population of the country. I use the word "race" here in its popular sense--that of a people who look substantially alike, and are moulded by the same culture and dominated by the same ideals. By the eleventh census, the ratios of which will probably not be changed materially by the census now under way, the total population of the United States was about 65,000,000, of which about seven million were black and colored, and something over 200,000 were of Indian blood. It is then in the three broad types--white, black and Indian--that the future American race will find the material for its formation. Any dream of a pure white race, of the Anglo-Saxon type, for the United States, may as well be abandoned as impossible, even if desirable. That such future race will be predominantly white may well be granted--unless climate in the course of time should modify existing types; that it will call itself white is reasonably sure; that it will conform closely to the white type is likely; but that it will have absorbed and assimilated the blood of the other two races mentioned is as certain as the operation of any law well can be that deals with so uncertain a quantity as the human race. There are no natural obstacles to such an amalgamation. The unity of the race is not only conceded but demonstrated by actual crossing. Any theory of sterility due to race crossing may as well be abandoned; it is founded mainly on prejudice and cannot be proved by the facts. If it come from Northern or European sources, it is likely to be weakened by lack of knowledge; if from Southern sources, it is sure to be colored by prejudices. My own observation is that in a majority of cases people of mixed blood are very prolific and very long-lived. The admixture of races in the United States has never taken place under conditions likely to produce the best results but there have nevertheless been enough conspicuous instances to the contrary in this country, to say nothing of a long and honorable list in other lands, to disprove the theory that people of mixed blood, other things being equal, are less virile, prolific or able than those of purer strains. But whether this be true or not is apart from this argument. Admitting that races may mix, and that they are thrown together under conditions which permit their admixture, the controlling motive will be not abstract considerations with regard to a remote posterity, but present interest and inclination. The Indian element in the United States proper is so small proportionally--about one in three hundred--and the conditions for its amalgamation so favorable, that it would of itself require scarcely any consideration in this argument. There is no prejudice against the Indian blood, in solution. A half or quarter-breed, removed from the tribal environment, is freely received among white people. After the second or third remove he may even boast of his Indian descent; it gives him a sort of distinction, and involves no social disability. The distribution of the Indian race, however, tends to make the question largely a local one, and the survival of tribal relation may postpone the results for some little time. It will be, however, the fault of the United States Indian himself if he be not speedily amalgamated with the white population. The Indian element, however, looms up larger when we include Mexico and Central America in our fields of discussion. By the census of Mexico just completed, over eighty per cent of the population is composed of mixed and Indian races. The remainder is presumably of pure Spanish, or European blood, with a dash of Negro along the coast. The population is something over twelve millions, thus adding nine millions of Indians and Mestizos to be taken into account. Add several millions of similar descent in Central America, a million in Porto Rico, who are said to have an aboriginal strain, and it may safely be figured that the Indian element will be quite considerable in the future American race. Its amalgamation will involve no great difficulty, however; it has been going on peacefully in the countries south of us for several centuries, and is likely to continue along similar lines. The peculiar disposition of the American to overlook mixed blood in a foreigner will simplify the gradual absorption of these Southern races. The real problem, then, the only hard problem in connection with the future American race, lies in the Negro element of our population. As I have said before, I believe it is destined to play its part in the formation of this new type. The process by which this will take place will be no sudden and wholesale amalgamation--a thing certainly not to be expected, and hardly to be desired. If it were held desirable, and one could imagine a government sufficiently autocratic to enforce its behests, it would be no great task to mix the races mechanically, leaving to time merely the fixing of the resultant type. Let us for curiosity outline the process. To start with, the Negroes are already considerably mixed--many of them in large proportion, and most of them in some degree--and the white people, as I shall endeavor to show later on, are many of them slightly mixed with the Negro. But we will assume, for the sake of the argument, that the two races are absolutely pure. We will assume, too, that the laws of the whole country were as favorable to this amalgamation as the laws of most Southern States are at present against it; i.e., that it were made a misdemeanor for two white or two colored persons to marry, so long as it was possible to obtain a mate of the other race--this would be even more favorable than the Southern rule, which makes no such exception. Taking the population as one-eighth Negro, this eighth, married to an equal number of whites, would give in the next generation a population of which one-fourth would be mulattoes. Mating these in turn with white persons, the next generation would be composed one-half of quadroons, or persons one-fourth Negro. In the third generation, applying the same rule, the entire population would be composed of octoroons, or persons only one-eighth Negro, who would probably call themselves white, if by this time there remained any particular advantage in being so considered. Thus in three generations the pure whites would be entirely eliminated, and there would be no perceptible trace of the blacks left. The mechanical mixture would be complete; as it would probably be put, the white race would have absorbed the black. There would be no inferior race to domineer over; there would be no superior race to oppress those who differed from them in racial externals. The inevitable social struggle, which in one form or another, seems to be one of the conditions of progress, would proceed along other lines than those of race. If now and then, for a few generations, an occasional trace of the black ancestor should crop out, no one would care, for all would be tarred with the same stick. This is already the case in South America, parts of Mexico and to a large extent in the West Indies. From a Negroid nation, which ours is already, we would have become a composite and homogeneous people, and the elements of racial discord which have troubled our civil life so gravely and still threaten our free institutions, would have been entirely eliminated. But this will never happen. The same result will be brought about slowly and obscurely, and, if the processes of nature are not too violently interrupted by the hand of man, in such a manner as to produce the best results with the least disturbance of natural laws. In another article I shall endeavor to show that this process has been taking place with greater rapidity than is generally supposed, and that the results have been such as to encourage the belief that the formation of a uniform type out of our present racial elements will take place within a measurably near period. _Boston Evening Transcript_, August 18, 1900 A STREAM OF DARK BLOOD IN THE VEINS OF THE SOUTHERN WHITES I have said that the formation of the new American race type will take place slowly and obscurely for some time to come, after the manner of all healthy changes in nature. I may go further and say that this process has already been going on ever since the various races in the Western world have been brought into juxtaposition. Slavery was a rich soil for the production of a mixed race, and one need only read the literature and laws of the past two generations to see how steadily, albeit slowly and insidiously, the stream of dark blood has insinuated itself into the veins of the dominant, or, as a Southern critic recently described it in a paragraph that came under my eye, the "domineering" race. The Creole stories of Mr. Cable and other writers were not mere figments of the imagination; the beautiful octoroon was a corporeal fact; it is more than likely that she had brothers of the same complexion, though curiously enough the male octoroon has cut no figure in fiction, except in the case of the melancholy Honoré Grandissime, f.m.c; and that she and her brothers often crossed the invisible but rigid color line was an historical fact that only an ostrich-like prejudice could deny. Grace King's "Story of New Orleans" makes the significant statement that the quadroon women of that city preferred white fathers for their children, in order that these latter might become white and thereby be qualified to enter the world of opportunity. More than one of the best families of Louisiana has a dark ancestral strain. A conspicuous American family of Southwestern extraction, which recently contributed a party to a brilliant international marriage, is known, by the well-informed, to be just exactly five generations removed from a Negro ancestor. One member of this family, a distinguished society leader, has been known, upon occasion, when some question of the rights or privileges of the colored race came up, to show a very noble sympathy for her distant kinsmen. If American prejudice permitted her and others to speak freely of her pedigree, what a tower of strength her name and influence would be to a despised and struggling race! A distinguished American man of letters, now resident in Europe, who spent many years in North Carolina, has said to the writer that he had noted, in the course of a long life, at least a thousand instances of white persons known or suspected to possess a strain of Negro blood. An amusing instance of this sort occurred a year or two ago. It was announced through the newspapers, whose omniscience of course no one would question, that a certain great merchant of Chicago was a mulatto. This gentleman had a large dry goods trade in the South, notably in Texas. Shortly after the publication of the item reflecting on the immaculateness of the merchant's descent, there appeared in the Texas newspapers, among the advertising matter, a statement from the Chicago merchant characterizing the rumor as a malicious falsehood, concocted by his rivals in business, and incidentally calling attention to the excellent bargains offered to retailers and jobbers at his great emporium. A counter-illustration is found in the case of a certain bishop, recently elected, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, who is accused of being a white man. A colored editor who possesses the saving grace of humor, along with other talents of a high order, gravely observed, in discussing this rumor, that "the poor man could not help it, even if he were white, and that a fact for which he was in no wise responsible should not be allowed to stand in the way of his advancement." During a residence in North Carolina in my youth and early manhood I noted many curious phases of the race problem. I have in mind a family of three sisters so aggressively white that the old popular Southern legend that they were the unacknowledged children of white parents was current concerning them. There was absolutely not the slightest earmark of the Negro about them. It may be stated here, as another race fallacy, that the "telltale dark mark at the root of the nails," supposed to be an infallible test of Negro blood, is a delusion and a snare, and of no value whatever as a test of race. It belongs with the grewsome superstition that a woman apparently white may give birth to a coal-black child by a white father. Another instance that came under my eye was that of a very beautiful girl with soft, wavy brown hair, who is now living in a Far Western State as the wife of a white husband. A typical case was that of a family in which the tradition of Negro origin had persisted long after all trace of it had disappeared. The family took its origin from a white ancestress, and had consequently been free for several generations. The father of the first colored child, counting the family in the female line--the only way it could be counted--was a mulatto. A second infusion of white blood, this time on the paternal side, resulted in offspring not distinguishable from pure white. One child of this generation emigrated to what was then the Far West, married a white woman and reared a large family, whose descendants, now in the fourth or fifth remove from the Negro, are in all probability wholly unaware of their origin. A sister of this pioneer emigrant remained in the place of her birth and formed an irregular union with a white man of means, with whom she lived for many years and for whom she bore a large number of children, who became about evenly divided between white and colored, fixing their status by the marriages they made. One of the daughters, for instance, married a white man and reared in a neighboring county a family of white children, who, in all probability, were as active as any one else in the recent ferocious red-shirt campaign to disfranchise the Negroes. In this same town there was stationed once, before the war, at the Federal arsenal there located, an officer who fell in love with a "white Negro" girl, as our Southern friends impartially dub them. This officer subsequently left the army, and carried away with him to the North the whole family of his inamorata. He married the woman, and their descendants, who live in a large Western city, are not known at all as persons of color, and show no trace of their dark origin. Two notable bishops of the Roman Catholic communion in the United States are known to be the sons of a slave mother and a white father, who, departing from the usual American rule, gave his sons freedom, education and a chance in life, instead of sending them to the auction block. Colonel T.W. Higginson, in his _Cheerful Yesterdays_, relates the story of a white colored woman whom he assisted in her escape from slavery or its consequences, who married a white man in the vicinity of Boston and lost her identity with the colored race. How many others there must be who know of similar instances! Grace King, in her "Story of New Orleans," to which I have referred, in speaking of a Louisiana law which required the public records, when dealing with persons of color, always to specify the fact of color, in order, so far had the admixture of races gone, to distinguish them from whites, says: "But the officers of the law could be bribed, and the qualification once dropped acted, inversely, as a patent of pure blood." A certain well-known Shakspearean actress has a strain of Negro blood, and a popular leading man under a well-known manager is similarly gifted. It would be interesting to give their names, but would probably only injure them. If they could themselves speak of their origin, without any unpleasant consequences, it would be a handsome thing for the colored race. That they do not is no reproach to them; they are white to all intents and purposes, even by the curious laws of the curious States from which they derived their origin, and are in all conscience entitled to any advantage accompanying this status. Anyone at all familiar with the hopes and aspirations of the colored race, as expressed, for instance, in their prolific newspaper literature, must have perceived the wonderful inspiration which they have drawn from the career of a few distinguished Europeans of partial Negro ancestry, who have felt no call, by way of social prejudice, to deny or conceal their origin, or to refuse their sympathy to those who need it so much. Pushkin, the Russian Shakspeare, had a black ancestor. One of the chief editors of the London _Times_, who died a few years ago, was a West Indian colored man, who had no interest in concealing the fact. One of the generals of the British army is similarly favored, although the fact is not often referred to. General Alfred Dodds, the ranking general of the French army, now in command in China, is a quadroon. The poet, Robert Browning, was of West Indian origin, and some of his intimate personal friends maintained and proved to their own satisfaction that he was partly of Negro descent. Mr. Browning always said that he did not know; that there was no family tradition to that effect; but if it could be demonstrated he would admit it freely enough, if it would reflect any credit upon a race who needed it so badly. The most conspicuous of the Eurafricans (to coin a word) were the Dumas family, who were distinguished for three generations. The mulatto, General Dumas, won distinction in the wars under the Revolution. His son, the famous Alexandre Dumas _père_, has delighted several generations with his novels, and founded a school of fiction. His son, Alexandre _fils_, novelist and dramatist, was as supreme in his own line as his father had been in his. Old Alexandre gives his pedigree in detail in his memoirs; and the Negro origin of the family is set out in every encyclopaedia. Nevertheless, in a literary magazine of recent date, published in New York, it was gravely stated by a writer that "there was a rumor, probably not well founded, that the author of Monte-Cristo had a very distant strain of Negro blood." If this had been written with reference to some living American of obscure origin, its point might be appreciated; but such extreme delicacy in stating so widely known a fact appeals to one's sense of humor. These European gentlemen could be outspoken about their origin, because it carried with it no social stigma or disability whatever. When such a state of public opinion exists in the United States, there may be a surprising revision of pedigrees! A little incident that occurred not long ago near Boston will illustrate the complexity of these race relations. Three light-colored men, brothers, by the name, we will say, of Green, living in a Boston suburb, married respectively a white, a brown and a black woman. The children with the white mother became known as white, and associated with white people. The others were frankly colored. By a not unlikely coincidence, in the course of time the children of the three families found themselves in the same public school. Curiously enough, one afternoon the three sets of Green children--the white Greens, the brown Greens and the black Greens--were detained after school, and were all directed to report to a certain schoolroom, where they were assigned certain tasks at the blackboards about the large room. Still more curiously, most of the teachers of the school happened to have business in this particular room on that particular afternoon, and all of them seemed greatly interested in the Green children. "Well, well, did you ever! Just think of it! And they are all first cousins!" was remarked audibly. The children were small, but they lived in Boston, and were, of course, as became Boston children, preternaturally intelligent for their years. They reported to their parents the incident and a number of remarks of a similar tenor to the one above quoted. The result was a complaint to the school authorities, and a reprimand to several teachers. A curious feature of the affair lay in the source from which the complaint emanated. One might suppose it to have come from the white Greens; but no, they were willing that the incident should pass unnoticed and be promptly forgotten; publicity would only advertise a fact which would work to their social injury. The dark Greens rather enjoyed the affair; they had nothing to lose; they had no objections to being known as the cousins of the others, and experienced a certain not unnatural pleasure in their discomfiture. The complaint came from the brown Greens. The reader can figure out the psychology of it for himself. A more certain proof of the fact that Negro blood is widely distributed among the white people may be found in the laws and judicial decisions of the various States. Laws, as a rule, are not made until demanded by a sufficient number of specific cases to call for a general rule; and judicial decisions of course are never announced except as the result of litigation over contested facts. There is no better index of the character and genius of a people than their laws. In North Carolina, marriage between white persons and free persons of color was lawful until 1830. By the Missouri code of 1855, the color line was drawn at one-fourth of Negro blood, and persons of only one-eighth were legally white. The same rule was laid down by the Mississippi code of 1880. Under the old code noir of Louisiana, the descendant of a white and a quadroon was white. Under these laws many persons currently known as "colored," or, more recently as "Negro," would be legally white if they chose to claim and exercise the privilege. In Ohio, before the Civil War, a person more than half-white was legally entitled to all the rights of a white man. In South Carolina, the line of cleavage was left somewhat indefinite; the color line was drawn tentatively at one-fourth of Negro blood, but this was not held conclusive. "The term 'mulatto'," said the Supreme Court of that State in a reported case, "is not invariably applicable to every admixture of African blood with the European, nor is one having all the features of a white to be ranked with the degraded class designated by the laws of the State as persons of color, because of some remote taint of the Negro race.... The question whether persons are colored or white, where color or feature is doubtful, is for the jury to determine by reputation, by reception into society, and by their exercises of the privileges of a white man, as well as by admixture of blood." It is well known that this liberality of view grew out of widespread conditions in the State, which these decisions in their turn tended to emphasize. They were probably due to the large preponderance of colored people in the State, which rendered the whites the more willing to augment their own number. There are many interesting color-line decisions in the reports of the Southern courts, which space will not permit the mention of. In another article I shall consider certain conditions which retard the development of the future American race type which I have suggested, as well as certain other tendencies which are likely to promote it. _Boston Evening Transcript_, August 25, 1900 A COMPLETE RACE-AMALGAMATION LIKELY TO OCCUR I have endeavored in two former letters to set out the reasons why it seems likely that the future American ethnic type will be formed by a fusion of all the various races now peopling this continent, and to show that this process has been under way, slowly but surely, like all evolutionary movements, for several hundred years. I wish now to consider some of the conditions which will retard this fusion, as well as certain other facts which tend to promote it. The Indian phase of the problem, so far at least as the United States is concerned, has been practically disposed of in what has already been said. The absorption of the Indians will be delayed so long as the tribal relations continue, and so long as the Indians are treated as wards of the Government, instead of being given their rights once for all, and placed upon the footing of other citizens. It is presumed that this will come about as the wilder Indians are educated and by the development of the country brought into closer contact with civilization, which must happen before a very great while. As has been stated, there is no very strong prejudice against the Indian blood; a well-stocked farm or a comfortable fortune will secure a white husband for a comely Indian girl any day, with some latitude, and there is no evidence of any such strong race instinct or organization as will make the Indians of the future wish to perpetuate themselves as a small and insignificant class in a great population, thus emphasizing distinctions which would be overlooked in the case of the individual. The Indian will fade into the white population as soon as he chooses, and in the United States proper the slender Indian strain will ere long leave no trace discoverable by anyone but the anthropological expert. In New Mexico and Central America, on the contrary, the chances seem to be that the Indian will first absorb the non-indigenous elements, unless, which is not unlikely, European immigration shall increase the white contingent. The Negro element remains, then, the only one which seems likely to present any difficulty of assimilation. The main obstacle that retards the absorption of the Negro into the general population is the apparently intense prejudice against color which prevails in the United States. This prejudice loses much of its importance, however, when it is borne in mind that it is almost purely local and does not exist in quite the same form anywhere else in the world, except among the Boers of South Africa, where it prevails in an even more aggravated form; and, as I shall endeavor to show, this prejudice in the United States is more apparent than real, and is a caste prejudice which is merely accentuated by differences of race. At present, however, I wish to consider it merely as a deterrent to amalgamation. This prejudice finds forcible expression in the laws which prevail in all the Southern States, without exception, forbidding the intermarriage of white persons and persons of color--these last being generally defined within certain degrees. While it is evident that such laws alone will not prevent the intermingling of races, which goes merrily on in spite of them, it is equally apparent that this placing of mixed marriages beyond the pale of the law is a powerful deterrent to any honest or dignified amalgamation. Add to this legal restriction, which is enforced by severe penalties, the social odium accruing to the white party to such a union, and it may safely be predicted that so long as present conditions prevail in the South, there will be little marrying or giving in marriage between persons of different race. So ferocious is this sentiment against intermarriage, that in a recent Missouri case, where a colored man ran away with and married a young white woman, the man was pursued by a "posse"--a word which is rapidly being debased from its proper meaning by its use in the attempt to dignify the character of lawless Southern mobs--and shot to death; the woman was tried and convicted of the "crime" of "miscegenation"--another honest word which the South degrades along with the Negro. Another obstacle to race fusion lies in the drastic and increasing proscriptive legislation by which the South attempts to keep the white and colored races apart in every place where their joint presence might be taken to imply equality; or, to put it more directly, the persistent effort to degrade the Negro to a distinctly and permanently inferior caste. This is undertaken by means of separate schools, separate railroad and street cars, political disfranchisement, debasing and abhorrent prison systems, and an unflagging campaign of calumny, by which the vices and shortcomings of the Negroes are grossly magnified and their virtues practically lost sight of. The popular argument that the Negro ought to develop his own civilization, and has no right to share in that of the white race, unless by favor, comes with poor grace from those who are forcing their civilization upon others at the cannon's mouth; it is, moreover, uncandid and unfair. The white people of the present generation did not make their civilization; they inherited it ready-made, and much of the wealth which is so strong a factor in their power was created by the unpaid labor of the colored people. The present generation has, however, brought to a high state of development one distinctively American institution, for which it is entitled to such credit as it may wish to claim; I refer to the custom of lynching, with its attendant horrors. The principal deterrent to race admixture, however, is the low industrial and social efficiency of the colored race. If it be conceded that these are the result of environment, then their cause is not far to seek, and the cure is also in sight. Their poverty, their ignorance and their servile estate render them as yet largely ineligible for social fusion with a race whose pride is fed not only by the record of its achievements but by a constant comparison with a less developed and less fortunate race, which it has held so long in subjection. The forces that tend to the future absorption of the black race are, however, vastly stronger than those arrayed against it. As experience has demonstrated, slavery was favorable to the mixing of races. The growth, under healthy civil conditions, of a large and self-respecting colored citizenship would doubtless tend to lessen the clandestine association of the two races; but the effort to degrade the Negro may result, if successful, in a partial restoration of the old status. But, assuming that the present anti-Negro legislation is but a temporary reaction, then the steady progress of the colored race in wealth and culture and social efficiency will, in the course of time, materially soften the asperities of racial prejudice and permit them to approach the whites more closely, until, in time, the prejudice against intermarriage shall have been overcome by other considerations. It is safe to say that the possession of a million dollars, with the ability to use it to the best advantage, would throw such a golden glow over a dark complexion as to override anything but a very obdurate prejudice. Mr. Spahr, in his well-studied and impartial book on _America's Working People_, states as his conclusion, after a careful study of conditions in the South, that the most advanced third of the Negroes of that section has already, in one generation of limited opportunity, passed in the race of life the least advanced third of the whites. To pass the next third will prove a more difficult task, no doubt, but the Negroes will have the impetus of their forward movement to push them ahead. The outbreaks of race prejudice in recent years are the surest evidence of the Negro's progress. No effort is required to keep down a race which manifests no desire nor ability to rise; but with each new forward movement of the colored race it is brought into contact with the whites at some fresh point, which evokes a new manifestation of prejudice until custom has adjusted things to the new condition. When all Negroes were poor and ignorant they could be denied their rights with impunity. As they grow in knowledge and in wealth they become more self-assertive, and make it correspondingly troublesome for those who would ignore their claims. It is much easier, by a supreme effort, as recently attempted with temporary success in North Carolina, to knock the race down and rob it of its rights once for all, than to repeat the process from day to day and with each individual; it saves wear and tear on the conscience, and makes it easy to maintain a superiority which it might in the course of a short time require some little effort to keep up. This very proscription, however, political and civil at the South, social all over the country, varying somewhat in degree, will, unless very soon relaxed, prove a powerful factor in the mixture of the races. If it is only by becoming white that colored people and their children are to enjoy the rights and dignities of citizenship, they will have every incentive to "lighten the breed," to use a current phrase, that they may claim the white man's privileges as soon as possible. That this motive is already at work may be seen in the enormous extent to which certain "face bleachers" and "hair straighteners" are advertised in the newspapers printed for circulation among the colored people. The most powerful factor in achieving any result is the wish to bring it about. The only thing that ever succeeded in keeping two races separated when living on the same soil--the only true ground of caste--is religion, and as has been alluded to in the case of the Jews, this is only superficially successful. The colored people are the same as the whites in religion; they have the same standards and mediums of culture, the same ideals, and the presence of the successful white race as a constant incentive to their ambition. The ultimate result is not difficult to foresee. The races will be quite as effectively amalgamated by lightening the Negroes as they would be by darkening the whites. It is only a social fiction, indeed, which makes of a person seven-eighths white a Negro; he is really much more a white man. The hope of the Negro, so far as the field of moral sympathy and support in his aspirations is concerned, lies, as always, chiefly in the North. There the forces which tend to his elevation are, in the main, allowed their natural operation. The exaggerated zeal with which the South is rushing to degrade the Negro is likely to result, as in the case of slavery, in making more friends for him at the North; and if the North shall not see fit to interfere forcibly with Southern legislation, it may at least feel disposed to emphasize, by its own liberality, its disapproval of Southern injustice and barbarity. An interesting instance of the difference between the North and the South in regard to colored people, may be found in two cases which only last year came up for trial in two adjoining border States. A colored man living in Maryland went over to Washington and married a white woman. The marriage was legal in Washington. When they returned to their Maryland home they were arrested for the crime of "miscegenation"--perhaps it is only a misdemeanor in Maryland--and sentenced to fine and imprisonment, the penalty of extra-judicial death not extending so far North. The same month a couple, one white and one colored, were arrested in New Jersey for living in adultery. They were found guilty by the court, but punishment was withheld upon a promise that they would marry immediately; or, as some cynic would undoubtedly say, the punishment was commuted from imprisonment to matrimony. The adding to our territories of large areas populated by dark races, some of them already liberally dowered with Negro blood, will enhance the relative importance of the non-Caucasian elements of the population, and largely increase the flow of dark blood toward the white race, until the time shall come when distinctions of color shall lose their importance, which will be but the prelude to a complete racial fusion. The formation of this future American race is not a pressing problem. Because of the conditions under which it must take place, it is likely to be extremely slow--much slower, indeed, in our temperate climate and highly organized society, than in the American tropics and sub-tropics, where it is already well under way, if not a _fait accompli_. That it must come in the United States, sooner or later, seems to be a foregone conclusion, as the result of natural law--_lex dura, sed tamen lex_--a hard pill, but one which must be swallowed. There can manifestly be no such thing as a peaceful and progressive civilization in a nation divided by two warring races, and homogeneity of type, at least in externals, is a necessary condition of harmonious social progress. If this, then, must come, the development and progress of all the constituent elements of the future American race is of the utmost importance as bearing upon the quality of the resultant type. The white race is still susceptible of some improvement; and if, in time, the more objectionable Negro traits are eliminated, and his better qualities correspondingly developed, his part in the future American race may well be an important and valuable one. _Boston Evening Transcript_, September 1, 1900 The Disfranchisement of the Negro The right of American citizens of African descent, commonly called Negroes, to vote upon the same terms as other citizens of the United States, is plainly declared and firmly fixed by the Constitution. No such person is called upon to present reasons why he should possess this right: that question is foreclosed by the Constitution. The object of the elective franchise is to give representation. So long as the Constitution retains its present form, any State Constitution, or statute, which seeks, by juggling the ballot, to deny the colored race fair representation, is a clear violation of the fundamental law of the land, and a corresponding injustice to those thus deprived of this right. For thirty-five years this has been the law. As long as it was measurably respected, the colored people made rapid strides in education, wealth, character and self-respect. This the census proves, all statements to the contrary notwithstanding. A generation has grown to manhood and womanhood under the great, inspiring freedom conferred by the Constitution and protected by the right of suffrage--protected in large degree by the mere naked right, even when its exercise was hindered or denied by unlawful means. They have developed, in every Southern community, good citizens, who, if sustained and encouraged by just laws and liberal institutions, would greatly augment their number with the passing years, and soon wipe out the reproach of ignorance, unthrift, low morals and social inefficiency, thrown at them indiscriminately and therefore unjustly, and made the excuse for the equally undiscriminating contempt of their persons and their rights. They have reduced their illiteracy nearly 50 per cent. Excluded from the institutions of higher learning in their own States, their young men hold their own, and occasionally carry away honors, in the universities of the North. They have accumulated three hundred million dollars worth of real and personal property. Individuals among them have acquired substantial wealth, and several have attained to something like national distinction in art, letters and educational leadership. They are numerously represented in the learned professions. Heavily handicapped, they have made such rapid progress that the suspicion is justified that their advancement, rather than any stagnation or retrogression, is the true secret of the virulent Southern hostility to their rights, which has so influenced Northern opinion that it stands mute, and leaves the colored people, upon whom the North conferred liberty, to the tender mercies of those who have always denied their fitness for it. It may be said, in passing, that the word "Negro," where used in this paper, is used solely for convenience. By the census of 1890 there were 1,000,000 colored people in the country who were half, or more than half, white, and logically there must be, as in fact there are, so many who share the white blood in some degree, as to justify the assertion that the race problem in the United States concerns the welfare and the status of a mixed race. Their rights are not one whit the more sacred because of this fact; but in an argument where injustice is sought to be excused because of fundamental differences of race, it is well enough to bear in mind that the race whose rights and liberties are endangered all over this country by disfranchisement at the South, are the colored people who live in the United States to-day, and not the lowbrowed, man-eating savage whom the Southern white likes to set upon a block and contrast with Shakespeare and Newton and Washington and Lincoln. Despite and in defiance of the Federal Constitution, to-day in the six Southern States of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, containing an aggregate colored population of about 6,000,000, these have been, to all intents and purposes, denied, so far as the States can effect it, the right to vote. This disfranchisement is accomplished by various methods, devised with much transparent ingenuity, the effort being in each instance to violate the spirit of the Federal Constitution by disfranchising the Negro, while seeming to respect its letter by avoiding the mention of race or color. These restrictions fall into three groups. The first comprises a property qualification--the ownership of $300 worth or more of real or personal property (Alabama, Louisiana, Virginia and South Carolina); the payment of a poll tax (Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia); an educational qualification--the ability to read and write (Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina). Thus far, those who believe in a restricted suffrage everywhere, could perhaps find no reasonable fault with any one of these qualifications, applied either separately or together. But the Negro has made such progress that these restrictions alone would perhaps not deprive him of effective representation. Hence the second group. This comprises an "understanding" clause--the applicant must be able "to read, or understand when read to him, any clause in the Constitution" (Mississippi), or to read and explain, or to understand and explain when read to him, any section of the Constitution (Virginia); an employment qualification--the voter must be regularly employed in some lawful occupation (Alabama); a character qualification--the voter must be a person of good character and who "understands the duties and obligations of citizens under a republican [!] form of government" (Alabama). The qualifications under the first group it will be seen, are capable of exact demonstration; those under the second group are left to the discretion and judgment of the registering officer--for in most instances these are all requirements for registration, which must precede voting. But the first group, by its own force, and the second group, under imaginable conditions, might exclude not only the Negro vote, but a large part of the white vote. Hence, the third group, which comprises: a military service qualification--any man who went to war, willingly or unwillingly, in a good cause or a bad, is entitled to register (Ala., Va.); a prescriptive qualification, under which are included all male persons who were entitled to vote on January 1, 1867, at which date the Negro had not yet been given the right to vote; a hereditary qualification (the so-called "grandfather" clause), whereby any son (Va.), or descendant (Ala.), of a soldier, and (N.C.) the descendant of any person who had the right to vote on January 1, 1867, inherits that right. If the voter wish to take advantage of these last provisions, which are in the nature of exceptions to a general rule, he must register within a stated time, whereupon he becomes a member of a privileged class of permanently enrolled voters not subject to any of the other restrictions. It will be seen that these restrictions are variously combined in the different States, and it is apparent that if combined to their declared end, practically every Negro may, under color of law, be denied the right to vote, and practically every white man accorded that right. The effectiveness of these provisions to exclude the Negro vote is proved by the Alabama registration under the new State Constitution. Out of a total, by the census of 1900, of 181,471 Negro "males of voting age," less than 3,000 are registered; in Montgomery county alone, the seat of the State capital, where there are 7,000 Negro males of voting age, only 47 have been allowed to register, while in several counties not one single Negro is permitted to exercise the franchise. These methods of disfranchisement have stood such tests as the United States Courts, including the Supreme Court, have thus far seen fit to apply, in such cases as have been before them for adjudication. These include a case based upon the "understanding" clause of the Mississippi Constitution, in which the Supreme Court held, in effect, that since there was no ambiguity in the language employed and the Negro was not directly named, the Court would not go behind the wording of the Constitution to find a meaning which discriminated against the colored voter; and the recent case of Jackson vs. Giles, brought by a colored citizen of Montgomery, Alabama, in which the Supreme Court confesses itself impotent to provide a remedy for what, by inference, it acknowledges may be a "great political wrong," carefully avoiding, however, to state that it is a wrong, although the vital prayer of the petition was for a decision upon this very point. Now, what is the effect of this wholesale disfranchisement of colored men, upon their citizenship? The value of food to the human organism is not measured by the pains of an occasional surfeit, but by the effect of its entire deprivation. Whether a class of citizens should vote, even if not always wisely--what class does?--may best be determined by considering their condition when they are without the right to vote. The colored people are left, in the States where they have been disfranchised, absolutely without representation, direct or indirect, in any law-making body, in any court of justice, in any branch of government--for the feeble remnant of voters left by law is so inconsiderable as to be without a shadow of power. Constituting one-eighth of the population of the whole country, two-fifths of the whole Southern people, and a majority in several States, they are not able, because disfranchised where most numerous, to send one representative to the Congress, which, by the decision in the Alabama case, is held by the Supreme Court to be the only body, outside of the State itself, competent to give relief from a great political wrong. By former decisions of the same tribunal, even Congress is impotent to protect their civil rights, the Fourteenth Amendment having long since, by the consent of the same Court, been in many respects as completely nullified as the Fifteenth Amendment is now sought to be. They have no direct representation in any Southern legislature, and no voice in determining the choice of white men who might be friendly to their rights. Nor are they able to influence the election of judges or other public officials, to whom are entrusted the protection of their lives, their liberties and their property. No judge is rendered careful, no sheriff diligent, for fear that he may offend a black constituency; the contrary is most lamentably true; day after day the catalogue of lynchings and anti-Negro riots upon every imaginable pretext, grows longer and more appalling. The country stands face to face with the revival of slavery; at the moment of this writing a federal grand jury in Alabama is uncovering a system of peonage established under cover of law. Under the Southern program it is sought to exclude colored men from every grade of the public service; not only from the higher administrative functions, to which few of them would in any event, for a long time aspire, but from the lowest as well. A Negro may not be a constable or a policeman. He is subjected by law to many degrading discriminations. He is required to be separated from white people on railroads and street cars, and, by custom, debarred from inns and places of public entertainment. His equal right to a free public education is constantly threatened and is nowhere equitably recognized. In Georgia, as has been shown by Dr. Du Bois, where the law provides for a pro rata distribution of the public school fund between the races, and where the colored school population is 48 per cent, of the total, the amount of the fund devoted to their schools is only 20 per cent. In New Orleans, with an immense colored population, many of whom are persons of means and culture, all colored public schools above the fifth grade have been abolished. The Negro is subjected to taxation without representation, which the forefathers of this Republic made the basis of a bloody revolution. Flushed with their local success, and encouraged by the timidity of the Courts and the indifference of public opinion, the Southern whites have carried their campaign into the national government, with an ominous degree of success. If they shall have their way, no Negro can fill any federal office, or occupy, in the public service, any position that is not menial. This is not an inference, but the openly, passionately avowed sentiment of the white South. The right to employment in the public service is an exceedingly valuable one, for which white men have struggled and fought. A vast army of men are employed in the administration of public affairs. Many avenues of employment are closed to colored men by popular prejudice. If their right to public employment is recognized, and the way to it open through the civil service, or the appointing power, or the suffrages of the people, it will prove, as it has already, a strong incentive to effort and a powerful lever for advancement. Its value to the Negro, like that of the right to vote, may be judged by the eagerness of the whites to deprive him of it. Not only is the Negro taxed without representation in the States referred to, but he pays, through the tariff and internal revenue, a tax to a National government whose supreme judicial tribunal declares that it cannot, through the executive arm, enforce its own decrees, and, therefore, refuses to pass upon a question, squarely before it, involving a basic right of citizenship. For the decision of the Supreme Court in the Giles case, if it foreshadows the attitude which the Court will take upon other cases to the same general end which will soon come before it, is scarcely less than a reaffirmation of the Dred Scott decision; it certainly amounts to this--that in spite of the Fifteenth Amendment, colored men in the United States have no political rights which the States are bound to respect. To say this much is to say that all privileges and immunities which Negroes henceforth enjoy, must be by favor of the whites; they are not _rights_. The whites have so declared; they proclaim that the country is theirs, that the Negro should be thankful that he has so much, when so much more might be withheld from him. He stands upon a lower footing than any alien; he has no government to which he may look for protection. Moreover, the white South sends to Congress, on a basis including the Negro population, a delegation nearly twice as large as it is justly entitled to, and one which may always safely be relied upon to oppose in Congress every measure which seeks to protect the equality, or to enlarge the rights of colored citizens. The grossness of this injustice is all the more apparent since the Supreme Court, in the Alabama case referred to, has declared the legislative and political department of the government to be the only power which can right a political wrong. Under this decision still further attacks upon the liberties of the citizen may be confidently expected. Armed with the Negro's sole weapon of defense, the white South stands ready to smite down his rights. The ballot was first given to the Negro to defend him against this very thing. He needs it now far more than then, and for even stronger reasons. The 9,000,000 free colored people of to day have vastly more to defend than the 3,000,000 hapless blacks who had just emerged from slavery. If there be those who maintain that it was a mistake to give the Negro the ballot at the time and in the manner in which it was given, let them take to heart this reflection: that to deprive him of it to-day, or to so restrict it as to leave him utterly defenseless against the present relentless attitude of the South toward his rights, will prove to be a mistake so much greater than the first, as to be no less than a crime, from which not alone the Southern Negro must suffer, but for which the nation will as surely pay the penalty as it paid for the crime of slavery. Contempt for law is death to a republic, and this one has developed alarming symptoms of the disease. And now, having thus robbed the Negro of every political and civil _right_, the white South, in palliation of its course, makes a great show of magnanimity in leaving him, as the sole remnant of what he acquired through the Civil War, a very inadequate public school education, which, by the present program, is to be directed mainly towards making him a better agricultural laborer. Even this is put forward as a favor, although the Negro's property is taxed to pay for it, and his labor as well. For it is a well settled principle of political economy, that land and machinery of themselves produce nothing, and that labor indirectly pays its fair proportion of the tax upon the public's wealth. The white South seems to stand to the Negro at present as one, who, having been reluctantly compelled to release another from bondage, sees him stumbling forward and upward, neglected by his friends and scarcely yet conscious of his own strength; seizes him, binds him, and having bereft him of speech, of sight and of manhood, "yokes him with the mule" and exclaims, with a show of virtue which ought to deceive no one: "Behold how good a friend I am of yours! Have I not left you a stomach and a pair of arms, and will I not generously permit you to work for me with the one, that you may thereby gain enough to fill the other? A brain you do not need. We will relieve you of any responsibility that might seem to demand such an organ." The argument of peace-loving Northern white men and Negro opportunists that the political power of the Negro having long ago been suppressed by unlawful means, his right to vote is a mere paper right, of no real value, and therefore to be lightly yielded for the sake of a hypothetical harmony, is fatally short-sighted. It is precisely the attitude and essentially the argument which would have surrendered to the South in the sixties, and would have left this country to rot in slavery for another generation. White men do not thus argue concerning their own rights. They know too well the value of ideals. Southern white men see too clearly the latent power of these unexercised rights. If the political power of the Negro was a nullity because of his ignorance and lack of leadership, why were they not content to leave it so, with the pleasing assurance that if it ever became effective, it would be because the Negroes had grown fit for its exercise? On the contrary, they have not rested until the possibility of its revival was apparently headed off by new State constitutions. Nor are they satisfied with this. There is no doubt that an effort will be made to secure the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment, and thus forestall the development of the wealthy and educated Negro, whom the South seems to anticipate as a greater menace than the ignorant ex-slave. However improbable this repeal may seem, it is not a subject to be lightly dismissed; for it is within the power of the white people of the nation to do whatever they wish in the premises--they did it once; they can do it again. The Negro and his friends should see to it that the white majority shall never wish to do anything to his hurt. There still stands, before the Negro-hating whites of the South, the specter of a Supreme Court which will interpret the Constitution to mean what it says, and what those who enacted it meant, and what the nation, which ratified it, understood, and which will find power, in a nation which goes beyond seas to administer the affairs of distant peoples, to enforce its own fundamental laws; the specter, too, of an aroused public opinion which will compel Congress and the Courts to preserve the liberties of the Republic, which are the liberties of the people. To wilfully neglect the suffrage, to hold it lightly, is to tamper with a sacred right; to yield it for anything else whatever is simply suicidal. Dropping the element of race, disfranchisement is no more than to say to the poor and poorly taught, that they must relinquish the right to defend themselves against oppression until they shall have become rich and learned, in competition with those already thus favored and possessing the ballot in addition. This is not the philosophy of history. The growth of liberty has been the constant struggle of the poor against the privileged classes; and the goal of that struggle has ever been the equality of all men before the law. The Negro who would yield this right, deserves to be a slave; he has the servile spirit. The rich and the educated can, by virtue of their influence, command many votes; can find other means of protection; the poor man has but one, he should guard it as a sacred treasure. Long ago, by fair treatment, the white leaders of the South might have bound the Negro to themselves with hoops of steel. They have not chosen to take this course, but by assuming from the beginning an attitude hostile to his rights, have never gained his confidence, and now seek by foul means to destroy where they have never sought by fair means to control. I have spoken of the effect of disfranchisement upon the colored race; it is to the race as a whole, that the argument of the problem is generally directed. But the unit of society in a republic is the individual, and not the race, the failure to recognize this fact being the fundamental error which has beclouded the whole discussion. The effect of disfranchisement upon the individual is scarcely less disastrous. I do not speak of the moral effect of injustice upon those who suffer from it; I refer rather to the practical consequences which may be appreciated by any mind. No country is free in which the way upward is not open for every man to try, and for every properly qualified man to attain whatever of good the community life may offer. Such a condition does not exist, at the South, even in theory, for any man of color. In no career can such a man compete with white men upon equal terms. He must not only meet the prejudice of the individual, not only the united prejudice of the white community; but lest some one should wish to treat him fairly, he is met at every turn with some legal prohibition which says, "Thou shalt not," or "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther." But the Negro race is viable; it adapts itself readily to circumstances; and being thus adaptable, there is always the temptation to "Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, Where thrift may follow fawning." He who can most skillfully balance himself upon the advancing or receding wave of white opinion concerning his race, is surest of such measure of prosperity as is permitted to men of dark skins. There are Negro teachers in the South--the privilege of teaching in their own schools is the one respectable branch of the public service still left open to them--who, for a grudging appropriation from a Southern legislature, will decry their own race, approve their own degradation, and laud their oppressors. Deprived of the right to vote, and, therefore, of any power to demand what is their due, they feel impelled to buy the tolerance of the whites at any sacrifice. If to live is the first duty of man, as perhaps it is the first instinct, then those who thus stoop to conquer may be right. But is it needful to stoop so low, and if so, where lies the ultimate responsibility for this abasement? I shall say nothing about the moral effect of disfranchisement upon the white people, or upon the State itself. What slavery made of the Southern whites is a matter of history. The abolition of slavery gave the South an opportunity to emerge from barbarism. Present conditions indicate that the spirit which dominated slavery still curses the fair section over which that institution spread its blight. And now, is the situation remediless? If not so, where lies the remedy? First let us take up those remedies suggested by the men who approve of disfranchisement, though they may sometimes deplore the method, or regret the necessity. Time, we are told, heals all diseases, rights all wrongs, and is the only cure for this one. It is a cowardly argument. These people are entitled to their rights to-day, while they are yet alive to enjoy them; and it is poor statesmanship and worse morals to nurse a present evil and thrust it forward upon a future generation for correction. The nation can no more honestly do this than it could thrust back upon a past generation the responsibility for slavery. It had to meet that responsibility; it ought to meet this one. Education has been put forward as the great corrective--preferably industrial education. The intellect of the whites is to be educated to the point where they will so appreciate the blessings of liberty and equality, as of their own motion to enlarge and defend the Negro's rights. The Negroes, on the other hand, are to be so trained as to make them, not equal with the whites in any way--God save the mark!--this would be unthinkable!--but so useful to the community that the whites will protect them rather than lose their valuable services. Some few enthusiasts go so far as to maintain that by virtue of education the Negro will, in time, become strong enough to protect himself against any aggression of the whites; this, it may be said, is a strictly Northern view. It is not quite clearly apparent how education alone, in the ordinary meaning of the word, is to solve, in any appreciable time, the problem of the relations of Southern white and black people. The need of education of all kinds for both races is wofully apparent. But men and nations have been free without being learned, and there have been educated slaves. Liberty has been known to languish where culture had reached a very high development. Nations do not first become rich and learned and then free, but the lesson of history has been that they first become free and then rich and learned, and oftentimes fall back into slavery again because of too great wealth, and the resulting luxury and carelessness of civic virtues. The process of education has been going on rapidly in the Southern States since the Civil War, and yet, if we take superficial indications, the rights of the Negroes are at a lower ebb than at any time during the thirty-five years of their freedom, and the race prejudice more intense and uncompromising. It is not apparent that educated Southerners are less rancorous than others in their speech concerning the Negro, or less hostile in their attitude toward his rights. It is their voice alone that we have heard in this discussion; and if, as they state, they are liberal in their views as compared with the more ignorant whites, then God save the Negro! I was told, in so many words, two years ago, by the Superintendent of Public Schools of a Southern city that "there was no place in the modern world for the Negro, except under the ground." If gentlemen holding such opinions are to instruct the white youth of the South, would it be at all surprising if these, later on, should devote a portion of their leisure to the improvement of civilization by putting under the ground as many of this superfluous race as possible? The sole excuse made in the South for the prevalent injustice to the Negro is the difference in race, and the inequalities and antipathies resulting therefrom. It has nowhere been declared as a part of the Southern program that the Negro, when educated, is to be given a fair representation in government or an equal opportunity in life; the contrary has been strenuously asserted; education can never make of him anything but a Negro, and, therefore, essentially inferior, and not to be safely trusted with any degree of power. A system of education which would tend to soften the asperities and lessen the inequalities between the races would be of inestimable value. An education which by a rigid separation of the races from the kindergarten to the university, fosters this racial antipathy, and is directed toward emphasizing the superiority of one class and the inferiority of another, might easily have disastrous, rather than beneficial results. It would render the oppressing class more powerful to injure, the oppressed quicker to perceive and keener to resent the injury, without proportionate power of defense. The same assimilative education which is given at the North to all children alike, whereby native and foreign, black and white, are taught side by side in every grade of instruction, and are compelled by the exigencies of discipline to keep their prejudices in abeyance, and are given the opportunity to learn and appreciate one another's good qualities, and to establish friendly relations which may exist throughout life, is absent from the Southern system of education, both of the past and as proposed for the future. Education is in a broad sense a remedy for all social ills; but the disease we have to deal with now is not only constitutional but acute. A wise physician does not simply give a tonic for a diseased limb, or a high fever; the patient might be dead before the constitutional remedy could become effective. The evils of slavery, its injury to whites and blacks, and to the body politic, were clearly perceived and acknowledged by the educated leaders of the South as far back as the Revolutionary War and the Constitutional Convention, and yet they made no effort to abolish it. Their remedy was the same--time, education, social and economic development;--and yet a bloody war was necessary to destroy slavery and put its spirit temporarily to sleep. When the South and its friends are ready to propose a system of education which will recognize and teach the equality of all men before the law, the potency of education alone to settle the race problem will be more clearly apparent. At present even good Northern men, who wish to educate the Negroes, feel impelled to buy this privilege from the none too eager white South, by conceding away the civil and political rights of those whom they would benefit. They have, indeed, gone farther than the Southerners themselves in approving the disfranchisement of the colored race. Most Southern men, now that they have carried their point and disfranchised the Negro, are willing to admit, in the language of a recent number of the Charleston _Evening Post_, that "the attitude of the Southern white man toward the Negro is incompatible with the fundamental ideas of the republic." It remained for our Clevelands and Abbotts and Parkhursts to assure them that their unlawful course was right and justifiable, and for the most distinguished Negro leader to declare that "every revised Constitution throughout the Southern States has put a premium upon intelligence, ownership of property, thrift and character." So does every penitentiary sentence put a premium upon good conduct; but it is poor consolation to the one unjustly condemned, to be told that he may shorten his sentence somewhat by good behavior. Dr. Booker T. Washington, whose language is quoted above, has, by his eminent services in the cause of education, won deserved renown. If he has seemed, at times, to those jealous of the best things for their race, to decry the higher education, it can easily be borne in mind that his career is bound up in the success of an industrial school; hence any undue stress which he may put upon that branch of education may safely be ascribed to the natural zeal of the promoter, without detracting in any degree from the essential value of his teachings in favor of manual training, thrift and character-building. But Mr. Washington's prominence as an educational leader, among a race whose prominent leaders are so few, has at times forced him, perhaps reluctantly, to express himself in regard to the political condition of his people, and here his utterances have not always been so wise nor so happy. He has declared himself in favor of a restricted suffrage, which at present means, for his own people, nothing less than complete loss of representation--indeed it is only in that connection that the question has been seriously mooted; and he has advised them to go slow in seeking to enforce their civil and political rights, which, in effect, means silent submission to injustice. Southern white men may applaud this advice as wise, because it fits in with their purposes; but Senator McEnery of Louisiana, in a recent article in the _Independent_, voices the Southern white opinion of such acquiescence when he says: "What other race would have submitted so many years to slavery without complaint? _What other race would have submitted so quietly to disfranchisement?_ These facts stamp his [the Negro's] inferiority to the white race." The time to philosophize about the good there is in evil, is not while its correction is still possible, but, if at all, after all hope of correction is past. Until then it calls for nothing but rigorous condemnation. To try to read any good thing into these fraudulent Southern constitutions, or to accept them as an accomplished fact, is to condone a crime against one's race. Those who commit crime should bear the odium. It is not a pleasing spectacle to see the robbed applaud the robber. Silence were better. It has become fashionable to question the wisdom of the Fifteenth Amendment. I believe it to have been an act of the highest statesmanship, based upon the fundamental idea of this Republic, entirely justified by conditions; experimental in its nature, perhaps, as every new thing must be, but just in principle; a choice between methods, of which it seemed to the great statesmen of that epoch the wisest and the best, and essentially the most just, bearing in mind the interests of the freedmen and the Nation, as well as the feelings of the Southern whites; never fairly tried, and therefore, not yet to be justly condemned. Not one of those who condemn it, has been able, even in the light of subsequent events, to suggest a better method by which the liberty and civil rights of the freedmen and their descendants could have been protected. Its abandonment, as I have shown, leaves this liberty and these rights frankly without any guaranteed protection. All the education which philanthropy or the State could offer as a _substitute_ for equality of rights, would be a poor exchange; there is no defensible reason why they should not go hand in hand, each encouraging and strengthening the other. The education which one can demand as a right is likely to do more good than the education for which one must sue as a favor. The chief argument against Negro suffrage, the insistently proclaimed argument, worn threadbare in Congress, on the platform, in the pulpit, in the press, in poetry, in fiction, in impassioned rhetoric, is the reconstruction period. And yet the evils of that period were due far more to the venality and indifference of white men than to the incapacity of black voters. The revised Southern constitutions adopted under reconstruction reveal a higher statesmanship than any which preceded or have followed them, and prove that the freed voters could as easily have been led into the paths of civic righteousness as into those of misgovernment. Certain it is that under reconstruction the civil and political rights of all men were more secure in those States than they have ever been since. We will hear less of the evils of reconstruction, now that the bugaboo has served its purpose by disfranchising the Negro. It will be laid aside for a time while the nation discusses the political corruption of great cities; the scandalous conditions in Rhode Island; the evils attending reconstruction in the Philippines, and the scandals in the postoffice department--for none of which, by the way, is the Negro charged with any responsibility, and for none of which is the restriction of the suffrage a remedy seriously proposed. Rhode Island is indeed the only Northern State which has a property qualification for the franchise! There are three tribunals to which the colored people may justly appeal for the protection of their rights: the United States Courts, Congress and public opinion. At present all three seem mainly indifferent to any question of human rights under the Constitution. Indeed, Congress and the Courts merely follow public opinion, seldom lead it. Congress never enacts a measure which is believed to oppose public opinion;--your Congressman keeps his ear to the ground. The high, serene atmosphere of the Courts is not impervious to its voice; they rarely enforce a law contrary to public opinion, even the Supreme Court being able, as Charles Sumner once put it, to find a reason for every decision it may wish to render; or, as experience has shown, a method to evade any question which it cannot decently decide in accordance with public opinion. The art of straddling is not confined to the political arena. The Southern situation has been well described by a colored editor in Richmond: "When we seek relief at the hands of Congress, we are informed that our plea involves a legal question, and we are referred to the Courts. When we appeal to the Courts, we are gravely told that the question is a political one, and that we must go to Congress. When Congress enacts remedial legislation, our enemies take it to the Supreme Court, which promptly declares it unconstitutional." The Negro might chase his rights round and round this circle until the end of time, without finding any relief. Yet the Constitution is clear and unequivocal in its terms, and no Supreme Court can indefinitely continue to construe it as meaning anything but what it says. This Court should be bombarded with suits until it makes some definite pronouncement, one way or the other, on the broad question of the constitutionality of the disfranchising Constitutions of the Southern States. The Negro and his friends will then have a clean-cut issue to take to the forum of public opinion, and a distinct ground upon which to demand legislation for the enforcement of the Federal Constitution. The case from Alabama was carried to the Supreme Court expressly to determine the constitutionality of the Alabama Constitution. The Court declared itself without jurisdiction, and in the same breath went into the merits of the case far enough to deny relief, without passing upon the real issue. Had it said, as it might with absolute justice and perfect propriety, that the Alabama Constitution is a bold and impudent violation of the Fifteenth Amendment, the purpose of the lawsuit would have been accomplished and a righteous cause vastly strengthened. But public opinion cannot remain permanently indifferent to so vital a question. The agitation is already on. It is at present largely academic, but is slowly and resistlessly, forcing itself into politics, which is the medium through which republics settle such questions. It cannot much longer be contemptuously or indifferently elbowed aside. The South itself seems bent upon forcing the question to an issue, as, by its arrogant assumptions, it brought on the Civil War. From that section, too, there come now and then, side by side with tales of Southern outrage, excusing voices, which at the same time are accusing voices; which admit that the white South is dealing with the Negro unjustly and unwisely; that the Golden Rule has been forgotten; that the interests of white men alone have been taken into account, and that their true interests as well are being sacrificed. There is a silent white South, uneasy in conscience, darkened in counsel, groping for the light, and willing to do the right. They are as yet a feeble folk, their voices scarcely audible above the clamor of the mob. May their convictions ripen into wisdom, and may their numbers and their courage increase! If the class of Southern white men of whom Judge Jones of Alabama, is so noble a representative, are supported and encouraged by a righteous public opinion at the North, they may, in time, become the dominant white South, and we may then look for wisdom and justice in the place where, so far as the Negro is concerned, they now seem well-nigh strangers. But even these gentlemen will do well to bear in mind that so long as they discriminate in any way against the Negro's equality of right, so long do they set class against class and open the door to every sort of discrimination, there can be no middle ground between justice and injustice, between the citizen and the serf. It is not likely that the North, upon the sober second thought, will permit the dearly-bought results of the Civil War to be nullified by any change in the Constitution. So long as the Fifteenth Amendment stands, the _rights_ of colored citizens are ultimately secure. There were would-be despots in England after the granting of Magna Charta; but it outlived them all, and the liberties of the English people are secure. There was slavery in this land after the Declaration of Independence, yet the faces of those who love liberty have ever turned to that immortal document. So will the Constitution and its principles outlive the prejudices which would seek to overthrow it. What colored men of the South can do to secure their citizenship to-day, or in the immediate future, is not very clear. Their utterances on political questions, unless they be to concede away the political rights of their race, or to soothe the consciences of white men by suggesting that the problem is insoluble except by some slow remedial process which will become effectual only in the distant future, are received with scant respect--could scarcely, indeed, be otherwise received, without a voting constituency to back them up,--and must be cautiously made, lest they meet an actively hostile reception. But there are many colored men at the North, where their civil and political rights in the main are respected. There every honest man has a vote, which he may freely cast, and which is reasonably sure to be fairly counted. When this race develops a sufficient power of combination, under adequate leadership,--and there are signs already that this time is near at hand,--the Northern vote can be wielded irresistibly for the defense of the rights of their Southern brethren. In the meantime the Northern colored men have the right of free speech, and they should never cease to demand their rights, to clamor for them, to guard them jealously, and insistently to invoke law and public sentiment to maintain them. He who would be free must learn to protect his freedom. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. He who would be respected must respect himself. The best friend of the Negro is he who would rather see, within the borders of this republic one million free citizens of that race, equal before the law, than ten million cringing serfs existing by a contemptuous sufferance. A race that is willing to survive upon any other terms is scarcely worthy of consideration. The direct remedy for the disfranchisement of the Negro lies through political action. One scarcely sees the philosophy of distinguishing between a civil and a political right. But the Supreme Court has recognized this distinction and has designated Congress as the power to right a political wrong. The Fifteenth Amendment gives Congress power to enforce its provisions. The power would seem to be inherent in government itself; but anticipating that the enforcement of the Amendment might involve difficulty, they made the supererogatory declaration. Moreover, they went further, and passed laws by which they provided for such enforcement. These the Supreme Court has so far declared insufficient. It is for Congress to make more laws. It is for colored men and for white men who are not content to see the blood-bought results of the Civil War nullified, to urge and direct public opinion to the point where it will demand stringent legislation to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. This demand will rest in law, in morals and in true statesmanship; no difficulties attending it could be worse than the present ignoble attitude of the Nation toward its own laws and its own ideals--without courage to enforce them, without conscience to change them, the United States presents the spectacle of a Nation drifting aimlessly, so far as this vital, National problem is concerned, upon the sea of irresolution, toward the maelstrom of anarchy. The right of Congress, under the Fourteenth Amendment, to reduce Southern representation can hardly be disputed. But Congress has a simpler and more direct method to accomplish the same end. It is the sole judge of the qualifications of its own members, and the sole judge of whether any member presenting his credentials has met those qualifications. It can refuse to seat any member who comes from a district where voters have been disfranchised; it can judge for itself whether this has been done, and there is no appeal from its decision. If, when it has passed a law, any Court shall refuse to obey its behests, it can impeach the judges. If any president refuse to lend the executive arm of the government to the enforcement of the law, it can impeach the president. No such extreme measures are likely to be necessary for the enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments--and the Thirteenth, which is also threatened--but they are mentioned as showing that Congress is supreme; and Congress proceeds, the House directly, the Senate indirectly, from the people and is governed by public opinion. If the reduction of Southern representation were to be regarded in the light of a bargain by which the Fifteenth Amendment was surrendered, then it might prove fatal to liberty. If it be inflicted as a punishment and a warning, to be followed by more drastic measures if not sufficient, it would serve a useful purpose. The Fifteenth Amendment declares that the right to vote _shall not_ be denied or abridged on account of color; and any measure adopted by Congress should look to that end. Only as the power to injure the Negro in Congress is reduced thereby, would a reduction of representation protect the Negro; without other measures it would still leave him in the hands of the Southern whites, who could safely be trusted to make him pay for their humiliation. Finally, there is, somewhere in the Universe a "Power that works for righteousness," and that leads men to do justice to one another. To this power, working upon the hearts and consciences of men, the Negro can always appeal. He has the right upon his side, and in the end the right will prevail. The Negro will, in time, attain to full manhood and citizenship throughout the United States. No better guaranty of this is needed than a comparison of his present with his past. Toward this he must do his part, as lies within his power and his opportunity. But it will be, after all, largely a white man's conflict, fought out in the forum of the public conscience. The Negro, though eager enough when opportunity offered, had comparatively little to do with the abolition of slavery, which was a vastly more formidable task than will be the enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment. _The Negro Problem_, 1903 
26240	----	THE CLANSMAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Illustrations Shown in This Edition Are Reproductions of Scenes from the Photo-Play of "The Birth of a Nation" Produced and Copyrighted by The Epoch Producing Corporation, to Whom the Publishers Desire to Express Their Thanks and Appreciation for Permission to Use the Pictures. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: THE REIGN OF THE KLAN] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CLANSMAN An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan By THOMAS DIXON Author Of The Leopard's Spots, Comrades, Etc. Illustrated With Scenes From The Photo-Play THE BIRTH OF A NATION Produced And Copyrighted By Epoch Producing Corporation GROSSET & DUNLAP Publishers :: New York ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright, 1905 BY THOMAS DIXON, JR. The Country Life Press, Garden City, N. Y. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- TO THE MEMORY OF A SCOTCH-IRISH LEADER OF THE SOUTH MY UNCLE, COLONEL LEROY MCAFEE GRAND TITAN OF THE INVISIBLE EMPIRE KU KLUX KLAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------- TO THE READER "The Clansman" is the second book of a series of historical novels planned on the Race Conflict. "The Leopard's Spots" was the statement in historical outline of the conditions from the enfranchisement of the negro to his disfranchisement. "The Clansman" develops the true story of the "Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy," which overturned the Reconstruction régime. The organization was governed by the Grand Wizard Commander-in-Chief, who lived at Memphis, Tennessee. The Grand Dragon commanded a State, the Grand Titan a Congressional District, the Grand Giant a County, and the Grand Cyclops a Township Den. The twelve volumes of Government reports on the famous Klan refer chiefly to events which occurred after 1870, the date of its dissolution. The chaos of blind passion that followed Lincoln's assassination is inconceivable to-day. The revolution it produced in our Government, and the bold attempt of Thaddeus Stevens to Africanize ten great States of the American Union, read now like tales from "The Arabian Nights." I have sought to preserve in this romance both the letter and the spirit of this remarkable period. The men who enact the drama of fierce revenge into which I have woven a double love story are historical figures. I have merely changed their names without taking a liberty with any essential historic fact. In the darkest hour of the life of the South, when her wounded people lay helpless amid rags and ashes under the beak and talon of the Vulture, suddenly from the mists of the mountains appeared a white cloud the size of a man's hand. It grew until its mantle of mystery enfolded the stricken earth and sky. An "Invisible Empire" had risen from the field of Death and challenged the Visible to mortal combat. How the young South, led by the reincarnated souls of the Clansmen of Old Scotland, went forth under this cover and against overwhelming odds, daring exile, imprisonment, and a felon's death, and saved the life of a people, forms one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of the Aryan race. Thomas Dixon, Jr. Dixondale, Va. December 14, 1904. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS BOOK I THE ASSASSINATION CHAPTER PAGE I. The Bruised Reed 3 II. The Great Heart 19 III. The Man of War 33 IV. A Clash of Giants 38 IV. The Battle of Love 56 VI. The Assassination 61 VII. The Frenzy of a Nation 80 BOOK II THE REVOLUTION CHAPTER PAGE I. The First Lady of the Land 90 II. Sweethearts 101 III. The Joy of Living 112 IV. Hidden Treasure 115 V. Across the Chasm 120 VI. The Gauge of Battle 131 VII. A Woman Laughs 136 VIII. A Dream 148 IX. The King Amuses Himself 152 X. Tossed by the Storm 162 XI. The Supreme Test 165 XII. Triumph in Defeat 179 BOOK III THE REIGN OF TERROR CHAPTER PAGE I. A Fallen Slaveholder's Mansion 187 II. The Eyes of the Jungle 204 III. Augustus Cæsar 209 IV. At the Point of the Bayonet 218 V. Forty Acres and a Mule 235 VI. A Whisper in the Crowd 244 VII. By the Light of a Torch 254 VIII. The Riot in the Master's Hall 263 IX. At Lover's Leap 276 X. A Night Hawk 284 XI. The Beat of a Sparrow's Wing 297 XII. At the Dawn of Day 305 BOOK IV THE KU KLUX KLAN CHAPTER PAGE I. The Hunt for the Animal 309 II. The Fiery Cross 318 III. The Parting of the Ways 327 IV. The Banner of the Dragon 337 V. The Reign of the Klan 341 VI. The Counter Stroke 351 VII. The Snare of the Fowler 358 VIII. A Ride for a Life 362 IX. "Vengeance Is Mine" 369 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LEADING CHARACTERS OF THE STORY Scene: Washington and the Foothills of the Carolinas. Time: 1865 to 1870. Ben Cameron Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan Margaret His Sister Mrs. Cameron His Mother Dr. Richard Cameron His Father Hon. Austin Stoneman Radical Leader of Congress Phil His Son Elsie His Daughter Marion Lenoir Ben's First Love Mrs. Lenoir Her Mother Jake A Faithful Man Silas Lynch A Negro Missionary Uncle Aleck The Member from Ulster Cindy His Wife Colonel Howle A Carpet-bagger Augustus Cæsar Of the Black Guard Charles Sumner Of Massachusetts Gen. Benjamin F. Butler Of Fort Fisher Andrew Johnson The President U. S. Grant The Commanding General Abraham Lincoln The Friend of the South ------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CLANSMAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Book I--The Assassination CHAPTER I THE BRUISED REED The fair girl who was playing a banjo and singing to the wounded soldiers suddenly stopped, and, turning to the surgeon, whispered: "What's that?" "It sounds like a mob----" With a common impulse they moved to the open window of the hospital and listened. On the soft spring air came the roar of excited thousands sweeping down the avenue from the Capitol toward the White House. Above all rang the cries of struggling newsboys screaming an "Extra." One of them darted around the corner, his shrill voice quivering with excitement: "_Extra! Extra! Peace! Victory!_" Windows were suddenly raised, women thrust their heads out, and others rushed into the street and crowded around the boy, struggling to get his papers. He threw them right and left and snatched the money--no one asked for change. Without ceasing rose his cry: "_Extra! Peace! Victory! Lee has surrendered!_" At last the end had come. The great North, with its millions of sturdy people and their exhaustless resources, had greeted the first shot on Sumter with contempt and incredulity. A few regiments went forward for a month's outing to settle the trouble. The Thirteenth Brooklyn marched gayly Southward on a thirty days' jaunt, with pieces of rope conspicuously tied to their muskets with which to bring back each man a Southern prisoner to be led in a noose through the streets on their early triumphant return! It would be unkind to tell what became of those ropes when they suddenly started back home ahead of the scheduled time from the first battle of Bull Run. People from the South, equally wise, marched gayly North, to whip five Yankees each before breakfast, and encountered unforeseen difficulties. Both sides had things to learn, and learned them in a school whose logic is final--a four years' course in the University of Hell--the scream of eagles, the howl of wolves, the bay of tigers, the roar of lions--all locked in Death's embrace, and each mad scene lit by the glare of volcanoes of savage passions! But the long agony was over. The city bells began to ring. The guns of the forts joined the chorus, and their deep steel throats roared until the earth trembled. Just across the street a mother who was reading the fateful news turned and suddenly clasped a boy to her heart, crying for joy. The last draft of half a million had called for him. The Capital of the Nation was shaking off the long nightmare of horror and suspense. More than once the city had shivered at the mercy of those daring men in gray, and the reveille of their drums had startled even the President at his desk. Again and again had the destiny of the Republic hung on the turning of a hair, and in every crisis, Luck, Fate, God, had tipped the scale for the Union. A procession of more than five hundred Confederate deserters, who had crossed the lines in groups, swung into view, marching past the hospital, indifferent to the tumult. Only a nominal guard flanked them as they shuffled along, tired, ragged, and dirty. The gray in their uniforms was now the colour of clay. Some had on blue pantaloons, some, blue vests, others blue coats captured on the field of blood. Some had pieces of carpet, and others old bags around their shoulders. They had been passing thus for weeks. Nobody paid any attention to them. "One of the secrets of the surrender!" exclaimed Doctor Barnes. "Mr. Lincoln has been at the front for the past weeks with offers of peace and mercy, if they would lay down their arms. The great soul of the President, even the genius of Lee could not resist. His smile began to melt those gray ranks as the sun is warming the earth to-day." "You are a great admirer of the President," said the girl, with a curious smile. "Yes, Miss Elsie, and so are all who know him." She turned from the window without reply. A shadow crossed her face as she looked past the long rows of cots, on which rested the men in blue, until her eyes found one on which lay, alone among his enemies, a young Confederate officer. The surgeon turned with her toward the man. "Will he live?" she asked. "Yes, only to be hung." "For what?" she cried. "Sentenced by court-martial as a guerilla. It's a lie, but there's some powerful hand back of it--some mysterious influence in high authority. The boy wasn't fully conscious at the trial." "We must appeal to Mr. Stanton." "As well appeal to the devil. They say the order came from his office." "A boy of nineteen!" she exclaimed. "It's a shame. I'm looking for his mother. You told me to telegraph to Richmond for her." "Yes, I'll never forget his cries that night, so utterly pitiful and childlike. I've heard many a cry of pain, but in all my life nothing so heartbreaking as that boy in fevered delirium talking to his mother. His voice is one of peculiar tenderness, penetrating and musical. It goes quivering into your soul, and compels you to listen until you swear it's your brother or sweetheart or sister or mother calling you. You should have seen him the day he fell. God of mercies, the pity and the glory of it!" [Illustration: "YOUR BROTHER SPRANG FORWARD AND CAUGHT HIM IN HIS ARMS."] "Phil wrote me that he was a hero and asked me to look after him. Were you there?" "Yes, with the battery your brother was supporting. He was the colonel of a shattered rebel regiment lying just in front of us before Petersburg. Richmond was doomed, resistance was madness, but there they were, ragged and half starved, a handful of men, not more than four hundred, but their bayonets gleamed and flashed in the sunlight. In the face of a murderous fire he charged and actually drove our men out of an entrenchment. We concentrated our guns on him as he crouched behind this earthwork. Our own men lay outside in scores, dead, dying, and wounded. When the fire slacked, we could hear their cries for water. "Suddenly this boy sprang on the breastwork. He was dressed in a new gray colonel's uniform that mother of his, in the pride of her soul, had sent him. "He was a handsome figure--tall, slender, straight, a gorgeous yellow sash tasselled with gold around his waist, his sword flashing in the sun, his slouch hat cocked on one side and an eagle's feather in it. "We thought he was going to lead another charge, but just as the battery was making ready to fire he deliberately walked down the embankment in a hail of musketry and began to give water to our wounded men. "Every gun ceased firing, and we watched him. He walked back to the trench, his naked sword flashed suddenly above that eagle's feather, and his grizzled ragamuffins sprang forward and charged us like so many demons. "There were not more than three hundred of them now, but on they came, giving that hellish rebel yell at every jump--the cry of the hunter from the hilltop at the sight of his game! All Southern men are hunters, and that cry was transformed in war into something unearthly when it came from a hundred throats in chorus and the game was human. "Of course, it was madness. We blew them down that hill like chaff before a hurricane. When the last man had staggered back or fallen, on came this boy alone, carrying the colours he had snatched from a falling soldier, as if he were leading a million men to victory. "A bullet had blown his hat from his head, and we could see the blood streaming down the side of his face. He charged straight into the jaws of one of our guns. And then, with a smile on his lips and a dare to death in his big brown eyes, he rammed that flag into the cannon's mouth, reeled, and fell! A cheer broke from our men. "Your brother sprang forward and caught him in his arms, and as we bent over the unconscious form, he exclaimed: 'My God, doctor, look at him! He is so much like me I feel as if I had been shot myself!' They were as much alike as twins--only his hair was darker. I tell you, Miss Elsie, it's a sin to kill men like that. One such man is worth more to this nation than every negro that ever set his flat foot on this continent!" The girl's eyes had grown dim as she listened to the story. "I will appeal to the President," she said firmly. "It's the only chance. And just now he is under tremendous pressure. His friendly order to the Virginia Legislature to return to Richmond, Stanton forced him to cancel. A master hand has organized a conspiracy in Congress to crush the President. They curse his policy of mercy as imbecility, and swear to make the South a second Poland. Their watchwords are vengeance and confiscation. Four fifths of his party in Congress are in this plot. The President has less than a dozen real friends in either House on whom he can depend. They say that Stanton is to be given a free hand, and that the gallows will be busy. This cancelled order of the President looks like it." "I'll try my hand with Mr. Stanton," she said with slow emphasis. "Good luck, Little Sister--let me know if I can help," the surgeon answered cheerily as he passed on his round of work. Elsie Stoneman took her seat beside the cot of the wounded Confederate and began softly to sing and play. A little farther along the same row a soldier was dying, a faint choking just audible in his throat. An attendant sat beside him and would not leave till the last. The ordinary chat and hum of the ward went on indifferent to peace, victory, life, or death. Before the finality of the hospital all other events of earth fade. Some were playing cards or checkers, some laughing and joking, and others reading. At the first soft note from the singer the games ceased, and the reader put down his book. The banjo had come to Washington with the negroes following the wake of the army. She had laid aside her guitar and learned to play all the stirring camp songs of the South. Her voice was low, soothing, and tender. It held every silent listener in a spell. As she played and sang the songs the wounded man loved, her eyes lingered in pity on his sun-bronzed face, pinched and drawn with fever. He was sleeping the stupid sleep that gives no rest. She could count the irregular pounding of his heart in the throb of the big vein on his neck. His lips were dry and burnt, and the little boyish moustache curled upward from the row of white teeth as if scorched by the fiery breath. He began to talk in flighty sentences, and she listened--his mother--his sister--and yes, she was sure as she bent nearer--a little sweetheart who lived next door. They all had sweethearts--these Southern boys. Again he was teasing his dog--and then back in battle. At length he opened his eyes, great dark-brown eyes, unnaturally bright, with a strange yearning look in their depths as they rested on Elsie. He tried to smile and feebly said: "Here's--a--fly--on--my--left--ear--my--guns--can't--somehow-- reach--him--won't--you--" She sprang forward and brushed the fly away. Again he opened his eyes. "Excuse--me--for--asking--but am I alive?" "Yes, indeed," was the cheerful answer. "Well, now, then, is this me, or is it not me, or has a cannon shot me, or has the devil got me?" "It's you. The cannon didn't shoot you, but three muskets did. The devil hasn't got you yet, but he will unless you're good." "I'll be good if you won't leave me----" Elsie turned her head away smiling, and he went on slowly: "But I'm dead, I know. I'm sleeping on a cot with a canopy over it. I ain't hungry any more, and an angel has been hovering over me playing on a harp of gold----" "Only a little Yankee girl playing the banjo." "Can't fool me--I'm in heaven." "You're in the hospital." "Funny hospital--look at that harp and that big trumpet hanging close by it--that's Gabriel's trumpet----" "No," she laughed. "This is the Patent Office building, that covers two blocks, now a temporary hospital. There are seventy thousand wounded soldiers in town, and more coming on every train. The thirty-five hospitals are overcrowded." He closed his eyes a moment in silence, and then spoke with a feeble tremor: "I'm afraid you don't know who I am--I can't impose on you--I'm a rebel----" "Yes, I know. You are Colonel Ben Cameron. It makes no difference to me now which side you fought on." "Well, I'm in heaven--been dead a long time. I can prove it, if you'll play again." "What shall I play?" "First, '_O Jonny Booker Help dis Nigger_.'" She played and sang it beautifully. "Now, '_Wake Up in the Morning_.'" Again he listened with wide, staring eyes that saw nothing except visions within. "Now, then, '_The Ole Gray Hoss_.'" As the last notes died away he tried to smile again: "One more--'_Hard Times an' Wuss er Comin'_.'" With deft, sure touch and soft negro dialect she sang it through. "Now, didn't I tell you that you couldn't fool me? No Yankee girl could play and sing these songs, I'm in heaven, and you're an angel." "Aren't you ashamed of yourself to flirt with me, with one foot in the grave?" "That's the time to get on good terms with the angels--but I'm done dead----" Elsie laughed in spite of herself. "I know it," he went on, "because you have shining golden hair and amber eyes instead of blue ones. I never saw a girl in my life before with such eyes and hair." "But you're young yet." "Never--was--such--a--girl--on--earth--you're--an----" She lifted her finger in warning, and his eyelids drooped In exhausted stupor. "You musn't talk any more," she whispered, shaking her head. A commotion at the door caused Elsie to turn from the cot. A sweet motherly woman of fifty, in an old faded black dress, was pleading with the guard to be allowed to pass. "Can't do it, m'um. It's agin the rules." "But I must go in. I've tramped for four days through a wilderness of hospitals, and I know he must be here." "Special orders, m'um--wounded rebels in here that belong in prison." "Very well, young man," said the pleading voice. "My baby boy's in this place, wounded and about to die. I'm going in there. You can shoot me if you like, or you can turn your head the other way." She stepped quickly past the soldier, who merely stared with dim eyes out the door and saw nothing. She stood for a moment with a look of helpless bewilderment. The vast area of the second story of the great monolithic pile was crowded with rows of sick, wounded, and dying men--a strange, solemn, and curious sight. Against the walls were ponderous glass cases, filled with models of every kind of invention the genius of man had dreamed. Between these cases were deep lateral openings, eight feet wide, crowded with the sick, and long rows of them were stretched through the centre of the hall. A gallery ran around above the cases, and this was filled with cots. The clatter of the feet of passing surgeons and nurses over the marble floor added to the weird impression. Elsie saw the look of helpless appeal in the mother's face and hurried forward to meet her: "Is this Mrs. Cameron, of South Carolina?" The trembling figure in black grasped her hand eagerly: "Yes, yes, my dear, and I'm looking for my boy, who is wounded unto death. Can you help me?" "I thought I recognized you from a miniature I've seen," she answered softly. "I'll lead you direct to his cot." "Thank you, thank you!" came the low reply. In a moment she was beside him, and Elsie walked away to the open window through which came the chirp of sparrows from the lilac bushes in full bloom below. The mother threw one look of infinite tenderness on the drawn face, and her hands suddenly clasped in prayer: "I thank Thee, Lord Jesus, for this hour! Thou hast heard the cry of my soul and led my feet!" She gently knelt, kissed the hot lips, smoothed the dark tangled hair back from his forehead, and her hand rested over his eyes. A faint flush tinged his face. "It's you, Mamma--I--know--you--that's--your--hand--or--else--it's--God's!" She slipped her arms about him. "My hero, my darling, my baby!" "I'll get well now, Mamma, never fear. You see, I had whipped them that day as I had many a time before. I don't know how it happened--my men seemed all to go down at once. You know--I couldn't surrender in that new uniform of a colonel you sent me--we made a gallant fight, and--now--I'm--just--a--little--tired--but you are here, and it's all right." "Yes, yes, dear. It's all over now. General Lee has surrendered, and when you are better I'll take you home, where the sunshine and flowers will give you strength again." "How's my little sis?" "Hunting in another part of the city for you. She's grown so tall and stately you'll hardly know her. Your papa is at home, and don't know yet that you are wounded." "And my sweetheart, Marion Lenoir?" "The most beautiful little girl in Piedmont--as sweet and mischievous as ever. Mr. Lenoir is very ill, but he has written a glorious poem about one of your charges. I'll show it to you to-morrow. He is our greatest poet. The South worships him. Marion sent her love to you and a kiss for the young hero of Piedmont. I'll give it to you now." She bent again and kissed him. "And my dogs?" "General Sherman left them, at least." "Well, I'm glad of that--my mare all right?" "Yes, but we had a time to save her--Jake hid her in the woods till the army passed." "Bully for Jake." "I don't know what we should have done without him." "Old Aleck still at home and getting drunk as usual?" "No, he ran away with the army and persuaded every negro on the Lenoir place to go, except his wife, Aunt Cindy." "The old rascal, when Mrs. Lenoir's mother saved him from burning to death when he was a boy!" "Yes, and he told the Yankees those fire scars were made with the lash, and led a squad to the house one night to burn the barns. Jake headed them off and told on him. The soldiers were so mad they strung him up and thrashed him nearly to death. We haven't seen him since." "Well, I'll take care of you, Mamma, when I get home. Of course I'll get well. It's absurd to die at nineteen. You know I never believed the bullet had been moulded that could hit me. In three years of battle I lived a charmed life and never got a scratch." His voice had grown feeble and laboured, and his face flushed. His mother placed her hand on his lips. "Just one more," he pleaded feebly. "Did you see the little angel who has been playing and singing for me? You must thank her." "Yes, I see her coming now. I must go and tell Margaret, and we will get a pass and come every day." She kissed him, and went to meet Elsie. "And you are the dear girl who has been playing and singing for my boy, a wounded stranger here alone among his foes?" "Yes, and for all the others, too." Mrs. Cameron seized both of her hands and looked at her tenderly. "You will let me kiss you? I shall always love you." She pressed Elsie to her heart. In spite of the girl's reserve, a sob caught her breath at the touch of the warm lips. Her own mother had died when she was a baby, and a shy, hungry heart, long hidden from the world, leaped in tenderness and pain to meet that embrace. Elsie walked with her to the door, wondering how the terrible truth of her boy's doom could be told. She tried to speak, looked into Mrs. Cameron's face, radiant with grateful joy, and the words froze on her lips. She decided to walk a little way with her. But the task became all the harder. At the corner she stopped abruptly and bade her good-bye: "I must leave you now, Mrs. Cameron. I will call for you in the morning and help you secure the passes to enter the hospital." The mother stroked the girl's hand and held it lingeringly. "How good you are," she said softly. "And you have not told me your name?" Elsie hesitated and said: "That's a little secret. They call me Sister Elsie, the Banjo Maid, in the hospitals. My father is a man of distinction. I should be annoyed if my full name were known. I'm Elsie Stoneman. My father is the leader of the House. I live with my aunt." "Thank you," she whispered, pressing her hand. Elsie watched the dark figure disappear in the crowd with a strange tumult of feeling. The mention of her father had revived the suspicion that he was the mysterious power threatening the policy of the President and planning a reign of terror for the South. Next to the President, he was the most powerful man in Washington, and the unrelenting foe of Mr. Lincoln, although the leader of his party in Congress, which he ruled with a rod of iron. He was a man of fierce and terrible resentments. And yet, in his personal life, to those he knew, he was generous and considerate. "Old Austin Stoneman, the Great Commoner," he was called, and his name was one to conjure with in the world of deeds. To this fair girl he was the noblest Roman of them all, her ideal of greatness. He was an indulgent father, and while not demonstrative, loved his children with passionate devotion. She paused and looked up at the huge marble columns that seemed each a sentinel beckoning her to return within to the cot that held a wounded foe. The twilight had deepened, and the soft light of the rising moon had clothed the solemn majesty of the building with shimmering tenderness and beauty. "Why should I be distressed for one, an enemy, among these thousands who have fallen?" she asked herself. Every detail of the scene she had passed through with him and his mother stood out in her soul with startling distinctness--and the horror of his doom cut with the deep sense of personal anguish. "He shall not die," she said, with sudden resolution. "I'll take his mother to the President. He can't resist her. I'll send for Phil to help me." She hurried to the telegraph office and summoned her brother. CHAPTER II THE GREAT HEART The next morning, when Elsie reached the obscure boarding-house at which Mrs. Cameron stopped, the mother had gone to the market to buy a bunch of roses to place beside her boy's cot. As Elsie awaited her return, the practical little Yankee maid thought with a pang of the tenderness and folly of such people. She knew this mother had scarcely enough to eat, but to her bread was of small importance, flowers necessary to life. After all, it was very sweet, this foolishness of these Southern people, and it somehow made her homesick. "How can I tell her!" she sighed. "And yet I must." She had only waited a moment when Mrs. Cameron suddenly entered with her daughter. She threw her flowers on the table, sprang forward to meet Elsie, seized her hands and called to Margaret. "How good of you to come so soon! This, Margaret, is our dear little friend who has been so good to Ben and to me." Margaret took Elsie's hand and longed to throw her arms around her neck, but something in the quiet dignity of the Northern girl's manner held her back. She only smiled tenderly through her big dark eyes, and softly said: "We love you! Ben was my last brother. We were playmates and chums. My heart broke when he ran away to the front. How can we thank you and your brother!" "I'm sure we've done nothing more than you would have done for us," said Elsie, as Mrs. Cameron left the room. "Yes, I know, but we can never tell you how grateful we are to you. We feel that you have saved Ben's life and ours. The war has been one long horror to us since my first brother was killed. But now it's over, and we have Ben left, and our hearts have been crying for joy all night." "I hoped my brother, Captain Phil Stoneman, would be here to-day to meet you and help me, but he can't reach Washington before Friday." "He caught Ben in his arms!" cried Margaret. "I know he's brave, and you must be proud of him." "Doctor Barnes says they are as much alike as twins--only Phil is not quite so tall and has blond hair like mine." "You will let me see him and thank him the moment he comes?" "Hurry, Margaret!" cheerily cried Mrs. Cameron, reëntering the parlour. "Get ready; we must go at once to the hospital." Margaret turned and with stately grace hurried from the room. The old dress she wore as unconscious of its shabbiness as though it were a royal robe. "And now, my dear, what must I do to get the passes?" asked the mother eagerly. Elsie's warm amber eyes grew misty for a moment, and the fair skin with its gorgeous rose tints of the North paled. She hesitated, tried to speak, and was silent. The sensitive soul of the Southern woman read the message of sorrow words had not framed. "Tell me, quickly! The doctor--has--not--concealed--his--true--condition--from--me?" "No, he is certain to recover." "What then?" "Worse--he is condemned to death by court-martial." "Condemned to death--a--wounded--prisoner--of--war!" she whispered slowly, with blanched face. "Yes, he was accused of violating the rules of war as a guerilla raider in the invasion of Pennsylvania." "Absurd and monstrous! He was on General Jeb Stuart's staff and could have acted only under his orders. He joined the infantry after Stuart's death, and rose to be a colonel, though but a boy. There's some terrible mistake!" "Unless we can obtain his pardon," Elsie went on in even, restrained tones, "there is no hope. We must appeal to the President." The mother's lips trembled, and she seemed about to faint. "Could I see the President?" she asked, recovering herself with an effort. "He has just reached Washington from the front, and is thronged by thousands. It will be difficult." The mother's lips were moving in silent prayer, and her eyes were tightly closed to keep back the tears. "Can you help me, dear?" she asked piteously. "Yes," was the quick response. "You see," she went on, "I feel so helpless. I have never been to the White House or seen the President, and I don't know how to go about seeing him or how to ask him--and--I am afraid of Mr. Lincoln! I have heard so many harsh things said of him." "I'll do my best, Mrs. Cameron. We must go at once to the White House and try to see him." The mother lifted the girl's hand and stroked it gently. "We will not tell Margaret. Poor child! she could not endure this. When we return, we may have better news. It can't be worse. I'll send her on an errand." She took up the bouquet of gorgeous roses with a sigh, buried her face in the fresh perfume, as if to gain strength in their beauty and fragrance, and left the room. In a few moments she had returned and was on her way with Elsie to the White House. It was a beautiful spring morning, this eleventh day of April, 1865. The glorious sunshine, the shimmering green of the grass, the warm breezes, and the shouts of victory mocked the mother's anguish. At the White House gates they passed the blue sentry pacing silently back and forth, who merely glanced at them with keen eyes and said nothing. In the steady beat of his feet the mother could hear the tramp of soldiers leading her boy to the place of death! A great lump rose in her throat as she caught the first view of the Executive Mansion gleaming white and silent and ghostlike among the budding trees. The tall columns of the great facade, spotless as snow, the spray of the fountain, the marble walls, pure, dazzling, and cold, seemed to her the gateway to some great tomb in which her own dead and the dead of all the people lay! To her the fair white palace, basking there in the sunlight and budding grass, shrub, and tree, was the Judgment House of Fate. She thought of all the weary feet that had climbed its fateful steps in hope to return in despair, of its fierce dramas on which the lives of millions had hung, and her heart grew sick. A long line of people already stretched from the entrance under the portico far out across the park, awaiting their turn to see the President. Mrs. Cameron placed her hand falteringly on Elsie's shoulder. "Look, my dear, what a crowd already! Must we wait in line?" "No, I can get you past the throng with my father's name." "Will it be very difficult to reach the President?" "No, it's very easy. Guards and sentinels annoy him. He frets until they are removed. An assassin or maniac could kill him almost any hour of the day or night. The doors are open at all hours, very late at night. I have often walked up to the rooms of his secretaries as late as nine o'clock without being challenged by a soul." "What must I call him? Must I say 'Your Excellency?'" "By no means--he hates titles and forms. You should say 'Mr. President' in addressing him. But you will please him best if, in your sweet, homelike way, you will just call him by his name. You can rely on his sympathy. Read this letter of his to a widow. I brought it to show you." She handed Mrs. Cameron a newspaper clipping on which was printed Mr. Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby, of Boston, who had lost five sons in the war. Over and over she read its sentences until they echoed as solemn music in her soul: "I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. "Yours very sincerely and respectfully, "ABRAHAM LINCOLN." "And the President paused amid a thousand cares to write that letter to a broken-hearted woman?" the mother asked. "Yes." "Then he is good down to the last secret depths of a great heart! Only a Christian father could have written that letter. I shall not be afraid to speak to him. And they told me he was an infidel!" Elsie led her by a private way past the crowd and into the office of Major Hay, the President's private secretary. A word from the Great Commoner's daughter admitted them at once to the President's room. "Just take a seat on one side, Miss Elsie," said Major Hay; "watch your first opportunity and introduce your friend." On entering the room, Mrs. Cameron could not see the President, who was seated at his desk surrounded by three men in deep consultation over a mass of official documents. She looked about the room nervously and felt reassured by its plain aspect. It was a medium-sized, officelike place, with no signs of elegance or ceremony. Mr. Lincoln was seated in an armchair beside a high writing-desk and table combined. She noticed that his feet were large and that they rested on a piece of simple straw matting. Around the room were sofas and chairs covered with green worsted. When the group about the chair parted a moment, she caught the first glimpse of the man who held her life in the hollow of his hand. She studied him with breathless interest. His back was still turned. Even while seated, she saw that he was a man of enormous stature, fully six feet four inches tall, legs and arms abnormally long, and huge broad shoulders slightly stooped. His head was powerful and crowned with a mass of heavy brown hair, tinged with silver. He turned his head slightly and she saw his profile set in its short dark beard--the broad intellectual brow, half covered by unmanageable hair, his face marked with deep-cut lines of life and death, with great hollows in the cheeks and under the eyes. In the lines which marked the corners of his mouth she could see firmness, and his beetling brows and unusually heavy eyelids looked stern and formidable. Her heart sank. She looked again and saw goodness, tenderness, sorrow, canny shrewdness, and a strange lurking smile all haunting his mouth and eye. Suddenly he threw himself forward in his chair, wheeled and faced one of his tormentors with a curious and comical expression. With one hand patting the other, and a funny look overspreading his face, he said: "My friend, let me tell you something----" The man again stepped before him, and she could hear nothing. When the story was finished, the man tried to laugh. It died in a feeble effort. But the President laughed heartily, laughed all over, and laughed his visitors out of the room. Mrs. Cameron turned toward Elsie with a mute look of appeal to give her this moment of good-humour in which to plead her cause, but before she could move a man of military bearing suddenly stepped before the President. He began to speak, but seeing the look of stern decision in Mr. Lincoln's face, turned abruptly and said: "Mr. President, I see you are fully determined not to do me justice!" Mr. Lincoln slightly compressed his lips, rose quietly, seized the intruder by the arm, and led him toward the door. "This is the third time you have forced your presence on me, sir, asking that I reverse the just sentence of a court-martial, dismissing you from the service. I told you my decision was carefully made and was final. Now I give you fair warning never to show yourself in this room again. I can bear censure, but I will not endure insult!" In whining tones the man begged for his papers he had dropped. "Begone, sir," said the President, as he thrust him through the door. "Your papers will be sent to you." The poor mother trembled at this startling act and sank back limp in her seat. With quick, swinging stride the President walked back to his desk, accompanied by Major Hay and a young German girl, whose simple dress told that she was from the Western plains. He handed the secretary an official paper. "Give this pardon to the boy's mother when she comes this morning," he said kindly to the secretary, his eyes suddenly full of gentleness. "How could I consent to shoot a boy raised on a farm, in the habit of going to bed at dark, for falling asleep at his post when required to watch all night? I'll never go into eternity with the blood of such a boy on my skirts." Again the mother's heart rose. "You remember the young man I pardoned for a similar offence in '62, about which Stanton made such a fuss?" he went on in softly reminiscent tones. "Well, here is that pardon." He drew from the lining of his silk hat a photograph, around which was wrapped an executive pardon. Through the lower end of it was a bullet-hole stained with blood. "I got this in Richmond. They found him dead on the field. He fell in the front ranks with my photograph in his pocket next to his heart, this pardon wrapped around it, and on the back of it in his boy's scrawl, '_God bless Abraham Lincoln_.' I love to invest in bonds like that." The secretary returned to his room, the girl who was waiting stepped forward, and the President rose to receive her. The mother's quick eye noted, with surprise, the simple dignity and chivalry of manner with which he received this humble woman of the people. With straightforward eloquence the girl poured out her story, begging for the pardon of her young brother who had been sentenced to death as a deserter. He listened in silence. How pathetic the deep melancholy of his sad face! Yes, she was sure, the saddest face that God ever made in all the world! Her own stricken heart for a moment went out to him in sympathy. The President took off his spectacles, wiped his forehead with the large red silk handkerchief he carried, and his eyes twinkled kindly down into the good German face. "You seem an honest, truthful, sweet girl," he said, "and"--he smiled--"you don't wear hoop skirts! I may be whipped for this, but I'll trust you and your brother, too. He shall be pardoned." Elsie rose to introduce Mrs. Cameron, when a Congressman from Massachusetts suddenly stepped before her and pressed for the pardon of a slave trader whose ship had been confiscated. He had spent five years in prison, but could not pay the heavy fine in money imposed. The President had taken his seat again, and read the eloquent appeal for mercy. He looked up over his spectacles, fixed his eyes piercingly on the Congressman and said: "This is a moving appeal, sir, expressed with great eloquence. I might pardon a murderer under the spell of such words, but a man who can make a business of going to Africa and robbing her of her helpless children and selling them into bondage--no, sir--he may rot in jail before he shall have liberty by any act of mine!" Again the mother's heart sank. Her hour had come. She must put the issue of life or death to the test, and as Elsie rose and stepped quickly forward, she followed; nerving herself for the ordeal. The President took Elsie's hand familiarly and smiled without rising. Evidently she was well known to him. "Will you hear the prayer of a broken-hearted mother of the South, who has lost four sons in General Lee's army?" she asked. Looking quietly past the girl, he caught sight, for the first time, of the faded dress and the sorrow-shadowed face. He was on his feet in a moment, extended his hand and led her to a chair. "Take this seat, Madam, and then tell me in your own way what I can do for you." In simple words, mighty with the eloquence of a mother's heart, she told her story and asked for the pardon of her boy, promising his word of honour and her own that he would never again take up arms against the Union. "The war is over now, Mr. Lincoln," she said, "and we have lost all. Can you conceive the desolation of _my_ heart? My four boys were noble men. They may have been wrong, but they fought for what they believed to be right. You, too, have lost a boy." The President's eyes grew dim. "Yes, a beautiful boy----" he said simply. "Well, mine are all gone but this baby. One of them sleeps in an unmarked grave at Gettysburg. One died in a Northern prison. One fell at Chancellorsville, one in the Wilderness, and this, my baby, before Petersburg. Perhaps I've loved him too much, this last one--he's only a child yet----" "You shall have your boy, my dear Madam," the President said simply, seating himself and writing a brief order to the Secretary of War. The mother drew near his desk, softly crying. Through her tears she said: "My heart is heavy, Mr. Lincoln, when I think of all the hard and bitter things we have heard of you." "Well, give my love to the people of South Carolina when you go home, and tell them that I am their President, and that I have never forgotten this fact in the darkest hours of this awful war; and I am going to do everything in my power to help them." "You will never regret this generous act," the mother cried with gratitude. "I reckon not," he answered. "I'll tell you something, Madam, if you won't tell anybody. It's a secret of my administration. I'm only too glad of an excuse to save a life when I can. Every drop of blood shed in this war North and South has been as if it were wrung out of my heart. A strange fate decreed that the bloodiest war in human history should be fought under my direction. And I--to whom the sight of blood is a sickening horror--I have been compelled to look on in silent anguish because I could not stop it! Now that the Union is saved, not another drop of blood shall be spilled if I can prevent it." "May God bless you!" the mother cried, as she received from him the order. She held his hand an instant as she took her leave, laughing and sobbing in her great joy. "I must tell you, Mr. President," she said, "how surprised and how pleased I am to find you are a Southern man." "Why, didn't you know that my parents were Virginians, and that I was born in Kentucky?" "Very few people in the South know it. I am ashamed to say I did not." "Then, how did you know I am a Southerner?" "By your looks, your manner of speech, your easy, kindly ways, your tenderness and humour, your firmness in the right as you see it, and, above all, the way you rose and bowed to a woman in an old, faded black dress, whom you knew to be an enemy." "No, Madam, not an enemy now," he said softly. "That word is out of date." "If we had only known you in time----" The President accompanied her to the door with a deference of manner that showed he had been deeply touched. "Take this letter to Mr. Stanton at once," he said. "Some folks complain of my pardons, but it rests me after a hard day's work if I can save some poor boy's life. I go to bed happy, thinking of the joy I have given to those who love him." As the last words were spoken, a peculiar dreaminess of expression stole over his careworn face, as if a throng of gracious memories had lifted for a moment the burden of his life. CHAPTER III THE MAN OF WAR Elsie led Mrs. Cameron direct from the White House to the War Department. "Well, Mrs. Cameron, what did you think of the President?" she asked. "I hardly know," was the thoughtful answer. "He is the greatest man I ever met. One feels this instinctively." When Mrs. Cameron was ushered into the Secretary's Office, Mr. Stanton was seated at his desk writing. She handed the order of the President to a clerk, who gave it to the Secretary. He was a man in the full prime of life, intellectual and physical, low and heavy set, about five feet eight inches in height and inclined to fat. His movements, however, were quick, and as he swung in his chair the keenest vigour marked every movement of body and every change of his countenance. His face was swarthy and covered with a long, dark beard touched with gray. He turned a pair of little black piercing eyes on her and without rising said: "So you are the woman who has a wounded son under sentence of death as a guerilla?" "I am so unfortunate," she answered. "Well, I have nothing to say to you," he went on in a louder and sterner tone, "and no time to waste on you. If you have raised up men to rebel against the best government under the sun, you can take the consequences----" "But, my dear sir," broke in the mother, "he is a mere boy of nineteen, who ran away three years ago and entered the service----" "I don't want to hear another word from you!" he yelled in rage. "I have no time to waste--go at once. I'll do nothing for you." "But I bring you an order from the President," protested the mother. "Yes, I know it," he answered with a sneer, "and I'll do with it what I've done with many others--see that it is not executed--now go." "But the President told me you would give me a pass to the hospital, and that a full pardon would be issued to my boy!" "Yes, I see. But let me give you some information. The President is a fool--a d---- fool! Now, will you go?" With a sinking sense of horror, Mrs. Cameron withdrew and reported to Elsie the unexpected encounter. "The brute!" cried the girl. "We'll go back immediately and report this insult to the President." "Why are such men intrusted with power?" the mother sighed. "It's a mystery to me, I'm sure. They say he is the greatest Secretary of War in our history. I don't believe it. Phil hates the sight of him, and so does every army officer I know, from General Grant down. I hope Mr. Lincoln will expel him from the Cabinet for this insult." When, they were again ushered into the President's office, Elsie hastened to inform him of the outrageous reply the Secretary of War had made to his order. "Did Stanton say that I was a fool?" he asked, with a quizzical look out of his kindly eyes. "Yes, he did," snapped Elsie. "And he repeated it with a blankety prefix." The President looked good-humouredly out of the window toward the War Office and musingly said: "Well, if Stanton says that I am a blankety fool, it must be so, for I have found out that he is nearly always right, and generally means what he says. I'll just step over and see Stanton." As he spoke the last sentence, the humour slowly faded from his face, and the anxious mother saw back of those patient gray eyes the sudden gleam of the courage and conscious power of a lion. He dismissed them with instructions to return the next day for his final orders and walked over to the War Department alone. The Secretary of War was in one of his ugliest moods, and made no effort to conceal it when asked his reasons for the refusal to execute the order. "The grounds for my action are very simple," he said with bitter emphasis. "The execution of this traitor is part of a carefully considered policy of justice on which the future security of the Nation depends. If I am to administer this office, I will not be hamstrung by constant Executive interference. Besides, in this particular case, I was urged that justice be promptly executed by the most powerful man in Congress. I advise you to avoid a quarrel with old Stoneman at this crisis in our history." The President sat on a sofa with his legs crossed, relapsed into an attitude of resignation, and listened in silence until the last sentence, when suddenly he sat bolt upright, fixed his deep gray eyes intently on Stanton and said: "Mr. Secretary, I reckon you will have to execute that order." "I cannot do it," came the firm answer. "It is an interference with justice, and I will not execute it." Mr. Lincoln held his eyes steadily on Stanton and slowly said: "Mr. Secretary, it will have to be done." Stanton wheeled in his chair, seized a pen and wrote very rapidly a few lines to which he fixed his signature. He rose with the paper in his hand, walked to his chief, and with deep emotion said: "Mr. President, I wish to thank you for your constant friendship during the trying years I have held this office. The war is ended, and my work is done. I hand you my resignation." Mr. Lincoln's lips came suddenly together, he slowly rose, and looked down with surprise into the flushed angry face. He took the paper, tore it into pieces, slipped one of his long arms around the Secretary, and said in low accents: "Stanton, you have been a faithful public servant, and it is not for you to say when you will no longer be needed. Go on with your work. I will have my way in this matter; but I will attend to it personally." Stanton resumed his seat, and the President returned to the White House. CHAPTER IV A CLASH OF GIANTS Elsie secured from the Surgeon-General temporary passes for the day, and sent her friends to the hospital with the promise that she would not leave the White House until she had secured the pardon. The President greeted her with unusual warmth. The smile that had only haunted his sad face during four years of struggle, defeat, and uncertainty had now burst into joy that made his powerful head radiate light. Victory had lifted the veil from his soul, and he was girding himself for the task of healing the Nation's wounds. "I'll have it ready for you in a moment, Miss Elsie," he said, touching with his sinewy hand a paper which lay on his desk, bearing on its face the red seal of the Republic. "I am only waiting to receive the passes." "I am very grateful to you, Mr. President," the girl said feelingly. "But tell me," he said, with quaint, fatherly humour, "why you, of all our girls, the brightest, fiercest little Yankee in town, so take to heart a rebel boy's sorrows?" Elsie blushed, and then looked at him frankly with a saucy smile. "I am fulfilling the Commandments." "Love your enemies?" "Certainly. How could one help loving the sweet, motherly face you saw yesterday." The President laughed heartily. "I see--of course, of course!" "The Honourable Austin Stoneman," suddenly announced a clerk at his elbow. Elsie started in surprise and whispered: "Do not let my father know I am here. I will wait in the next room. You'll let nothing delay the pardon, will you, Mr. President?" Mr. Lincoln warmly pressed her hand as she disappeared through the door leading into Major Hay's room, and turned to meet the Great Commoner who hobbled slowly in, leaning on his crooked cane. At this moment he was a startling and portentous figure in the drama of the Nation, the most powerful parliamentary leader in American history, not excepting Henry Clay. No stranger ever passed this man without a second look. His clean-shaven face, the massive chiselled features, his grim eagle look, and cold, colourless eyes, with the frosts of his native Vermont sparkling in their depths, compelled attention. His walk was a painful hobble. He was lame in both feet, and one of them was deformed. The left leg ended in a mere bunch of flesh, resembling more closely an elephant's hoof than the foot of a man. He was absolutely bald, and wore a heavy brown wig that seemed too small to reach the edge of his enormous forehead. He rarely visited the White House. He was the able, bold, unscrupulous leader of leaders, and men came to see him. He rarely smiled, and when he did it was the smile of the cynic and misanthrope. His tongue had the lash of a scorpion. He was a greater terror to the trimmers and time-servers of his own party than to his political foes. He had hated the President with sullen, consistent, and unyielding venom from his first nomination at Chicago down to the last rumour of his new proclamation. In temperament a fanatic, in impulse a born revolutionist, the word conservatism was to him as a red rag to a bull. The first clash of arms was music to his soul. He laughed at the call for 75,000 volunteers, and demanded the immediate equipment of an army of a million men. He saw it grow to 2,000,000. From the first, his eagle eye had seen the end and all the long, blood-marked way between. And from the first, he began to plot the most cruel and awful vengeance in human history. And now his time had come. The giant figure in the White House alone had dared to brook his anger and block the way; for old Stoneman was the Congress of the United States. The opposition was too weak even for his contempt. Cool, deliberate, and venomous alike in victory or defeat, the fascination of his positive faith and revolutionary programme had drawn the rank and file of his party in Congress to him as charmed satellites. The President greeted him cordially, and with his habitual deference to age and physical infirmity hastened to place for him an easy chair near his desk. He was breathing heavily and evidently labouring under great emotion. He brought his cane to the floor with violence, placed both hands on its crook, leaned his massive jaws on his hands for a moment, and then said: "Mr. President, I have not annoyed you with many requests during the past four years, nor am I here to-day to ask any favours. I have come to warn you that, in the course you have mapped out, the executive and legislative branches have come to the parting of the ways, and that your encroachments on the functions of Congress will be tolerated, now that the Rebellion is crushed, not for a single moment!" Mr. Lincoln listened with dignity, and a ripple of fun played about his eyes as he looked at his grim visitor. The two men were face to face at last--the two men above all others who had built and were to build the foundations of the New Nation--Lincoln's in love and wisdom to endure forever, the Great Commoner's in hate and madness, to bear its harvest of tragedy and death for generations yet unborn. "Well, now, Stoneman," began the good-humoured voice, "that puts me in mind----" The old Commoner lifted his hand with a gesture of angry impatience: "Save your fables for fools. Is it true that you have prepared a proclamation restoring the conquered province of North Carolina to its place as a State in the Union with no provision for negro suffrage or the exile and disfranchisement of its rebels?" The President rose and walked back and forth with his hands folded behind him before answering. "I have. The Constitution grants to the National Government no power to regulate suffrage, and makes no provision for the control of 'conquered provinces.'" "Constitution!" thundered Stoneman. "I have a hundred constitutions in the pigeonholes of my desk!" "I have sworn to support but one." "A worn-out rag----" "Rag or silk, I've sworn to execute it, and I'll do it, so help me God!" said the quiet voice. "You've been doing it for the past four years, haven't you!" sneered the Commoner. "What right had you under the Constitution to declare war against a 'sovereign' State? To invade one for coercion? To blockade a port? To declare slaves free? To suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_? To create the State of West Virginia by the consent of two states, one of which was dead, and the other one of which lived in Ohio? By what authority have you appointed military governors in the 'sovereign' States of Virginia, Tennessee, and Louisiana? Why trim the hedge and lie about it? We, too, are revolutionists, and you are our executive. The Constitution sustained and protected slavery. It _was_ 'a league with death and a covenant with hell,' and our flag 'a polluted rag!'" "In the stress of war," said the President, with a far-away look, "it was necessary that I do things as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy to save the Union which I have no right to do now that the Union is saved and its Constitution preserved. My first duty is to re-establish the Constitution as our supreme law over every inch of our soil." "The Constitution be d----d!" hissed the old man. "It was the creation, both in letter and spirit, of the slaveholders of the South." "Then the world is their debtor, and their work is a monument of imperishable glory to them and to their children. I have sworn to preserve it!" "We have outgrown the swaddling clothes of a babe. We will make new constitutions!" "'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,'" softly spoke the tall, self-contained man. For the first time the old leader winced. He had long ago exhausted the vocabulary of contempt on the President, his character, ability, and policy. He felt as a shock the first impression of supreme authority with which he spoke. The man he had despised had grown into the great constructive statesman who would dispute with him every inch of ground in the attainment of his sinister life purpose. His hatred grew more intense as he realized the prestige and power with which he was clothed by his mighty office. With an effort he restrained his anger, and assumed an argumentative tone. "Can't you see that your so-called States are now but conquered provinces? That North Carolina and other waste territories of the United States are unfit to associate with civilized communities?" "We fought no war of conquest," quietly urged the President, "but one of self-preservation as an indissoluble Union. No State ever got out of it, by the grace of God and the power of our arms. Now that we have won, and established for all time its unity, shall we stultify ourselves by declaring we were wrong? These States must be immediately restored to their rights, or we shall betray the blood we have shed. There are no 'conquered provinces' for us to spoil. A nation cannot make conquest of its own territory." "But we are acting outside the Constitution," interrupted Stoneman. "Congress has no existence outside the Constitution," was the quick answer. The old Commoner scowled, and his beetling brows hid for a moment his eyes. His keen intellect was catching its first glimpse of the intellectual grandeur of the man with whom he was grappling. The facility with which he could see all sides of a question, and the vivid imagination which lit his mental processes, were a revelation. We always underestimate the men we despise. "Why not out with it?" cried Stoneman, suddenly changing his tack. "You are determined to oppose negro suffrage?" "I have suggested to Governor Hahn of Louisiana to consider the policy of admitting the more intelligent and those who served in the war. It is only a suggestion. The State alone has the power to confer the ballot." "But the truth is this little 'suggestion' of yours is only a bone thrown to radical dogs to satisfy our howlings for the moment! In your soul of souls you don't believe in the equality of man if the man under comparison be a negro?" "I believe that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which will forever forbid their living together on terms of political and social equality. If such be attempted, one must go to the wall." "Very well, pin the Southern white man to the wall. Our party and the Nation will then be safe." "That is to say, destroy African slavery and establish white slavery under negro masters! That would be progress with a vengeance." A grim smile twitched the old man's lips as he said: "Yes, your prim conservative snobs and male waiting-maids in Congress went into hysterics when I armed the negroes. Yet the heavens have not fallen." "True. Yet no more insane blunder could now be made than any further attempt to use these negro troops. There can be no such thing as restoring this Union to its basis of fraternal peace with armed negroes, wearing the uniform of this Nation, tramping over the South, and rousing the basest passions of the freedmen and their former masters. General Butler, their old commander, is now making plans for their removal, at my request. He expects to dig the Panama Canal with these black troops." "Fine scheme that--on a par with your messages to Congress asking for the colonization of the whole negro race!" "It will come to that ultimately," said the President firmly. "The negro has cost us $5,000,000,000, the desolation of ten great States, and rivers of blood. We can well afford a few million dollars more to effect a permanent settlement of the issue. This is the only policy on which Seward and I have differed----" "Then Seward was not an utterly hopeless fool. I'm glad to hear something to his credit," growled the old Commoner. "I have urged the colonization of the negroes, and I shall continue until it is accomplished. My emancipation proclamation was linked with this plan. Thousands of them have lived in the North for a hundred years, yet not one is the pastor of a white church, a judge, a governor, a mayor, or a college president. There is no room for two distinct races of white men in America, much less for two distinct races of whites and blacks. We can have no inferior servile class, peon or peasant. We must assimilate or expel. The American is a citizen king or nothing. I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the negro into our social and political life as our equal. A mulatto citizenship would be too dear a price to pay even for emancipation." "Words have no power to express my loathing for such twaddle!" cried Stoneman, snapping his great jaws together and pursing his lips with contempt. "If the negro were not here would we allow him to land?" the President went on, as if talking to himself. "The duty to exclude carries the right to expel. Within twenty years we can peacefully colonize the negro in the tropics, and give him our language, literature, religion, and system of government under conditions in which he can rise to the full measure of manhood. This he can never do here. It was the fear of the black tragedy behind emancipation that led the South into the insanity of secession. We can never attain the ideal Union our fathers dreamed, with millions of an alien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nor desirable. The Nation cannot now exist half white and half black, any more than it could exist half slave and half free." "Yet 'God hath made of one blood all races,'" quoted the cynic with a sneer. "Yes--but finish the sentence--'and fixed the bounds of their habitation.' God never meant that the negro should leave his habitat or the white man invade his home. Our violation of this law is written in two centuries of shame and blood. And the tragedy will not be closed until the black man is restored to his home." "I marvel that the minions of slavery elected Jeff Davis their chief with so much better material at hand!" "His election was a tragic and superfluous blunder. I am the President of the United States, North and South," was the firm reply. "Particularly the South!" hissed Stoneman. "During all this hideous war they have been your pets--these rebel savages who have been murdering our sons. You have been the ever-ready champion of traitors. And you now dare to bend this high office to their defence----" "My God, Stoneman, are you a man or a savage!" cried the President. "Is not the North equally responsible for slavery? Has not the South lost all? Have not the Southern people paid the full penalty of all the crimes of war? Are our skirts free? Was Sherman's march a picnic? This war has been a giant conflict of principles to decide whether we are a bundle of petty sovereignties held by a rope of sand or a mighty nation of freemen. But for the loyalty of four border Southern States--but for Farragut and Thomas and their two hundred thousand heroic Southern brethren who fought for the Union against their own flesh and blood, we should have lost. You cannot indict a people----" "I do indict them!" muttered the old man. "Surely," went on the even, throbbing voice, "surely, the vastness of this war, its titanic battles, its heroism, its sublime earnestness, should sink into oblivion all low schemes of vengeance! Before the sheer grandeur of its history our children will walk with silent lips and uncovered heads." "And forget the prison pen at Andersonville!" "Yes. We refused, as a policy of war, to exchange those prisoners, blockaded their ports, made medicine contraband, and brought the Southern Army itself to starvation. The prison records, when made at last for history, will show as many deaths on our side as on theirs." "The murderer on the gallows always wins more sympathy than his forgotten victim," interrupted the cynic. "The sin of vengeance is an easy one under the subtle plea of justice," said the sorrowful voice. "Have we not had enough bloodshed? Is not God's vengeance enough? When Sherman's army swept to the sea, before him lay the Garden of Eden, behind him stretched a desert! A hundred years cannot give back to the wasted South her wealth, or two hundred years restore to her the lost seed treasures of her young manhood----" "The imbecility of a policy of mercy in this crisis can only mean the reign of treason and violence," persisted the old man, ignoring the President's words. "I leave my policy before the judgment bar of time, content with its verdict. In my place, radicalism would have driven the border States into the Confederacy, every Southern man back to his kinsmen, and divided the North itself into civil conflict. I have sought to guide and control public opinion into the ways on which depended our life. This rational flexibility of policy you and your fellow radicals have been pleased to call my vacillating imbecility." "And what is your message for the South?" "Simply this: 'Abolish slavery, come back home, and behave yourself.' Lee surrendered to our offers of peace and amnesty. In my last message to Congress I told the Southern people they could have peace at any moment by simply laying down their arms and submitting to National authority. Now that they have taken me at my word, shall I betray them by an ignoble revenge? Vengeance cannot heal and purify: it can only brutalize and destroy." Stoneman shuffled to his feet with impatience. "I see it is useless to argue with you. I'll not waste my breath. I give you an ultimatum. The South is conquered soil. I mean to blot it from the map. Rather than admit one traitor to the halls of Congress from these so-called States I will shatter the Union itself into ten thousand fragments! I will not sit beside men whose clothes smell of the blood of my kindred. At least dry them before they come in. Four years ago, with yells and curses, these traitors left the halls of Congress to join the armies of Catiline. Shall they return to rule?" "I repeat," said the President, "you cannot indict a people. Treason is an easy word to speak. A traitor is one who fights and loses. Washington was a traitor to George III. Treason won, and Washington is immortal. Treason is a word that victors hurl at those who fail." "Listen to me," Stoneman interrupted with vehemence. "The life of our party demands that the negro be given the ballot and made the ruler of the South. This can be done only by the extermination of its landed aristocracy, that their mothers shall not breed another race of traitors. This is not vengeance. It is justice, it is patriotism, it is the highest wisdom and humanity. Nature, at times, blots out whole communities and races that obstruct progress. Such is the political genius of these people that, unless you make the negro the ruler, the South will yet reconquer the North and undo the work of this war." "If the South in poverty and ruin can do this, we deserve to be ruled! The North is rich and powerful--the South a land of wreck and tomb. I greet with wonder, shame, and scorn such ignoble fear! The Nation cannot be healed until the South is healed. Let the gulf be closed in which we bury slavery, sectional animosity, and all strifes and hatreds. The good sense of our people will never consent to your scheme of insane vengeance." "The people have no sense. A new fool is born every second. They are ruled by impulse and passion." "I have trusted them before, and they have not failed me. The day I left for Gettysburg to dedicate the battlefield, you were so sure of my defeat in the approaching convention that you shouted across the street to a friend as I passed: 'Let the dead bury the dead!' It was a brilliant sally of wit. I laughed at it myself. And yet the people unanimously called me again to lead them to victory." "Yes, in the past," said Stoneman bitterly, "you have triumphed, but mark my word: from this hour your star grows dim. The slumbering fires of passion will be kindled. In the fight we join to-day I'll break your back and wring the neck of every dastard and time-server who fawns at your feet." The President broke into a laugh that only increased the old man's wrath. "I protest against the insult of your buffoonery!" "Excuse me, Stoneman; I have to laugh or die beneath the burdens I bear, surrounded by such supporters!" "Mark my word," growled the old leader, "from the moment you publish that North Carolina proclamation, your name will be a by-word in Congress." "There are higher powers." "You will need them." "I'll have help," was the calm reply, as the dreaminess of the poet and mystic stole over the rugged face. "I would be a presumptuous fool, indeed, if I thought that for a day I could discharge the duties of this great office without the aid of One who is wiser and stronger than all others." "You'll need the help of Almighty God in the course you've mapped out!" "Some ships come into port that are not steered," went on the dreamy voice. "Suppose Pickett had charged one hour earlier at Gettysburg? Suppose the _Monitor_ had arrived one hour later at Hampton Roads? I had a dream last night that always presages great events. I saw a white ship passing swiftly under full sail. I have often seen her before. I have never known her port of entry, or her destination, but I have always known her Pilot!" The cynic's lips curled with scorn. He leaned heavily on his cane, and took a shambling step toward the door. "You refuse to heed the wishes of Congress?" "If your words voice them, yes. Force your scheme of revenge on the South, and you sow the wind to reap the whirlwind." "Indeed! and from what secret cave will this whirlwind come?" "The despair of a mighty race of world-conquering men, even in defeat, is still a force that statesmen reckon with." "I defy them," growled the old Commoner. Again the dreamy look returned to Lincoln's face, and he spoke as if repeating a message of the soul caught in the clouds in an hour of transfiguration: "And I'll trust the honour of Lee and his people. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when touched again, as they surely will be, by the better angels of our nature." "You'll be lucky to live to hear that chorus." "To dream it is enough. If I fall by the hand of an assassin now, he will not come from the South. I was safer in Richmond, this week, than I am in Washington, to-day." The cynic grunted and shuffled another step toward the door. The President came closer. "Look here, Stoneman; have you some deep personal motive in this vengeance on the South? Come, now, I've never in my life known you to tell a lie." The answer was silence and a scowl. "Am I right?" "Yes and no. I hate the South because I hate the Satanic Institution of Slavery with consuming fury. It has long ago rotted the heart out of the Southern people. Humanity cannot live in its tainted air, and its children are doomed. If my personal wrongs have ordained me for a mighty task, no matter; I am simply the chosen instrument of Justice!" Again the mystic light clothed the rugged face, calm and patient as Destiny, as the President slowly repeated: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives me to see the right, I shall strive to finish the work we are in, and bind up the Nation's wounds." "I've given you fair warning," cried the old Commoner, trembling with rage, as he hobbled nearer the door. "From this hour your administration is doomed." "Stoneman," said the kindly voice, "I can't tell you how your venomous philanthropy sickens me. You have misunderstood and abused me at every step during the past four years. I bear you no ill will. If I have said anything to-day to hurt your feelings, forgive me. The earnestness with which you pressed the war was an invaluable service to me and to the Nation. I'd rather work with you than fight you. But now that we have to fight, I'd as well tell you I'm not afraid of you. I'll suffer my right arm to be severed from my body before I'll sign one measure of ignoble revenge on a brave, fallen foe, and I'll keep up this fight until I win, die, or my country forsakes me." "I have always known you had a sneaking admiration for the South," came the sullen sneer. "I love the South! It is a part of this Union. I love every foot of its soil, every hill and valley, mountain, lake, and sea, and every man, woman, and child that breathes beneath its skies. I am an American." As the burning words leaped from the heart of the President the broad shoulders of his tall form lifted, and his massive head rose in unconscious heroic pose. "I marvel that you ever made war upon your loved ones!" cried the cynic. "We fought the South because we loved her and would not let her go. Now that she is crushed and lies bleeding at our feet--you shall not make war on the wounded, dying, and the dead!" Again the lion gleamed in the calm gray eyes. CHAPTER IV THE BATTLE OF LOVE Elsie carried Ben Cameron's pardon to the anxious mother and sister with her mind in a tumult. The name on these fateful papers fascinated her. She read it again and again with a curious personal joy that she had saved a life! She had entered on her work among the hospitals a bitter partisan of her father's school, with the simple idea that all Southerners were savage brutes. Yet as she had seen the wounded boys from the South among the men in blue, more and more she had forgotten the difference between them. They were so young, these slender, dark-haired ones from Dixie--so pitifully young! Some of them were only fifteen, and hundreds not over sixteen. A lad of fourteen she had kissed one day in sheer agony of pity for his loneliness. The part her father was playing in the drama on which Ben Cameron's life had hung puzzled her. Was his the mysterious arm back of Stanton? Echoes of the fierce struggle with the President had floated through the half-open door. She had implicit faith in her father's patriotism and pride in his giant intellect. She knew that he was a king among men by divine right of inherent power. His sensitive spirit, brooding over a pitiful lameness, had hidden from the world behind a frowning brow like a wounded animal. Yet her hand in hours of love, when no eye save God's could see, had led his great soul out of its dark lair. She loved him with brooding tenderness, knowing that she had gotten closer to his inner life than any other human being--closer than her own mother, who had died while she was a babe. Her aunt, with whom she and Phil now lived, had told her the mother's life was not a happy one. Their natures had not proved congenial, and her gentle Quaker spirit had died of grief in the quiet home in southern Pennsylvania. Yet there were times when he was a stranger even to her. Some secret, dark and cold, stood between them. Once she had tenderly asked him what it meant. He merely pressed her hand, smiled wearily, and said: "Nothing, my dear, only the Blue Devils after me again." He had always lived in Washington in a little house with black shutters, near the Capitol, while the children had lived with his sister, near the White House, where they had grown from babyhood. A curious fact about this place on the Capitol hill was that his housekeeper, Lydia Brown, was a mulatto, a woman of extraordinary animal beauty and the fiery temper of a leopardess. Elsie had ventured there once and got such a welcome she would never return. All sorts of gossip could be heard in Washington about this woman, her jewels, her dresses, her airs, her assumption of the dignity of the presiding genius of National legislation and her domination of the old Commoner and his life. It gradually crept into the newspapers and magazines, but he never once condescended to notice it. Elsie begged her father to close this house and live with them. His reply was short and emphatic: "Impossible, my child. This club foot must live next door to the Capitol. My house is simply an executive office at which I sleep. Half the business of the Nation is transacted there. Don't mention this subject again." Elsie choked back a sob at the cold menace in the tones of this command, and never repeated her request. It was the only wish he had ever denied her, and, somehow, her heart would come back to it with persistence and brood and wonder over his motive. The nearer she drew, this morning, to the hospital door, the closer the wounded boy's life and loved ones seemed to hers. She thought with anguish of the storm about to break between her father and the President--the one demanding the desolation of their land, wasted, harried, and unarmed!--the President firm in his policy of mercy, generosity, and healing. Her father would not mince words. His scorpion tongue, set on fires of hell, might start a conflagration that would light the Nation with its glare. Would not his name be a terror for every man and woman born under Southern skies? The sickening feeling stole over her that he was wrong, and his policy cruel and unjust. She had never before admired the President. It was fashionable to speak with contempt of him in Washington. He had little following in Congress. Nine tenths of the politicians hated or feared him, and she knew her father had been the soul of a conspiracy at the Capitol to prevent his second nomination and create a dictatorship, under which to carry out an iron policy of reconstruction in the South. And now she found herself heart and soul the champion of the President. She was ashamed of her disloyalty, and felt a rush of impetuous anger against Ben and his people for thrusting themselves between her and her own. Yet how absurd to feel thus against the innocent victims of a great tragedy! She put the thought from her. Still she must part from them now before the brewing storm burst. It would be best for her and best for them. This pardon delivered would end their relations. She would send the papers by a messenger and not see them again. And then she thought with a throb of girlish pride of the hour to come in the future when Ben's big brown eyes would be softened with a tear when he would learn that she had saved his life. They had concealed all from him as yet. She was afraid to question too closely in her own heart the shadowy motive that lay back of her joy. She read again with a lingering smile the name "Ben Cameron" on the paper with its big red Seal of Life. She had laughed at boys who had made love to her, dreaming a wider, nobler life of heroic service. And she felt that she was fulfilling her ideal in the generous hand she had extended to these who were friendless. Were they not the children of her soul in that larger, finer world of which she had dreamed and sung? Why should she give them up now for brutal politics? Their sorrow had been hers, their joy should be hers, too. She would take the papers herself and then say good-bye. She found the mother and sister beside the cot. Ben was sleeping with Margaret holding one of his hands. The mother was busy sewing for the wounded Confederate boys she had found scattered through the hospital. At the sight of Elsie holding aloft the message of life she sprang to meet her with a cry of joy. She clasped the girl to her breast, unable to speak. At last she released her and said with a sob: "My child, through good report and through evil report my love will enfold you!" Elsie stammered, looked away, and tried to hide her emotion. Margaret had knelt and bowed her head on Ben's cot. She rose at length, threw her arms around Elsie in a resistless impulse, kissed her and whispered: "My sweet sister!" Elsie's heart leaped at the words, as her eyes rested on the face of the sleeping soldier. CHAPTER VI THE ASSASSINATION Elsie called in the afternoon at the Camerons' lodgings, radiant with pride, accompanied by her brother. Captain Phil Stoneman, athletic, bronzed, a veteran of two years' service, dressed in his full uniform, was the ideal soldier, and yet he had never loved war. He was bubbling over with quiet joy that the end had come and he could soon return to a rational life. Inheriting his mother's temperament, he was generous, enterprising, quick, intelligent, modest, and ambitious. War had seemed to him a horrible tragedy from the first. He had early learned to respect a brave foe, and bitterness had long since melted out of his heart. He had laughed at his father's harsh ideas of Southern life gained as a politician, and, while loyal to him after a boy's fashion, he took no stock in his Radical programme. The father, colossal egotist that he was, heard Phil's protests with mild amusement and quiet pride in his independence, for he loved this boy with deep tenderness. Phil had been touched by the story of Ben's narrow escape, and was anxious to show his mother and sister every courtesy possible in part atonement for the wrong he felt had been done them. He was timid with girls, and yet he wished to give Margaret a cordial greeting for Elsie's sake. He was not prepared for the shock the first appearance of the Southern girl gave him. When the stately figure swept through the door to greet him, her black eyes sparkling with welcome, her voice low and tender with genuine feeling, he caught his breath in surprise. Elsie noted his confusion with amusement and said: "I must go to the hospital for a little work. Now, Phil, I'll meet you at the door at eight o'clock." "I'll not forget," he answered abstractedly, watching Margaret intently as she walked with Elsie to the door. He saw that her dress was of coarse, unbleached cotton, dyed with the juice of walnut hulls and set with wooden hand-made buttons. The story these things told of war and want was eloquent, yet she wore them with unconscious dignity. She had not a pin or brooch or piece of jewellery. Everything about her was plain and smooth, graceful and gracious. Her face was large--the lovely oval type--and her luxuriant hair, parted in the middle, fell downward in two great waves. Tall, stately, handsome, her dark rare Southern beauty full of subtle languor and indolent grace, she was to Phil a revelation. The coarse black dress that clung closely to her figure seemed alive when she moved, vital with her beauty. The musical cadences of her voice were vibrant with feeling, sweet, tender, and homelike. And the odour of the rose she wore pinned low on her breast he could swear was the perfume of her breath. Lingering in her eyes and echoing in the tones of her voice, he caught the shadowy memory of tears for the loved and lost that gave a strange pathos and haunting charm to her youth. She had returned quickly and was talking at ease with him. "I'm not going to tell you, Captain Stoneman, that I hope to be a sister to you. You have already made yourself my brother in what you did for Ben." "Nothing, I assure you, Miss Cameron, that any soldier wouldn't do for a brave foe." "Perhaps; but when the foe happens to be an only brother, my chum and playmate, brave and generous, whom I've worshipped as my beau-ideal man--why, you know I must thank you for taking him in your arms that day. May I, again?" Phil felt the soft warm hand clasp his, while the black eyes sparkled and glowed their friendly message. He murmured something incoherently, looked at Margaret as if in a spell, and forgot to let her hand go. She laughed at last, and he blushed and dropped it as though it were a live coal. "I was about to forget, Miss Cameron. I wish to take you to the theatre to-night, if you will go?" "To the theatre?" "Yes. It's to be an occasion, Elsie tells me. Laura Keene's last appearance in 'Our American Cousin,' and her one-thousandth performance of the play. She played it in Chicago at McVicker's, when the President was first nominated, to hundreds of the delegates who voted for him. He is to be present to-night, so the _Evening Star_ has announced, and General and Mrs. Grant with him. It will be the opportunity of your life to see these famous men--besides, I wish you to see the city illuminated on the way." Margaret hesitated. "I should like to go," she said with some confusion. "But you see we are old-fashioned Scotch Presbyterians down in our village in South Carolina. I never was in a theatre--and this is Good Friday----" "That's a fact, sure," said Phil thoughtfully. "It never occurred to me. War is not exactly a spiritual stimulant, and it blurs the calendar. I believe we fight on Sundays oftener than on any other day." "But I'm crazy to see the President since Ben's pardon. Mamma will be here in a moment, and I'll ask her." "You see, it's really an occasion," Phil went on. "The people are all going there to see President Lincoln in the hour of his triumph, and his great General fresh from the field of victory. Grant has just arrived in town." Mrs. Cameron entered and greeted Phil with motherly tenderness. "Captain, you're so much like my boy! Had you noticed it, Margaret?" "Of course, Mamma, but I was afraid I'd tire him with flattery if I tried to tell him." "Only his hair is light and wavy, and Ben's straight and black, or you'd call them twins. Ben's a little taller--excuse us, Captain Stoneman, but we've fallen so in love with your little sister we feel we've known you all our lives." "I assure you, Mrs. Cameron, your flattery is very sweet. Elsie and I do not remember our mother, and all this friendly criticism is more than welcome." "Mamma, Captain Stoneman asks me to go with him and his sister to-night to see the President at the theatre. May I go?" "Will the President be there, Captain?" asked Mrs. Cameron. "Yes, Madam, with General and Mrs. Grant--it's really a great public function in celebration of peace and victory. To-day the flag was raised over Fort Sumter, the anniversary of its surrender four years ago. The city will be illuminated." "Then, of course, you can go. I will sit with Ben. I wish you to see the President." At seven o'clock Phil called for Margaret. They walked to the Capitol hill and down Pennsylvania Avenue. The city was in a ferment. Vast crowds thronged the streets. In front of the hotel where General Grant stopped the throng was so dense the streets were completely blocked. Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, at every turn, in squads, in companies, in regimental crowds, shouting cries of victory. The display of lights was dazzling in its splendour. Every building in every street, in every nook and corner of the city, was lighted from attic to cellar. The public buildings and churches vied with each other in the magnificence of their decorations and splendour of illuminations. They turned a corner, and suddenly the Capitol on the throne of its imperial hill loomed a grand constellation in the heavens! Another look, and it seemed a huge bonfire against the background of the dark skies. Every window in its labyrinths of marble, from the massive base to its crowning statue of Freedom, gleamed and flashed with light--more than ten thousand jets poured their rays through its windows, besides the innumerable lights that circled the mighty dome within and without. Margaret stopped, and Phil felt her soft hand grip his arm with sudden emotion. "Isn't it sublime!" she whispered. "Glorious!" he echoed. But he was thinking of the pressure of her hand on his arm and the subtle tones of her voice. Somehow he felt that the light came from her eyes. He forgot the Capitol and the surging crowds before the sweeter creative wonder silently growing in his soul. "And yet," she faltered, "when I think of what all this means for our people at home--their sorrow and poverty and ruin--you know it makes me faint." Phil's hand timidly sought the soft one resting on his arm and touched it reverently. "Believe me, Miss Margaret, it will be all for the best in the end. The South will yet rise to a nobler life than she has ever lived in the past. This is her victory as well as ours." "I wish I could think so," she answered. They passed the City Hall and saw across its front, in giant letters of fire thirty feet deep, the words: "UNION, SHERMAN, AND GRANT" On Pennsylvania Avenue the hotels and stores had hung every window, awning, cornice, and swaying tree-top with lanterns. The grand avenue was bridged by tri-coloured balloons floating and shimmering ghostlike far up in the dark sky. Above these, in the blacker zone toward the stars, the heavens were flashing sheets of chameleon flames from bursting rockets. Margaret had never dreamed such a spectacle. She walked in awed silence, now and then suppressing a sob for the memory of those she had loved and lost. A moment of bitterness would cloud her heart, and then with the sense of Phil's nearness, his generous nature, the beauty and goodness of his sister, and all they owed to her for Ben's life, the cloud would pass. At every public building, and in front of every great hotel, bands were playing. The wild war strains, floating skyward, seemed part of the changing scheme of light. The odour of burnt powder and smouldering rockets filled the warm spring air. The deep bay of the great fort guns now began to echo from every hilltop commanding the city, while a thousand smaller guns barked and growled from every square and park and crossing. Jay Cooke & Co's. banking-house had stretched across its front, in enormous blazing letters, the words: "THE BUSY B'S--BALLS, BALLOTS, AND BONDS" Every telegraph and newspaper office was a roaring whirlpool of excitement, for the same scenes were being enacted in every centre of the North. The whole city was now a fairy dream, its dirt and sin, shame and crime, all wrapped in glorious light. But above all other impressions was the contagion of the thunder shouts of hosts of men surging through the streets--the human roar with its animal and spiritual magnetism, wild, resistless, unlike any other force in the universe! Margaret's hand again and again unconsciously tightened its hold on Phil's arm, and he felt that the whole celebration had been gotten up for his benefit. They passed through a little park on their way to Ford's Theatre on 10th Street, and the eye of the Southern girl was quick to note the budding flowers and full-blown lilacs. "See what an early spring!" she cried. "I know the flowers at home are gorgeous now." "I shall hope to see you among them some day, when all the clouds have lifted," he said. She smiled and replied with simple earnestness: "A warm welcome will await your coming." And Phil resolved to lose no time in testing it. They turned into 10th Street, and in the middle of the block stood the plain three-story brick structure of Ford's Theatre, an enormous crowd surging about its five doorways and spreading out on the sidewalk and half across the driveway. "Is that the theatre?" asked Margaret. "Yes." "Why, it looks like a church without a steeple." "Exactly what it really is, Miss Margaret. It was a Baptist church. They turned it into a playhouse, by remodelling its gallery into a dress-circle and balcony and adding another gallery above. My grandmother Stoneman is a devoted Baptist, and was an attendant at this church. My father never goes to church, but he used to go here occasionally to please her. Elsie and I frequently came." Phil pushed his way rapidly through the crowd with a peculiar sense of pleasure in making a way for Margaret and in defending her from the jostling throng. They found Elsie at the door, stamping her foot with impatience. "Well, I must say, Phil, this is prompt for a soldier who had positive orders," she cried. "I've been here an hour." "Nonsense, Sis, I'm ahead of time," he protested. Elsie held up her watch. "It's a quarter past eight. Every seat is filled, and they've stopped selling standing-room. I hope you have good seats." "The best in the house to-night, the first row in the balcony dress-circle, opposite the President's box. We can see everything on the stage, in the box, and every nook and corner of the house." "Then I'll forgive you for keeping me waiting." They ascended the stairs, pushed through the throng standing, and at last reached the seats. What a crowd! The building was a mass of throbbing humanity, and, over all, the hum of the thrilling wonder of peace and victory! The women in magnificent costumes, officers in uniforms flashing with gold, the show of wealth and power, the perfume of flowers and the music of violin and flutes gave Margaret the impression of a dream, so sharp was the contrast with her own life and people in the South. The interior of the house was a billow of red, white, and blue. The President's box was wrapped in two enormous silk flags with gold-fringed edges gracefully draped and hanging in festoons. Withers, the leader of the orchestra, was in high feather. He raised his baton with quick, inspired movement. It was for him a personal triumph, too. He had composed the music of a song for the occasion. It was dedicated to the President, and the programme announced that it would be rendered during the evening between the acts by a famous quartet, assisted by the whole company in chorus. The National flag would be draped about each singer, worn as the togas of ancient Greece and Rome. It was already known by the crowd that General and Mrs. Grant had left the city for the North and could not be present, but every eye was fixed on the door through which the President and Mrs. Lincoln would enter. It was the hour of his supreme triumph. [Illustration: THE ASSASSINATION.] What a romance his life! The thought of it thrilled the crowd as they waited. A few years ago this tall, sad-faced man had floated down the Sangamon River into a rough Illinois town, ragged, penniless, friendless, alone, begging for work. Four years before he had entered Washington as President of the United States--but he came under cover of the night with a handful of personal friends, amid universal contempt for his ability and the loud expressed conviction of his failure from within and without his party. He faced a divided Nation and the most awful civil convulsion in history. Through it all he had led the Nation in safety, growing each day in power and fame, until to-night, amid the victorious shouts of millions of a Union fixed in eternal granite, he stood forth the idol of the people, the first great American, the foremost man of the world. There was a stir at the door, and the tall figure suddenly loomed in view of the crowd. With one impulse they leaped to their feet, and shout after shout shook the building. The orchestra was playing "Hail to the Chief!" but nobody heard it. They saw the Chief! They were crying their own welcome in music that came from the rhythmic beat of human hearts. As the President walked along the aisle with Mrs. Lincoln, accompanied by Senator Harris' daughter and Major Rathbone, cheer after cheer burst from the crowd. He turned, his face beaming with pleasure, and bowed as he passed. The answer of the crowd shook the building to its foundations, and the President paused. His dark face flashed with emotion as he looked over the sea of cheering humanity. It was a moment of supreme exaltation. The people had grown to know and love and trust him, and it was sweet. His face, lit with the responsive fires of emotion, was transfigured. The soul seemed to separate itself from its dreamy, rugged dwelling-place and flash its inspiration from the spirit world. As around this man's personality had gathered the agony and horror of war, so now about his head glowed and gleamed in imagination the splendours of victory. Margaret impulsively put her hand on Phil's arm: "Why, how Southern he looks! How tall and dark and typical his whole figure!" "Yes, and his traits of character even more typical," said Phil. "On the surface, easy friendly ways and the tenderness of a woman--beneath, an iron will and lion heart. I like him. And what always amazes me is his universality. A Southerner finds in him the South, the Western man the West, even Charles Sumner, from Boston, almost loves him. You know I think he is the first great all-round American who ever lived in the White House." The President's party had now entered the box, and as Mr. Lincoln took the armchair nearest the audience, in full view of every eye in the house, again the cheers rent the air. In vain Withers' baton flew, and the orchestra did its best. The music was drowned as in the roar of the sea. Again he rose and bowed and smiled, his face radiant with pleasure. The soul beneath those deep-cut lines had long pined for the sunlight. His love of the theatre and the humorous story were the protest of his heart against pain and tragedy. He stood there bowing to the people, the grandest, gentlest figure of the fiercest war of human history--a man who was always doing merciful things stealthily as others do crimes. Little sunlight had come into his life, yet to-night he felt that the sun of a new day in his history and the history of the people was already tingeing the horizon with glory. Back of those smiles what a story! Many a night he had paced back and forth in the telegraph office of the War Department, read its awful news of defeat, and alone sat down and cried over the list of the dead. Many a black hour his soul had seen when the honours of earth were forgotten and his great heart throbbed on his sleeve. His character had grown so evenly and silently with the burdens he had borne, working mighty deeds with such little friction, he could not know, nor could the crowd to whom he bowed, how deep into the core of the people's life the love of him had grown. As he looked again over the surging crowd his tall figure seemed to straighten, erect and buoyant, with the new dignity of conscious triumphant leadership. He knew that he had come unto his own at last, and his brain was teeming with dreams of mercy and healing. The President resumed his seat, the tumult died away, and the play began amid a low hum of whispered comment directed at the flag-draped box. The actors struggled in vain to hold the attention of the audience, until finally Hawk, the actor playing Dundreary, determined to catch their ear, paused and said: "Now, that reminds me of a little story, as Mr. Lincoln says----" Instantly the crowd burst into a storm of applause, the President laughed, leaned over and spoke to his wife, and the electric connection was made between the stage, the box, and the people. After this the play ran its smooth course, and the audience settled into its accustomed humour of sympathetic attention. In spite of the novelty of this, her first view of a theatre, the President fascinated Margaret. She watched the changing lights and shadows of his sensitive face with untiring interest, and the wonder of his life grew upon her imagination. This man who was the idol of the North and yet to her so purely Southern, who had come out of the West and yet was greater than the West or the North, and yet always supremely human--this man who sprang to his feet from the chair of State and bowed to a sorrowing woman with the deference of a knight, every man's friend, good-natured, sensible, masterful and clear in intellect, strong, yet modest, kind and gentle--yes, he was more interesting than all the drama and romance of the stage! He held her imagination in a spell. Elsie, divining her abstraction, looked toward the President's box and saw approaching it along the balcony aisle the figure of John Wilkes Booth. "Look," she cried, touching Margaret's arm. "There's John Wilkes Booth, the actor! Isn't he handsome? They say he's in love with my chum, a senator's daughter whose father hates Mr. Lincoln with perfect fury." "He is handsome," Margaret answered. "But I'd be afraid of him, with that raven hair and eyes shining like something wild." "They say he is wild and dissipated, yet half the silly girls in town are in love with him. He's as vain as a peacock." Booth, accustomed to free access to the theatre, paused near the entrance to the box and looked deliberately over the great crowd, his magnetic face flushed with deep emotion, while his fiery inspiring eyes glittered with excitement. Dressed in a suit of black broadcloth of faultless fit, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet he was physically without blemish. A figure of perfect symmetry and proportion, his dark eyes flashing, his marble forehead crowned with curling black hair, agility and grace stamped on every line of his being--beyond a doubt he was the handsomest man in America. A flutter of feminine excitement rippled the surface of the crowd in the balcony as his well-known figure caught the wandering eyes of the women. He turned and entered the door leading to the President's box, and Margaret once more gave her attention to the stage. Hawk, as Dundreary, was speaking his lines and looking directly at the President instead of at the audience: "Society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old woman, you darned old sockdologing man trap!" Margaret winced at the coarse words, but the galleries burst into shouts of laughter that lingered in ripples and murmurs and the shuffling of feet. The muffled crack of a pistol in the President's box hushed the laughter for an instant. No one realized what had happened, and when the assassin suddenly leaped from the box, with a blood-marked knife flashing in his right hand, caught his foot in the flags and fell to his knees on the stage, many thought it a part of the programme, and a boy, leaning over the gallery rail, giggled. When Booth turned his face of statuesque beauty lit by eyes flashing with insane desperation and cried, "_Sic semper tyrannis_," they were only confirmed in this impression. A sudden, piercing scream from Mrs. Lincoln, quivering, soul harrowing! Leaning far out of the box, from ashen cheeks and lips leaped the piteous cry of appeal, her hand pointing to the retreating figure: "The President is shot! He has killed the President!" Every heart stood still for one awful moment. The brain refused to record the message--and then the storm burst! A wild roar of helpless fury and despair! Men hurled themselves over the footlights in vain pursuit of the assassin. Already the clatter of his horse's feet could be heard in the distance. A surgeon threw himself against the door of the box, but it had been barred within by the cunning hand. Another leaped on the stage, and the people lifted him up in their arms and over the fatal railing. Women began to faint, and strong men trampled down the weak in mad rushes from side to side. The stage in a moment was a seething mass of crazed men, among them the actors and actresses in costumes and painted faces, their mortal terror shining through the rouge. They passed water up to the box, and some tried to climb up and enter it. The two hundred soldiers of the President's guard suddenly burst in, and, amid screams and groans of the weak and injured, stormed the house with fixed bayonets, cursing, yelling, and shouting at the top of their voices: "Clear out! Clear out! You sons of hell!" One of them suddenly bore down with fixed bayonet toward Phil. Margaret shrank in terror close to his side and tremblingly held his arm. Elsie sprang forward, her face aflame, her eyes flashing fire, her little figure tense, erect, and quivering with rage: "How dare you, idiot, brute!" The soldier, brought to his senses, saw Phil in full captain's uniform before him, and suddenly drew himself up, saluting. Phil ordered him to guard Margaret and Elsie for a moment, drew his sword, leaped between the crazed soldiers and their victims and stopped their insane rush. Within the box the great head lay in the surgeon's arms, the blood slowly dripping down, and the tiny death bubbles forming on the kindly lips. They carried him tenderly out, and another group bore after him the unconscious wife. The people tore the seats from their fastenings and heaped them in piles to make way for the precious burdens. As Phil pressed forward with Margaret and Elsie through the open door came the roar of the mob without, shouting its cries: "The President is shot!" "Seward is murdered!" "Where is Grant?" "Where is Stanton?" "To arms! To arms!" The peal of signal guns could now be heard, the roll of drums and the hurried tramp of soldiers' feet. They marched none too soon. The mob had attacked the stockade holding ten thousand unarmed Confederate prisoners. At the corner of the block in which the theatre stood they seized a man who looked like a Southerner and hung him to the lamp-post. Two heroic policemen fought their way to his side and rescued him. If the temper of the people during the war had been convulsive, now it was insane--with one mad impulse and one thought--vengeance! Horror, anger, terror, uncertainty, each passion fanned the one animal instinct into fury. Through this awful night, with the lights still gleaming as if to mock the celebration of victory, the crowds swayed in impotent rage through the streets, while the telegraph bore on the wings of lightning the awe-inspiring news. Men caught it from the wires, and stood in silent groups weeping, and their wrath against the fallen South began to rise as the moaning of the sea under a coming storm. At dawn black clouds hung threatening on the eastern horizon. As the sun rose, tingeing them for a moment with scarlet and purple glory, Abraham Lincoln breathed his last. Even grim Stanton, the iron-hearted, stood by his bedside and through blinding tears exclaimed: "Now he belongs to the ages!" The deed was done. The wheel of things had moved. Vice-President Johnson took the oath of office, and men hailed him Chief; but the seat of Empire had moved from the White House to a little dark house on the Capitol hill, where dwelt an old club-footed man, alone, attended by a strange brown woman of sinister animal beauty and the restless eyes of a leopardess. CHAPTER VII THE FRENZY OF A NATION Phil hurried through the excited crowds with Margaret and Elsie, left them at the hospital door, and ran to the War Department to report for duty. Already the tramp of regiments echoed down every great avenue. Even as he ran, his heart beat with a strange new stroke when he recalled the look of appeal in Margaret's dark eyes as she nestled close to his side and clung to his arm for protection. He remembered with a smile the almost resistless impulse of the moment to slip his arm around her and assure her of safety. If he had only dared! Elsie begged Mrs. Cameron and Margaret to go home with her until the city was quiet. "No," said the mother. "I am not afraid. Death has no terrors for me any longer. We will not leave Ben a moment now, day or night. My soul is sick with dread for what this awful tragedy will mean for the South! I can't think of my own safety. Can any one undo this pardon now?" she asked anxiously. "I am sure they cannot. The name on that paper should be mightier dead than living." "Ah, but will it be? Do you know Mr. Johnson? Can he control Stanton? He seemed to be more powerful than the President himself. What will that man do now with those who fall into his hands." "He can do nothing with your son, rest assured." "I wish I knew it," said the mother wistfully. * * * * * A few moments after the President died on Saturday morning, the rain began to pour in torrents. The flags that flew from a thousand gilt-tipped peaks in celebration of victory drooped to half-mast and hung weeping around their staffs. The litter of burnt fireworks, limp and crumbling, strewed the streets, and the tri-coloured lanterns and balloons, hanging pathetically from their wires, began to fall to pieces. Never in all the history of man had such a conjunction of events befallen a nation. From the heights of heaven's rejoicing to be suddenly hurled to the depths of hell in piteous helpless grief! Noon to midnight without a moment between. A pall of voiceless horror spread its shadows over the land. Nothing short of an earthquake or the sound of the archangel's trumpet could have produced the sense of helpless consternation, the black and speechless despair. The people read their papers in tears. The morning meal was untouched. By no other single feat could death have carried such peculiar horror to every home. Around this giant figure the heartstrings of the people had been unconsciously knit. Even his political enemies had come to love him. Above all, in just this moment he was the incarnation of the Triumphant Union on the altar of whose life every house had laid the offering of its first-born. The tragedy was stupefying--it was unthinkable--it was the mockery of Fate! Men walked the streets of the cities, dazed with the sense of blind grief. Every note of music and rejoicing became a dirge. All business ceased. Every wheel in every mill stopped. The roar of the great city was hushed, and Greed for a moment forgot his cunning. The army only moved with swifter spring, tightening its mighty grip on the throat of the bleeding prostrate South. As the day wore on its gloomy hours, and men began to find speech, they spoke to each other at first in low tones of Fate, of Life, of Death, of Immortality, of God--and then as grief found words the measureless rage of baffled strength grew slowly to madness. On every breeze from the North came the deep-muttered curses. Easter Sunday dawned after the storm, clear and beautiful in a flood of glorious sunshine. The churches were thronged as never in their history. All had been decorated for the double celebration of Easter and the triumph of the Union. The preachers had prepared sermons pitched in the highest anthem key of victory--victory over death and the grave of Calvary, and victory for the Nation opening a future of boundless glory. The churches were labyrinths of flowers, and around every pulpit and from every Gothic arch hung the red, white, and blue flags of the Republic. And now, as if to mock this gorgeous pageant, Death had in the night flung a black mantle over every flag and wound a strangling web of crape round every Easter flower. When the preachers faced the silent crowds before them, looking into the faces of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and lovers whose dear ones had been slain in battle or died in prison pens, the tide of grief and rage rose and swept them from their feet! The Easter sermon was laid aside. Fifty thousand Christian ministers, stunned and crazed by insane passion, standing before the altars of God, hurled into the broken hearts before them the wildest cries of vengeance--cries incoherent, chaotic, unreasoning, blind in their awful fury! The pulpits of New York and Brooklyn led in the madness. Next morning old Stoneman read his paper with a cold smile playing about his big stern mouth, while his furrowed brow flushed with triumph, as again and again he exclaimed: "At last! At last!" Even Beecher, who had just spoken his generous words at Fort Sumter, declared: "Never while time lasts, while heaven lasts, while hell rocks and groans, will it be forgotten that Slavery, by its minions, slew him, and slaying him made manifest its whole nature. A man cannot be bred in its tainted air. I shall find saints in hell sooner than I shall find true manhood under its accursed influences. The breeding-ground of such monsters must be utterly and forever destroyed." Dr. Stephen Tyng said: "The leaders of this rebellion deserve no pity from any human being. Now let them go. Some other land must be their home. Their property is justly forfeited to the Nation they have attempted to destroy!" In big black-faced type stood Dr. Charles S. Robinson's bitter words: "This is the earliest reply which chivalry makes to our forbearance. Talk to me no more of the same race, of the same blood. He is no brother of mine and of no race of mine who crowns the barbarism of treason with the murder of an unarmed husband in the sight of his wife. On the villains who led this rebellion let justice fall swift and relentless. Death to every traitor of the South! Pursue them one by one! Let every door be closed upon them and judgment follow swift and implacable as death!" Dr. Theodore Cuyler exclaimed: "This is no time to talk of leniency and conciliation! I say before God, make no terms with rebellion short of extinction. Booth wielding the assassin's weapon is but the embodiment of the bowie-knife barbarism of a slaveholding oligarchy." Dr. J. P. Thompson said: "Blot every Southern State from the map. Strip every rebel of property and citizenship, and send them into exile beggared and infamous outcasts." Bishop Littlejohn, in his impassioned appeal, declared: "The deed is worthy of the Southern cause which was conceived in sin, brought forth in iniquity, and consummated in crime. This murderous hand is the same hand which lashed the slave's bared back, struck down New England's senator for daring to speak, lifted the torch of rebellion, slaughtered in cold blood its thousands, and starved our helpless prisoners. Its end is not martyrdom, but dishonour." Bishop Simpson said: "Let every man who was a member of Congress and aided this rebellion be brought to speedy punishment. Let every officer educated at public expense, who turned his sword against his country, be doomed to a traitor's death!" With the last note of this wild music lingering in the old Commoner's soul, he sat as if dreaming, laughed cynically, turned to the brown woman and said: "My speeches have not been lost after all. Prepare dinner for six. My cabinet will meet here to-night." While the press was reëchoing these sermons, gathering strength as they were caught and repeated in every town, village, and hamlet in the North, the funeral procession started westward. It passed in grandeur through the great cities on its journey of one thousand six hundred miles to the tomb. By day, by night, by dawn, by sunlight, by twilight, and lit by solemn torches, millions of silent men and women looked on his dead face. Around the person of this tall, lonely man, rugged, yet full of sombre dignity and spiritual beauty, the thoughts, hopes, dreams, and ideals of the people had gathered in four years of agony and death, until they had come to feel their own hearts beat in his breast and their own life throb in his life. The assassin's bullet had crashed into their own brains, and torn their souls and bodies asunder. The masses were swept from their moorings, and reason destroyed. All historic perspective was lost. Our first assassination, there was no precedent for comparison. It had been over two hundred years in the world's history since the last murder of a great ruler, when William of Orange fell. On the day set for the public funeral twenty million people bowed at the same hour. When the procession reached New York the streets were lined with a million people. Not a sound could be heard save the tramp of soldiers' feet and the muffled cry of the dirge. Though on every foot of earth stood a human being, the silence of the desert and of death! The Nation's living heroes rode in that procession, and passed without a sign from the people. Four years ago he drove down Broadway as President-elect, unnoticed and with soldiers in disguise attending him lest the mob should stone him. To-day, at the mention of his name in the churches, the preachers' voices in prayer wavered and broke into silence while strong men among the crowd burst into sobs. Flags flew at half-mast from their steeples, and their bells tolled in grief. Every house that flew but yesterday its banner of victory was shrouded in mourning. The flags and pennants of a thousand ships in the harbour drooped at half-mast, and from every staff in the city streamed across the sky the black mists of crape like strange meteors in the troubled heavens. For three days every theatre, school, court, bank, shop, and mill was closed. And with muttered curses men looked Southward. Across Broadway the cortège passed under a huge transparency on which appeared the words: "A Nation bowed in grief Will rise in might to exterminate The leaders of this accursed Rebellion." Farther along swung the black-draped banner: "Justice to Traitors is Mercy to the People." Another flapped its grim message: "The Barbarism of Slavery. Can Barbarism go Further?" Across the Ninth Regiment Armoury, in gigantic letters, were the words: "Time for Weeping But Vengeance is not Sleeping!" When the procession reached Buffalo, the house of Millard Fillmore was mobbed because the ex-President, stricken on a bed of illness, had neglected to drape his house in mourning. The procession passed to Springfield through miles of bowed heads dumb with grief. The plough stopped in the furrow, the smith dropped his hammer, the carpenter his plane, the merchant closed his door, the clink of coin ceased, and over all hung brooding silence with low-muttered curses, fierce and incoherent. No man who walked the earth ever passed to his tomb through such a storm of human tears. The pageants of Alexander, Cæsar, and Wellington were tinsel to this. Nor did the spirit of Napoleon, the Corsican Lieutenant of Artillery who once presided over a congress of kings whom he had conquered, look down on its like even in France. And now that its pomp was done and its memory but bitterness and ashes, but one man knew exactly what he wanted and what he meant to do. Others were stunned by the blow. But the cold eyes of the Great Commoner, leader of leaders, sparkled, and his grim lips smiled. From him not a word of praise or fawning sorrow for the dead. Whatever he might be, he was not a liar: when he hated, he hated. The drooping flags, the city's black shrouds, processions, torches, silent seas of faces and bared heads, the dirges and the bells, the dim-lit churches, wailing organs, fierce invectives from the altar, and the perfume of flowers piled in heaps by silent hearts--to all these was he heir. And more--the fierce unwritten, unspoken, and unspeakable horrors of the war itself, its passions, its cruelties, its hideous crimes and sufferings, the wailing of its women, the graves of its men--all these now were his. The new President bowed to the storm. In one breath he promised to fulfil the plans of Lincoln. In the next he, too, breathed threats of vengeance. The edict went forth for the arrest of General Lee. Would Grant, the Commanding General of the Army, dare protest? There were those who said that if Lee were arrested and Grant's plighted word at Appomattox smirched, the silent soldier would not only protest, but draw his sword, if need be, to defend his honour and the honour of the Nation. Yet--would he dare? It remained to be seen. The jails were now packed with Southern men, taken unarmed from their homes. The old Capitol Prison was full, and every cell of every grated building in the city, and they were filling the rooms of the Capitol itself. Margaret, hurrying from the market in the early morning with her flowers, was startled to find her mother bowed in anguish over a paragraph in the morning paper. She rose and handed it to the daughter, who read: "Dr. Richard Cameron, of South Carolina, arrived in Washington and was placed in jail last night, charged with complicity in the murder of President Lincoln. It was discovered that Jeff Davis spent the night at his home in Piedmont, under the pretence of needing medical attention. Beyond all doubt, Booth, the assassin, merely acted under orders from the Arch Traitor. May the gallows have a rich and early harvest!" Margaret tremblingly wound her arms around her mother's neck. No words broke the pitiful silence--only blinding tears and broken sobs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Book II--The Revolution CHAPTER I THE FIRST LADY OF THE LAND The little house on the Capitol hill now became the centre of fevered activity. This house, selected by its grim master to become the executive mansion of the Nation, was perhaps the most modest structure ever chosen for such high uses. It stood, a small, two-story brick building, in an unpretentious street. Seven windows opened on the front with black solid-panelled shutters. The front parlour was scantily furnished. A huge mirror covered one wall, and on the other hung a life-size oil portrait of Stoneman, and between the windows were a portrait of Washington Irving and a picture of a nun. Among his many charities he had always given liberally to an orphanage conducted by a Roman Catholic sisterhood. The back parlour, whose single window looked out on a small garden, he had fitted up as a library, with leather-upholstered furniture, a large desk and table, and scattered on the mantel and about its walls were the photographs of his personal friends and a few costly prints. This room he used as his executive office, and no person was allowed to enter it without first stating his business or presenting a petition to the tawny brown woman with restless eyes who sat in state in the front parlour and received his visitors. The books in their cases gave evidence of little use for many years, although their character indicated the tastes of a man of culture. His Pliny, Cæsar, Cicero, Tacitus, Sophocles, and Homer had evidently been read by a man who knew their beauties and loved them for their own sake. This house was now the Mecca of the party in power and the storm-centre of the forces destined to shape the Nation's life. Senators, representatives, politicians of low and high degree, artists, correspondents, foreign ministers, and cabinet officers hurried to acknowledge their fealty to the uncrowned king, and hail the strange brown woman who held the keys of his house as the first lady of the land. When Charles Sumner called, a curious thing happened. By a code agreed on between them, Lydia Brown touched an electric signal which informed the old Commoner of his appearance. Stoneman hobbled to the folding-doors and watched through the slight opening the manner in which the icy senator greeted the negress whom he was compelled to meet thus as his social equal, though she was always particular to pose as the superior of all who bowed the knee to the old man whose house she kept. Sumner at this time was supposed to be the most powerful man in Congress. It was a harmless fiction which pleased him, and at which Stoneman loved to laugh. The senator from Massachusetts had just made a speech in Boston expounding the "Equality of Man," yet he could not endure personal contact with a negro. He would go secretly miles out of the way to avoid it. Stoneman watched him slowly and daintily approach this negress and touch her jewelled hand gingerly with the tips of his classic fingers as if she were a toad. Convulsed, he scrambled back to his desk and hugged himself while he listened to the flow of Lydia's condescending patronage in the next room. "This world's too good a thing to lose!" he chuckled. "I think I'll live always." When Sumner left, the hour for dinner had arrived, and by special invitation two men dined with him. On his right sat an army officer who had been dismissed from the service, a victim of the mania for gambling. His ruddy face, iron-gray hair, and jovial mien indicated that he enjoyed life in spite of troubles. There were no clubs in Washington at this time except the regular gambling-houses, of which there were more than one hundred in full blast. Stoneman was himself a gambler, and spent a part of almost every night at Hall & Pemberton's Faro Palace on Pennsylvania Avenue, a place noted for its famous restaurant. It was here that he met Colonel Howle and learned to like him. He was a man of talent, cool and audacious, and a liar of such singular fluency that he quite captivated the old Commoner's imagination. "Upon my soul, Howle," he declared soon after they met, "you made the mistake of your life going into the army. You're a born politician. You're what I call a natural liar, just as a horse is a pacer, a dog a setter. You lie without effort, with an ease and grace that excels all art. Had you gone into politics, you could easily have been Secretary of State, to say nothing of the vice-presidency. I would say President but for the fact that men of the highest genius never attain it." From that moment Colonel Howle had become his charmed henchman. Stoneman owned this man body and soul, not merely because he had befriended him when he was in trouble and friendless, but because the colonel recognized the power of the leader's daring spirit and revolutionary genius. On his left sat a negro of perhaps forty years, a man of charming features for a mulatto, who had evidently inherited the full physical characteristics of the Aryan race, while his dark yellowish eyes beneath his heavy brows glowed with the brightness of the African jungle. It was impossible to look at his superb face, with its large, finely chiselled lips and massive nose, his big neck and broad shoulders, and watch his eyes gleam beneath the projecting forehead, without seeing pictures of the primeval forest. "The head of a Cæsar and the eyes of the jungle" was the phrase coined by an artist who painted his portrait. His hair was black and glossy and stood in dishevelled profusion on his head between a kink and a curl. He was an orator of great power, and stirred a negro audience as by magic. Lydia Brown had called Stoneman's attention to this man, Silas Lynch, and induced the statesman to send him to college. He had graduated with credit and had entered the Methodist ministry. In his preaching to the freedmen he had already become a marked man. No house could hold his audiences. As he stepped briskly into the dining-room and passed the brown woman, a close observer might have seen him suddenly press her hand and caught her sly answering smile, but the old man waiting at the head of the table saw nothing. The woman took her seat opposite Stoneman and presided over this curious group with the easy assurance of conscious power. Whatever her real position, she knew how to play the role she had chosen to assume. No more curious or sinister figure ever cast a shadow across the history of a great nation than did this mulatto woman in the most corrupt hour of American life. The grim old man who looked into her sleek tawny face and followed her catlike eyes was steadily gripping the Nation by the throat. Did he aim to make this woman the arbiter of its social life, and her ethics the limit of its moral laws? Even the white satellite who sat opposite Lynch flushed for a moment as the thought flashed through his brain. The old cynic, who alone knew his real purpose, was in his most genial mood to-night, and the grim lines of his powerful face relaxed into something like a smile as they ate and chatted and told good stories. Lynch watched him with keen interest. He knew his history and character, and had built on his genius a brilliant scheme of life. This man who meant to become the dictator of the Republic had come from the humblest early conditions. His father was a worthless character, from whom he had learned the trade of a shoemaker, but his mother, a woman of vigorous intellect and indomitable will, had succeeded in giving her lame boy a college education. He had early sworn to be a man of wealth, and to this purpose he had throttled the dreams and ideals of a wayward imagination. His hope of great wealth had not been realized. His iron mills in Pennsylvania had been destroyed by Lee's army. He had developed the habit of gambling, which brought its train of extravagant habits, tastes, and inevitable debts. In his vigorous manhood, in spite of his lameness, he had kept a pack of hounds and a stable of fine horses. He had used his skill in shoemaking to construct a set of stirrups to fit his lame feet, and had become an expert hunter to hounds. One thing he never neglected--to be in his seat in the House of Representatives and wear its royal crown of leadership, sick or well, day or night. The love of power was the breath of his nostrils, and his ambitions had at one time been boundless. His enormous power to-day was due to the fact that he had given up all hope of office beyond the robes of the king of his party. He had been offered a cabinet position by the elder Harrison and for some reason it had been withdrawn. He had been promised a place in Lincoln's cabinet, but some mysterious power had snatched it away. He was the one great man who had now no ambition for which to trim and fawn and lie, and for the very reason that he had abolished himself he was the most powerful leader who ever walked the halls of Congress. His contempt for public opinion was boundless. Bold, original, scornful of advice, of all the men who ever lived in our history he was the one man born to rule in the chaos which followed the assassination of the chief magistrate. Audacity was stamped in every line of his magnificent head. His choicest curses were for the cowards of his own party before whose blanched faces he shouted out the hidden things until they sank back in helpless silence and dismay. His speech was curt, his humour sardonic, his wit biting, cruel, and coarse. The incarnate soul of revolution, he despised convention and ridiculed respectability. There was but one weak spot in his armour--and the world never suspected it: the consuming passion with which he loved his two children. This was the side of his nature he had hidden from the eyes of man. A refined egotism, this passion, perhaps--for he meant to live his own life over in them--yet it was the one utterly human and lovable thing about him. And if his public policy was one of stupendous avarice, this dream of millions of confiscated wealth he meant to seize, it was not for himself but for his children. As he looked at Howle and Lynch seated in his library after dinner, with his great plans seething in his brain, his eyes were flashing, intense, and fiery, yet without colour--simply two centres of cold light. "Gentlemen," he said at length. "I am going to ask you to undertake for the Government, the Nation, and yourselves a dangerous and important mission. I say yourselves, because, in spite of all our beautiful lies, self is the centre of all human action. Mr. Lincoln has fortunately gone to his reward--fortunately for him and for his country. His death was necessary to save his life. He was a useful man living, more useful dead. Our party has lost its first President, but gained a god--why mourn?" "We will recover from our grief," said Howle. The old man went on, ignoring the interruption: "Things have somehow come my way. I am almost persuaded late in life that the gods love me. The insane fury of the North against the South for a crime which they were the last people on earth to dream of committing is, of course, a power to be used--but with caution. The first execution of a Southern leader on such an idiotic charge would produce a revolution of sentiment. The people are an aggregation of hysterical fools." "I thought you favoured the execution of the leaders of the rebellion?" said Lynch with surprise. "I did, but it is too late. Had they been tried by drum-head court-martial and shot dead red-handed as they stood on the field in their uniforms, all would have been well. Now sentiment is too strong. Grant showed his teeth to Stanton and he backed down from Lee's arrest. Sherman refused to shake hands with Stanton on the grandstand the day his army passed in review, and it's a wonder he didn't knock him down. Sherman was denounced as a renegade and traitor for giving Joseph E. Johnston the terms Lincoln ordered him to give. Lincoln dead, his terms are treason! Yet had he lived, we should have been called upon to applaud his mercy and patriotism. How can a man live in this world and keep his face straight?" "I believe God permitted Mr. Lincoln's death to give the great Commoner, the Leader of Leaders, the right of way," cried Lynch with enthusiasm. The old man smiled. With all his fierce spirit he was as susceptible to flattery as a woman--far more so than the sleek brown woman who carried the keys of his house. "The man at the other end of the avenue, who pretends to be President, in reality an alien of the conquered province of Tennessee, is pressing Lincoln's plan of 'restoring' the Union. He has organized State governments in the South, and their senators and representatives will appear at the Capitol in December for admission to Congress. He thinks they will enter----" The old man broke into a low laugh and rubbed his hands. "My full plans are not for discussion at this juncture. Suffice it to say, I mean to secure the future of our party and the safety of this nation. The one thing on which the success of my plan absolutely depends is the confiscation of the millions of acres of land owned by the white people of the South and its division among the negroes and those who fought and suffered in this war----" The old Commoner paused, pursed his lips, and fumbled his hands a moment, the nostrils of his eagle-beaked nose breathing rapacity, sensuality throbbing in his massive jaws, and despotism frowning from his heavy brows. "Stanton will probably add to the hilarity of nations, and amuse himself by hanging a few rebels," he went on, "but we will address ourselves to serious work. All men have their price, including the present company, with due apologies to the speaker----" Howle's eyes danced, and he licked his lips. "If I haven't suffered in this war, who has?" "Your reward will not be in accordance with your sufferings. It will be based on the efficiency with which you obey my orders. Read that----" He handed to him a piece of paper on which he had scrawled his secret instructions. Another he gave to Lynch. "Hand them back to me when you read them, and I will burn them. These instructions are not to pass the lips of any man until the time is ripe--four bare walls are not to hear them whispered." Both men handed to the leader the slips of paper simultaneously. "Are we agreed, gentlemen?" "Perfectly," answered Howle. "Your word is law to me, sir," said Lynch. "Then you will draw on me personally for your expenses, and leave for the South within forty-eight hours. I wish your reports delivered to me two weeks before the meeting of Congress." As Lynch passed through the hall on his way to the door, the brown woman bade him good-night and pressed into his hand a letter. As his yellow fingers closed on the missive, his eyes flashed for a moment with catlike humour. The woman's face wore the mask of a sphinx. CHAPTER II SWEETHEARTS When the first shock of horror at her husband's peril passed, it left a strange new light in Mrs. Cameron's eyes. The heritage of centuries of heroic blood from the martyrs of old Scotland began to flash its inspiration from the past. Her heart beat with the unconscious life of men and women who had stood in the stocks, and walked in chains to the stake with songs on their lips. The threat against the life of Doctor Cameron had not only stirred her martyr blood: it had roused the latent heroism of a beautiful girlhood. To her he had ever been the lover and the undimmed hero of her girlish dreams. She spent whole hours locked in her room alone. Margaret knew that she was on her knees. She always came forth with shining face and with soft words on her lips. She struggled for two months in vain efforts to obtain a single interview with him, or to obtain a copy of the charges. Doctor Cameron had been placed in the old Capitol Prison, already crowded to the utmost. He was in delicate health, and so ill when she had left home he could not accompany her to Richmond. Not a written or spoken word was allowed to pass those prison doors. She could communicate with him only through the officers in charge. Every message from him was the same. "I love you always. Do not worry. Go home the moment you can leave Ben. I fear the worst at Piedmont." When he had sent this message, he would sit down and write the truth in a little diary he kept: "Another day of anguish. How long, O Lord? Just one touch of her hand, one last pressure of her lips, and I am content. I have no desire to live--I am tired." The officers repeated the verbal messages, but they made no impression on Mrs. Cameron. By a mental telepathy which had always linked her life with his her soul had passed those prison bars. If he had written the pitiful record with a dagger's point on her heart, she could not have felt it more keenly. At times overwhelmed, she lay prostrate and sobbed in half-articulate cries. And then from the silence and mystery of the spirit world in which she felt the beat of the heart of Eternal Love would come again the strange peace that passeth understanding. She would rise and go forth to her task with a smile. In July she saw Mrs. Surratt taken from this old Capitol Prison to be hung with Payne, Herold, and Atzerodt for complicity in the assassination. The military commission before whom this farce of justice was enacted, suspicious of the testimony of the perjured wretches who had sworn her life away, had filed a memorandum with their verdict asking the President for mercy. President Johnson never saw this memorandum. It was secretly removed in the War Department, and only replaced after he had signed the death warrant. In vain Annie Surratt, the weeping daughter, flung herself on the steps of the White House on the fatal day, begging and praying to see the President. She could not believe they would allow her mother to be murdered in the face of a recommendation of mercy. The fatal hour struck at last, and the girl left the White House with set eyes and blanched face, muttering incoherent curses. The Chief Magistrate sat within, unconscious of the hideous tragedy that was being enacted in his name. When he discovered the infamy by which he had been made the executioner of an innocent woman, he made his first demand that Edwin M. Stanton resign from his cabinet as Secretary of War. And for the first time in the history of America, a cabinet officer waived the question of honour and refused to resign. With a shudder and blush of shame, strong men saw that day the executioner gather the ropes tightly three times around the dress of an innocent American mother and bind her ankles with cords. She fainted and sank backward upon the attendants, the poor limbs yielding at last to the mortal terror of death. But they propped her up and sprung the fatal trap. A feeling of uncertainty and horror crept over the city and the Nation, as rumours of the strange doings of the "Bureau of Military Justice," with its secret factory of testimony and powers of tampering with verdicts, began to find their way in whispered stories among the people. Public opinion, however, had as yet no power of adjustment. It was an hour of lapse to tribal insanity. Things had gone wrong. The demand for a scapegoat, blind, savage, and unreasoning, had not spent itself. The Government could do anything as yet, and the people would applaud. Mrs. Cameron had tried in vain to gain a hearing before the President. Each time she was directed to apply to Mr. Stanton. She refused to attempt to see him, and again turned to Elsie for help. She had learned that the same witnesses who had testified against Mrs. Surratt were being used to convict Doctor Cameron, and her heart was sick with fear. "Ask your father," she pleaded, "to write President Johnson a letter in my behalf. Whatever his politics, he can't be _your_ father and not be good at heart." Elsie paled for a moment. It was the one request she had dreaded. She thought of her father and Stanton with dread. How far he was supporting the Secretary of War she could only vaguely guess. He rarely spoke of politics to her, much as he loved her. "I'll try, Mrs. Cameron," she faltered. "My father is in town to-day and takes dinner with us before he leaves for Pennsylvania to-night. I'll go at once." With fear, and yet boldly, she went straight home to present her request. She knew he was a man who never cherished small resentments, however cruel and implacable might be his public policies. And yet she dreaded to put it to the test. "Father, I've a very important request to make of you," she said gravely. "Very well, my child, you need not be so solemn. What is it?" "I've some friends in great distress--Mrs. Cameron, of South Carolina, and her daughter Margaret." "Friends of yours?" he asked with an incredulous smile. "Where on earth did you find them?" "In the hospital, of course. Mrs. Cameron is not allowed to see her husband, who has been here in jail for over two months. He cannot write to her, nor can he receive a letter from her. He is on trial for his life, is ill and helpless, and is not allowed to know the charges against him, while hired witnesses and detectives have broken open his house, searched his papers, and are ransacking heaven and earth to convict him of a crime of which he never dreamed. It's a shame. You don't approve of such things, I know?" "What's the use of my expressing an opinion when you have already settled it?" he answered good-humouredly. "You _don't_ approve of such injustice?" "Certainly not, my child. Stanton's frantic efforts to hang a lot of prominent Southern men for complicity in Booth's crime is sheer insanity. Nobody who has any sense believes them guilty. As a politician I use popular clamour for my purposes, but I am not an idiot. When I go gunning, I never use a popgun or hunt small game." "Then you will write the President a letter asking that they be allowed to see Doctor Cameron?" The old man frowned. "Think, father, if you were in jail and friendless, and I were trying to see you----" "Tut, tut, my dear, it's not that I am unwilling--I was only thinking of the unconscious humour of _my_ making a request of the man who at present accidentally occupies the White House. Of all the men on earth, this alien from the province of Tennessee! But I'll do it for you. When did you ever know me to deny my help to a weak man or woman in distress?" "Never, father. I was sure you would do it," she answered warmly. He wrote the letter at once and handed it to her. She bent and kissed him. "I can't tell you how glad I am to know that you have no part in such injustice." "You should not have believed me such a fool, but I'll forgive you for the kiss. Run now with this letter to your rebel friends, you little traitor! Wait a minute----" He shuffled to his feet, placed his hand tenderly on her head, and stooped and kissed the shining hair. "I wonder if you know how I love you? How I've dreamed of your future? I may not see you every day as I wish; I'm absorbed in great affairs. But more and more I think of you and Phil. I'll have a big surprise for you both some day." "Your love is all I ask," she answered simply. Within an hour, Mrs. Cameron found herself before the new President. The letter had opened the door as by magic. She poured out her story with impetuous eloquence while Mr. Johnson listened in uneasy silence. His ruddy face, his hesitating manner, and restless eyes were in striking contrast to the conscious power of the tall dark man who had listened so tenderly and sympathetically to her story of Ben but a few weeks before. The President asked: "Have you seen Mr. Stanton?" "I have seen him once," she cried with sudden passion. "It is enough. If that man were God on His throne, I would swear allegiance to the devil and fight him!" The President lifted his eyebrows and his lips twitched with a smile: "I shouldn't say that your spirits are exactly drooping! I'd like to be near and hear you make that remark to the distinguished Secretary of War." "Will you grant my prayer?" she pleaded. "I will consider the matter," he promised evasively. Mrs. Cameron's heart sank. "Mr. President," she cried bitterly, "I have felt sure that I had but to see you face to face and you could not deny me. Surely it is but justice that he have the right to see his loved ones, to consult with counsel, to know the charges against him, and defend his life when attacked in his poverty and ruin by all the power of a mighty government? He is feeble and broken in health and suffering from wounds received carrying the flag of the Union to victory in Mexico. Whatever his errors of judgment in this war, it is a shame that a Nation for which he once bared his breast in battle should treat him as an outlaw without a trial." "You must remember, madam," interrupted the President, "that these are extraordinary times, and that popular clamour, however unjust, will make itself felt and must be heeded by those in power. I am sorry for you, and I trust it may be possible for me to grant your request." "But I wish it now," she urged. "He sends me word I must go home. I can't leave without seeing him. I will die first." She drew closer and continued in throbbing tones: "Mr. President, you are a native Carolinian--you are of Scotch Covenanter blood. You are of my own people of the great past, whose tears and sufferings are our common glory and birthright. Come, you must hear me--I will take no denial. Give me now the order to see my husband!" The President hesitated, struggling with deep emotion, called his secretary, and gave the order. As she hurried away with Elsie, who insisted on accompanying her to the jail door, the girl said: "Mrs. Cameron, I fear you are without money. You must let me help you until you can return it." "You are the dearest little heart I've met in all the world, I think sometimes," said the older woman, looking at her tenderly. "I wonder how I can ever pay you for half you've done already." "The doing of it has been its own reward," was the soft reply. "May I help you?" "If I need it, yes. But I trust it will not be necessary. I still have a little store of gold Doctor Cameron was wise enough to hoard during the war. I brought half of it with me when I left home, and we buried the rest. I hope to find it on my return. And if we can save the twenty bales of cotton we have hidden we shall be relieved of want." "I'm ashamed of my country when I think of such ignoble methods as have been used against Doctor Cameron. My father is indignant, too." The last sentence Elsie spoke with eager girlish pride. "I am very grateful to your father for his letter. I am sorry he has left the city before I could meet and thank him personally. You must tell him for me." At the jail the order of the President was not honoured for three hours, and Mrs. Cameron paced the street in angry impatience at first and then in dull despair. "Do you think that man Stanton would dare defy the President?" she asked anxiously. "No," said Elsie, "but he is delaying as long as possible as an act of petty tyranny." At last the messenger arrived from the War Department permitting an order of the Chief Magistrate of the nation, the Commander-in-Chief of its Army and Navy, to be executed. The grated door swung on its heavy hinges, and the wife and mother lay sobbing in the arms of the lover of her youth. For two hours they poured into each other's hearts the story of their sorrows and struggles during the six fateful months that had passed. When she would return from every theme back to his danger, he would laugh her fears to scorn. "Nonsense, my dear, I'm as innocent as a babe. Mr. Davis was suffering from erysipelas, and I kept him in my house that night to relieve his pain. It will all blow over. I'm happy now that I have seen you. Ben will be up in a few days. You must return at once. You have no idea of the wild chaos at home. I left Jake in charge. I have implicit faith in him, but there's no telling what may happen. I will not spend another moment in peace until you go." The proud old man spoke of his own danger with easy assurance. He was absolutely certain, since the day of Mrs. Surratt's execution, that he would be railroaded to the gallows by the same methods. He had long looked on the end with indifference, and had ceased to desire to live except to see his loved ones again. In vain she warned him of danger. "My peril is nothing, my love," he answered quietly. "At home, the horrors of a servile reign of terror have become a reality. These prison walls do not interest me. My heart is with our stricken people. You must go home. Our neighbour, Mr. Lenoir, is slowly dying. His wife will always be a child. Little Marion is older and more self-reliant. I feel as if they are our own children. There are so many who need us. They have always looked to me for guidance and help. You can do more for them than any one else. My calling is to heal others. You have always helped me. Do now as I ask you." At last she consented to leave for Piedmont on the following day, and he smiled. "Kiss Ben and Margaret for me and tell them that I'll be with them soon," he said cheerily. He meant in the spirit, not the flesh. Not the faintest hope of life even flickered in his mind. In the last farewell embrace a faint tremor of the soul, half sigh, half groan, escaped his lips, and he drew her again to his breast, whispering: "Always my sweetheart, good, beautiful, brave, and true!" CHAPTER III THE JOY OF LIVING Within two weeks after the departure of Mrs. Cameron and Margaret, the wounded soldier had left the hospital with Elsie's hand resting on his arm and her keen eyes watching his faltering steps. She had promised Margaret to take her place until he was strong again. She was afraid to ask herself the meaning of the songs that were welling up from the depth of her own soul. She told herself again and again that she was fulfilling her ideal of unselfish human service. Ben's recovery was rapid, and he soon began to give evidence of his boundless joy in the mere fact of life. He utterly refused to believe his father in danger. "What, my dad a conspirator, an assassin!" he cried, with a laugh. "Why, he wouldn't kill a flea without apologising to it. And as for plots and dark secrets, he never had a secret in his life and couldn't keep one if he had it. My mother keeps all the family secrets. Crime couldn't stick to him any more than dirty water to a duck's back!" "But we must secure his release on parole, that he may defend himself." "Of course. But we won't cross any bridges till we come to them. I never saw things so bad they couldn't be worse. Just think what I've been through. The war's over. Don't worry." He looked at her tenderly. "Get that banjo and play 'Get out of the Wilderness!'" His spirit was contagious and his good humour resistless. Elsie spent the days of his convalescence in an unconscious glow of pleasure in his companionship. His handsome boyish face, his bearing, his whole personality, invited frankness and intimacy. It was a divine gift, this magnetism, the subtle meeting of quick intelligence, tact, and sympathy. His voice was tender and penetrating, with soft caresses in its tones. His vision of life was large and generous, with a splendid carelessness about little things that didn't count. Each day Elsie saw new and striking traits of his character which drew her. "What will we do if Stanton arrests you one of these fine days?" she asked him one day. "Afraid they'll nab me for something?" he exclaimed. "Well, that is a joke. Don't you worry. The Yankees know who to fool with. I licked 'em too many times for them to bother me any more." "I was under the impression that you got licked," Elsie observed. "Don't you believe it. We wore ourselves out whipping the other fellows." Elsie smiled, took up the banjo, and asked him to sing while she played. She had no idea that he could sing, yet to her surprise he sang his camp songs boldly, tenderly, and with deep, expressive feeling. As the girl listened, the memory of the horrible hours of suspense she had spent with his mother when his unconscious life hung on a thread came trooping back into her heart and a tear dimmed her eyes. And he began to look at her with a new wonder and joy slowly growing in his soul. CHAPTER IV HIDDEN TREASURE Ben had spent a month of vain effort to secure his father's release. He had succeeded in obtaining for him a removal to more comfortable quarters, books to read, and the privilege of a daily walk under guard and parole. The doctor's genial temper, the wide range of his knowledge, the charm of his personality, and his heroism in suffering had captivated the surgeons who attended him and made friends of every jailer and guard. Elsie was now using all her woman's wit to secure a copy of the charges against him as formulated by the Judge Advocate General, who, in defiance of civil law, still claimed control of these cases. To the boy's sanguine temperament the whole proceeding had been a huge farce from the beginning, and at the last interview with his father he had literally laughed him into good humour. "Look here, pa," he cried. "I believe you're trying to slip off and leave us in this mess. It's not fair. It's easy to die." "Who said I was going to die?" "I heard you were trying to crawl out that way." "Well, it's a mistake. I'm going to live just for the fun of disappointing my enemies and to keep you company. But you'd better get hold of a copy of these charges against me--if you don't want me to escape." "It's a funny world if a man can be condemned to death without any information on the subject." "My son, we are now in the hands of the revolutionists, army sutlers, contractors, and adventurers. The Nation will touch the lowest tide-mud of its degradation within the next few years. No man can predict the end." "Oh, go 'long!" said Ben. "You've got jail cobwebs in your eyes." "I'm depending on you." "I'll pull you through if you don't lie down on me and die to get out of trouble. You know you _can_ die if you try hard enough." "I promise you, my boy," he said with a laugh. "Then I'll let you read this letter from home," Ben said, suddenly thrusting it before him. The doctor's hand trembled a little as he put on his glasses and read: _My Dear Boy_: I cannot tell you how much good your bright letters have done us. It's like opening the window and letting in the sunlight while fresh breezes blow through one's soul. Margaret and I have had stirring times. I send you enclosed an order for the last dollar of money we have left. You must hoard it. Make it last until your father is safe at home. I dare not leave it here. Nothing is safe. Every piece of silver and everything that could be carried has been stolen since we returned. Uncle Aleck betrayed the place Jake had hidden our twenty precious bales of cotton. The war is long since over, but the "Treasury Agent" declared them confiscated, and then offered to relieve us of his order if we gave him five bales, each worth three hundred dollars in gold. I agreed, and within a week another thief came and declared the other fifteen bales confiscated. They steal it, and the Government never gets a cent. We dared not try to sell it in open market, as every bale exposed for sale is "confiscated" at once. No crop was planted this summer. The negroes are all drawing rations at the Freedman's Bureau. We have turned our house into a hotel, and our table has become famous. Margaret is a treasure. She has learned to do everything. We tried to raise a crop on the farm when we came home, but the negroes stopped work. The Agent of the Bureau came to us and said he could send them back for a fee of $50. We paid it, and they worked a week. We found it easier to run a hotel. We hope to start the farm next year. Our new minister at the Presbyterian Church is young, handsome, and eloquent--Rev. Hugh McAlpin. Mr. Lenoir died last week--but his end was so beautiful, our tears were half joy. He talked incessantly of your father and how the country missed him. He seemed much better the day before the end came, and we took him for a little drive to Lovers' Leap. It was there, sixteen years ago, he made love to Jeannie. When we propped him up on the rustic seat, and he looked out over the cliff and the river below, I have never seen a face so transfigured with peace and joy. "What a beautiful world it is, my dears!" he exclaimed, taking Jeannie and Marion both by the hand. They began to cry, and he said with a smile: "Come now--do you love me?" And they covered his hands with kisses. "Well, then you must promise me two things faithfully here, with Mrs. Cameron to witness!" "We promise," they both said in a breath. "That when I fall asleep, not one thread of black shall ever cloud the sunlight of our little home, that you will never wear it, and that you will show your love for me by making my flowers grow richer, that you will keep my memory green by always being as beautiful as you are to-day, and make this old world a sweeter place to live in. I wish you, Jeannie, my mate, to keep on making the young people glad. Don't let their joys be less even for a month because I have laid down to rest. Let them sing and dance----" "Oh, Papa!" cried Marion. "Certainly, my little serious beauty--I'll not be far away, I'll be near and breathe my songs into their hearts, and into yours--you both promise?" "Yes, yes!" they both cried. As we drove back through the woods, he smiled tenderly and said to me: "My neighbour, Doctor Cameron, pays taxes on these woods, but I own them! Their sighing boughs, stirred by the breezes, have played for me oratorios grander than all the scores of human genius. I'll hear the Choir Invisible play them when I sleep." He died that night suddenly. With his last breath he sighed: "Draw the curtains and let me see again the moonlit woods!" They are trying to carry out his wishes. I found they had nothing to eat, and that he had really died from insufficient nourishment--a polite expression meaning starvation. I've divided half our little store with them and send the rest to you. I think Marion more and more the incarnate soul of her father. I feel as if they are both my children. My little grandchick, Hugh, is the sweetest youngster alive. He was a wee thing when you left. Mrs. Lenoir kept him when they arrested your father. He is so much like your brother Hugh I feel as if he has come to life again. You should hear him say grace, so solemnly and tenderly, we can't help crying. He made it up himself. This is what he says at every meal: "God, please give my grandpa something good to eat in jail, keep him well, don't let the pains hurt him any more, and bring him home to me quick, for Jesus' sake. Amen." I never knew before how the people loved the doctor, nor how dependent they were on him for help and guidance. Men, both white and coloured, come here every day to ask about him. Some of them come from far up in the mountains. God alone knows how lonely our home and the world has seemed without him. They say that those who love and live the close sweet home life for years grow alike in soul and body, in tastes, ways, and habits. I find it so. People have told me that your father and I are more alike than brother and sister of the same blood. In spirit I'm sure it's true. I know you love him and that you will leave nothing undone for his health and safety. Tell him that my only cure for loneliness in his absence is my fight to keep the wolf from the door, and save our home against his coming. Lovingly, your Mother. When the doctor had finished the reading, he looked out the window of the jail at the shining dome of the Capitol for a moment in silence. "Do you know, my boy, that you have the heritage of royal blood? You are the child of a wonderful mother. I'm ashamed when I think of the helpless stupor under which I have given up, and then remember the deathless courage with which she has braved it all--the loss of her boys, her property, your troubles and mine. She has faced the world alone like a wounded lioness standing over her cubs. And now she turns her home into a hotel, and begins life in a strange new world without one doubt of her success. The South is yet rich even in its ruin." "Then you'll fight and go back to her with me?" "Yes, never fear." "Good! You see, we're so poor now, pa, you're lucky to be saving a board bill here. I'd 'conspire' myself and come in with you but for the fact it would hamper me a little in helping you." CHAPTER V ACROSS THE CHASM When Ben had fully recovered and his father's case looked hopeful, Elsie turned to her study of music, and the Southern boy suddenly waked to the fact that the great mystery of life was upon him. He was in love at last--genuinely, deeply, without one reservation. He had from habit flirted in a harmless way with every girl he knew. He left home with little Marion Lenoir's girlish kiss warm on his lips. He had made love to many a pretty girl in old Virginia as the red tide of war had ebbed and flowed around Stuart's magic camps. But now the great hour of the soul had struck. No sooner had he dropped the first tender words that might have their double meaning, feeling his way cautiously toward her, than she had placed a gulf of dignity between them, and attempted to cut every tie that bound her life to his. It had been so sudden it took his breath away. Could he win her? The word "fail" had never been in his vocabulary. It had never run in the speech of his people. Yes, he would win if it was the only thing he did in this world. And forthwith he set about it. Life took on new meaning and new glory. What mattered war or wounds, pain or poverty, jails and revolutions--it was the dawn of life! He sent her a flower every day and pinned one just like it on his coat. And every night found him seated by her side. She greeted him cordially, but the gulf yawned between them. His courtesy and self-control struck her with surprise and admiration. In the face of her coldness he carried about him an air of smiling deference and gallantry. She finally told him of her determination to go to New York to pursue her studies until Phil had finished the term of his enlistment in his regiment, which had been ordered on permanent duty in the West. He laughed with his eyes at this announcement, blinking the lashes rapidly without moving his lips. It was a peculiar habit of his when deeply moved by a sudden thought. It had flashed over him like lightning that she was trying to get away from him. She would not do that unless she cared. "When are you going?" he asked quietly. "Day after to-morrow." "Then you will give me one afternoon for a sail on the river to say good-bye and thank you for what you have done for me and mine?" She hesitated, laughed, and refused. "To-morrow at four o'clock I'll call for you," he said firmly. "If there's no wind, we can drift with the tide." "I will not have time to go." "Promptly at four," he repeated as he left. Ben spent hours that night weighing the question of how far he should dare to speak his love. It had been such an easy thing before. Now it seemed a question of life and death. Twice the magic words had been on his lips, and each time something in her manner chilled him into silence. Was she cold and incapable of love? No; this manner of the North was on the surface. He knew that deep down within her nature lay banked and smouldering fires of passion for the one man whose breath could stir it into flame. He felt this all the keener now that the spell of her companionship and the sweet intimacy of her daily ministry to him had been broken. The memory of little movements of her petite figure, the glance of her warm amber eyes, and the touch of her hand--all had their tongues of revelation to his eager spirit. He found her ready at four o'clock. "You see I decided to go after all," she said. "Yes, I knew you would," he answered. She was dressed in a simple suit of navy-blue cloth cut V-shaped at the throat, showing the graceful lines of her exquisite neck as it melted into the plump shoulders. She had scorned hoop skirts. He admired her for this, and yet it made him uneasy. A woman who could defy an edict of fashion was a new thing under the sun, and it scared him. They were seated in the little sailboat now, drifting out with the tide. It was a perfect day in October, one of those matchless days of Indian summer in the Virginia climate when an infinite peace and vast brooding silence fill the earth and sky until one feels that words are a sacrilege. Neither of them spoke for minutes, and his heart grew bold in the stillness. No girl could be still who was unmoved. She was seated just in front of him on the left, with her hand idly rippling the surface of the silvery waters, gazing at the wooded cliff on the river banks clothed now in their gorgeous robes of yellow, purple, scarlet, and gold. The soft strains of distant music came from a band in the fort, and her hand in the rippling water seemed its accompaniment. Ben was conscious only of her presence. Every sight and sound of nature seemed to be blended in her presence. Never in all his life had he seen anything so delicately beautiful as the ripe rose colour of her cheeks, and all the tints of autumn's glory seemed to melt into the gold of her hair. And those eyes he felt that God had never set in such a face before--rich amber, warm and glowing, big and candid, courageous and truthful. "Are you dead again?" she asked demurely. "Well, as the Irishman said in answer to his mate's question when he fell off the house, 'not dead--but spacheless.'" He was quick to see the opening her question with its memories had made, and took advantage of it. "Look here, Miss Elsie, you're too honest, independent, and candid to play hide-and-seek with me. I want to ask you a plain question. You've been trying to pick a quarrel of late. What have I done?" "Nothing. It has simply come to me that our lives are far apart. The gulf between us is real and very deep. Your father was but yesterday a slaveholder----" Ben grinned: "Yes, your slave-trading grandfather sold them to us the day before." Elsie blushed and bristled for a fight. "You won't mind if I give you a few lessons in history, will you?" Ben asked softly. "Not in the least. I didn't know that Southerners studied history," she answered, with a toss of her head. "We made a specialty of the history of slavery, at least. I had a dear old teacher at home who fairly blazed with light on this subject. He is one of the best-read men in America. He happens to be in jail just now. But I haven't forgotten--I know it by heart." "I am waiting for light," she interrupted cynically. "The South is no more to blame for negro slavery than the North. Our slaves were stolen from Africa by Yankee skippers. When a slaver arrived at Boston, your pious Puritan clergyman offered public prayer of thanks that 'A gracious and overruling Providence had been pleased to bring to this land of freedom another cargo of benighted heathen to enjoy the blessings of a gospel dispensation----'" She looked at him with angry incredulity and cried: "Go on." "Twenty-three times the Legislature of Virginia passed acts against the importation of slaves, which the king vetoed on petition of the Massachusetts slave traders. Jefferson made these acts of the king one of the grievances of the Declaration of Independence, but a Massachusetts member succeeded in striking it out. The Southern men in the convention which framed the Constitution put into it a clause abolishing the slave trade, but the Massachusetts men succeeded in adding a clause extending the trade twenty years----" He smiled and paused. "Go on," she said, with impatience. "In Colonial days a negro woman was publicly burned to death in Boston. The first Abolition paper was published in Tennessee by Embree. Benjamin Lundy, his successor, could not find a single Abolitionist in Boston. In 1828 over half the people of Tennessee favoured Abolition. At this time there were one hundred and forty Abolition Societies in America--one hundred and three in the South, and not one in Massachusetts. It was not until 1836 that Massachusetts led in Abolition--not until all her own slaves had been sold to us at a profit and the slave trade had been destroyed----" She looked at Ben with anger for a moment and met his tantalizing look of good humour. "Can you stand any more?" "Certainly, I enjoy it." "I'm just breaking down the barriers--so to speak," he said, with the laughter still lurking in his eyes, as he looked steadily ahead. "By all means go on," she said soberly. "I thought at first you were trying to tease me. I see that you are in earnest." "Never more so. This is about the only little path of history I'm at home in--I love to show off in it. I heard a cheerful idiot say the other day that your father meant to carry the civilization of Massachusetts to the Rio Grande until we had a Democracy in America. I smiled. While Massachusetts was enforcing laws about the dress of the rich and the poor, founding a church with a whipping-post, jail, and gibbet, and limiting the right to vote to a church membership fixed by pew rents, Carolina was the home of freedom where first the equal rights of men were proclaimed. New England people worth less than one thousand dollars were prohibited by law from wearing the garb of a gentleman, gold or silver lace, buttons on the knees, or to walk in great boots, or their women to wear silk or scarfs, while the Quakers, Maryland Catholics, Baptists, and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians were everywhere in the South the heralds of man's equality before the law." "But barring our ancestors, I have some things against the men of this generation." "Have I, too, sinned and come short?" he asked with mock gravity. "Our ideals of life are far apart," she firmly declared. "What ails my ideal?" "Your egotism, for one thing. The air with which you calmly select what pleases your fancy. Northern men are bad enough--the insolence of a Southerner is beyond words!" [Illustration: LILLIAN GISH AS ELSIE, AND THE SENTINEL.] "You don't say so!" cried Ben, bursting into a hearty laugh. "Isn't your aunt, Mrs. Farnham, the president of a club?" "Yes, and she is a very brilliant woman." "Enlighten me further." "I deny your heaven-born male kingship. The lord of creation is after all a very inferior animal--nearer the brute creation, weaker in infancy, shorter lived, more imperfectly developed, given to fighting, and addicted to idiocy. I never saw a female idiot in my life--did you?" "Come to think of it, I never did," acknowledged Ben with comic gravity. "What else?" "Isn't that enough?" "It's nothing. I agree with everything you say, but it is irrelevant. I'm studying law, you know." "I have a personality of my own. You and your kind assume the right to absorb all lesser lights." "Certainly, I'm a man." "I don't care to be absorbed by a mere man." "Don't wish to be protected, sheltered, and cared for?" "I dream of a life that shall be larger than the four walls of a home. I have never gone into hysterics over the idea of becoming a cook and housekeeper without wages, and snuffing my life out while another grows, expands, and claims the lordship of the world. I can sing. My voice is to me what eloquence is to man. My ideal is an intellectual companion who will inspire and lead me to develop all that I feel within to its highest reach." She paused a moment and looked defiantly into Ben's brown eyes, about which a smile was constantly playing. He looked away, and again the river echoed with his contagious laughter. She had to join in spite of herself. He laughed with boyish gayety. It danced in his eyes, and gave spring to every movement of his slender wiry body. She felt its contagion enfold her. His laughter melted into a song. In a voice vibrant with joy he sang, "If you get there before I do, tell 'em I'm comin' too!" As Elsie listened, her anger grew as she recalled the amazing folly that had induced her to tell the secret feelings of her inmost soul to this man almost a stranger. Whence came this miracle of influence about him, this gift of intimacy? She felt a shock as if she had been immodest. She was in an agony of doubt as to what he was thinking of her, and dreaded to meet his gaze. And yet, when he turned toward her, his whole being a smiling compound of dark Southern blood and bone and fire, at the sound of his voice all doubt and questioning melted. "Do you know," he said earnestly, "that you are the funniest, most charming girl I ever met?" "Thanks. I've heard your experience has been large for one of your age." Ben's eyes danced. "Perhaps, yes. You appeal to things in me that I didn't know were there--to all the senses of body and soul at once. Your strength of mind, with its conceits, and your quick little temper seem so odd and out of place, clothed in the gentleness of your beauty." "I was never more serious in my life. There are other things more personal about you that I do not like." "What?" "Your cavalier habits." "Cavalier fiddlesticks. There are no Cavaliers in my country. We are all Covenanter and Huguenot folks. The idea that Southern boys are lazy loafing dreamers is a myth. I was raised on the catechism." "You love to fish and hunt and frolic--you flirt with every girl you meet, and you drink sometimes. I often feel that you are cruel and that I do not know you." Ben's face grew serious, and the red scar in the edge of his hair suddenly became livid with the rush of blood. "Perhaps I don't mean that you shall know all yet," he said slowly. "My ideal of a man is one that leads, charms, dominates, and yet eludes. I confess that I'm close kin to an angel and a devil, and that I await a woman's hand to lead me into the ways of peace and life." The spiritual earnestness of the girl was quick to catch the subtle appeal of his last words. His broad, high forehead, straight, masterly nose, with its mobile nostrils, seemed to her very manly at just that moment and very appealing. A soft answer was on her lips. He saw it, and leaned toward her in impulsive tenderness. A timid look on her face caused him to sink back in silence. They had now drifted near the city. The sun was slowly sinking in a smother of fiery splendour that mirrored its changing hues in the still water. The hush of the harvest fullness of autumn life was over all nature. They passed a camp of soldiers and then a big hospital on the banks above. A gun flashed from the hill, and the flag dropped from its staff. The girl's eyes lingered on the flower in his coat a moment and then on the red scar in the edge of his dark hair, and somehow the difference between them seemed to melt into the falling twilight. Only his nearness was real. Again a strange joy held her. He threw her a look of tenderness, and she began to tremble. A sea gull poised a moment above them and broke into a laugh. Bending nearer, he gently took her hand, and said: "I love you!" A sob caught her breath and she buried her face on her arm. "I am for you, and you are for me. Why beat your wings against the thing that is and must be? What else matters? With all my sins and faults my land is yours--a land of sunshine, eternal harvests, and everlasting song, old-fashioned and provincial perhaps, but kind and hospitable. Around its humblest cottage song birds live and mate and nest and never leave. The winged ones of your own cold fields have heard their call, and the sky to-night will echo with their chatter as they hurry southward. Elsie, my own, I too have called--come; I love you!" She lifted her face to him full of tender spiritual charm, her eyes burning their passionate answer. He bent and kissed her. "Say it! Say it!" he whispered. "I love you!" she sighed. CHAPTER VI THE GAUGE OF BATTLE The day of the first meeting of the National Congress after the war was one of intense excitement. The galleries of the House were packed. Elsie was there with Ben in a fever of secret anxiety lest the stirring drama should cloud her own life. She watched her father limp to his seat with every eye fixed on him. The President had pursued with persistence the plan of Lincoln for the immediate restoration of the Union. Would Congress follow the lead of the President or challenge him to mortal combat? Civil governments had been restored in all the Southern States, with men of the highest ability chosen as governors and lawmakers. Their legislatures had unanimously voted for the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution abolishing slavery, and elected senators and representatives to Congress. Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, had declared the new amendment a part of the organic law of the Nation by the vote of these States. General Grant went to the South to report its condition and boldly declared: "I am satisfied that the mass of thinking people of the South accept the situation in good faith. Slavery and secession they regard as settled forever by the highest known tribunal, and consider this decision a fortunate one for the whole country." Would the Southerners be allowed to enter? Amid breathless silence the clerk rose to call the roll of members-elect. Every ear was bent to hear the name of the first Southern man. Not one was called! The Master had spoken. His clerk knew how to play his part. The next business of the House was to receive the message of the Chief Magistrate of the Nation. The message came, but not from the White House. It came from the seat of the Great Commoner. As the first thrill of excitement over the challenge to the President slowly subsided, Stoneman rose, planted his big club foot in the middle of the aisle, and delivered to Congress the word of its new master. It was Ben's first view of the man of all the world just now of most interest. From his position he could see his full face and figure. He began speaking in a careless, desultory way. His tone was loud yet not declamatory, at first in a grumbling, grandfatherly, half-humorous, querulous accent that riveted every ear instantly. A sort of drollery of a contagious kind haunted it. Here and there a member tittered in expectation of a flash of wit. His figure was taller than the average, slightly bent, with a dignity which suggested reserve power and contempt for his audience. One knew instinctively that back of the boldest word this man might say there was a bolder unspoken word he had chosen not to speak. His limbs were long, and their movements slow, yet nervous as from some internal fiery force. His hands were big and ugly, and always in ungraceful fumbling motion as though a separate soul dwelt within them. The heaped-up curly profusion of his brown wig gave a weird impression to the spread of his mobile features. His eagle-beaked nose had three distinct lines and angles. His chin was broad and bold, and his brows beetling and projecting. His mouth was wide, marked, and grim; when opened, deep and cavernous; when closed, it seemed to snap so tightly that the lower lip protruded. Of all his make-up, his eye was the most fascinating, and it held Ben spellbound. It could thrill to the deepest fibre of the soul that looked into it, yet it did not gleam. It could dominate, awe, and confound, yet it seemed to have no colour or fire. He could easily see it across the vast hall from the galleries, yet it was not large. Two bold, colourless dagger-points of light they seemed. As he grew excited, they darkened as if passing under a cloud. A sudden sweep of his huge apelike arm in an angular gesture, and the drollery and carelessness of his voice were riven from it as by a bolt of lightning. He was driving home his message now in brutal frankness. Yet in the height of his fiercest invective he never seemed to strengthen himself or call on his resources. In its climax he was careless, conscious of power, and contemptuous of results, as though as a gambler he had staked and lost all and in the moment of losing suddenly become the master of those who had beaten him. His speech never once bent to persuade or convince. He meant to brain the opposition with a single blow, and he did it. For he suddenly took the breath from his foes by shouting in their faces the hidden motive of which they were hoping to accuse him! "Admit these Southern Representatives," he cried, "and with the Democrats elected from the North, within one term they will have a majority in Congress and the Electoral College. The supremacy of our party's life is at stake. The man who dares palter with such a measure is a rebel, a traitor to his party and his people." A cheer burst from his henchmen, and his foes sat in dazed stupor at his audacity. He moved the appointment of a "Committee on Reconstruction" to whom the entire government of the "conquered provinces of the South" should be committed, and to whom all credentials of their pretended representatives should be referred. He sat down as the Speaker put his motion, declared it carried, and quickly announced the names of this Imperial Committee with the Hon. Austin Stoneman as its chairman. He then permitted the message of the President of the United States to be read by his clerk. "Well, upon my soul," said Ben, taking a deep breath and looking at Elsie, "he's the whole thing, isn't he?" The girl smiled with pride. "Yes; he is a genius. He was born to command and yet never could resist the cry of a child or the plea of a woman. He hates, but he hates ideas and systems. He makes threats, yet when he meets the man who stands for all he hates he falls in love with his enemy." "Then there's hope for me?" "Yes, but I must be the judge of the time to speak." "Well, if he looks at me as he did once to-day, you may have to do the speaking also." "You will like him when you know him. He is one of the greatest men in America." "At least he's the father of the greatest girl in the world, which is far more important." "I wonder if you know how important?" she asked seriously. "He is the apple of my eye. His bitter words, his cynicism and sarcasm, are all on the surface--masks that hide a great sensitive spirit. You can't know with what brooding tenderness I have always loved and worshipped him. I will never marry against his wishes." "I hope he and I will always be good friends," said Ben doubtfully. "You must," she replied, eagerly pressing his hand. CHAPTER VII A WOMAN LAUGHS Each day the conflict waxed warmer between the President and the Commoner. The first bill sent to the White House to Africanize the "conquered provinces" the President vetoed in a message of such logic, dignity, and power, the old leader found to his amazement it was impossible to rally the two-thirds majority to pass it over his head. At first, all had gone as planned. Lynch and Howle brought to him a report on "Southern Atrocities," secured through the councils of the secret oath-bound Union League, which had destroyed the impression of General Grant's words and prepared his followers for blind submission to his Committee. Yet the rally of a group of men in defence of the Constitution had given the President unexpected strength. Stoneman saw that he must hold his hand on the throat of the South and fight another campaign. Howle and Lynch furnished the publication committee of the Union League the matter, and they printed four million five hundred thousand pamphlets on "Southern Atrocities." The Northern States were hostile to negro suffrage, the first step of his revolutionary programme, and not a dozen men in Congress had yet dared to favour it. Ohio, Michigan, New York, and Kansas had rejected it by overwhelming majorities. But he could appeal to their passions and prejudices against the "Barbarism" of the South. It would work like magic. When he had the South where he wanted it, he would turn and ram negro suffrage and negro equality down the throats of the reluctant North. His energies were now bent to prevent any effective legislation in Congress until his strength should be omnipotent. A cloud disturbed the sky for a moment in the Senate. John Sherman, of Ohio, began to loom on the horizon as a constructive statesman, and without consulting him was quietly forcing over Sumner's classic oratory a Reconstruction Bill restoring the Southern States to the Union on the basis of Lincoln's plan, with no provision for interference with the suffrage. It had gone to its last reading, and the final vote was pending. The house was in session at 3 a. m., waiting in feverish anxiety the outcome of this struggle in the Senate. Old Stoneman was in his seat, fast asleep from the exhaustion of an unbroken session of forty hours. His meals he had sent to his desk from the Capitol restaurant. He was seventy-four years old and not in good health, yet his energy was tireless, his resources inexhaustible, and his audacity matchless. Sunset Cox, the wag of the House, an opponent but personal friend of the old Commoner, passing his seat and seeing the great head sunk on his breast in sleep, laughed softly and said: "Mr. Speaker!" The presiding officer recognized the young Democrat with a nod of answering humour and responded: "The gentleman from New York." "I move you, sir," said Cox, "that, in view of the advanced age and eminent services of the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania, the Sergeant-at-Arms be instructed to furnish him with enough poker chips to last till morning!" The scattered members who were awake roared with laughter, the Speaker pounded furiously with his gavel, the sleepy little pages jumped up, rubbing their eyes, and ran here and there answering imaginary calls, and the whole House waked to its usual noise and confusion. The old man raised his massive head and looked to the door leading toward the Senate just as Sumner rushed through. He had slept for a moment, but his keen intellect had taken up the fight at precisely the point at which he left it. Sumner approached his desk rapidly, leaned over, and reported his defeat and Sherman's triumph. "For God's sake throttle this measure in the House or we are ruined!" he exclaimed. "Don't be alarmed," replied the cynic. "I'll be here with stronger weapons than articulated wind." "You have not a moment to lose. The bill is on its way to the Speaker's desk, and Sherman's men are going to force its passage to-night." The Senator returned to the other end of the Capitol wrapped in the mantle of his outraged dignity, and in thirty minutes the bill was defeated, and the House adjourned. As the old Commoner hobbled through the door, his crooked cane thumping the marble floor, Sumner seized and pressed his hand: "How did you do it?" Stoneman's huge jaws snapped together and his lower lip protruded: "I sent for Cox and summoned the leader of the Democrats. I told them if they would join with me and defeat this bill, I'd give them a better one the next session. And I will--negro suffrage! The gudgeons swallowed it whole!" Sumner lifted his eyebrows and wrapped his cloak a little closer. The Great Commoner laughed as he departed: "He is yet too good for this world, but he'll forget it before we're done this fight." On the steps a beggar asked him for a night's lodging, and he tossed him a gold eagle. * * * * * The North, which had rejected negro suffrage for itself with scorn, answered Stoneman's fierce appeal to their passions against the South, and sent him a delegation of radicals eager to do his will. So fierce had waxed the combat between the President and Congress that the very existence of Stanton's prisoners languishing in jail was forgotten, and the Secretary of War himself became a football to be kicked back and forth in this conflict of giants. The fact that Andrew Johnson was from Tennessee, and had been an old-line Democrat before his election as a Unionist with Lincoln, was now a fatal weakness in his position. Under Stoneman's assaults he became at once an executive without a party, and every word of amnesty and pardon he proclaimed for the South in accordance with Lincoln's plan was denounced as the act of a renegade courting favour of traitors and rebels. Stanton remained in his cabinet against his wishes to insult and defy him, and Stoneman, quick to see the way by which the President of the Nation could be degraded and made ridiculous, introduced a bill depriving him of the power to remove his own cabinet officers. The act was not only meant to degrade the President; it was a trap set for his ruin. The penalties were so fixed that its violation would give specific ground for his trial, impeachment, and removal from office. Again Stoneman passed his first act to reduce the "conquered provinces" of the South to negro rule. President Johnson vetoed it with a message of such logic in defence of the constitutional rights of the States that it failed by one vote to find the two-thirds majority needed to become a law without his approval. The old Commoner's eyes froze into two dagger-points of icy light when this vote was announced. With fury he cursed the President, but above all he cursed the men of his own party who had faltered. As he fumbled his big hands nervously, he growled: "If I only had five men of genuine courage in Congress, I'd hang the man at the other end of the avenue from the porch of the White House! But I haven't got them--cowards, dastards, dolts, and snivelling fools----" His decision was instantly made. He would expel enough Democrats from the Senate and the House to place his two-thirds majority beyond question. The name of the President never passed his lips. He referred to him always, even in public debate, as "the man at the other end of the avenue," or "the former Governor of Tennessee who once threatened rebels--the late lamented Andrew Johnson, of blessed memory." He ordered the expulsion of the new member of the House from Indiana, Daniel W. Voorhees, and the new Senator from New Jersey, John P. Stockton. This would give him a majority of two thirds composed of men who would obey his word without a question. Voorhees heard of the edict with indignant wrath. He had met Stoneman in the lobbies, where he was often the centre of admiring groups of friends. His wit and audacity, and, above all, his brutal frankness, had won the admiration of the "Tall Sycamore of the Wabash." He could not believe such a man would be a party to a palpable fraud. He appealed to him personally: "Look here, Stoneman," the young orator cried with wrath, "I appeal to your sense of honour and decency. My credentials have been accepted by your own committee, and my seat been awarded me. My majority is unquestioned. This is a high-handed outrage. You cannot permit this crime." The old man thrust his deformed foot out before him, struck it meditatively with his cane, and looking Voorhees straight in the eye, boldly said: "There's nothing the matter with your majority, young man. I've no doubt it's all right. Unfortunately, you are a Democrat, and happen to be the odd man in the way of the two-thirds majority on which the supremacy of my party depends. You will have to go. Come back some other time." And he did. In the Senate there was a hitch. When the vote was taken on the expulsion of Stockton, to the amazement of the leader it was a tie. He hobbled into the Senate Chamber, with the steel point of his cane ringing on the marble flags as though he were thrusting it through the vitals of the weakling who had sneaked and hedged and trimmed at the crucial moment. He met Howle at the door. "What's the matter in there?" he asked. "They're trying to compromise." "Compromise--the Devil of American politics," he muttered. "But how did the vote fail--it was all fixed before the roll-call?" "Roman, of Maine, has trouble with his conscience! He is paired not to vote on this question with Stockton's colleague, who is sick in Trenton. His 'honour' is involved, and he refuses to break his word." "I see," said Stoneman, pulling his bristling brows down until his eyes were two beads of white gleaming through them. "Tell Wade to summon every member of the party in his room immediately and hold the Senate in session." When the group of Senators crowded into the Vice-president's room the old man faced them leaning on his cane and delivered an address of five minutes they never forgot. His speech had a nameless fascination. The man himself with his elemental passions was a wonder. He left on public record no speech worth reading, and yet these powerful men shrank under his glance. As the nostrils of his big three-angled nose dilated, the scream of an eagle rang in his voice, his huge ugly hand held the crook of his cane with the clutch of a tiger, his tongue flew with the hiss of an adder, and his big deformed foot seemed to grip the floor as the claw of a beast. "The life of a political party, gentlemen," he growled in conclusion, "is maintained by a scheme of subterfuges in which the moral law cuts no figure. As your leader, I know but one law--success. The world is full of fools who must have toys with which to play. A belief in politics is the favourite delusion of shallow American minds. But you and I have no delusions. Your life depends on this vote. If any man thinks the abstraction called 'honour' is involved, let him choose between his honour and his life! I call no names. This issue must be settled now before the Senate adjourns. There can be no to-morrow. It is life or death. Let the roll be called again immediately." The grave Senators resumed their seats, and Wade, the acting Vice-president, again put the question to Stockton's expulsion. The member from New England sat pale and trembling, in his soul the anguish of the mortal combat between his Puritan conscience, the iron heritage of centuries, and the order of his captain. When the Clerk of the Senate called his name, still the battle raged. He sat in silence, the whiteness of death about his lips, while the clerk at a signal from the Chair paused. And then a scene the like of which was never known in American history! August Senators crowded around his desk, begging, shouting, imploring, and demanding that a fellow Senator break his solemn word of honour! For a moment pandemonium reigned. "Vote! Vote! Call his name again!" they shouted. High above all rang the voice of Charles Sumner, leading the wild chorus, crying: "Vote! Vote! Vote!" The galleries hissed and cheered--the cheers at last drowning every hiss. Stoneman pushed his way among the mob which surrounded the badgered Puritan as he attempted to retreat into the cloakroom. "Will you vote?" he hissed, his eyes flashing poison. "My conscience will not permit it," he faltered. "To hell with your conscience!" the old leader thundered. "Go back to your seat, ask the clerk to call your name, and vote, or by the living God I'll read you out of the party to-night and brand you a snivelling coward, a copperhead, a renegade, and traitor!" Trembling from head to foot, he staggered back to his seat, the cold sweat standing in beads on his forehead, and gasped: "Call my name!" The shrill voice of the clerk rang out in the stillness like the peal of a trumpet: "Mr. Roman!" And the deed was done. A cheer burst from his colleagues, and the roll-call proceeded. When Stockton's name was reached he sprang to his feet, voted for himself, and made a second tie! With blank faces they turned to the leader, who ordered Charles Sumner to move that the Senator from New Jersey be not allowed to answer his name on an issue involving his own seat. It was carried. Again the roll was called, and Stockton expelled by a majority of one. In the moment of ominous silence which followed, a yellow woman of sleek animal beauty leaned far over the gallery rail and laughed aloud. The passage of each act of the Revolutionary programme over the veto of the President was now but a matter of form. The act to degrade his office by forcing him to keep a cabinet officer who daily insulted him, the Civil Rights Bill, and the Freedman's Bureau Bill followed in rapid succession. Stoneman's crowning Reconstruction Act was passed, two years after the war had closed, shattering the Union again into fragments, blotting the names of ten great Southern States from its roll, and dividing their territory into five Military Districts under the control of belted satraps. When this measure was vetoed by the President, it came accompanied by a message whose words will be forever etched in fire on the darkest page of the Nation's life. Amid hisses, curses, jeers, and cat-calls, the Clerk of the House read its burning words: "_The power thus given to the commanding officer over the people of each district is that of an absolute monarch. His mere will is to take the place of law. He may make a criminal code of his own; he can make it as bloody as any recorded in history, or he can reserve the privilege of acting on the impulse of his private passions in each case that arises._ "_Here is a bill of attainer against nine millions of people at once. It is based upon an accusation so vague as to be scarcely intelligible, and found to be true upon no credible evidence. Not one of the nine millions was heard in his own defence. The representatives even of the doomed parties were excluded from all participation in the trial. The conviction is to be followed by the most ignominious punishment ever inflicted on large masses of men. It disfranchises them by hundreds of thousands and degrades them all--even those who are admitted to be guiltless--from the rank of freemen to the condition of slaves._ "_Such power has not been wielded by any monarch in England for more than five hundred years, and in all that time no people who speak the English tongue have borne such servitude._" When the last jeering cat-call which greeted this message of the Chief Magistrate had died away on the floor and in the galleries, old Stoneman rose, with a smile playing about his grim mouth, and introduced his bill to impeach the President of the United States and remove him from office. CHAPTER VIII A DREAM Elsie spent weeks of happiness in an abandonment of joy to the spell of her lover. His charm was resistless. His gift of delicate intimacy, the eloquence with which he expressed his love, and yet the manly dignity with which he did it, threw a spell no woman could resist. Each day's working hours were given to his father's case and to the study of law. If there was work to do, he did it, and then struck the word care from his life, giving himself body and soul to his love. Great events were moving. The shock of the battle between Congress and the President began to shake the Republic to its foundations. He heard nothing, felt nothing, save the music of Elsie's voice. And she knew it. She had only played with lovers before. She had never seen one of Ben's kind, and he took her by storm. His creed was simple. The chief end of life is to glorify the girl you love. Other things could wait. And he let them wait. He ignored their existence. But one cloud cast its shadow over the girl's heart during these red-letter days of life--the fear of what her father would do to her lover's people. Ben had asked her whether he must speak to him. When she said "No, not yet," he forgot that such a man lived. As for his politics, he knew nothing and cared less. But the girl knew and thought with sickening dread, until she forgot her fears in the joy of his laughter. Ben laughed so heartily, so insinuatingly, the contagion of his fun could not be resisted. He would sit for hours and confess to her the secrets of his boyish dreams of glory in war, recount his thrilling adventures and daring deeds with such enthusiasm that his cause seemed her own, and the pity and the anguish of the ruin of his people hurt her with the keen sense of personal pain. His love for his native State was so genuine, his pride in the bravery and goodness of its people so chivalrous, she began to see for the first time how the cords which bound the Southerner to his soil were of the heart's red blood. She began to understand why the war, which had seemed to her a wicked, cruel, and causeless rebellion, was the one inevitable thing in our growth from a loose group of sovereign States to a United Nation. Love had given her his point of view. Secret grief over her father's course began to grow into conscious fear. With unerring instinct she felt the fatal day drawing nearer when these two men, now of her inmost life, must clash in mortal enmity. She saw little of her father. He was absorbed with fevered activity and deadly hate in his struggle with the President. Brooding over her fears one night, she had tried to interest Ben in politics. To her surprise she found that he knew nothing of her father's real position or power as leader of his party. The stunning tragedy of the war had for the time crushed out of his consciousness all political ideas, as it had for most young Southerners. He took her hand while a dreamy look overspread his swarthy face: "Don't cross a bridge till you come to it. I learned that in the war. Politics are a mess. Let me tell you something that counts----" He felt her hand's soft pressure and reverently kissed it. "Listen," he whispered. "I was dreaming last night after I left you of the home we'll build. Just back of our place, on the hill overlooking the river, my father and mother planted trees in exact duplicate of the ones they placed around our house when they were married. They set these trees in honour of the first-born of their love, that he should make his nest there when grown. But it was not for him. He had pitched his tent on higher ground, and the others with him. This place will be mine. There are forty varieties of trees, all grown--elm, maple, oak, holly, pine, cedar, magnolia, and every fruit and flowering stem that grows in our friendly soil. A little house, built near the vacant space reserved for the homestead, is nicely kept by a farmer, and birds have learned to build in every shrub and tree. All the year their music rings its chorus--one long overture awaiting the coming of my bride----" Elsie sighed. "Listen, dear," he went on eagerly. "Last night I dreamed the South had risen from her ruins. I saw you there. I saw our home standing amid a bower of roses your hands had planted. The full moon wrapped it in soft light, while you and I walked hand in hand in silence beneath our trees. But fairer and brighter than the moon was the face of her I loved, and sweeter than all the songs of birds the music of her voice!" A tear dimmed the girl's warm eyes, and a deeper flush mantled her cheeks, as she lifted her face and whispered: "Kiss me." CHAPTER IX THE KING AMUSES HIMSELF With savage energy the Great Commoner pressed to trial the first impeachment of a President of the United States for high crimes and misdemeanours. His bill to confiscate the property of the Southern people was already pending on the calendar of the House. This bill was the most remarkable ever written in the English language or introduced into a legislative body of the Aryan race. It provided for the confiscation of ninety per cent. of the land of ten great States of the American Union. To each negro in the South was allotted forty acres from the estate of his former master, and the remaining millions of acres were to be divided among the "loyal who had suffered by reason of the Rebellion." The execution of this, the most stupendous crime ever conceived by an English lawmaker, involving the exile and ruin of millions of innocent men, women, and children, could not be intrusted to Andrew Johnson. No such measure could be enforced so long as any man was President and Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy who claimed his title under the Constitution. Hence the absolute necessity of his removal. The conditions of society were ripe for this daring enterprise. Not only was the Ship of State in the hands of revolutionists who had boarded her in the storm stress of a civic convulsion, but among them swarmed the pirate captains of the boldest criminals who ever figured in the story of a nation. The first great Railroad Lobby, with continental empires at stake, thronged the Capitol with its lawyers, agents, barkers, and hired courtesans. The Cotton Thieves, who operated through a ring of Treasury agents, had confiscated unlawfully three million bales of cotton hidden in the South during the war and at its close, the last resource of a ruined people. The Treasury had received a paltry twenty thousand bales for the use of its name with which to seize alleged "property of the Confederate Government." The value of this cotton, stolen from the widows and orphans, the maimed and crippled, of the South was over $700,000,000 in gold--a capital sufficient to have started an impoverished people again on the road to prosperity. The agents of this ring surrounded the halls of legislation, guarding their booty from envious eyes, and demanding the enactment of vaster schemes of legal confiscation. The Whiskey Ring had just been formed, and began its system of gigantic frauds by which it scuttled the Treasury. Above them all towered the figure of Oakes Ames, whose master mind had organized the _Crédit Mobilier_ steal. This vast infamy had already eaten its way into the heart of Congress and dug the graves of many illustrious men. So open had become the shame that Stoneman was compelled to increase his committees in the morning, when a corrupt majority had been bought the night before. He arose one day, and looking at the distinguished Speaker, who was himself the secret associate of Oakes Ames, said: "Mr. Speaker: while the House slept, the enemy has sown tares among our wheat. The corporations of this country, having neither bodies to be kicked nor souls to be lost, have, _perhaps_ by the power of argument alone, beguiled from the majority of my Committee the member from Connecticut. The enemy have now a majority of one. I move to increase the Committee to twelve." Speaker Colfax, soon to be hurled from the Vice-president's chair for his part with those thieves, increased his Committee. Everybody knew that "the power of argument alone" meant ten thousand dollars cash for the gentleman from Connecticut, who did not appear on the floor for a week, fearing the scorpion tongue of the old Commoner. A Congress which found it could make and unmake laws in defiance of the Executive went mad. Taxation soared to undreamed heights, while the currency was depreciated and subject to the wildest fluctuations. The statute books were loaded with laws that shackled chains of monopoly on generations yet unborn. Public lands wide as the reach of empires were voted as gifts to private corporations, and subsidies of untold millions fixed as a charge upon the people and their children's children. The demoralization incident to a great war, the waste of unheard-of sums of money, the giving of contracts involving millions by which fortunes were made in a night, the riot of speculation and debauchery by those who tried to get rich suddenly without labour, had created a new Capital of the Nation. The vulture army of the base, venal, unpatriotic, and corrupt, which had swept down, a black cloud, in wartime to take advantage of the misfortunes of the Nation, had settled in Washington and gave new tone to its life. Prior to the Civil War the Capital was ruled, and the standards of its social and political life fixed, by an aristocracy founded on brains, culture, and blood. Power was with few exceptions intrusted to an honourable body of high-spirited public officials. Now a negro electorate controlled the city government, and gangs of drunken negroes, its sovereign citizens, paraded the streets at night firing their muskets unchallenged and unmolested. A new mob of onion-laden breath, mixed with perspiring African odour, became the symbol of American Democracy. A new order of society sprouted in this corruption. The old high-bred ways, tastes, and enthusiasms were driven into the hiding-places of a few families and cherished as relics of the past. Washington, choked with scrofulous wealth, bowed the knee to the Almighty Dollar. The new altar was covered with a black mould of human blood--but no questions were asked. A mulatto woman kept the house of the foremost man of the Nation and received his guests with condescension. In this atmosphere of festering vice and gangrene passions, the struggle between the Great Commoner and the President on which hung the fate of the South approached its climax. The whole Nation was swept into the whirlpool, and business was paralyzed. Two years after the close of a victorious war the credit of the Republic dropped until its six per cent. bonds sold in the open market for seventy-three cents on the dollar. The revolutionary junta in control of the Capital was within a single step of the subversion of the Government and the establishment of a Dictator in the White House. A convention was called in Philadelphia to restore fraternal feeling, heal the wounds of war, preserve the Constitution, and restore the Union of the fathers. It was a grand assemblage representing the heart and brain of the Nation. Members of Lincoln's first Cabinet, protesting Senators and Congressmen, editors of great Republican and Democratic newspapers, heroes of both armies, long estranged, met for a common purpose. When a group of famous negro worshippers from Boston suddenly entered the hall, arm in arm with ex-slaveholders from South Carolina, the great meeting rose and walls and roof rang with thunder peals of applause. Their committee, headed by a famous editor, journeyed to Washington to appeal to the Master at the Capitol. They sought him not in the White House, but in the little Black House in an obscure street on the hill. The brown woman received them with haughty dignity, and said: "Mr. Stoneman cannot be seen at this hour. It is after nine o'clock. I will submit to him your request for an audience to-morrow morning." "We must see him to-night," replied the editor, with rising anger. "The king is amusing himself," said the yellow woman, with a touch of malice. "Where is he?" Her catlike eyes rolled from side to side, and a smile played about her full lips as she said: "You will find him at Hall & Pemberton's gambling hell--you've lived in Washington. You know the way." With a muttered oath the editor turned on his heel and led his two companions to the old Commoner's favourite haunt. There could be no better time or place to approach him than seated at one of its tables laden with rare wines and savoury dishes. On reaching the well-known number of Hall & Pemberton's place, the editor entered the unlocked door, passed with his friends along the soft-carpeted hall, and ascended the stairs. Here the door was locked. A sudden pull of the bell, and a pair of bright eyes peeped through a small grating in the centre of the door revealed by the sliding of its panel. The keen eyes glanced at the proffered card, the door flew open, and a well-dressed mulatto invited them with cordial welcome to enter. Passing along another hall, they were ushered into a palatial suite of rooms furnished in princely state. The floors were covered with the richest and softest carpets--so soft and yielding that the tramp of a thousand feet could not make the faintest echo. The walls and ceilings were frescoed by the brush of a great master, and hung with works of art worth a king's ransom. Heavy curtains, in colours of exquisite taste, masked each window, excluding all sound from within or without. The rooms blazed with light from gorgeous chandeliers of trembling crystals, shimmering and flashing from the ceilings like bouquets of diamonds. Negro servants, faultlessly dressed, attended the slightest want of every guest with the quiet grace and courtesy of the lost splendours of the old South. The proprietor, with courtly manners, extended his hand: "Welcome, gentlemen; you are my guests. The tables and the wines are at your service without price. Eat, drink, and be merry--play or not, as you please." A smile lighted his dark eyes, but faded out near his mouth--cold and rigid. At the farther end of the last room hung the huge painting of a leopard, so vivid and real its black and tawny colours, so furtive and wild its restless eyes, it seemed alive and moving behind invisible bars. Just under it, gorgeously set in its jewel-studded frame, stood the magic green table on which men staked their gold and lost their souls. The rooms were crowded with Congressmen, Government officials, officers of the Army and Navy, clerks, contractors, paymasters, lobbyists, and professional gamblers. The centre of an admiring group was a Congressman who had during the last session of the House broken the "bank" in a single night, winning more than a hundred thousand dollars. He had lost it all and more in two weeks, and the courteous proprietor now held orders for the lion's share of the total pay and mileage of nearly every member of the House of Representatives. Over that table thousands of dollars of the people's money had been staked and lost during the war by quartermasters, paymasters, and agents in charge of public funds. Many a man had approached that green table with a stainless name and left it a perjured thief. Some had been carried out by those handsomely dressed waiters, and the man with the cold mouth could point out, if he would, more than one stain on the soft carpet which marked the end of a tragedy deeper than the pen of romancer has ever sounded. Stoneman at the moment was playing. He was rarely a heavy player, but he had just staked a twenty-dollar gold piece and won fourteen hundred dollars. Howle, always at his elbow ready for a "sleeper" or a stake, said: "Put a stack on the ace." He did so, lost, and repeated it twice. "Do it again," urged Howle. "I'll stake my reputation that the ace wins this time." With a doubting glance at Howle, old Stoneman shoved a stack of blue chips, worth fifty dollars, over the ace, playing it to win on Howle's judgment and reputation. It lost. Without the ghost of a smile, the old statesman said: "Howle, you owe me five cents." As he turned abruptly on his club foot from the table, he encountered the editor and his friends, a Western manufacturer and a Wall Street banker. They were soon seated at a table in a private room, over a dinner of choice oysters, diamond-back terrapin, canvas-back duck, and champagne. They presented their plea for a truce in his fight until popular passion had subsided. He heard them in silence. His answer was characteristic: "The will of the people, gentlemen, is supreme," he said with a sneer. "We are the people. 'The man at the other end of the avenue' has dared to defy the will of Congress. He must go. If the Supreme Court lifts a finger in this fight, it will reduce that tribunal to one man or increase it to twenty at our pleasure." "But the Constitution----" broke in the chairman. "There are higher laws than paper compacts. We are conquerors treading conquered soil. Our will alone is the source of law. The drunken boor who claims to be President is in reality an alien of a conquered province." "We protest," exclaimed the man of money, "against the use of such epithets in referring to the Chief Magistrate of the Republic!" "And why, pray?" sneered the Commoner. "In the name of common decency, law, and order. The President is a man of inherent power, even if he did learn to read after his marriage. Like many other Americans, he is a self-made man----" "Glad to hear it," snapped Stoneman. "It relieves Almighty God of a fearful responsibility." They left him in disgust and dismay. CHAPTER X TOSSED BY THE STORM As the storm of passion raised by the clash between her father and the President rose steadily to the sweep of a cyclone, Elsie felt her own life but a leaf driven before its fury. Her only comfort she found in Phil, whose letters to her were full of love for Margaret. He asked Elsie a thousand foolish questions about what she thought of his chances. To her own confessions he was all sympathy. "Of father's wild scheme of vengeance against the South," he wrote, "I am heartsick. I hate it on principle, to say nothing of a girl I know. I am with General Grant for peace and reconciliation. What does your lover think of it all? I can feel your anguish. The bill to rob the Southern people of their land, which I hear is pending, would send your sweetheart and mine, our enemies, into beggared exile. What will happen in the South? Riot and bloodshed, of course--perhaps a guerilla war of such fierce and terrible cruelty humanity sickens at the thought. I fear the Rebellion unhinged our father's reason on some things. He was too old to go to the front; the cannon's breath would have cleared the air and sweetened his temper. But its healing was denied. I believe the tawny leopardess who keeps his house influences him in this cruel madness. I could wring her neck with exquisite pleasure. Why he allows her to stay and cloud his life with her she-devil temper and fog his name with vulgar gossip is beyond me." Seated in the park on the Capitol hill the day after her father had introduced his Confiscation Bill in the House, pending the impeachment of the President, she again attempted to draw Ben out as to his feelings on politics. She waited in sickening fear and bristling pride for the first burst of his anger which would mean their separation. "How do I feel?" he asked. "Don't feel at all. The surrender of General Lee was an event so stunning, my mind has not yet staggered past it. Nothing much can happen after that, so it don't matter." "Negro suffrage don't matter?" "No. We can manage the negro," he said calmly. "With thousands of your own people disfranchised?" "The negroes will vote with us, as they worked for us during the war. If they give them the ballot, they'll wish they hadn't." Ben looked at her tenderly, bent near, and whispered: "Don't waste your sweet breath talking about such things. My politics is bounded on the North by a pair of amber eyes, on the South by a dimpled little chin, on the East and West by a rosy cheek. Words do not frame its speech. Its language is a mere sign, a pressure of the lips--yet it thrills body and soul beyond all words." Elsie leaned closer, and looking at the Capitol, said wistfully: "I don't believe you know anything that goes on in that big marble building." "Yes, I do." "What happened there yesterday?" "You honoured it by putting your beautiful feet on its steps. I saw the whole huge pile of cold marble suddenly glow with warm sunlight and flash with beauty as you entered it." The girl nestled still closer to his side, feeling her utter helplessness in the rapids of the Niagara through which they were being whirled by blind and merciless forces. For the moment she forgot all fears in his nearness and the sweet pressure of his hand. CHAPTER XI THE SUPREME TEST It is the glory of the American Republic that every man who has filled the office of President has grown in stature when clothed with its power and has proved himself worthy of its solemn trust. It is our highest claim to the respect of the world and the vindication of man's capacity to govern himself. The impeachment of President Andrew Johnson would mark either the lowest tide-mud of degradation to which the Republic could sink, or its end. In this trial our system would be put to its severest strain. If a partisan majority in Congress could remove the Executive and defy the Supreme Court, stability to civic institutions was at an end, and the breath of a mob would become the sole standard of law. Congress had thrown to the winds the last shreds of decency in its treatment of the Chief Magistrate. Stoneman led this campaign of insult, not merely from feelings of personal hate, but because he saw that thus the President's conviction before the Senate would become all but inevitable. When his messages arrived from the White House they were thrown into the waste-basket without being read, amid jeers, hisses, curses, and ribald laughter. In lieu of their reading, Stoneman would send to the Clerk's desk an obscene tirade from a party newspaper, and the Clerk of the House would read it amid the mocking groans, laughter, and applause of the floor and galleries. A favourite clipping described the President as "an insolent drunken brute, in comparison with whom Caligula's horse was respectable." In the Senate, whose members were to sit as sworn judges to decide the question of impeachment, Charles Sumner used language so vulgar that he was called to order. Sustained by the Chair and the Senate, he repeated it with increased violence, concluding with cold venom: "Andrew Johnson has become the successor of Jefferson Davis. In holding him up to judgment I do not dwell on his beastly intoxication the day he took the oath as Vice-president, nor do I dwell on his maudlin speeches by which he has degraded the country, nor hearken to the reports of pardons sold, or of personal corruption. These things are bad. But he has usurped the powers of Congress." Conover, the perjured wretch, in prison for his crimes as a professional witness in the assassination trial, now circulated the rumour that he could give evidence that President Johnson was the assassin of Lincoln. Without a moment's hesitation, Stoneman's henchmen sent a petition to the President for the pardon of this villain that he might turn against the man who had pardoned him and swear his life away! This scoundrel was borne in triumph from prison to the Capitol and placed before the Impeachment Committee, to whom he poured out his wondrous tale. The sewers and prisons were dragged for every scrap of testimony to be found, and the day for the trial approached. As it drew nearer, excitement grew intense. Swarms of adventurers expecting the overthrow of the Government crowded into Washington. Dreams of honours, profits, and division of spoils held riot. Gamblers thronged the saloons and gaming-houses, betting their gold on the President's head. Stoneman found the business more serious than even his daring spirit had dreamed. His health suddenly gave way under the strain, and he was put to bed by his physician with the warning that the least excitement would be instantly fatal. Elsie entered the little Black House on the hill for the first time since her trip at the age of twelve, some eight years before. She installed an army nurse, took charge of the place, and ignored the existence of the brown woman, refusing to speak to her or permit her to enter her father's room. His illness made it necessary to choose an assistant to conduct the case before the High Court. There was but one member of the House whose character and ability fitted him for the place--General Benj. F. Butler, of Massachusetts, whose name was enough to start a riot in any assembly in America. His selection precipitated a storm at the Capitol. A member leaped to his feet on the floor of the House and shouted: "If I were to characterize all that is pusillanimous in war, inhuman in peace, forbidden in morals, and corrupt in politics, I could name it in one word--Butlerism!" For this speech he was ordered to apologize, and when he refused with scorn they voted that the Speaker publicly censure him. The Speaker did so, but winked at the offender while uttering the censure. John A. Bingham, of Ohio, who had been chosen for his powers of oratory to make the principal speech against the President, rose in the House and indignantly refused to serve on the Board of Impeachment with such a man. General Butler replied with crushing insolence: "It is true, Mr. Speaker, that I may have made an error of judgment in trying to blow up Fort Fisher with a powder ship at sea. I did the best I could with the talents God gave me. An angel could have done no more. At least I bared my own breast in my country's defence--a thing the distinguished gentleman who insults me has not ventured to do--his only claim to greatness being that, behind prison walls, on perjured testimony, his fervid eloquence sent an innocent American mother screaming to the gallows." The fight was ended only by an order from the old Commoner's bed to Bingham to shut his mouth and work with Butler. When the President had been crushed, then they could settle Kilkenny-cat issues. Bingham obeyed. When the august tribunal assembled in the Senate Chamber, fifty-five Senators, presided over by Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, constituted the tribunal. They took their seats in a semicircle in front of the Vice-president's desk at which the Chief Justice sat. Behind them crowded the one hundred and ninety members of the House of Representatives, the accusers of the ruler of the mightiest Republic in human history. Every inch of space in the galleries was crowded with brilliantly dressed men and women, army officers in gorgeous uniforms, and the pomp and splendour of the ministers of every foreign court of the world. In spectacular grandeur no such scene was ever before witnessed in the annals of justice. The peculiar personal appearance of General Butler, whose bald head shone with insolence while his eye seemed to be winking over his record as a warrior and making fun of his fellow-manager Bingham, added a touch of humour to the solemn scene. The magnificent head of the Chief Justice suggested strange thoughts to the beholder. He had been summoned but the day before to try Jefferson Davis for the treason of declaring the Southern States out of the Union. To-day he sat down to try the President of the United States for declaring them to be in the Union! He had protested with warmth that he could not conduct both these trials at once. The Chief Justice took oath to "do impartial justice according to the Constitution and the laws," and to the chagrin of Sumner administered this oath to each Senator in turn. When Benjamin F. Wade's name was called, Hendricks, of Indiana, objected to his sitting as judge. He could succeed temporarily to the Presidency, as the presiding officer of the Senate, and his own vote might decide the fate of the accused and determine his own succession. The law forbids the Vice-president to sit on such trials. It should apply with more vigour in his case. Besides, he had without a hearing already pronounced the President guilty. Sumner, forgetting his motion to prevent Stockton's voting against his own expulsion, flew to the defence of Wade. Hendricks smilingly withdrew his objection, and "Bluff Ben Wade" took the oath and sat down to judge his own cause with unruffled front. When the case was complete, the whole bill of indictment stood forth a tissue of stupid malignity without a shred of evidence to support its charges. On the last day of the trial, when the closing speeches were being made, there was a stir at the door. The throng of men, packing every inch of floor space, were pushed rudely aside. The crowd craned their necks, Senators turned and looked behind them to see what the disturbance meant, and the Chief Justice rapped for order. Suddenly through the dense mass appeared the forms of two gigantic negroes carrying an old man. His grim face, white and rigid, and his big club foot hanging pathetically from those black arms, could not be mistaken. A thrill of excitement swept the floor and galleries, and a faint cheer rippled the surface, quickly suppressed by the gavel. The negroes placed him in an armchair facing the semicircle of Senators, and crouched down on their haunches beside him. Their kinky heads, black skin, thick lips, white teeth, and flat noses made for the moment a curious symbolic frame for the chalk-white passion of the old Commoner's face. No sculptor ever dreamed a more sinister emblem of the corruption of a race of empire builders than this group. Its black figures, wrapped in the night of four thousand years of barbarism, squatted there the "equal" of their master, grinning at his forms of justice, the evolution of forty centuries of Aryan genius. To their brute strength the white fanatic in the madness of his hate had appealed, and for their hire he had bartered the birthright of a mighty race of freemen. The speaker hurried to his conclusion that the half-fainting master might deliver his message. In the meanwhile his eyes, cold and thrilling, sought the secrets of the souls of the judges before him. He had not come to plead or persuade. He had eluded the vigilance of his daughter and nurse, escaped with the aid of the brown woman and her black allies, and at the peril of his life had come to command. Every energy of his indomitable will he was using now to keep from fainting. He felt that if he could but look those men in the face they would not dare to defy his word. He shambled painfully to his feet amid a silence that was awful. Again the sheer wonder of the man's personality held the imagination of the audience. His audacity, his fanaticism, and the strange contradictions of his character stirred the mind of friend and foe alike--this man who tottered there before them, holding off Death with his big ugly left hand, while with his right he clutched at the throat of his foe! Honest and dishonest, cruel and tender, great and mean, a party leader who scorned public opinion, a man of conviction, yet the most unscrupulous politician, a philosopher who preached the equality of man, yet a tyrant who hated the world and despised all men! His very presence before them an open defiance of love and life and death, would not his word ring omnipotent when the verdict was rendered? Every man in the great courtroom believed it as he looked on the rows of Senators hanging on his lips. He spoke at first with unnatural vigour, a faint flush of fever lighting his white face, his voice quivering yet penetrating. "Upon that man among you who shall dare to acquit the President," he boldly threatened, "I hurl the everlasting curse of a Nation--an infamy that shall rive and blast his children's children until they shrink from their own name as from the touch of pollution!" He gasped for breath, his restless hands fumbled at his throat, he staggered and would have fallen had not his black guards caught him. He revived, pushed them back on their haunches, and sat down. And then, with his big club foot thrust straight in front of him, his gnarled hands gripping the arms of his chair, the massive head shaking back and forth like a wounded lion, he continued his speech, which grew in fierce intensity with each laboured breath. The effect was electrical. Every Senator leaned forward to catch the lowest whisper, and so awful was the suspense in the galleries the listeners grew faint. When this last mad challenge was hurled into the teeth of the judges, the dazed crowd paused for breath and the galleries burst into a storm of applause. In vain the Chief Justice rose, his lionlike face livid with anger, pounded for order, and commanded the galleries to be cleared. They laughed at him. Roar after roar was the answer. The Chief Justice in loud angry tones ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to clear the galleries. Men leaned over the rail and shouted in his face: "He can't do it!" "He hasn't got men enough!" "Let him try if he dares!" The doorkeepers attempted to enforce order by announcing it in the name of the peace and dignity and sovereign power of the Senate over its sacred chamber. The crowd had now become a howling mob which jeered them. Senator Grimes, of Iowa, rose and demanded the reason why the Senate was thus insulted and the order had not been enforced. A volley of hisses greeted his question. The Chief Justice, evidently quite nervous, declared the order would be enforced. Senator Trumbull, of Illinois, moved that the offenders be arrested. In reply the crowd yelled: "We'd like to see you do it!" At length the mob began to slowly leave the galleries under the impression that the High Court had adjourned. Suddenly a man cried out: "Hold on! They ain't going to adjourn. Let's see it out!" Hundreds took their seats again. In the corridors a crowd began to sing in wild chorus: "Old Grimes is dead, that poor old man." The women joined with glee. Between the verses the leader would curse the Iowa Senator as a traitor and copperhead. The singing could be distinctly heard by the Court as its roar floated through the open doors. When the Senate Chamber had been cleared and the most disgraceful scene that ever occurred within its portals had closed, the High Court Impeachment went into secret session to consider the evidence and its verdict. Within an hour from its adjournment it was known to the Managers that seven Republican Senators were doubtful, and that they formed a group under the leadership of two great constitutional lawyers who still believed in the sanctity of a judge's oath--Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, and William Pitt Fessenden, of Maine. Around them had gathered Senators Grimes, of Iowa, Van Winkle, of West Virginia, Fowler, of Tennessee, Henderson, of Missouri, and Ross, of Kansas. The Managers were in a panic. If these men dared to hold together with the twelve Democrats, the President would be acquitted by one vote--they could count thirty-four certain for conviction. The Revolutionists threw to the winds the last scruple of decency, went into caucus and organized a conspiracy for forcing, within the few days which must pass before the verdict, these judges to submit to their decree. Fessenden and Trumbull were threatened with impeachment and expulsion from the Senate and bombarded by the most furious assaults from the press, which denounced them as infamous traitors, "as mean, repulsive, and noxious as hedgehogs in the cages of a travelling menagerie." A mass meeting was held in Washington which said: "Resolved, that we impeach Fessenden, Trumbull, and Grimes at the bar of justice and humanity, as traitors before whose guilt the infamy of Benedict Arnold becomes respectability and decency." The Managers sent out a circular telegram to every State from which came a doubtful judge: "Great danger to the peace of the country if impeachment fails. Send your Senators public opinion by resolutions, letters, and delegates." The man who excited most wrath was Ross, of Kansas. That Kansas of all States should send a "traitor" was more than the spirits of the Revolutionists could bear. A mass meeting in Leavenworth accordingly sent him the telegram: "Kansas has heard the evidence and demands the conviction of the President. "D. R. Anthony and 1,000 others." To this Ross replied: "I have taken an oath to do impartial justice. I trust I shall have the courage and honesty to vote according to the dictates of my judgment and for the highest good of my country." He got his answer: "Your motives are Indian contracts and greenbacks. Kansas repudiates you as she does all perjurers and skunks." The Managers organized an inquisition for the purpose of torturing and badgering Ross into submission. His one vote was all they lacked. They laid siege to little Vinnie Ream, the sculptress, to whom Congress had awarded a contract for the statue of Lincoln. Her studio was in the crypt of the Capitol. They threatened her with the wrath of Congress, the loss of her contract, and ruin of her career unless she found a way to induce Senator Ross, whom she knew, to vote against the President. Such an attempt to gain by fraud the verdict of a common court of law would have sent its promoters to prison for felony. Yet the Managers of this case, before the highest tribunal of the world, not only did it without a blush of shame, but cursed as a traitor every man who dared to question their motives. As the day approached for the Court to vote, Senator Ross remained to friend and foe a sealed mystery. Reporters swarmed about him, the target of a thousand eyes. His rooms were besieged by his radical constituents who had been imported from Kansas in droves to browbeat him into a promise to convict. His movements day and night, his breakfast, his dinner, his supper, the clothes he wore, the colour of his cravat, his friends and companions, were chronicled in hourly bulletins and flashed over the wires from the delirious Capital. Chief Justice Chase called the High Court of Impeachment to order, to render its verdict. Old Stoneman had again been carried to his chair in the arms of two negroes, and sat with his cold eyes searching the faces of the judges. The excitement had reached the highest pitch of intensity. A sense of choking solemnity brooded over the scene. The feeling grew that the hour had struck which would test the capacity of man to establish an enduring Republic. The Clerk read the Eleventh Article, drawn by the Great Commoner as the supreme test. As its last words died away the Chief Justice rose amid a silence that was agony, placed his hands on the sides of the desk as if to steady himself, and said: "Call the roll." Each Senator answered "Guilty" or "Not Guilty," exactly as they had been counted by the Managers, until Fessenden's name was called. A moment of stillness and the great lawyer's voice rang high, cold, clear, and resonant as a Puritan church bell on Sunday morning: "Not Guilty!" A murmur, half groan and sigh, half cheer and cry, rippled the great hall. The other votes were discounted now save that of Edmund G. Ross, of Kansas. No human being on earth knew what this man would do save the silent invisible man within his soul. Over the solemn trembling silence the voice of the Chief Justice rang: "Senator Ross, how say you? Is the respondent, Andrew Johnson, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor as charged in this article?" The great Judge bent forward; his brow furrowed as Ross arose. His fellow Senators watched him spellbound. A thousand men and women, hanging from the galleries, focused their eyes on him. Old Stoneman drew his bristling brows down, watching him like an adder ready to strike, his lower lip protruding, his jaws clinched as a vise, his hands fumbling the arms of his chair. Every breath is held, every ear strained, as the answer falls from the sturdy Scotchman like the peal of a trumpet: "Not Guilty!" The crowd breathes--a pause, a murmur, the shuffle of a thousand feet---- The President is acquitted, and the Republic lives! The House assembled and received the report of the verdict. Old Stoneman pulled himself half erect, holding to his desk, addressed the Speaker, introduced his second bill for the impeachment of the President, and fell fainting in the arms of his black attendants. CHAPTER XII TRIUMPH IN DEFEAT Upon the failure to convict the President, Edwin M. Stanton resigned, sank into despair and died, and a soldier Secretary of War opened the prison doors. Ben Cameron and his father hurried Southward to a home and land passing under a cloud darker than the dust and smoke of blood-soaked battlefields--the Black Plague of Reconstruction. For two weeks the old Commoner wrestled in silence with Death. When at last he spoke, it was to the stalwart negroes who had called to see him and were standing by his bedside. Turning his deep-sunken eyes on them a moment, he said slowly: "I wonder whom I'll get to carry me when you boys die!" Elsie hurried to his side and kissed him tenderly. For a week his mind hovered in the twilight that lies between time and eternity. He seemed to forget the passions and fury of his fierce career and live over the memories of his youth, recalling pathetically its bitter poverty and its fair dreams. He would lie for hours and hold Elsie's hand, pressing it gently. In one of his lucid moments he said: "How beautiful you are, my child! You shall be a queen. I've dreamed of boundless wealth for you and my boy. My plans are Napoleonic--and I shall not fail--never fear--aye, beyond the dreams of avarice!" "I wish no wealth save the heart treasure of those I love, father," was the soft answer. "Of course, little day-dreamer. But the old cynic who has outlived himself and knows the mockery of time and things will be wisdom for your foolishness. You shall keep your toys. What pleases you shall please me. Yet I will be wise for us both." She laid her hand upon his lips, and he kissed the warm little fingers. In these days of soul-nearness the iron heart softened as never before in love toward his children. Phil had hurried home from the West and secured his release from the remaining weeks of his term of service. As the father lay watching them move about the room, the cold light in his deep-set wonderful eyes would melt into a soft glow. As he grew stronger, the old fierce spirit of the unconquered leader began to assert itself. He would take up the fight where he left it off and carry it to victory. Elsie and Phil sent the doctor to tell him the truth and beg him to quit politics. "Your work is done; you have but three months to live unless you go South and find new life," was the verdict. "In either event I go to a warmer climate, eh, doctor?" said the cynic. "Perhaps," was the laughing reply. "Good. It suits me better. I've had the move in mind. I can do more effective work in the South for the next two years. Your decision is fate. I'll go at once." The doctor was taken aback. "Come now," he said persuasively. "Let a disinterested Englishman give you some advice. You've never taken any before. I give it as medicine, and I won't put it on your bill. Slow down on politics. Your recent defeat should teach you a lesson in conservatism." The old Commoner's powerful mouth became rigid, and the lower lip bulged: "Conservatism--fossil putrefaction!" "But defeat?" "Defeat?" cried the old man. "Who said I was defeated? The South lies in ashes at my feet--the very names of her proud States blotted from history. The Supreme Court awaits my nod. True, there's a man boarding in the White House, and I vote to pay his bills; but the page who answers my beck and call has more power. Every measure on which I've set my heart is law, save one--my Confiscation Act--and this but waits the fulness of time." The doctor, who was walking back and forth with his hands folded behind him, paused and said: "I marvel that a man of your personal integrity could conceive such a measure; you, who refused to accept the legal release of your debts until the last farthing was paid--you, whose cruelty of the lip is hideous, and yet beneath it so gentle a personality, I've seen the pages in the House stand at your back and mimic you while speaking, secure in the smile with which you turned to greet their fun. And yet you press this crime upon a brave and generous foe?" "A wrong can have no rights," said Stoneman calmly. "Slavery will not be dead until the landed aristocracy on which it rested is destroyed. I am not cruel or unjust. I am but fulfilling the largest vision of universal democracy that ever stirred the soul of man--a democracy that shall know neither rich nor poor, bond nor free, white nor black. If I use the wild pulse-beat of the rage of millions, it is only a means to an end--this grander vision of the soul." "Then why not begin at home this vision, and give the stricken South a moment to rise?" "No. The North is impervious to change, rich, proud, and unscathed by war. The South is in chaos and cannot resist. It is but the justice and wisdom of Heaven that the negro shall rule the land of his bondage. It is the only solution of the race problem. Lincoln's contention that we could not live half white and half black is sound at the core. When we proclaim equality, social, political, and economic for the negro, we mean always to enforce it in the South. The negro will never be treated as an equal in the North. We are simply a set of cold-blooded liars on that subject, and always have been. To the Yankee the very physical touch of a negro is pollution." "Then you don't believe this twaddle about equality?" asked the doctor. "Yes and no. Mankind in the large is a herd of mercenary gudgeons or fools. As a lawyer in Pennsylvania I have defended fifty murderers on trial for their lives. Forty-nine of them were guilty. All these I succeeded in acquitting. One of them was innocent. This one they hung. Can a man keep his face straight in such a world? Could negro blood degrade such stock? Might not an ape improve it? I preach equality as a poet and seer who sees a vision beyond the rim of the horizon of to-day." The old man's eyes shone with the set stare of a fanatic. "And you think the South is ready for this wild vision?" "Not ready, but helpless to resist. As a cold-blooded, scientific experiment, I mean to give the Black Man one turn at the Wheel of Life. It is an act of just retribution. Besides, in my plans I need his vote; and that settles it." "But will your plans work? Your own reports show serious trouble in the South already." Stoneman laughed. "I never read my own reports. They are printed in molasses to catch flies. The Southern legislatures played into my hands by copying the laws of New England relating to Servants, Masters, Apprentices, and Vagrants. But even these were repealed at the first breath of criticism. Neither the Freedman's Bureau nor the army has ever loosed its grip on the throat of the South for a moment. These disturbances and 'atrocities' are dangerous only when printed on campaign fly-paper." "And how will you master and control these ten great Southern States?" "Through my Reconstruction Acts by means of the Union League. As a secret between us, I am the soul of this order. I organized it in 1863 to secure my plan of confiscation. We pressed it on Lincoln. He repudiated it. We nominated Frémont at Cleveland against Lincoln in '64, and tried to split the party or force Lincoln to retire. Frémont, a conceited ass, went back on this plank in our platform, and we dropped him and helped elect Lincoln again." "I thought the Union League a patriotic and social organization?" said the doctor in surprise. "It has these features, but its sole aim as a secret order is to confiscate the property of the South. I will perfect this mighty organization until every negro stands drilled in serried line beneath its banners, send a solid delegation here to do my bidding, and return at the end of two years with a majority so overwhelming that my word will be law. I will pass my Confiscation Bill. If Ulysses S. Grant, the coming idol, falters, my second bill of Impeachment will only need the change of a name." The doctor shook his head. "Give up this madness. Your life is hanging by a thread. The Southern people even in their despair will never drink this black broth you are pressing to their lips." "They've got to drink it." "Your decision is unalterable?" "Absolutely. It's the breath I breathe. As my physician you may select the place to which I shall be banished. It must be reached by rail and wire. I care not its name or size. I'll make it the capital of the Nation. There'll be poetic justice in setting up my establishment in a fallen slaveholder's mansion." The doctor looked intently at the old man: "The study of men has become a sort of passion with me, but you are the deepest mystery I've yet encountered in this land of surprises." "And why?" asked the cynic. "Because the secret of personality resides in motives, and I can't find yours either in your actions or words." Stoneman glanced at him sharply from beneath his wrinkled brows and snapped. "Keep on guessing." "I will. In the meantime I'm going to send you to the village of Piedmont, South Carolina. Your son and daughter both seem enthusiastic over this spot." "Good; that settles it. And now that mine own have been conspiring against me," said Stoneman confidentially, "a little guile on my part. Not a word of what has passed between us to my children. Tell them I agree with your plans and give up my work. I'll give the same story to the press--I wish nothing to mar their happiness while in the South. My secret burdens need not cloud their young lives." Dr. Barnes took the old man by the hand: "I promise. My assistant has agreed to go with you. I'll say good-bye. It's an inspiration to look into a face like yours, lit by the splendour of an unconquerable will! But I want to say something to you before you set out on this journey." "Out with it," said the Commoner. "The breed to which the Southern white man belongs has conquered every foot of soil on this earth their feet have pressed for a thousand years. A handful of them hold in subjection three hundred millions in India. Place a dozen of them in the heart of Africa, and they will rule the continent unless you kill them----" "Wait," cried Stoneman, "until I put a ballot in the hand of every negro and a bayonet at the breast of every white man from the James to the Rio Grande!" "I'll tell you a little story," said the doctor with a smile. "I once had a half-grown eagle in a cage in my yard. The door was left open one day, and a meddlesome rooster hopped in to pick a fight. The eagle had been sick a week and seemed an easy mark. I watched. The rooster jumped and wheeled and spurred and picked pieces out of his topknot. The young eagle didn't know at first what he meant. He walked around dazed, with a hurt expression. When at last it dawned on him what the chicken was about, he simply reached out one claw, took the rooster by the neck, planted the other claw in his breast, and snatched his head off." The old man snapped his massive jaws together and grunted contemptuously. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Book III--The Reign of Terror CHAPTER I A FALLEN SLAVEHOLDER'S MANSION Piedmont, South Carolina, which Elsie and Phil had selected for reasons best known to themselves as the place of retreat for their father, was a favourite summer resort of Charleston people before the war. Ulster county, of which this village was the capital, bordered on the North Carolina line, lying alongside the ancient shore of York. It was settled by the Scotch folk who came from the North of Ireland in the great migrations which gave America three hundred thousand people of Covenanter martyr blood, the largest and most important addition to our population, larger in number than either the Puritans of New England or the so-called Cavaliers of Virginia and Eastern Carolina; and far more important than either, in the growth of American nationality. To a man they had hated Great Britain. Not a Tory was found among them. The cries of their martyred dead were still ringing in their souls when George III started on his career of oppression. The fiery words of Patrick Henry, their spokesman in the valley of Virginia, had swept the aristocracy of the Old Dominion into rebellion against the King and on into triumphant Democracy. They had made North Carolina the first home of freedom in the New World, issued the first Declaration of Independence in Mecklenburg, and lifted the first banner of rebellion against the tyranny of the Crown. They grew to the soil wherever they stopped, always home lovers and home builders, loyal to their own people, instinctive clan leaders and clan followers. A sturdy, honest, covenant-keeping, God-fearing, fighting people, above all things they hated sham and pretence. They never boasted of their families, though some of them might have quartered the royal arms of Scotland on their shields. To these sturdy qualities had been added a strain of Huguenot tenderness and vivacity. The culture of cotton as the sole industry had fixed African slavery as their economic system. With the heritage of the Old World had been blended forces inherent in the earth and air of the new Southland, something of the breath of its unbroken forests, the freedom of its untrod mountains, the temper of its sun, and the sweetness of its tropic perfumes. When Mrs. Cameron received Elsie's letter, asking her to secure for them six good rooms at the "Palmetto" hotel, she laughed. The big rambling hostelry had been burned by roving negroes, pigs were wallowing in the sulphur springs, and along its walks, where lovers of olden days had strolled, the cows were browsing on the shrubbery. But she laughed for a more important reason. They had asked for a six-room cottage if accommodations could not be had in the hotel. She could put them in the Lenoir place. The cotton crop from their farm had been stolen from the gin--the cotton tax of $200 could not be paid, and a mortgage was about to be foreclosed on both their farm and home. She had been brooding over their troubles in despair. The Stonemans' coming was a godsend. Mrs. Cameron was helping them set the house in order to receive the new tenants. "I declare," said Mrs. Lenoir gratefully. "It seems too good to be true. Just as I was about to give up--the first time in my life--here came those rich Yankees and with enough rent to pay the interest on the mortgages and our board at the hotel. I'll teach Margaret to paint, and she can give Marion lessons on the piano. The darkest hour's just before day. And last week I cried when they told me I must lose the farm." "I was heartsick over it for you." "You know, the farm was my dowry with the dozen slaves Papa gave us on our wedding-day. The negroes did as they pleased, yet we managed to live and were very happy." Marion entered and placed a bouquet of roses on the table, touching them daintily until she stood each flower apart in careless splendour. Their perfume, the girl's wistful dreamy blue eyes and shy elusive beauty, all seemed a part of the warm sweet air of the June morning. Mrs. Lenoir watched her lovingly. "Mamma, I'm going to put flowers in every room. I'm sure they haven't such lovely ones in Washington," said Marion eagerly, as she skipped out. The two women moved to the open window, through which came the drone of bees and the distant music of the river falls. "Marion's greatest charm," whispered her mother, "is in her way of doing things easily and gently without a trace of effort. Watch her bend over to get that rose. Did you ever see anything like the grace and symmetry of her figure--she seems a living flower!" "Jeannie, you're making an idol of her----" "Why not? With all our troubles and poverty, I'm rich in her! She's fifteen years old, her head teeming with romance. You know, I was married at fifteen. There'll be a half dozen boys to see her to-night in our new home--all of them head over heels in love with her." "Oh, Jeannie, you must not be so silly! We should worship God only." "Isn't she God's message to me and to the world?" "But if anything should happen to her----" The young mother laughed. "I never think of it. Some things are fixed. Her happiness and beauty are to me the sign of God's presence." "Well, I'm glad you're coming to live with us in the heart of town. This place is a cosey nest, just such a one as a poet lover would build here in the edge of these deep woods, but it is too far out for you to be alone. Dr. Cameron has been worrying about you ever since he came home." "I'm not afraid of the negroes. I don't know one of them who wouldn't go out of his way to do me a favour. Old Aleck is the only rascal I know among them, and he's too busy with politics now even to steal a chicken." "And Gus, the young scamp we used to own; you haven't forgotten him? He is back here, a member of the company of negro troops, and parades before the house every day to show off his uniform. Dr. Cameron told him yesterday he'd thrash him if he caught him hanging around the place again. He frightened Margaret nearly to death when she went to the barn to feed her horse." "I've never known the meaning of fear. We used to roam the woods and fields together all hours of the day and night: my lover, Marion, and I. This panic seems absurd to me." "Well, I'll be glad to get you two children under my wing. I was afraid I'd find you in tears over moving from your nest." "No, where Marion is I'm at home, and I'll feel I've a mother when I get with you." "Will you come to the hotel before they arrive?" "No; I'll welcome and tell them how glad I am they have brought me good luck." "I'm delighted, Jeannie. I wished you to do this, but I couldn't ask it. I can never do enough for this old man's daughter. We must make their stay happy. They say he's a terrible old Radical politician, but I suppose he's no meaner than the others. He's very ill, and she loves him devotedly. He is coming here to find health, and not to insult us. Besides, he was kind to me. He wrote a letter to the President. Nothing that I have will be too good for him or for his. It's very brave and sweet of you to stay and meet them." "I'm doing it to please Marion. She suggested it last night, sitting out on the porch in the twilight. She slipped her arm around me and said: "'Mamma, we must welcome them and make them feel at home. He is very ill. They will be tired and homesick. Suppose it were you and I, and we were taking my Papa to a strange place.'" * * * * * When the Stonemans arrived, the old man was too ill and nervous from the fatigue of the long journey to notice his surroundings or to be conscious of the restful beauty of the cottage into which they carried him. His room looked out over the valley of the river for miles, and the glimpse he got of its broad fertile acres only confirmed his ideas of the "slaveholding oligarchy" it was his life-purpose to crush. Over the mantel hung a steel engraving of Calhoun. He fell asleep with his deep, sunken eyes resting on it and a cynical smile playing about his grim mouth. Margaret and Mrs. Cameron had met the Stonemans and their physician at the train, and taken Elsie and her father in the old weather-beaten family carriage to the Lenoir cottage, apologising for Ben's absence. "He has gone to Nashville on some important legal business, and the doctor is ailing, but as the head of the clan Cameron he told me to welcome your father to the hospitality of the county, and beg him to let us know if he could be of help." The old man, who sat in a stupor of exhaustion, made no response, and Elsie hastened to say: "We appreciate your kindness more than I can tell you, Mrs. Cameron. I trust father will be better in a day or two, when he will thank you. The trip has been more than he could bear." "I am expecting Ben home this week," the mother whispered. "I need not tell you that he will be delighted at your coming." Elsie smiled and blushed. "And I'll expect Captain Stoneman to see me very soon," said Margaret softly. "You will not forget to tell him for me?" "He's a very retiring young man," said Elsie, "and pretends to be busy about our baggage just now. I'm sure he will find the way." Elsie fell in love at sight with Marion and her mother. Their easy genial manners, the genuineness of their welcome, and the simple kindness with which they sought to make her feel at home put her heart into a warm glow. Mrs. Lenoir explained the conveniences of the place and apologized for its defects, the results of the war. "I am sorry about the window curtains--we have used them all for dresses. Marion is a genius with a needle, and we took the last pair out of the parlour to make a dress for a birthday party. The year before, we used the ones in my room for a costume at a starvation party in a benefit for our rector--you know we're Episcopalians--strayed up here for our health from Charleston among these good Scotch Presbyterians." "We will soon place curtains at the windows," said Elsie cheerfully. "The carpets were sent to the soldiers for blankets during the war. It was all we could do for our poor boys, except to cut my hair and sell it. You see my hair hasn't grown out yet. I sent it to Richmond the last year of the war. I felt I must do something when my neighbours were giving so much. You know Mrs. Cameron lost four boys." "I prefer the floors bare," Elsie replied. "We will get a few rugs." She looked at the girlish hair hanging in ringlets about Mrs. Lenoir's handsome face, smiled pathetically, and asked: "Did you really make such sacrifices for your cause?" "Yes, indeed. I was glad when the war was ended for some things. We certainly needed a few pins, needles, and buttons, to say nothing of a cup of coffee or tea." "I trust you will never lack for anything again," said Elsie kindly. "You will bring us good luck," Mrs. Lenoir responded. "Your coming is so fortunate. The cotton tax Congress levied was so heavy this year we were going to lose everything. Such a tax when we are all about to starve! Dr. Cameron says it was an act of stupid vengeance on the South, and that no other farmers in America have their crops taxed by the National Government. I am so glad your father has come. He is not hunting for an office. He can help us, maybe." "I am sure he will," answered Elsie thoughtfully. Marion ran up the steps lightly, her hair dishevelled and face flushed. "Now, Mamma, it's almost sundown; you get ready to go. I want her awhile to show her about my things." She took Elsie shyly by the hand and led her into the lawn, while her mother paid a visit to each room, and made up the last bundle of odds and ends she meant to carry to the hotel. "I hope you will love the place as we do," said the girl simply. "I think it very beautiful and restful," Elsie replied. "This wilderness of flowers looks like fairyland. You have roses running on the porch around the whole length of the house." "Yes, Papa was crazy over the trailing roses, and kept planting them until the house seems just a frame built to hold them, with a roof on it. But you can see the river through the arches from three sides. Ben Cameron helped me set that big beauty on the south corner the day he ran away to the war----" "The view is glorious!" Elsie exclaimed, looking in rapture over the river valley. The village of Piedmont crowned an immense hill on the banks of the Broad River, just where it dashes over the last stone barrier in a series of beautiful falls and spreads out in peaceful glory through the plains toward Columbia and the distant sea. The muffled roar of these falls, rising softly through the trees on its wooded cliff, held the daily life of the people in the spell of distant music. In fair weather it soothed and charmed, and in storm and freshet rose to the deep solemn growl of thunder. The river made a sharp bend as it emerged from the hills and flowed westward for six miles before it turned south again. Beyond this six-mile sweep of its broad channel loomed the three ranges of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the first one dark, rich, distinct, clothed in eternal green, the last one melting in dim lines into the clouds and soft azure of the sky. As the sun began to sink now behind these distant peaks, each cloud that hung about them burst into a blazing riot of colour. The silver mirror of the river caught their shadows, and the water glowed in sympathy. As Elsie drank the beauty of the scene, the music of the falls ringing its soft accompaniment, her heart went out in a throb of love and pity for the land and its people. "Can you blame us for loving such a spot?" said Marion. "It's far more beautiful from the cliff at Lover's Leap. I'll take you there some day. My father used to tell me that this world was Heaven, and that the spirits would all come back to live here when sin and shame and strife were gone." "Are your father's poems published?" asked Elsie. "Only in the papers. We have them clipped and pasted in a scrapbook. I'll show you the one about Ben Cameron some day. You met him in Washington, didn't you?" "Yes," said Elsie quietly. "Then I know he made love to you." "Why?" "You're so pretty. He couldn't help it." "Does he make love to every pretty girl?" "Always. It's his religion. But he does it so beautifully you can't help believing it, until you compare notes with the other girls." "Did he make love to you?" "He broke my heart when he ran away. I cried a whole week. But I got over it. He seemed so big and grown when he came home this last time. I was afraid to let him kiss me." "Did he dare to try?" "No, and it hurt my feelings. You see, I'm not quite old enough to be serious with the big boys, and he looked so brave and handsome with that ugly scar on the edge of his forehead, and everybody was so proud of him. I was just dying to kiss him, and I thought it downright mean in him not to offer it." "Would you have let him?" "I expected him to try." "He is very popular in Piedmont?" "Every girl in town is in love with him." "And he in love with all?" "He pretends to be--but between us, he's a great flirt. He's gone to Nashville now on some pretended business. Goodness only knows where he got the money to go. I believe there's a girl there." "Why?" "Because he was so mysterious about his trip. I'll keep an eye on him at the hotel. You know Margaret, too, don't you?" "Yes; we met her in Washington." "Well, she's the slyest flirt in town--it runs in the blood--has a half-dozen beaux to see her every day. She plays the organ in the Presbyterian Sunday school, and the young minister is dead in love with her. They say they are engaged. I don't believe it. I think it's another one. But I must hurry, I've so much to show and tell you. Come here to the honeysuckle----" Marion drew the vines apart from the top of the fence and revealed a mocking-bird on her nest. "She's setting. Don't let anything hurt her. I'd push her off and show you her speckled eggs, but it's so late." "Oh, I wouldn't hurt her for the world!" cried Elsie with delight. "And right here," said Marion, bending gracefully over a tall bunch of grass, "is a pee-wee's nest, four darling little eggs; look out for that." Elsie bent and saw the pretty nest perched on stems of grass, and over it the taller leaves drawn to a point. "Isn't it cute!" she murmured. "Yes; I've six of these and three mocking-bird nests. I'll show them to you. But the most particular one of all is the wren's nest in the fork of the cedar, close to the house." She led Elsie to the tree, and about two feet from the ground, in the forks of the trunk, was a tiny hole from which peeped the eyes of a wren. "Whatever you do, don't let anything hurt her. Her mate sings '_Free-nigger! Free-nigger! Free-nigger!_' every morning in this cedar." "And you think we will specially enjoy that?" asked Elsie, laughing. "Now, really," cried Marion, taking Elsie's hand, "you know I couldn't think of such a mean joke. I forgot you were from the North. You seem so sweet and homelike. He really does sing that way. You will hear him in the morning, bright and early, '_Free-nigger! Free-nigger! Free-nigger!_' just as plain as I'm saying it." "And did you learn to find all these birds' nests by yourself?" "Papa taught me. I've got some jay-birds and some cat-birds so gentle they hop right down at my feet. Some people hate jay-birds. But I like them, they seem to be having such a fine time and enjoy life so. You don't mind jay-birds, do you?" "I love every bird that flies." "Except hawks and owls and buzzards----" "Well, I've seen so few I can't say I've anything particular against them." "Yes, they eat chickens--except the buzzards, and they're so ugly and filthy. Now, I've a chicken to show you--please don't let Aunt Cindy--she's to be your cook--please don't let her kill him--he's crippled--has something the matter with his foot. He was born that way. Everybody wanted to kill him, but I wouldn't let them. I've had an awful time raising him, but he's all right now." Marion lifted a box and showed her the lame pet, softly clucking his protest against the disturbance of his rest. "I'll take good care of _him_, never fear," said Elsie, with a tremor in her voice. "And I have a queer little black cat I wanted to show you, but he's gone off somewhere. I'd take him with me--only it's bad luck to move cats. He's awful wild--won't let anybody pet him but me. Mamma says he's an imp of Satan--but I love him. He runs up a tree when anybody else tries to get him. But he climbs right up on my shoulder. I never loved any cat quite as well as this silly, half-wild one. You don't mind black cats, do you?" "No, dear; I like cats." "Then I know you'll be good to him." "Is that all?" asked Elsie, with amused interest. "No, I've the funniest yellow dog that comes here at night to pick up the scraps and things. He isn't my dog--just a little personal friend of mine--but I like him very much, and always give him something. He's very cute. I think he's a nigger dog." "A nigger dog? What's that?" "He belongs to some coloured people, who don't give turn enough to eat. I love him because he's so faithful to his own folks. He comes to see me at night and pretends to love me, but as soon as I feed him he trots back home. When he first came, I laughed till I cried at his antics over a carpet--we had a carpet then. He never saw one before, and barked at the colours and the figures in the pattern. Then he'd lie down and rub his back on it and growl. You won't let anybody hurt him?" "No. Are there any others?" "Yes, I 'most forgot. If Sam Ross comes--Sam's an idiot who lives at the poorhouse--if he comes, he'll expect a dinner--my, my, I'm afraid he'll cry when he finds we're not here! But you can send him to the hotel to me. Don't let Aunt Cindy speak rough to him. Aunt Cindy's awfully good to me, but she can't bear Sam. She thinks he brings bad luck." "How on earth did you meet him?" "His father was rich. He was a good friend of my Papa's. We came near losing our farm once, because a bank failed. Mr. Ross sent Papa a signed check on his own bank, and told him to write the amount he needed on it, and pay him when he was able. Papa cried over it, and wouldn't use it, and wrote a poem on the back of the check--one of the sweetest of all, I think. In the war Mr. Ross lost his two younger sons, both killed at Gettysburg. His wife died heartbroken, and he only lived a year afterward. He sold his farm for Confederate money and everything was lost. Sam was sent to the poorhouse. He found out somehow that we loved him and comes to see us. He's as harmless as a kitten, and works in the garden beautifully." "I'll remember," Elsie promised. "And one thing more," she said hesitatingly. "Mamma asked me to speak to you of this--that's why she slipped away. There one little room we have locked. It was Papa's study just as he left it, with his papers scattered on the desk, the books and pictures that he loved--you won't mind?" Elsie slipped her arm about Marion, looked into the blue eyes, dim with tears, drew her close and said: "It shall be sacred, my child. You must come every day if possible, and help me." "I will. I've so many beautiful places to show you in the woods--places he loved, and taught us to see and love. They won't let me go in the woods any more alone. But you have a big brother. That must be very sweet." Mrs. Lenoir hurried to Elsie. "Come, Marion, we must be going now." "I am very sorry to see you leave the home you love so dearly, Mrs. Lenoir," said the Northern girl, taking her extended hand. "I hope you can soon find a way to have it back." "Thank you," replied the mother cheerily. "The longer you stay, the better for us. You don't know how happy I am over your coming. It has lifted a load from our hearts. In the liberal rent you pay us you are our benefactors. We are very grateful and happy." Elsie watched them walk across the lawn to the street, the daughter leaning on the mother's arm. She followed slowly and stopped behind one of the arbor-vitæ bushes beside the gate. The full moon had risen as the twilight fell and flooded the scene with soft white light. A whippoorwill struck his first plaintive note, his weird song seeming to come from all directions and yet to be under her feet. She heard the rustle of dresses returning along the walk, and Marion and her mother stood at the gate. They looked long and tenderly at the house. Mrs. Lenoir uttered a broken sob, Marion slipped an arm around her, brushed the short curling hair back from her forehead, and softly said: "Mamma, dear, you know it's best. I don't mind. Everybody in town loves us. Every boy and girl in Piedmont worships you. We will be just as happy at the hotel." In the pauses between the strange bird's cry, Elsie caught the sound of another sob, and then a soothing murmur as of a mother bending over a cradle, and they were gone. CHAPTER II THE EYES OF THE JUNGLE Elsie stood dreaming for a moment in the shadow of the arbor-vitæ, breathing the sensuous perfumed air and listening to the distant music of the falls, her heart quivering in pity for the anguish of which she had been a witness. Again the spectral cry of the whippoorwill rang near-by, and she noted for the first time the curious cluck with which the bird punctuated each call. A sense of dim foreboding oppressed her. She wondered if the chatter of Marion about the girl in Nashville were only a child's guess or more. She laughed softly at the absurdity of the idea. Never since she had first looked into Ben Cameron's face did she feel surer of the honesty and earnestness of his love than to-day in this quiet home of his native village. It must be the queer call of the bird which appealed to superstitions she did not know were hidden within her being. Still dreaming under its spell, she was startled at the tread of two men approaching the gate. The taller, more powerful-looking man put his hand on the latch and paused. "Allow no white man to order you around. Remember you are a freeman and as good as any pale-face who walks this earth." She recognized the voice of Silas Lynch. "Ben Cameron dare me to come about de house," said the other voice. "What did he say?" "He say, wid his eyes batten' des like lightnen', 'Ef I ketch you hangin' 'roun' dis place agin', Gus, I'll jump on you en stomp de life outen ye.'" "Well, you tell him that your name is Augustus, not 'Gus,' and that the United States troops quartered in this town will be with him soon after the stomping begins. You wear its uniform. Give the white trash in this town to understand that they are not even citizens of the nation. As a sovereign voter, you, once their slave, are not only their equal--you are their master." "Dat I will!" was the firm answer. The negro to whom Lynch spoke disappeared in the direction taken by Marion and her mother, and the figure of the handsome mulatto passed rapidly up the walk, ascended the steps and knocked at the door. Elsie followed him. "My father is too much fatigued with his journey to be seen now; you must call to-morrow," she said. The negro lifted his hat and bowed: "Ah, we are delighted to welcome you, Miss Stoneman, to our land! Your father asked me to call immediately on his arrival. I have but obeyed his orders." Elsie shrank from the familiarity of his manner and the tones of authority and patronage with which he spoke. "He cannot be seen at this hour," she answered shortly. "Perhaps you will present my card, then--say that I am at his service, and let him appoint the time at which I shall return?" She did not invite him in, but with easy assurance he took his seat on the joggle-board beside the door and awaited her return. Against her urgent protest, Stoneman ordered Lynch to be shown at once to his bedroom. When the door was closed, the old Commoner, without turning to greet his visitor or moving his position in bed, asked: "Are you following my instructions?" "To the letter, sir." "You are initiating the negroes into the League and teaching them the new catechism?" "With remarkable success. Its secrecy and ritual appeal to them. Within six months we shall have the whole race under our control almost to a man." "_Almost_ to a man?" "We find some so attached to their former masters that reason is impossible with them. Even threats and the promise of forty acres of land have no influence." The old man snorted with contempt. "If anything could reconcile me to the Satanic Institution it is the character of the wretches who submit to it and kiss the hand that strikes. After all, a slave deserves to be a slave. The man who is mean enough to wear chains ought to wear them. You must teach, _teach_, TEACH these black hounds to know they are men, not brutes!" The old man paused a moment, and his restless hands fumbled the cover. "Your first task, as I told you in the beginning, is to teach every negro to stand erect in the presence of his former master and assert his manhood. Unless he does this, the South will bristle with bayonets in vain. The man who believes he is a dog, is one. The man who believes himself a king, may become one. Stop this snivelling and sneaking round the back doors. I can do nothing, God Almighty can do nothing, for a coward. Fix this as the first law of your own life. Lift up your head! The world is yours. Take it. Beat this into the skulls of your people, if you do it with an axe. Teach them the military drill at once. I'll see that Washington sends the guns. The state, when under your control, can furnish the powder." "It will surprise you to know the thoroughness with which this has been done already by the League," said Lynch. "The white master believed he could vote the negro as he worked him in the fields during the war. The League, with its blue flaming altar, under the shadows of night, has wrought a miracle. The negro is the enemy of his former master and will be for all time." "For the present," said the old man meditatively, "not a word to a living soul as to my connection with this work. When the time is ripe, I'll show my hand." Elsie entered, protesting against her father's talking longer, and showed Lynch to the door. He paused on the moonlit porch and tried to engage her in familiar talk. She cut him short, and he left reluctantly. As he bowed his thick neck in pompous courtesy, she caught with a shiver the odour of pomade on his black half-kinked hair. He stopped on the lower step, looked back with smiling insolence, and gazed intently at her beauty. The girl shrank from the gleam of the jungle in his eyes and hurried within. She found her father sunk in a stupor. Her cry brought the young surgeon hurrying into the room, and at the end of an hour he said to Elsie and Phil: "He has had a stroke of paralysis. He may lie in mental darkness for months and then recover. His heart action is perfect. Patience, care, and love will save him. There is no cause for immediate alarm." CHAPTER III AUGUSTUS CÆSAR Phil early found the home of the Camerons the most charming spot in town. As he sat in the old-fashioned parlour beside Margaret, his brain seethed with plans for building a hotel on a large scale on the other side of the Square and restoring her home intact. The Cameron homestead was a large brick building with an ample porch looking out directly on the Court House Square, standing in the middle of a lawn full of trees, flowers, shrubbery, and a wilderness of evergreen boxwood planted fifty years before. It was located on the farm from which it had always derived its support. The farm extended up into the village itself, with the great barn easily seen from the street. Phil was charmed with the doctor's genial personality. He often found the father a decidedly easier person to get along with than his handsome daughter. The Rev. Hugh McAlpin was a daily caller, and Margaret had a tantalizing way of showing her deference to his opinions. Phil hated this preacher from the moment he laid eyes on him. His pugnacious piety he might have endured but for the fact that he was good-looking and eloquent. When he rose in the pulpit in all his sacred dignity, fixed his eyes on Margaret, and began in tenderly modulated voice to tell about the love of God, Phil clinched his fist. He didn't care to join the Presbyterian church, but he quietly made up his mind that, if it came to the worst and she asked him, he would join anything. What made him furious was the air of assurance with which the young divine carried himself about Margaret, as if he had but to say the word and it would be fixed as by a decree issued from before the foundations of the world. He was pleased and surprised to find that his being a Yankee made no difference in his standing or welcome. The people seemed unconscious of the part his father played at Washington. Stoneman's Confiscation Bill had not yet been discussed in Congress, and the promise of land to the negroes was universally regarded as a hoax of the League to win their followers. The old Commoner was not an orator. Hence his name was scarcely known in the South. The Southern people could not conceive of a great leader except one who expressed his power through the megaphone of oratory. They held Charles Sumner chiefly responsible for Reconstruction. The fact that Phil was a Yankee who had no axe to grind in the South caused the people to appeal to him in a pathetic way that touched his heart. He had not been in town two weeks before he was on good terms with every youngster, had the entrée to every home, and Ben had taken him, protesting vehemently, to see every pretty girl there. He found that, in spite of war and poverty, troubles present and troubles to come, the young Southern woman was the divinity that claimed and received the chief worship of man. The tremendous earnestness with which these youngsters pursued the work of courting, all of them so poor they scarcely had enough to eat, amazed and alarmed him beyond measure. He found in several cases as many as four making a dead set for one girl, as if heaven and earth depended on the outcome, while the girl seemed to receive it all as a matter of course--her just tribute. Every instinct of his quiet reserved nature revolted at any such attempt to rush his cause with Margaret, and yet it made the cold chills run down his spine to see that Presbyterian preacher drive his buggy up to the hotel, take her to ride, and stay three hours. He knew where they had gone--to Lover's Leap and along the beautiful road which led to the North Carolina line. He knew the way--Margaret had showed him. This road was the Way of Romance. Every farmhouse, cabin, and shady nook along its beaten track could tell its tale of lovers fleeing from the North to find happiness in the haven of matrimony across the line in South Carolina. Everything seemed to favour marriage in this climate. The state required no license. A legal marriage could be celebrated, anywhere, at any time, by a minister in the presence of two witnesses, with or without the consent of parent or guardian. Marriage was the easiest thing in the state--divorce the one thing impossible. Death alone could grant divorce. He was now past all reason in love. He followed the movement of Margaret's queenly figure with pathetic abandonment. Beneath her beautiful manners he swore with a shiver that she was laughing at him. Now and then he caught a funny expression about her eyes, as if she were consumed with a sly sense of humour in her love affairs. What he felt to be his manliest traits, his reserve, dignity, and moral earnestness, she must think cold and slow beside the dash, fire, and assurance of these Southerners. He could tell by the way she encouraged the preacher before his eyes that she was criticizing and daring him to let go for once. Instead of doing it, he sank back appalled at the prospect and let the preacher carry her off again. He sought solace in Dr. Cameron, who was utterly oblivious of his daughter's love affairs. Phil was constantly amazed at the variety of his knowledge, the genuineness of his culture, his modesty, and the note of youth and cheer with which he still pursued the study of medicine. His company was refreshing for its own sake. The slender graceful figure, ruddy face, with piercing, dark-brown eyes in startling contrast to his snow-white hair and beard, had for Phil a perpetual charm. He never tired listening to his talk, and noting the peculiar grace and dignity with which he carried himself, unconscious of the commanding look of his brilliant eyes. "I hear that you have used hypnotism in your practice, Doctor," Phil said to him one day, as he watched with fascination the changing play of his mobile features. "Oh, yes! used it for years. Southern doctors have always been pioneers in the science of medicine. Dr. Crawford Long, of Georgia, you know, was the first practitioner in America to apply anesthesia to surgery." "But where did you run up against hypnotism? I thought this a new thing under the sun?" The doctor laughed. "It's not a home industry, exactly. I became interested in it in Edinburgh while a medical student, and pursued it with increased interest in Paris." "Did you study medicine abroad?" Phil asked in surprise. "Yes; I was poor, but I managed to raise and to borrow enough to take three years on the other side. I put all I had and all my credit in it. I've never regretted the sacrifice. The more I saw of the great world, the better I liked my own world. I've given these farmers and their families the best God gave to me." "Do you find much use for your powers of hypnosis?" Phil asked. "Only in an experimental way. Naturally I am endowed with this gift--especially over certain classes who are easily the subjects of extreme fear. I owned a rascally slave named Gus whom I used to watch stealing. Suddenly confronting him, I've thrown him into unconsciousness with a steady gaze of the eye, until he would drop on his face, trembling like a leaf, unable to speak until I allowed him." "How do you account for such powers?" "I don't account for them at all. They belong to the world of spiritual phenomena of which we know so little and yet which touch our material lives at a thousand points every day. How do we account for sleep and dreams, or second sight, or the day dreams which we call visions?" Phil was silent, and the doctor went on dreamily: "The day my boy Richard was killed at Gettysburg, I saw him lying dead in a field near a house. I saw some soldiers bury him in the corner of that field, and then an old man go to the grave, dig up his body, cart it away into the woods, and throw it into a ditch. I saw it before I heard of the battle or knew that he was in it. He was reported killed, and his body has never been found. It is the one unspeakable horror of the war to me. I'll never get over it." "How very strange!" exclaimed Phil. "And yet the war was nothing, my boy, to the horrors I feel clutching the throat of the South to-day. I'm glad you and your father are down here. Your disinterested view of things may help us at Washington when we need it most. The South seems to have no friend at court." "Your younger men, I find, are hopeful, Doctor," said Phil. "Yes, the young never see danger until it's time to die. I'm not a pessimist, but I was happier in jail. Scores of my old friends have given up in despair and died. Delicate and cultured women are living on cowpeas, corn bread, and molasses--and of such quality they would not have fed it to a slave. Children go to bed hungry. Droves of brutal negroes roam at large, stealing, murdering, and threatening blacker crimes. We are under the heel of petty military tyrants, few of whom ever smelled gunpowder in a battle. At the approaching election, not a decent white man in this country can take the infamous test oath. I am disfranchised because I gave a cup of water to the lips of one of my dying boys on the battlefield. My slaves are all voters. There will be a negro majority of more than one hundred thousand in this state. Desperadoes are here teaching these negroes insolence and crime in their secret societies. The future is a nightmare." [Illustration: HENRY WALTHALL AS BEN CAMERON.] "You have my sympathy, sir," said Phil warmly, extending his hand. "These Reconstruction Acts, conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, can bring only shame and disgrace until the last trace of them is wiped from our laws. I hope it will not be necessary to do it in blood." The doctor was deeply touched. He could not be mistaken in the genuineness of any man's feeling. He never dreamed this earnest straightforward Yankee youngster was in love with Margaret, and it would have made no difference in the accuracy of his judgment. "Your sentiments do you honour, sir," he said with grave courtesy. "And you honour us and our town with your presence and friendship." As Phil hurried home in a warm glow of sympathy for the people whose hospitality had made him their friend and champion, he encountered a negro trooper standing on the corner, watching the Cameron house with furtive glance. Instinctively he stopped, surveyed the man from head to foot and asked: "What's the trouble?" "None er yo' business," the negro answered, slouching across to the opposite side of the street. Phil watched him with disgust. He had the short, heavy-set neck of the lower order of animals. His skin was coal black, his lips so thick they curled both ways up and down with crooked blood marks across them. His nose was flat, and its enormous nostrils seemed in perpetual dilation. The sinister bead eyes, with brown splotches in their whites, were set wide apart and gleamed apelike under his scant brows. His enormous cheekbones and jaws seemed to protrude beyond the ears and almost hide them. "That we should send such soldiers here to flaunt our uniform in the faces of these people!" he exclaimed, with bitterness. He met Ben hurrying home from a visit to Elsie. The two young soldiers whose prejudices had melted in the white heat of battle had become fast friends. Phil laughed and winked: "I'll meet you to-night around the family altar!" When he reached home, Ben saw, slouching in front of the house, walking back and forth and glancing furtively behind him, the negro trooper whom his friend had passed. He walked quickly in front of him, and blinking his eyes rapidly, said: "Didn't I tell you, Gus, not to let me catch you hanging around this house again?" The negro drew himself up, pulling his blue uniform into position as his body stretched out of its habitual slouch, and answered: "My name ain't 'Gus.'" Ben gave a quick little chuckle and leaned back against the palings, his hand resting on one that was loose. He glanced at the negro carelessly and said: "Well, Augustus Cæsar, I give your majesty thirty seconds to move off the block." Gus' first impulse was to run, but remembering himself he threw back his shoulders and said: "I reckon de streets free----" "Yes, and so is kindling wood!" Quick as a flash of lightning the paling suddenly left the fence and broke three times in such bewildering rapidity on the negro's head he forgot everything he ever knew or thought he knew save one thing--the way to run. He didn't fly, but he made remarkable use of the facilities with which he had been endowed. Ben watched him disappear toward the camp. He picked up the pieces of paling, pulled a strand of black wool from a splinter, looked at it curiously and said: "A sprig of his majesty's hair--I'll doubtless remember him without it!" CHAPTER IV AT THE POINT OF THE BAYONET Within an hour from Ben's encounter he was arrested without warrant by the military commandant, handcuffed, and placed on the train for Columbia, more than a hundred miles distant. The first purpose of sending him in charge of a negro guard was abandoned for fear of a riot. A squad of white troops accompanied him. Elsie was waiting at the gate, watching for his coming, her heart aglow with happiness. When Marion and little Hugh ran to tell the exciting news, she thought it a joke and refused to believe it. "Come, dear, don't tease me; you know it's not true!" "I wish I may die if 'tain't so!" Hugh solemnly declared. "He run Gus away 'cause he scared Aunt Margaret so. They come and put handcuffs on him and took him to Columbia. I tell you Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt Margaret are mad!" Elsie called Phil and begged him to see what had happened. When Phil reported Ben's arrest without a warrant, and the indignity to which he had been subjected on the amazing charge of resisting military authority, Elsie hurried with Marion and Hugh to the hotel to express her indignation, and sent Phil to Columbia on the next train to fight for his release. By the use of a bribe Phil discovered that a special inquisition had been hastily organized to procure perjured testimony against Ben on the charge of complicity in the murder of a carpet-bag adventurer named Ashburn, who had been killed at Columbia in a row in a disreputable resort. This murder had occurred the week Ben Cameron was in Nashville. The enormous reward of $25,000 had been offered for the conviction of any man who could be implicated in the killing. Scores of venal wretches, eager for this blood money, were using every device of military tyranny to secure evidence on which to convict--no matter who the man might be. Within six hours of his arrival they had pounced on Ben. They arrested as a witness an old negro named John Stapler, noted for his loyalty to the Camerons. The doctor had saved his life once in a dangerous illness. They were going to put him to torture and force him to swear that Ben Cameron had tried to bribe him to kill Ashburn. General Howle, the Commandant of the Columbia district, was in Charleston on a visit to headquarters. Phil resorted to the ruse of pretending, as a Yankee, the deepest sympathy for Ashburn, and by the payment of a fee of twenty dollars to the Captain, was admitted to the fort to witness the torture. They led the old man trembling into the presence of the Captain, who sat on an improvised throne in full uniform. "Have you ordered a barber to shave this man's head?" sternly asked the judge. "Please, Marster, fer de Lawd's sake, I ain' done nuttin'--doan' shave my head. Dat ha'r been wropped lak dat fur ten year! I die sho' ef I lose my ha'r." "Bring the barber, and take him back until he comes," was the order. In an hour they led him again into the room blindfolded, and placed him in a chair. "Have you let him see a preacher before putting him through?" the Captain asked. "I have an order from the General in Charleston to put him through to-day." "For Gawd's sake, Marster, doan' put me froo--I ain't done nuttin' en I doan' know nuttin'!" The old negro slipped to his knees, trembling from head to foot. The guards caught him by the shoulders and threw him back into the chair. The bandage was removed, and just in front of him stood a brass cannon pointed at his head, a soldier beside it holding the string ready to pull. John threw himself backward, yelling: "Goddermighty!" When he scrambled to his feet and started to run, another cannon swung on him from the rear. He dropped to his knees and began to pray. "Yas, Lawd, I'se er comin'. I hain't ready--but, Lawd, I got ter come! Save me!" "Shave him!" the Captain ordered. While the old man sat moaning, they lathered his head with two scrubbing-brushes and shaved it clean. "Now stand him up by the wall and measure him for his coffin," was the order. They snatched him from the chair, pushed him against the wall, and measured him. While they were taking his measure, the man next to him whispered: "Now's the time to save your hide--tell all about Ben Cameron trying to hire you to kill Ashburn." "Give him a few minutes," said the Captain, "and maybe we can hear what Mr. Cameron said about Ashburn." "I doan' know nuttin', General," pleaded the old darkey. "I ain't heard nuttin'--I ain't seed Marse Ben fer two monts." "You needn't lie to us. The rebels have been posting you. But it's no use. We'll get it out of you." "'Fo' Gawd, Marster, I'se telling de truf!" "Put him in the dark cell and keep him there the balance of his life unless he tells," was the order. At the end of four days, Phil was summoned again to witness the show. John was carried to another part of the fort and shown the sweat-box. "Now tell all you know or in you go!" said his tormentor. The negro looked at the engine of torture in abject terror--a closet in the walls of the fort just big enough to admit the body, with an adjustable top to press down too low for the head to be held erect. The door closed tight against the breast of the victim. The only air admitted was through an auger-hole in the door. The old man's lips moved in prayer. "Will you tell?" growled the Captain. "I cain't tell ye nuttin' 'cept'n' a lie!" he moaned. They thrust him in, slammed the door, and in a loud voice the Captain said: "Keep him there for thirty days unless he tells." He was left in the agony of the sweat-box for thirty-three hours and taken out. His limbs were swollen and when he attempted to walk he tottered and fell. The guard jerked him to his feet, and the Captain said: "I'm afraid we've taken him out too soon, but if he don't tell he can go back and finish the month out." The poor old negro dropped in a faint, and they carried him back to his cell. Phil determined to spare no means, fair or foul, to secure Ben's release from the clutches of these devils. He had as yet been unable to locate his place of confinement. He continued his ruse of friendly curiosity, kept in touch with the Captain, and the Captain in touch with his pocketbook. Summoned to witness another interesting ceremony, he hurried to the fort. The officer winked at him confidentially, and took him out to a row of dungeons built of logs and ceiled inside with heavy boards. A single pane of glass about eight inches square admitted light ten feet from the ground. There was a commotion inside, curses, groans, and cries for mercy mingling in rapid succession. "What is it?" asked Phil. "Hell's goin' on in there!" laughed the officer. "Evidently." A heavy crash, as though a ton weight had struck the floor, and then all was still. "By George, it's too bad we can't see it all!" exclaimed the officer. "What does it mean?" urged Phil. Again the Captain laughed immoderately. "I've got a blue-blood in there taking the bluin' out of his system. He gave me some impudence. I'm teaching him who's running this country!" "What are you doing to him?" Phil asked with a sudden suspicion. "Oh, just having a little fun! I put two big white drunks in there with him--half-fighting drunks, you know--and told them to work on his teeth and manicure his face a little to initiate him into the ranks of the common people, so to speak!" Again he laughed. Phil, listening at the keyhole, held up his hand: "Hush, they're talking----" He could hear Ben Cameron's voice in the softest drawl: "Say it again." "Please, Marster!" "Now both together, and a little louder!" "_Please, Marster_," came the united chorus. "Now what kind of a dog did I say you are?" "The kind as comes when his marster calls." "Both together--the under dog seems to have too much cover, like his mouth might be full of cotton." They repeated it louder. "A common--stump-tailed--cur-dog?" "Yessir." "Say it." "A common--stump-tailed--cur-dog--Marster!" "A pair of them." "A pair of 'em." "No, the whole thing--all together--'we--are--a--pair!'" "Yes--Marster." They repeated it in chorus. "With apologies to the dogs----" "Apologies to the dogs----" "And why does your master honour the kennel with his presence to-day?" "He hit a nigger on the head so hard that he strained the nigger's ankle, and he's restin' from his labours." "That's right, Towser. If I had you and Tige a few hours every day I could make good squirrel-dogs out of you." There was a pause. Phil looked up and smiled. "What does it sound like?" asked the Captain, with a shade of doubt in his voice. "Sounds to me like a Sunday-school teacher taking his class through a new catechism." The Captain fumbled hurriedly for his keys. "There's something wrong in there." He opened the door and sprang in. Ben Cameron was sitting on top of the two toughs, knocking their heads together as they repeated each chorus. "Walk in, gentlemen. The show is going on now--the animals are doing beautifully," said Ben. The Captain muttered an oath. Phil suddenly grasped him by the throat, hurled him against the wall, and snatched the keys from his hand. "Now open your mouth, you white-livered cur, and inside of twenty-four hours I'll have you behind the bars. I have all the evidence I need. I'm an ex-officer of the United States Army, of the fighting corps--not the vulture division. This is my friend. Accompany us to the street and strike your charges from the record." The coward did as he was ordered, and Ben hurried back to Piedmont with a friend toward whom he began to feel closer than a brother. When Elsie heard the full story of the outrage, she bore herself toward Ben with unusual tenderness, and yet he knew that the event had driven their lives farther apart. He felt instinctively the cold silent eye of her father, and his pride stiffened under it. The girl had never considered the possibility of a marriage without her father's blessing. Ben Cameron was too proud to ask it. He began to fear that the differences between her father and his people reached to the deepest sources of life. Phil found himself a hero at the Cameron House. Margaret said little, but her bearing spoke in deeper language than words. He felt it would be mean to take advantage of her gratitude. But he was quick to respond to the motherly tenderness of Mrs. Cameron. In the groups of neighbours who gathered in the evenings to discuss with the doctor the hopes, fears, and sorrows of the people, Phil was a charmed listener to the most brilliant conversations he had ever heard. It seemed the normal expression of their lives. He had never before seen people come together to talk to one another after this fashion. More and more the simplicity, dignity, patience, courtesy, and sympathy of these people in their bearing toward one another impressed him. More and more he grew to like them. Marion went out of her way to express her open admiration for Phil and tease him about Margaret. The Rev. Hugh McAlpin was monopolizing her on the Wednesday following his return from Columbia and Phil sought Marion for sympathy. "What will you give me if I tease you about Margaret right before her?" she asked. He blushed furiously. "Don't you dare such a thing on peril of your life!" "You know you like to be teased about her," she cried, her blue eyes dancing with fun. "With such a pretty little friend to do the teasing all by ourselves, perhaps----" "You'll never get her unless you have more spunk." "Then I'll find consolation with you." "No, I mean to marry young." "And your ideal of life?" "To fill the world with flowers, laughter, and music--especially my own home--and never do a thing I can make my husband do for me! How do you like it?" "I think it very sweet," Phil answered soberly. At noon on the following Friday, the Piedmont _Eagle_ appeared with an editorial signed by Dr. Cameron, denouncing in the fine language of the old school the arrest of Ben as "despotism and the usurpation of authority." At three o'clock, Captain Gilbert, in command of the troops stationed in the village, marched a squad of soldiers to the newspaper office. One of them carried a sledge-hammer. In ten minutes he demolished the office, heaped the type and their splintered cases on top of the battered press in the middle of the street, and set fire to the pile. On the courthouse door he nailed this proclamation: _To the People of Ulster County_: The censures of the press, directed against the servants of the people, may be endured; but the military force in command of this district are not the servants of the people of South Carolina. WE ARE YOUR MASTERS. The impertinence of newspaper comment on the military will not be brooked UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WHATEVER. G. C. Gilbert, Captain in Command. Not content with this display of power, he determined to make an example of Dr. Cameron, as the leader of public opinion in the county. He ordered a squad of his negro troops to arrest him immediately and take him to Columbia for obstructing the execution of the Reconstruction Acts. He placed the squad under command of Gus, whom he promoted to be a corporal, with instructions to wait until the doctor was inside his house, boldly enter it and arrest him. When Gus marched his black janizaries into the house, no one was in the office. Margaret had gone for a ride with Phil, and Ben had strolled with Elsie to Lover's Leap, unconscious of the excitement in town. Dr. Cameron himself had heard nothing of it, having just reached home from a visit to a country patient. Gus stationed his men at each door, and with another trooper walked straight into Mrs. Cameron's bedroom, where the doctor was resting on a lounge. Had an imp of perdition suddenly sprung through the floor, the master of the house of Cameron would not have been more enraged or surprised. A sudden leap, as the spring of a panther, and he stood before his former slave, his slender frame erect, his face a livid spot in its snow-white hair, his brilliant eyes flashing with fury. Gus suddenly lost control of his knees. His old master transfixed him with his eyes, and in a voice, whose tones gripped him by the throat, said: "How dare you?" The gun fell from the negro's hand, and he dropped to the floor on his face. His companion uttered a yell and sprang through the door, rallying the men as he went: "Fall back! Fall back! He's killed Gus! Shot him dead wid his eye. He's conjured him! Git de whole army quick." They fled to the Commandant. Gilbert ordered the negroes to their tents and led his whole company of white regulars to the hotel, arrested Dr. Cameron, and rescued his fainting trooper, who had been revived and placed under a tree on the lawn. The little Captain had a wicked look on his face. He refused to allow the doctor a moment's delay to leave instructions for his wife, who had gone to visit a neighbour. He was placed in the guard-house, and a detail of twenty soldiers stationed around it. The arrest was made so quickly, not a dozen people in town had heard of it. As fast as it was known, people poured into the house, one by one, to express their sympathy. But a greater surprise awaited them. Within thirty minutes after he had been placed in prison, a Lieutenant entered, accompanied by a soldier and a negro blacksmith who carried in his hand two big chains with shackles on each end. The doctor gazed at the intruders a moment with incredulity, and then, as the enormity of the outrage dawned on him, he flushed and drew himself erect, his face livid and rigid. He clutched his throat with his slender fingers, slowly recovered himself, glanced at the shackles in the black hands and then at the young Lieutenant's face, and said slowly, with heaving breast: "My God! Have you been sent to place these irons on me?" "Such are my orders, sir," replied the officer, motioning to the negro smith to approach. He stepped forward, unlocked the padlock, and prepared the fetters to be placed on his arms and legs. These fetters were of enormous weight, made of iron rods three quarters of an inch thick and connected together by chains of like weight. "This is monstrous!" groaned the doctor, with choking agony, glancing helplessly about the bare cell for some weapon with which to defend himself. Suddenly looking the Lieutenant in the face, he said: "I demand, sir, to see your commanding officer. He cannot pretend that these shackles are needed to hold a weak unarmed man in prison, guarded by two hundred soldiers?" "It is useless. I have his orders direct." "But I must see him. No such outrage has ever been recorded in the history of the American people. I appeal to the Magna Charta rights of every man who speaks the English tongue--no man shall be arrested or imprisoned or deprived of his own household, or of his liberties, unless by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land!" "The bayonet is your only law. My orders admit of no delay. For your own sake, I advise you to submit. As a soldier, Dr. Cameron, you know I must execute orders." "These are not the orders of a soldier!" shouted the prisoner, enraged beyond all control. "They are orders for a jailer, a hangman, a scullion--no soldier who wears the sword of a civilized nation can take such orders. The war is over; the South is conquered; I have no country save America. For the honour of the flag, for which I once poured out my blood on the heights of Buena Vista, I protest against this shame!" The Lieutenant fell back a moment before the burst of his anger. "Kill me! Kill me!" he went on passionately, throwing his arms wide open and exposing his breast. "Kill--I am in your power. I have no desire to live under such conditions. Kill, but you must not inflict on me and on my people this insult worse than death!" "Do your duty, blacksmith," said the officer, turning his back and walking toward the door. The negro advanced with the chains cautiously, and attempted to snap one of the shackles on the doctor's right arm. With sudden maniac frenzy, Dr. Cameron seized the negro by the throat, hurled him to the floor, and backed against the wall. The Lieutenant approached and remonstrated: "Why compel me to add the indignity of personal violence? You must submit." "I am your prisoner," fiercely retorted the doctor. "I have been a soldier in the armies of America, and I know how to die. Kill me, and my last breath will be a blessing. But while I have life to resist, for myself and for my people, this thing shall not be done!" The Lieutenant called a sergeant and a file of soldiers, and the sergeant stepped forward to seize the prisoner. Dr. Cameron sprang on him with the ferocity of a tiger, seized his musket, and attempted to wrench it from his grasp. The men closed in on him. A short passionate fight and the slender, proud, gray-haired man lay panting on the floor. Four powerful assailants held his hands and feet, and the negro smith, with a grin, secured the rivet on the right ankle and turned the key in the padlock on the left. As he drove the rivet into the shackle on his left arm, a spurt of bruised blood from the old Mexican War wound stained the iron. Dr. Cameron lay for a moment in a stupor. At length he slowly rose. The clank of the heavy chains seemed to choke him with horror. He sank on the floor, covering his face with his hands and groaned: "The shame! The shame! O God, that I might have died! My poor, poor wife!" Captain Gilbert entered and said with a sneer: "I will take you now to see your wife and friends if you would like to call before setting out for Columbia." The doctor paid no attention to him. "Will you follow me while I lead you through this town, to show them their chief has fallen, or will you force me to drag you?" Receiving no answer, he roughly drew the doctor to his feet, held him by the arm, and led him thus in half-unconscious stupor through the principal street, followed by a drove of negroes. He ordered a squad of troops to meet him at the depot. Not a white man appeared on the streets. When one saw the sight and heard the clank of those chains, there was a sudden tightening of the lip, a clinched fist, and an averted face. When they approached the hotel, Mrs. Cameron ran to meet him, her face white as death. In silence she kissed his lips, kissed each shackle on his wrists, took her handkerchief and wiped the bruised blood from the old wound on his arm the iron had opened afresh, and then with a look, beneath which the Captain shrank, she said in low tones: "Do your work quickly. You have but a few moments to get out of this town with your prisoner. I have sent a friend to hold my son. If he comes before you go, he will kill you on sight as he would a mad dog." With a sneer, the Captain passed the hotel and led the doctor, still in half-unconscious stupor, toward the depot down past his old slave quarters. He had given his negroes who remained faithful each a cabin and a lot. They looked on in awed silence as the Captain proclaimed: "Fellow citizens, you are the equal of any white man who walks the ground. The white man's day is done. Your turn has come." As he passed Jake's cabin, the doctor's faithful man stepped suddenly in front of him, looking at the Captain out of the corners of his eyes, and asked: "Is I yo' equal?" "Yes." "Des lak any white man?" "Exactly." The negro's fist suddenly shot into Gilbert's nose with the crack of a sledge-hammer, laying him stunned on the pavement. "Den take dat f'um yo' equal, d--n you!" he cried, bending over his prostrate figure. "I'll show you how to treat my ole marster, you low-down slue-footed devil!" The stirring little drama roused the doctor and he turned to his servant with his old-time courtesy, and said: "Thank you, Jake." "Come in here, Marse Richard; I knock dem things off'n you in er minute, 'en I get you outen dis town in er jiffy." "No, Jake, that is not my way; bring this gentleman some water, and then my horse and buggy. You can take me to the depot. This officer can follow with his men." And he did. CHAPTER V FORTY ACRES AND A MULE When Phil returned with Margaret, he drove at Mrs. Cameron's request to find Ben, brought him with all speed to the hotel, took him to his room, and locked the door before he told him the news. After an hour's blind rage, he agreed to obey his father's positive orders to keep away from the Captain until his return, and to attempt no violence against the authorities. Phil undertook to manage the case in Columbia, and spent three days collecting his evidence before leaving. Swifter feet had anticipated him. Two days after the arrival of Dr. Cameron at the fort in Colombia, a dust-stained, tired negro was ushered into the presence of General Howle. He looked about timidly and laughed loudly. "Well, my man, what's the trouble? You seem to have walked all the way, and laugh as if you were glad of it." "I 'spec' I is, sah," said Jake, sidling up confidentially. "Well?" said Howle good-humouredly. Jake's voice dropped to a whisper. "I hears you got my ole marster, Dr. Cameron, in dis place." "Yes. What do you know against him?" "Nuttin', sah. I des hurry 'long down ter take his place, so's you can sen' him back home. He's erbleeged ter go. Dey's er pow'ful lot er sick folks up dar in de country cain't git 'long widout him, an er pow'ful lot er well ones gwiner be raisin' de debbel 'bout dis. You can hol' me, sah. Des tell my ole marster when ter be yere, en he sho' come." Jake paused and bowed low. "Yessah, hit's des lak I tell you. Fuddermo', I 'spec' I'se de man what done de damages. I 'spec' I bus' de Capt'n's nose so 'tain gwine be no mo' good to 'im." Howle questioned Jake as to the whole affair, asked him a hundred questions about the condition of the county, the position of Dr. Cameron, and the possible effect of this event on the temper of the people. The affair had already given him a bad hour. The news of this shackling of one of the most prominent men in the State had spread like wildfire, and had caused the first deep growl of anger from the people. He saw that it was a senseless piece of stupidity. The election was rapidly approaching. He was master of the State, and the less friction the better. His mind was made up instantly. He released Dr. Cameron with an apology, and returned with him and Jake for a personal inspection of the affairs of Ulster county. In a thirty-minutes' interview with Captain Gilbert, Howle gave him more pain than his broken nose. "And why did you nail up the doors of that Presbyterian church?" he asked suavely. "Because McAlpin, the young cub who preaches there, dared come to this camp and insult me about the arrest of old Cameron." "I suppose you issued an order silencing him from the ministry?" "I did, and told him I'd shackle him if he opened his mouth again." "Good. The throne of Russia needn't worry about a worthy successor. Any further ecclesiastical orders?" "None, except the oaths I've prescribed for them before they shall preach again." "Fine! These Scotch Covenanters will feel at home with you." "Well, I've made them bite the dust--and they know who's runnin' this town, and don't you forget it." "No doubt. Yet we may have too much of even a good thing. The League is here to run this country. The business of the military is to keep still and back them when they need it." "We've the strongest council here to be found in any county in this section," said Gilbert with pride. "Just so. The League meets once a week. We have promised them the land of their masters and equal social and political rights. Their members go armed to these meetings and drill on Saturdays in the public square. The white man is afraid to interfere lest his house or barn take fire. A negro prisoner in the dock needs only to make the sign to be acquitted. Not a negro will dare to vote against us. Their women are formed into societies, sworn to leave their husbands and refuse to marry any man who dares our anger. The negro churches have pledged themselves to expel him from their membership. What more do you want?" "There's another side to it," protested the Captain. "Since the League has taken in the negroes, every Union white man has dropped it like a hot iron, except the lone scallawag or carpet-bagger who expects an office. In the church, the social circle, in business or pleasure, these men are lepers. How can a human being stand it? I've tried to grind this hellish spirit in the dirt under my heel, and unless you can do it they'll beat you in the long run! You've got to have some Southern white men or you're lost." "I'll risk it with a hundred thousand negro majority," said Howle with a sneer. "The fun will just begin then. In the meantime, I'll have you ease up on this county's government. I've brought that man back who knocked you down. Let him alone. I've pardoned him. The less said about this affair, the better." * * * * * As the day of the election under the new régime of Reconstruction drew near, the negroes were excited by rumours of the coming great events. Every man was to receive forty acres of land for his vote, and the enthusiastic speakers and teachers had made the dream a resistless one by declaring that the Government would throw in a mule with the forty acres. Some who had hesitated about the forty acres of land, remembering that it must be worked, couldn't resist the idea of owning a mule. The Freedman's Bureau reaped a harvest in $2 marriage fees from negroes who were urged thus to make their children heirs of landed estates stocked with mules. Every stranger who appeared in the village was regarded with awe as a possible surveyor sent from Washington to run the lines of these forty-acre plots. And in due time the surveyors appeared. Uncle Aleck, who now devoted his entire time to organizing the League, and drinking whiskey which the dues he collected made easy, was walking back to Piedmont from a League meeting in the country, dreaming of this promised land. He lifted his eyes from the dusty way and saw before him two surveyors with their arms full of line stakes painted red, white, and blue. They were well-dressed Yankees--he could not be mistaken. Not a doubt disturbed his mind. The kingdom of heaven was at hand! He bowed low and cried: "Praise de Lawd! De messengers is come! I'se waited long, but I sees 'em now wid my own eyes!" "You can bet your life on that, old pard," said the spokesman of the pair. "We go two and two, just as the apostles did in the olden times. We have only a few left. The boys are hurrying to get their homes. All you've got to do is to drive one of these red, white, and blue stakes down at each corner of the forty acres of land you want, and every rebel in the infernal regions can't pull it up." "Hear dat now!" "Just like I tell you. When this stake goes into the ground, it's like planting a thousand cannon at each corner." "En will the Lawd's messengers come wid me right now to de bend er de creek whar I done pick out my forty acres?" "We will, if you have the needful for the ceremony. The fee for the surveyor is small--only two dollars for each stake. We have no time to linger with foolish virgins who have no oil in their lamps. The bridegroom has come. They who have no oil must remain in outer darkness." The speaker had evidently been a preacher in the North, and his sacred accent sealed his authority with the old negro, who had been an exhorter himself. Aleck felt in his pocket the jingle of twenty gold dollars, the initiation fees of the week's harvest of the League. He drew them, counted out eight, and took his four stakes. The surveyors kindly showed him how to drive them down firmly to the first stripe of blue. When they had stepped off a square of about forty acres of the Lenoir farm, including the richest piece of bottom land on the creek, which Aleck's children under his wife's direction were working for Mrs. Lenoir, and the four stakes were planted, old Aleck shouted: "Glory ter God!" "Now," said the foremost surveyor, "you want a deed--a deed in fee simple with the big seal of the Government on it, and you're fixed for life. The deed you can take to the courthouse and make the clerk record it." The man drew from his pocket an official-looking paper, with a red circular seal pasted on its face. Uncle Aleck's eyes danced. "Is dat de deed?" "It will be if I write your name on it and describe the land." "En what's de fee fer dat?" "Only twelve dollars; you can take it now or wait until we come again. There's no particular hurry about this. The wise man, though, leaves nothing for to-morrow that he can carry with him to-day." "I takes de deed right now, gemmen," said Aleck, eagerly counting out the remaining twelve dollars. "Fix 'im up for me." The surveyor squatted in the field and carefully wrote the document. They went on their way rejoicing, and old Aleck hurried into Piedmont with the consciousness of lordship of the soil. He held himself so proudly that it seemed to straighten some of the crook out of his bow legs. He marched up to the hotel where Margaret sat reading and Marion was on the steps playing with a setter. "Why, Uncle Aleck!" Marion exclaimed, "I haven't seen you in a long time." Aleck drew himself to his full height--at least, as full as his bow legs would permit, and said gruffly: "Miss Ma'ian, I axes you to stop callin' me 'uncle'; my name is Mr. Alexander Lenoir----" "Until Aunt Cindy gets after you," laughed the girl. "Then it's much shorter than that, Uncle Aleck." He shuffled his feet and looked out at the square unconcernedly. "Yaas'm, dat's what fetch me here now. I comes ter tell yer Ma ter tell dat 'oman Cindy ter take her chillun off my farm. I gwine 'low no mo' rent-payin' ter nobody off'n my lan'!" "Your land, Uncle Aleck? When did you get it?" asked Marion, placing her cheek against the setter. "De Gubment gim it ter me to-day," he replied, fumbling in his pocket, and pulling out the document. "You kin read it all dar yo'sef." He handed Marion the paper, and Margaret hurried down and read it over her shoulder. Both girls broke into screams of laughter. Aleck looked up sharply. "Do you know what's written on this paper, Uncle Aleck?" Margaret asked. "Cose I do. Dat's de deed ter my farm er forty acres in de land er de creek, whar I done stuck off wid de red, white, an' blue sticks de Gubment gimme." "I'll read it to you," said Margaret. "Wait a minute," interrupted Marion. "I want Aunt Cindy to hear it--she's here to see Mamma in the kitchen now." She ran for Uncle Aleck's spouse. Aunt Cindy walked around the house and stood by the steps, eying her erstwhile lord with contempt. "Got yer deed, is yer, ter stop me payin' my missy her rent fum de lan' my chillun wucks? Yu'se er smart boy, you is--let's hear de deed!" Aleck edged away a little, and said with a bow: "Dar's de paper wid de big mark er de Gubment." Aunt Cindy sniffed the air contemptuously. "What is it, honey?" she asked of Margaret. Margaret read in mock solemnity the mystic writing on the deed: _To Whom It May Concern_: As Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness for the enlightenment of the people, even so have I lifted twenty shining plunks out of this benighted nigger! Selah! As Uncle Aleck walked away with Aunt Cindy shouting in derision, "Dar, now! Dar, now!" the bow in his legs seemed to have sprung a sharper curve. CHAPTER VI A WHISPER IN THE CROWD The excitement which preceded the first Reconstruction election in the South paralyzed the industries of the country. When demagogues poured down from the North and began their raving before crowds of ignorant negroes, the plow stopped in the furrow, the hoe was dropped, and the millennium was at hand. Negro tenants, working under contracts issued by the Freedman's Bureau, stopped work, and rode their landlords' mules and horses around the county, following these orators. The loss to the cotton crop alone from the abandonment of the growing plant was estimated at over $60,000,000. The one thing that saved the situation from despair was the large grain and forage crops of the previous season which thrifty farmers had stored in their barns. So important was the barn and its precious contents that Dr. Cameron hired Jake to sleep in his. This immense barn, which was situated at the foot of the hill some two hundred yards behind the house, had become a favourite haunt of Marion and Hugh. She had made a pet of the beautiful thoroughbred mare which had belonged to Ben during the war. Marion went every day to give her an apple or lump of sugar, or carry her a bunch of clover. The mare would follow her about like a cat. Another attraction at the barn for them was Becky Sharpe, Ben's setter. She came to Marion one morning, wagging her tail, seized her dress and led her into an empty stall, where beneath the trough lay sleeping snugly ten little white-and-black spotted puppies. The girl had never seen such a sight before and went into ecstasies. Becky wagged her tail with pride at her compliments. Every morning she would pull her gently into the stall just to hear her talk and laugh and pet her babies. Whatever election day meant to the men, to Marion it was one of unalloyed happiness: she was to ride horseback alone and dance at her first ball. Ben had taught her to ride, and told her she could take Queen to Lover's Leap and back alone. Trembling with joy, her beautiful face wreathed in smiles, she led the mare to the pond in the edge of the lot and watched her drink its pure spring water. When he helped her to mount in front of the hotel under her mother's gaze, and saw her ride out of the gate, with the exquisite lines of her little figure melting into the graceful lines of the mare's glistening form, he exclaimed: "I declare, I don't know which is the prettier, Marion or Queen!" "I know," was the mother's soft answer. "They are both thoroughbreds," said Ben, watching them admiringly. "Wait till you see her to-night in her first ball dress," whispered Mrs. Lenoir. At noon Ben and Phil strolled to the polling-place to watch the progress of the first election under negro rule. The Square was jammed with shouting, jostling, perspiring negroes, men, women, and children. The day was warm, and the African odour was supreme even in the open air. A crowd of two hundred were packed around a peddler's box. There were two of them--one crying the wares, and the other wrapping and delivering the goods. They were selling a new patent poison for rats. "I've only a few more bottles left now, gentlemen," he shouted, "and the polls will close at sundown. A great day for our brother in black. Two years of army rations from the Freedman's Bureau, with old army clothes thrown in, and now the ballot--the priceless glory of American citizenship. But better still the very land is to be taken from these proud aristocrats and given to the poor down-trodden black man. Forty acres and a mule--think of it! Provided, mind you--that you have a bottle of my wonder-worker to kill the rats and save your corn for the mule. No man can have the mule unless he has corn; and no man can have corn if he has rats--and only a few bottles left----" "Gimme one," yelled a negro. "Forty acres and a mule, your old masters to work your land and pay his rent in corn, while you sit back in the shade and see him sweat." "Gimme er bottle and two er dem pictures!" bawled another candidate for a mule. The peddler handed him the bottle and the pictures and threw a handful of his labels among the crowd. These labels happened to be just the size of the ballots, having on them the picture of a dead rat lying on his back, and above, the emblem of death, the crossbones and skull. "Forty acres and a mule for every black man--why was I ever born white? I never had no luck, nohow!" Phil and Ben passed on nearer the polling-place, around which stood a cordon of soldiers with a line of negro voters two hundred yards in length extending back into the crowd. The negro Leagues came in armed battalions and voted in droves, carrying their muskets in their hands. Less than a dozen white men were to be seen about the place. The negroes, under the drill of the League and the Freedman's Bureau, protected by the bayonet, were voting to enfranchise themselves, disfranchise their former masters, ratify a new constitution, and elect a legislature to do their will. Old Aleck was a candidate for the House, chief poll-holder, and seemed to be in charge of the movements of the voters outside the booth as well as inside. He appeared to be omnipresent, and his self-importance was a sight Phil had never dreamed. He could not keep his eyes off him. "By George, Cameron, he's a wonder!" he laughed. Aleck had suppressed as far as possible the story of the painted stakes and the deed, after sending out warnings to the brethren to beware of two enticing strangers. The surveyors had reaped a rich harvest and passed on. Aleck made up his mind to go to Columbia, make the laws himself, and never again trust a white man from the North or South. The agent of the Freedman's Bureau at Piedmont tried to choke him off the ticket. The League backed him to a man. He could neither read nor write, but before he took to whiskey he had made a specialty of revival exhortation, and his mouth was the most effective thing about him. In this campaign he was an orator of no mean powers. He knew what he wanted, and he knew what his people wanted, and he put the thing in words so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, couldn't make any mistake about it. As he bustled past, forming a battalion of his brethren in line to march to the polls, Phil followed his every movement with amused interest. Besides being so bow-legged that his walk was a moving joke he was so striking a negro in his personal appearance, he seemed to the young Northerner almost a distinct type of man. His head was small and seemed mashed on the sides until it bulged into a double lobe behind. Even his ears, which he had pierced and hung with red earbobs, seemed to have been crushed flat to the side of his head. His kinked hair was wrapped in little hard rolls close to the skull and bound tightly with dirty thread. His receding forehead was high and indicated a cunning intelligence. His nose was broad and crushed flat against his face. His jaws were strong and angular, mouth wide, and lips thick, curling back from rows of solid teeth set obliquely in their blue gums. The one perfect thing about him was the size and setting of his mouth--he was a born African orator, undoubtedly descended from a long line of savage spell-binders, whose eloquence in the palaver houses of the jungle had made them native leaders. His thin spindle-shanks supported an oblong, protruding stomach, resembling an elderly monkey's, which seemed so heavy it swayed his back to carry it. The animal vivacity of his small eyes and the flexibility of his eyebrows, which he worked up and down rapidly with every change of countenance, expressed his eager desires. He had laid aside his new shoes, which hurt him, and went barefooted to facilitate his movements on the great occasion. His heels projected and his foot was so flat that what should have been the hollow of it made a hole in the dirt where he left his track. He was already mellow with liquor, and was dressed in an old army uniform and cap, with two horse pistols buckled around his waist. On a strap hanging from his shoulder were strung a half-dozen tin canteens filled with whiskey. A disturbance in the line of voters caused the young men to move forward to see what it meant. Two negro troopers had pulled Jake out of the line, and were dragging him toward old Aleck. The election judge straightened himself up with great dignity: "What wuz de rapscallion doin'?" "In de line, tryin' ter vote." "Fetch 'im befo' de judgment bar," said Aleck, taking a drink from one of his canteens. The troopers brought Jake before the judge. "Tryin' ter vote, is yer?" "'Lowed I would." "You hear 'bout de great sassieties de Gubment's fomentin' in dis country?" "Yas, I hear erbout 'em." "Is yer er member er de Union League?" "Na-sah. I'd rudder steal by myself. I doan' lak too many in de party!" "En yer ain't er No'f Ca'liny gemmen, is yer--yer ain't er member er de 'Red Strings?'" "Na-sah, I come when I'se called--dey doan' hatter put er string on me--ner er block, ner er collar, ner er chain, ner er muzzle----" "Will yer 'splain ter dis cote----" railed Aleck. "What cote? Dat ole army cote?" Jake laughed in loud peals that rang over the square. Aleck recovered his dignity and demanded angrily: "Does yer belong ter de Heroes ob Americky?" "Na-sah. I ain't burnt nobody's house ner barn yet, ner hamstrung no stock, ner waylaid nobody atter night--honey, I ain't fit ter jine. Heroes ob Americky! Is you er hero?" "Ef yer doan' b'long ter no s'iety," said Aleck with judicial deliberation, "what is you?" "Des er ole-fashun all-wool-en-er-yard-wide nigger dat stan's by his ole marster 'cause he's his bes' frien', stays at home, en tends ter his own business." "En yer pay no 'tenshun ter de orders I sent yer ter jine de League?" "Na-sah. I ain't er takin' orders f'um er skeer-crow." Aleck ignored his insolence, secure in his power. "You doan b'long ter no s'iety, what yer git in dat line ter vote for?" "Ain't I er nigger?" "But yer ain't de right kin' er nigger. 'Res' dat man fer 'sturbin' de peace." They put Jake in jail, persuaded his wife to leave him, and expelled him from the Baptist church, all within the week. As the troopers led Jake to prison, a young negro apparently about fifteen years old approached Aleck, holding in his hand one of the peddler's rat labels, which had gotten well distributed among the crowd. A group of negro boys followed him with these rat labels in their hands, studying them intently. "Look at dis ticket, Uncle Aleck," said the leader. "Mr. Alexander Lenoir, sah--is I yo' uncle, nigger?" The youth walled his eyes angrily. "Den doan' you call me er nigger!" "Who' yer talkin to, sah? You kin fling yer sass at white folks, but, honey, yuse er projeckin' wid death now!" "I ain't er nigger--I'se er gemman, I is," was the sullen answer. "How ole is you?" asked Aleck in milder tones. "Me mudder say sixteen--but de Buro man say I'se twenty-one yistiddy, de day 'fo' 'lection." "Is you voted to-day?" "Yessah; vote in all de boxes 'cept'n dis one. Look at dat ticket. Is dat de straight ticket?" Aleck, who couldn't read the twelve-inch letters of his favourite bar-room sign, took the rat label and examined it critically. "What ail it?" he asked at length. The boy pointed at the picture of the rat. "What dat rat doin', lyin' dar on his back, wid his heels cocked up in de air--'pear ter me lak a rat otter be standin' on his feet!" Aleck reëxamined it carefully, and then smiled benignly on the youth. "De ignance er dese folks. What ud yer do widout er man lak me enjued wid de sperit en de power ter splain tings?" "You sho' got de sperits," said the boy impudently, touching a canteen. Aleck ignored the remark and looked at the rat label smilingly. "Ain't we er votin', ter-day, on de Constertooshun what's ter take de ballot away f'um de white folks en gib all de power ter de cullud gemmen--I axes yer dat?" The boy stuck his thumbs under his arms and walled his eyes. "Yessah!" "Den dat means de ratification ob de Constertooshun!" Phil laughed, followed, and watched them fold their tickets, get in line, and vote the rat labels. Ben turned toward a white man with gray beard, who stood watching the crowd. He was a pious member of the Presbyterian church but his face didn't have a pious expression to-day. He had been refused the right to vote because he had aided the Confederacy by nursing one of his wounded boys. He touched his hat politely to Ben. "What do you think of it, Colonel Cameron?" he asked with a touch of scorn. "What's your opinion, Mr. McAllister?" "Well, Colonel, I've been a member of the church for over forty years. I'm not a cussin' man--but there's a sight I never expected to live to see. I've been a faithful citizen of this State for fifty years. I can't vote, and a nigger is to be elected to-day to represent me in the Legislature. Neither you, Colonel, nor your father are good enough to vote. Every nigger in this county sixteen years old and up voted to-day--I ain't a cussing man, and I don't say it as a cuss word, but all I've got to say is, IF there BE such a thing as a d--d shame--that's it!" "Mr. McAllister, the recording angel wouldn't have made a mark had you said it without the 'IF.'" "God knows what this country's coming to--I don't," said the old man bitterly. "I'm afraid to let my wife and daughter go out of the house, or stay in it, without somebody with them." Ben leaned closer and whispered, as Phil approached: "Come to my office to-night at ten o'clock; I want to see you on some important business." The old man seized his hand eagerly. "Shall I bring the boys?" Ben smiled. "No. I've seen them some time ago." CHAPTER VII BY THE LIGHT OF A TORCH On the night of the election Mrs. Lenoir gave a ball at the hotel in honour of Marion's entrance into society. She was only in her sixteenth year, yet older than her mother when mistress of her own household. The only ambition the mother cherished was that she might win the love of an honest man and build for herself a beautiful home on the site of the cottage covered with trailing roses. In this home dream for Marion she found a great sustaining joy to which nothing in the life of man answers. The ball had its political significance which the military martinet who commanded the post understood. It was the way the people of Piedmont expressed to him and the world their contempt for the farce of an election he had conducted, and their indifference as to the result he would celebrate with many guns before midnight. The young people of the town were out in force. Marion was a universal favourite. The grace, charm, and tender beauty of the Southern girl of sixteen were combined in her with a gentle and unselfish disposition. Amid poverty that was pitiful, unconscious of its limitations, her thoughts were always of others, and she was the one human being everybody had agreed to love. In the village in which she lived wealth counted for naught. She belonged to the aristocracy of poetry, beauty, and intrinsic worth, and her people knew no other. As she stood in the long dining-room, dressed in her first ball costume of white organdy and lace, the little plump shoulders peeping through its meshes, she was the picture of happiness. A half-dozen boys hung on every word as the utterance of an oracle. She waved gently an old ivory fan with white down on its edges in a way the charm of which is the secret birthright of every Southern girl. Now and then she glanced at the door for some one who had not yet appeared. Phil paid his tribute to her with genuine feeling, and Marion repaid him by whispering: "Margaret's dressed to kill--all in soft azure blue--her rosy cheeks, black hair, and eyes never shone as they do to-night. She doesn't dance on account of her Sunday-school--it's all for you." Phil blushed and smiled. "The preacher won't be here?" "Our rector will." "He's a nice old gentleman. I'm fond of him. Miss Marion, your mother is a genius. I hope she can plan these little affairs oftener." It was half-past ten o'clock when Ben Cameron entered the room with Elsie a little ruffled at his delay over imaginary business at his office. Ben answered her criticisms with a strange elation. She had felt a secret between them and resented it. At Mrs. Lenoir's special request, he had put on his full uniform of a Confederate Colonel in honour of Marion and the poem her father had written of one of his gallant charges. He had not worn it since he fell that day in Phil's arms. No one in the room had ever seen him in this Colonel's uniform. Its yellow sash with the gold fringe and tassels was faded and there were two bullet holes in the coat. A murmur of applause from the boys, sighs and exclamations from the girls swept the room as he took Marion's hand, bowed and kissed it. Her blue eyes danced and smiled on him with frank admiration. "Ben, you're the handsomest thing I've ever seen!" she said softly. "Thanks. I thought you had a mirror. I'll send you one," he answered, slipping his arm around her and gliding away to the strains of a waltz. The girl's hand trembled as she placed it on his shoulder, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes had a wistful dreamy look in their depths. When Ben rejoined Elsie and they strolled on the lawn, the military commandant suddenly confronted them with a squad of soldiers. "I'll trouble you for those buttons and shoulder straps," said the Captain. Elsie's amber eyes began to spit fire. Ben stood still and smiled. "What do you mean?" she asked. "That I will not be insulted by the wearing of this uniform to-day." "I dare you to touch it, coward, poltroon!" cried the girl, her plump little figure bristling in front of her lover. Ben laid his hand on her arm and gently drew her back to his side: "He has the power to do this. It is a technical violation of law to wear them. I have surrendered. I am a gentleman and I have been a soldier. He can have his tribute. I've promised my father to offer no violence to the military authority of the United States." He stepped forward, and the officer cut the buttons from his coat and ripped the straps from his shoulders. While the performance was going on, Ben quietly said: "General Grant at Appomattox, with the instincts of a great soldier, gave our men his spare horses and ordered that Confederate officers retain their side-arms. The General is evidently not in touch with this force." "No: I'm in command in this county," said the Captain. "Evidently." When he had gone, Elsie's eyes were dim. They strolled under the shadow of the great oak and stood in silence, listening to the music within and the distant murmur of the falls. "Why is it, sweetheart, that a girl will persist in admiring brass buttons?" Ben asked softly. She raised her lips to his for a kiss and answered: "Because a soldier's business is to die for his country." As Ben led her back into the ballroom and surrendered her to a friend for a dance, the first gun pealed its note of victory from the square in the celebration of the triumph of the African slave over his white master. Ben strolled out in the street to hear the news. The Constitution had been ratified by an enormous majority, and a Legislature elected composed of 101 negroes and 23 white men. Silas Lynch had been elected Lieutenant-Governor, a negro Secretary of State, a negro Treasurer, and a negro Justice of the Supreme Court. When Bizzel, the wizzen-faced agent of the Freedman's Bureau, made this announcement from the courthouse steps, pandemonium broke lose. An incessant rattle of musketry began in which ball cartridges were used, the missiles whistling over the town in every direction. Yet within half an hour the square was deserted and a strange quiet followed the storm. Old Aleck staggered by the hotel, his drunkenness having reached the religious stage. "Behold, a curiosity, gentlemen," cried Ben to a group of boys who had gathered, "a voter is come among us--in fact, he is the people, the king, our representative elect, the Honourable Alexander Lenoir, of the county of Ulster!" "Gemmens, de Lawd's bin good ter me," said Aleck, weeping copiously. "They say the rat labels were in a majority in this precinct--how was that?" asked Ben. "Yessah--dat what de scornful say--dem dat sets in de seat o' de scornful, but de Lawd er Hosts He fetch 'em low. Mistah Bissel de Buro man count all dem rat votes right, sah--dey couldn't fool him--he know what dey mean--he count 'em all for me an' de ratification." "Sure-pop!" said Ben; "if you can't ratify with a rat, I'd like to know why?" "Dat's what I tells 'em, sah." "Of course," said Ben good-humouredly. "The voice of the people is the voice of God--rats or no rats--if you know how to count." As old Aleck staggered away, the sudden crash of a volley of musketry echoed in the distance. "What's that?" asked Ben, listening intently. The sound was unmistakable to a soldier's ear--that volley from a hundred rifles at a single word of command. It was followed by a shot on a hill in the distance, and then by a faint echo, farther still. Ben listened a few moments and turned into the lawn of the hotel. The music suddenly stopped, the tramp of feet echoed on the porch, a woman screamed, and from the rear of the house came the cry: "Fire! Fire!" Almost at the same moment an immense sheet of flame shot skyward from the big barn. "My God!" groaned Ben. "Jake's in jail to-night, and they've set the barn on fire. It's worth more than the house." The crowd rushed down the hill to the blazing building, Marion's fleet figure in its flying white dress leading the crowd. The lowing of the cows and the wild neighing of the horses rang above the roar of the flames. Before Ben could reach the spot Marion had opened every stall. Two cows leaped out to safety, but not a horse would move from its stall, and each moment wilder and more pitiful grew their death cries. Marion rushed to Ben, her eyes dilated, her face as white as the dress she wore. "Oh, Ben, Queen won't come out! What shall I do?" "You can do nothing, child. A horse won't come out of a burning stable unless he's blindfolded. They'll all be burned to death." "Oh! no!" the girl cried in agony. "They'd trample you to death if you tried to get them out. It can't be helped. It's too late." As Ben looked back at the gathering crowd, Marion suddenly snatched a horse blanket, lying at the door, ran with the speed of a deer to the pond, plunged in, sprang out, and sped back to the open door of Queen's stall, through which her shrill cry could be heard above the others. As the girl ran toward the burning building, her thin white dress clinging close to her exquisite form, she looked like the marble figure of a sylph by the hand of some great master into which God had suddenly breathed the breath of life. As they saw her purpose, a cry of horror rose from the crowd, her mother's scream loud above the rest. Ben rushed to catch her, shouting: "Marion! Marion! She'll trample you to death!" He was too late. She leaped into the stall. The crowd held their breath. There was a moment of awful suspense, and the mare sprang through the open door with the little white figure clinging to her mane and holding the blanket over her head. A cheer rang above the roar of the flames. The girl did not loose her hold until her beautiful pet was led to a place of safety, while she clung to her neck and laughed and cried for joy. First her mother, then Margaret, Mrs. Cameron, and Elsie took her in their arms. As Ben approached the group, Elsie whispered to him: "Kiss her!" Ben took her hand, his eyes full of unshed tears, and said: "The bravest deed a woman ever did--you're a heroine, Marion!" Before she knew it he stooped and kissed her. She was very still for a moment, smiled, trembled from head to foot, blushed scarlet, took her mother by the hand, and without a word hurried to the house. Poor Becky was whining among the excited crowd and sought in vain for Marion. At last she got Margaret's attention, caught her dress in her teeth and led her to a corner of the lot, where she had laid side by side her puppies, smothered to death. She stood and looked at them with her tail drooping, the picture of despair. Margaret burst into tears and called Ben. He bent and put his arm around the setter's neck and stroked her head with his hand. Looking at up his sister, he said: "Don't tell Marion of this. She can't stand any more to-night." The crowd had all dispersed, and the flames had died down for want of fuel. The odour of roasting flesh, pungent and acrid, still lingered a sharp reminder of the tragedy. Ben stood on the back porch, talking in low tones to his father. "Will you join us now, sir? We need the name and influence of men of your standing." "My boy, two wrongs never made a right. It's better to endure awhile. The sober commonsense of the Nation will yet save us. We must appeal to it." "Eight more fires were seen from town to-night." "You only guess their origin." "I know their origin. It was done by the League at a signal as a celebration of the election and a threat of terror to the county. One of our men concealed a faithful negro under the floor of the school-house and heard the plot hatched. We expected it a month ago--but hoped they had given it up." "Even so, my boy, a secret society such as you have planned means a conspiracy that may bring exile or death. I hate lawlessness and disorder. We have had enough of it. Your clan means ultimately martial law. At least we will get rid of these soldiers by this election. They have done their worst to me, but we may save others by patience." "It's the only way, sir. The next step will be a black hand on a white woman's throat!" The doctor frowned. "Let us hope for the best. Your clan is the last act of desperation." "But if everything else fail, and this creeping horror becomes a fact--then what?" "My boy, we will pray that God may never let us live to see the day!" [Illustration: THE BLACK MASTERS OF THE SOUTH DURING RECONSTRUCTION.] CHAPTER VIII THE RIOT IN THE MASTER'S HALL Alarmed at the possible growth of the secret clan into which Ben had urged him to enter, Dr. Cameron determined to press for relief from oppression by an open appeal to the conscience of the Nation. He called a meeting of conservative leaders in a Taxpayers' Convention at Columbia. His position as leader had been made supreme by the indignities he had suffered, and he felt sure of his ability to accomplish results. Every county in the State was represented by its best men in this gathering at the Capitol. The day he undertook to present his memorial to the Legislature was one he never forgot. The streets were crowded with negroes who had come to town to hear Lynch, the Lieutenant-Governor, speak in a mass-meeting. Negro policemen swung their clubs in his face as he pressed through the insolent throng up the street to the stately marble Capitol. At the door a black, greasy trooper stopped him to parley. Every decently dressed white man was regarded a spy. As he passed inside the doors of the House of Representatives the rush of foul air staggered him. The reek of vile cigars and stale whiskey, mingled with the odour of perspiring negroes, was overwhelming. He paused and gasped for breath. The space behind the seats of the members was strewn with corks, broken glass, stale crusts, greasy pieces of paper, and picked bones. The hall was packed with negroes, smoking, chewing, jabbering, pushing, perspiring. A carpet-bagger at his elbow was explaining to an old darkey from down east why his forty acres and a mule hadn't come. On the other side of him a big negro bawled: "Dat's all right! De cullud man on top!" The doctor surveyed the hall in dismay. At first not a white member was visible. The galleries were packed with negroes. The Speaker presiding was a negro, the Clerk a negro, the doorkeepers negroes, the little pages all coal-black negroes, the Chaplain a negro. The negro party consisted of one hundred and one--ninety-four blacks and seven scallawags, who claimed to be white. The remains of Aryan civilization were represented by twenty-three white men from the Scotch-Irish hill counties. The doctor had served three terms as the member from Ulster in this hall in the old days, and its appearance now was beyond any conceivable depth of degradation. The ninety-four Africans, constituting almost its solid membership, were a motley crew. Every negro type was there, from the genteel butler to the clodhopper from the cotton and rice fields. Some had on second-hand seedy frock-coats their old master had given them before the war, glossy and threadbare. Old stovepipe hats, of every style in vogue since Noah came out of the ark, were placed conspicuously on the desks or cocked on the backs of the heads of the honourable members. Some wore the coarse clothes of the field, stained with red mud. Old Aleck, he noted, had a red woollen comforter wound round his neck in place of a shirt or collar. He had tried to go barefooted, but the Speaker had issued a rule that members should come shod. He was easing his feet by placing his brogans under the desk, wearing only his red socks. Each member had his name painted in enormous gold letters on his desk, and had placed beside it a sixty-dollar French imported spittoon. Even the Congress of the United States, under the inspiration of Oakes Ames and Speaker Colfax, could only afford one of domestic make, which cost a dollar. The uproar was deafening. From four to six negroes were trying to speak at the same time. Aleck's majestic mouth with blue gums and projecting teeth led the chorus as he ambled down the aisle, his bow-legs flying their red-sock ensigns. The Speaker singled him out--his voice was something which simply could not be ignored--rapped and yelled: "De gemman from Ulster set down!" Aleck turned crestfallen and resumed his seat, throwing his big flat feet in their red woollens up on his desk and hiding his face behind their enormous spread. He had barely settled in his chair before a new idea flashed through his head and up he jumped again: "Mistah Speaker!" he bawled. "Orda da!" yelled another. "Knock 'im in de head!" "Seddown, nigger!" The Speaker pointed his gavel at Aleck and threatened him laughingly: "Ef de gemman from Ulster doan set down I gwine call 'im ter orda!" Uncle Aleck greeted this threat with a wild guffaw, which the whole House about him joined in heartily. They laughed like so many hens cackling--when one started the others would follow. The most of them were munching peanuts, and the crush of hulls under heavy feet added a subnote to the confusion like the crackle of a prairie fire. The ambition of each negro seemed to be to speak at least a half-dozen times on each question, saying the same thing every time. No man was allowed to talk five minutes without an interruption which brought on another and another until the speaker was drowned in a storm of contending yells. Their struggles to get the floor with bawlings, bellowings, and contortions, and the senseless rap of the Speaker's gavel, were something appalling. On this scene, through fetid smoke and animal roar, looked down from the walls, in marble bas-relief, the still white faces of Robert Hayne and George McDuffie, through whose veins flowed the blood of Scottish kings, while over it brooded in solemn wonder the face of John Laurens, whose diplomatic genius at the court of France won millions of gold for our tottering cause, and sent a French fleet and army into the Chesapeake to entrap Cornwallis at Yorktown. The little group of twenty-three white men, the descendants of these spirits, to whom Dr. Cameron had brought his memorial, presented a pathetic spectacle. Most of them were old men, who sat in grim silence with nothing to do or say as they watched the rising black tide, their dignity, reserve, and decorum at once the wonder and the shame of the modern world. At least they knew that the minstrel farce being enacted on that floor was a tragedy as deep and dark as was ever woven of the blood and tears of a conquered people. Beneath those loud guffaws they could hear the death rattle in the throat of their beloved State, barbarism strangling civilization by brute force. For all the stupid uproar, the black leaders of this mob knew what they wanted. One of them was speaking now, the leader of the House, the Honourable Napoleon Whipper. Dr. Cameron had taken his seat in the little group of white members in one corner of the chamber, beside an old friend from an adjoining county whom he had known in better days. "Now listen," said his friend. "When Whipper talks he always says something." "Mr. Speaker, I move you, sir, in view of the arduous duties which our presiding officer has performed this week for the State, that he be allowed one thousand dollars extra pay." The motion was put without debate and carried. The Speaker then called Whipper to the Chair and made the same motion, to give the Leader of the House an extra thousand dollars for the performance of his heavy duties. It was carried. "What does that mean?" asked the doctor. "Very simple; Whipper and the Speaker adjourned the House yesterday afternoon to attend a horse race. They lost a thousand dollars each betting on the wrong horse. They are recuperating after the strain. They are booked for judges of the Supreme Court when they finish this job. The negro mass-meeting to-night is to indorse their names for the Supreme Bench." "Is it possible!" the doctor exclaimed. When Whipper resumed his place at his desk, the introduction of bills began. One after another were sent to the Speaker's desk, a measure to disarm the whites and equip with modern rifles a negro militia of 80,000 men; to make the uniform of Confederate gray the garb of convicts in South Carolina, with a sign of the rank to signify the degree of crime; to prevent any person calling another a "nigger"; to require men to remove their hats in the presence of all officers, civil or military, and all disfranchised men to remove their hats in the presence of voters; to force black and whites to attend the same schools and open the State University to negroes; to permit the intermarriage of whites and blacks; and to inforce social equality. Whipper made a brief speech on the last measure: "Before I am through, I mean that it shall be known that Napoleon Whipper is as good as any man in South Carolina. Don't tell me that I am not on an equality with any man God ever made." Dr. Cameron turned pale, and trembling with excitement, asked his friend: "Can that man pass such measures, and the Governor sign them?" "He can pass anything he wishes. The Governor is his creature--a dirty little scallawag who tore the Union flag from Fort Sumter, trampled it in the dust, and helped raise the flag of Confederacy over it. Now he is backed by the Government at Washington. He won his election by dancing at negro balls and the purchase of delegates. His salary as Governor is $3,500 a year, and he spends over $40,000. Comment is unnecessary. This Legislature has stolen millions of dollars, and already bankrupted the treasury. The day Howle was elected to the Senate of the United States every negro on the floor had his roll of bills and some of them counted it out on their desks. In your day the annual cost of the State government was $400,000. This year it is $2,000,000. These thieves steal daily. They don't deny it. They simply dare you to prove it. The writing paper on the desks cost $16,000. These clocks on the wall $600 each, and every little Radical newspaper in the State has been subsidized in sums varying from $1,000 to $7,000. Each member is allowed to draw for mileage, per diem, and 'sundries.' God only knows what the bill for 'sundries' will aggregate by the end of the session." "I couldn't conceive of this!" exclaimed the doctor. "I've only given you a hint. We are a conquered race. The iron hand of Fate is on us. We can only wait for the shadows to deepen into night. President Grant appears to be a babe in the woods. Schuyler Colfax, the Vice-president, and Belknap, the Secretary of War, are in the saddle in Washington. I hear things are happening there that are quite interesting. Besides, Congress now can give little relief. The real lawmaking power in America is the State Legislature. The State lawmaker enters into the holy of holies of our daily life. Once more we are a sovereign State--a sovereign negro State." "I fear my mission is futile," said the doctor. "It's ridiculous--I'll call for you to-night and take you to hear Lynch, our Lieutenant-Governor. He is a remarkable man. Our negro Supreme Court Judge will preside--" Uncle Aleck, who had suddenly spied Dr. Cameron, broke in with a laughing welcome: "I 'clar ter goodness, Dr. Cammun, I didn't know you wuz here, sah. I sho' glad ter see you. I axes yer ter come across de street ter my room; I got sumfin' pow'ful pertickler ter say ter you." The doctor followed Aleck out of the hall and across the street to his room in a little boarding-house. His door was locked, and the windows darkened by blinds. Instead of opening the blinds he lighted a lamp. "Ob cose, Dr. Cammun, you say nuffin 'bout what I gwine tell you?" "Certainly not, Aleck." The room was full of drygoods boxes. The space under the bed was packed, and they were piled to the ceiling around the walls. "Why, what's all this, Aleck?" The member from Ulster chuckled: "Dr. Cammun, yu'se been er pow'ful frien' ter me--gimme medicine lots er times, en I hain't nebber paid you nuttin'. I'se sho' come inter de kingdom now, en I wants ter pay my respects ter you, sah. Des look ober dat paper, en mark what you wants, en I hab 'em sont home fur you." The member from Ulster handed his physician a printed list of more than five hundred articles of merchandise. The doctor read it over with amazement. "I don't understand it, Aleck. Do you own a store?" "Na-sah, but we git all we wants fum mos' eny ob 'em. Dem's 'sundries,' sah, dat de Gubment gibs de members. We des orda what we needs. No trouble 'tall, sah. De men what got de goods come roun' en beg us ter take 'em." The doctor smiled in spite of the tragedy back of the joke. "Let's see some of the goods, Aleck--are they first class?" "Yessah; de bes' goin'. I show you." He pulled out a number of boxes and bundles, exhibiting carpets, door mats, hassocks, dog collars, cow bells, oilcloths, velvets, mosquito nets, damask, Irish linen, billiard outfits, towels, blankets, flannels, quilts, women's hoods, hats, ribbons, pins, needles, scissors, dumb bells, skates, crape skirt braids, tooth brushes, face powder, hooks and eyes, skirts, bustles, chignons, garters, artificial busts, chemises, parasols, watches, jewellery, diamond earrings, ivory-handled knives and forks, pistols and guns, and a Webster's Dictionary. "Got lots mo' in dem boxes nailed up dar--yessah, hit's no use er lettin' good tings go by yer when you kin des put out yer han' en stop 'em! Some er de members ordered horses en carriages, but I tuk er par er fine mules wid harness en two buggies an er wagin. Dey 'roun at de libry stable, sah." The doctor thanked Aleck for his friendly feeling, but told him it was, of course, impossible for him at this time, being only a taxpayer and neither a voter nor a member of the Legislature, to share in his supply of "sundries." He went to the warehouse that night with his friend to hear Lynch, wondering if his mind were capable of receiving another shock. This meeting had been called to indorse the candidacy, for Justice of the Supreme Court, of Napoleon Whipper, the Leader of the House, the notorious negro thief and gambler, and of William Pitt Moses, an ex-convict, his confederate in crime. They had been unanimously chosen for the positions by a secret caucus of the ninety-four negro members of the House. This addition to the Court, with the negro already a member, would give a majority to the black man on the last Tribunal of Appeal. The few white men of the party who had any sense of decency were in open revolt at this atrocity. But their influence was on the wane. The carpet-bagger shaped the first Convention and got the first plums of office. Now the negro was in the saddle, and he meant to stay. There were not enough white men in the Legislature to force a roll-call on a division of the House. This meeting was an open defiance of all pale-faces inside or outside party lines. Every inch of space in the big cotton warehouse was jammed--a black living cloud, pungent and piercing. The distinguished Lieutenant-Governor, Silas Lynch, had not yet arrived, but the negro Justice of the Supreme Court, Pinchback, was in his seat as the presiding officer. Dr. Cameron watched the movements of the black judge, already notorious for the sale of his opinions, with a sense of sickening horror. This man was but yesterday a slave, his father a medicine man in an African jungle who decided the guilt or innocence of the accused by the test of administering poison. If the poison killed the man, he was guilty; if he survived, he was innocent. For four thousand years his land had stood a solid bulwark of unbroken barbarism. Out of its darkness he had been thrust upon the seat of judgment of the laws of the proudest and highest type of man evolved in time. It seemed a hideous dream. His thoughts were interrupted by a shout. It came spontaneous and tremendous in its genuine feeling. The magnificent figure of Lynch, their idol, appeared walking down the aisle escorted by the little scallawag who was the Governor. He took his seat on the platform with the easy assurance of conscious power. His broad shoulders, superb head, and gleaming jungle eyes held every man in the audience before he had spoken a word. In the first masterful tones of his voice the doctor's keen intelligence caught the ring of his savage metal and felt the shock of his powerful personality--a personality which had thrown to the winds every mask, whose sole aim of life was sensual, whose only fears were of physical pain and death, who could worship a snake and sacrifice a human being. His playful introduction showed him a child of Mystery, moved by Voices and inspired by a Fetish. His face was full of good humour, and his whole figure rippled with sleek animal vivacity. For the moment, life was a comedy and a masquerade teeming with whims, fancies, ecstasies and superstitions. He held the surging crowd in the hollow of his hand. They yelled, laughed, howled, or wept as he willed. Now he painted in burning words the imaginary horrors of slavery until the tears rolled down his cheeks and he wept at the sound of his own voice. Every dusky hearer burst into tears and moans. He stopped, suddenly brushed the tears from his eyes, sprang to the edge of the platform, threw both arms above his head and shouted: "Hosannah to the Lord God Almighty for Emancipation!" Instantly five thousand negroes, as one man, were on their feet, shouting and screaming. Their shouts rose in unison, swelled into a thunder peal, and died away as one voice. Dead silence followed, and every eye was again riveted on Lynch. For two hours the doctor sat transfixed, listening and watching him sway the vast audience with hypnotic power. There was not one note of hesitation or of doubt. It was the challenge of race against race to mortal combat. His closing words again swept every negro from his seat and melted every voice into a single frenzied shout: "Within five years," he cried, "the intelligence and the wealth of this mighty State will be transferred to the negro race. Lift up your heads. The world is yours. Take it. Here and now I serve notice on every white man who breathes that I am as good as he is. I demand, and I am going to have, the privilege of going to see him in his house or his hotel, eating with him and sleeping with him, and when I see fit, to take his daughter in marriage!" As the doctor emerged from the stifling crowd with his friend, he drew a deep breath of fresh air, took from his pocket his conservative memorial, picked it into little bits, and scattered them along the street as he walked in silence back to his hotel. CHAPTER IX AT LOVER'S LEAP In spite of the pitiful collapse of old Stoneman under his stroke of paralysis, his children still saw the unconquered soul shining in his colourless eyes. They had both been on the point of confessing their love affairs to him and joining in the inevitable struggle when he was stricken. They knew only too well that he would not consent to a dual alliance with the Camerons under the conditions of fierce hatreds and violence into which the State had drifted. They were too high-minded to consider a violation of his wishes while thus helpless, with his strange eyes following them about in childlike eagerness. His weakness was mightier than his iron will. So, for eighteen months, while he slowly groped out of mental twilight, each had waited--Elsie with a tender faith struggling with despair, and Phil in a torture of uncertainty and fear. In the meantime, the young Northerner had become as radical in his sympathies with the Southern people as his father had ever been against them. This power of assimilation has always been a mark of Southern genius. The sight of the Black Hand on their throats now roused his righteous indignation. The patience with which they endured was to him amazing. The Southerner he had found to be the last man on earth to become a revolutionist. All his traits were against it. His genius for command, the deep sense of duty and honour, his hospitality, his deathless love of home, his supreme constancy and sense of civic unity, all combined to make him ultraconservative. He began now to see that it was reverence for authority as expressed in the Constitution under which slavery was established which made Secession inevitable. Besides, the laziness and incapacity of the negro had been more than he could endure. With no ties of tradition or habits of life to bind him, he simply refused to tolerate them. In this feeling Elsie had grown early to sympathize. She discharged Aunt Cindy for feeding her children from the kitchen, and brought a cook and house girl from the North, while Phil would employ only white men in any capacity. In the desolation of negro rule the Cameron farm had become worthless. The taxes had more than absorbed the income, and the place was only kept from execution by the indomitable energy of Mrs. Cameron, who made the hotel pay enough to carry the interest on a mortgage which was increasing from season to season. The doctor's practice was with him a divine calling. He never sent bills to his patients. They paid something if they had it. Now they had nothing. Ben's law practice was large for his age and experience, but his clients had no money. While the Camerons were growing each day poorer, Phil was becoming rich. His genius, skill, and enterprise had been quick to see the possibilities of the waterpower. The old Eagle cotton mills had been burned during the war. Phil organized the Eagle & Phoenix Company, interested Northern capitalists, bought the falls, and erected two great mills, the dim hum of whose spindles added a new note to the river's music. Eager, swift, modest, his head full of ideas, his heart full of faith, he had pressed forward to success. As the old Commoner's mind began to clear, and his recovery was sure, Phil determined to press his suit for Margaret's hand to an issue. Ben had dropped a hint of an interview of the Rev. Hugh McAlpin with Dr. Cameron, which had thrown Phil into a cold sweat. He hurried to the hotel to ask Margaret to drive with him that afternoon. He would stop at Lover's Leap and settle the question. He met the preacher, just emerging from the door, calm, handsome, serious, and Margaret by his side. The dark-haired beauty seemed strangely serene. What could it mean? His heart was in his throat. Was he too late? Wreathed in smiles when the preacher had gone, the girl's face was a riddle he could not solve. To his joy, she consented to go. As he left in his trim little buggy for the hotel, he stooped and kissed Elsie, whispering: "Make an offering on the altar of love for me, Sis!" "You're too slow. The prayers of all the saints will not save you!" she replied with a laugh, throwing him a kiss as he disappeared in the dust. As they drove through the great forest on the cliffs overlooking the river, the Southern world seemed lit with new splendours to-day for the Northerner. His heart beat with a strange courage. The odour of the pines, their sighing music, the subtone of the falls below, the subtle life-giving perfume of the fullness of summer, the splendour of the sun gleaming through the deep foliage, and the sweet sensuous air, all seemed incarnate in the calm, lovely face and gracious figure beside him. They took their seat on the old rustic built against the beech, which was the last tree on the brink of the cliff. A hundred feet below flowed the river, rippling softly along a narrow strip of sand which its current had thrown against the rocks. The ledge of towering granite formed a cave eighty feet in depth at the water's edge. From this projecting wall, tradition said a young Indian princess once leaped with her lover, fleeing from the wrath of a cruel father who had separated them. The cave below was inaccessible from above, being reached by a narrow footpath along the river's edge when entered a mile downstream. The view from the seat, under the beech, was one of marvellous beauty. For miles the broad river rolled in calm, shining glory seaward, its banks fringed with cane and trees, while fields of corn and cotton spread in waving green toward the distant hills and blue mountains of the west. Every tree on this cliff was cut with the initials of generations of lovers from Piedmont. They sat in silence for awhile, Margaret idly playing with a flower she had picked by the pathway, and Phil watching her devoutly. The Southern sun had tinged her face the reddish warm hue of ripened fruit, doubly radiant by contrast with her wealth of dark-brown hair. The lustrous glance of her eyes, half veiled by their long lashes, and the graceful, careless pose of her stately figure held him enraptured. Her dress of airy, azure blue, so becoming to her dark beauty, gave Phil the impression of eiderdown feathers of some rare bird of the tropics. He felt that if he dared to touch her she might lift her wings and sail over the cliff into the sky and forget to light again at his side. "I am going to ask a very bold and impertinent question, Miss Margaret," Phil said with resolution. "May I?" Margaret smiled incredulously. "I'll risk your impertinence, and decide as to its boldness." "Tell me, please, what that preacher said to you to-day." Margaret looked away, unable to suppress the merriment that played about her eyes and mouth. "Will you never breathe it to a soul if I do?" "Never." "Honest Injun, here on the sacred altar of the princess?" "On my honour." "Then I'll tell you," she said, biting her lips to keep back a laugh. "Mr. McAlpin is very handsome and eloquent. I have always thought him the best preacher we have ever had in Piedmont----" "Yes, I know," Phil interrupted with a frown. "He is very pious," she went on evenly, "and seeks Divine guidance in prayer in everything he does. He called this morning to see me, and I was playing for him in the little music-room off the parlour, when he suddenly closed the door and said: "'Miss Margaret, I am going to take, this morning, the most important step of my life----' "Of course I hadn't the remotest idea what he meant---- "'Will you join me in a word of prayer?' he asked, and knelt right down. I was accustomed, of course, to kneel with him in family worship at his pastoral calls, and so from habit I slipped to one knee by the piano stool, wondering what on earth he was about. When he prayed with fervour for the Lord to bless the great love with which he hoped to hallow my life--I giggled. It broke up the meeting. He rose and asked me to marry him. I told him the Lord hadn't revealed it to me----" Phil seized her hand and held it firmly. The smile died from the girl's face, her hand trembled, and the rose tint on her cheeks flamed to scarlet. "Margaret, my own, I love you," he cried with joy. "You could have told that story only to the one man whom you love--is it not true?" "Yes. I've loved you always," said the low, sweet voice. "Always?" asked Phil through a tear. "Before I saw you, when they told me you were as Ben's twin brother, my heart began to sing at the sound of your name----" "Call it," he whispered. "Phil, my sweetheart!" she said with a laugh. "How tender and homelike the music of your voice! The world has never seen the match of your gracious Southern womanhood! Snowbound in the North, I dreamed, as a child, of this world of eternal sunshine. And now every memory and dream I've found in you." "And you won't be disappointed in my simple ideal that finds its all within a home?" "No. I love the old-fashioned dream of the South. Maybe you have enchanted me, but I love these green hills and mountains, these rivers musical with cascade and fall, these solemn forests--but for the Black Curse, the South would be to-day the garden of the world!" "And you will help our people lift this curse?" softly asked the girl, nestling closer to his side. "Yes, dearest, thy people shall be mine! Had I a thousand wrongs to cherish, I'd forgive them all for your sake. I'll help you build here a new South on all that's good and noble in the old, until its dead fields blossom again, its harbours bristle with ships, and the hum of a thousand industries make music in every valley. I'd sing to you in burning verse if I could, but it is not my way. I have been awkward and slow in love, perhaps--but I'll be swift in your service. I dream to make dead stones and wood live and breathe for you, of victories wrung from Nature that are yours. My poems will be deeds, my flowers the hard-earned wealth that has a soul, which I shall lay at your feet." "Who said my lover was dumb?" she sighed, with a twinkle in her shining eyes. "You must introduce me to your father soon. He must like me as my father does you, or our dream can never come true." A pain gripped Phil's heart, but he answered bravely: "I will. He can't help loving you." They stood on the rustic seat to carve their initials within a circle, high on the old beechwood book of love. "May I write it out in full--Margaret Cameron--Philip Stoneman?" he asked. "No--only the initials now--the full names when you've seen my father and I've seen yours. Jeannie Campbell and Henry Lenoir were once written thus in full, and many a lover has looked at that circle and prayed for happiness like theirs. You can see there a new one cut over the old, the bark has filled, and written on the fresh page is 'Marion Lenoir' with the blank below for her lover's name." Phil looked at the freshly cut circle and laughed: "I wonder if Marion or her mother did that?" "Her mother, of course." "I wonder whose will be the lucky name some day within it?" said Phil musingly as he finished his own. CHAPTER X A NIGHT HAWK When the old Commoner's private physician had gone and his mind had fully cleared, he would sit for hours in the sunshine of the vine-clad porch, asking Elsie of the village, its life, and its people. He smiled good-naturedly at her eager sympathy for their sufferings as at the enthusiasm of a child who could not understand. He had come possessed by a great idea--events must submit to it. Her assurance that the poverty and losses of the people were far in excess of the worst they had known during the war was too absurd even to secure his attention. He had refused to know any of the people, ignoring the existence of Elsie's callers. But he had fallen in love with Marion from the moment he had seen her. The cold eye of the old fox hunter kindled with the fire of his forgotten youth at the sight of this beautiful girl seated on the glistening back of the mare she had saved from death. As she rode through the village every boy lifted his hat as to passing royalty, and no one, old or young, could allow her to pass without a cry of admiration. Her exquisite figure had developed into the full tropic splendour of Southern girlhood. She had rejected three proposals from ardent lovers, on one of whom her mother had quite set her heart. A great fear had grown in Mrs. Lenoir's mind lest she were in love with Ben Cameron. She slipped her arm around her one day and timidly asked her. A faint flush tinged Marion's face up to the roots of her delicate blonde hair, and she answered with a quick laugh: "Mamma, how silly you are! You know I've always been in love with Ben--since I can first remember. I know he is in love with Elsie Stoneman. I am too young, the world too beautiful, and life too sweet to grieve over my first baby love. I expect to dance with him at his wedding, then meet my fate and build my own nest." Old Stoneman begged that she come every day to see him. He never tired praising her to Elsie. As she walked gracefully up to the house one afternoon, holding Hugh by the hand, he said to Elsie: "Next to you, my dear, she is the most charming creature I ever saw. Her tenderness for everything that needs help touches the heart of an old lame man in a very soft spot." "I've never seen any one who could resist her," Elsie answered. "Her gloves may be worn, her feet clad in old shoes, yet she is always neat, graceful, dainty, and serene. No wonder her mother worships her." Sam Ross, her simple friend, had stopped at the gate, and looked over into the lawn as if afraid to come in. When Marion saw Sam, she turned back to the gate to invite him in. The keeper of the poor, a vicious-looking negro, suddenly confronted him, and he shrank in terror close to the girl's side. "What you doin' here, sah?" the black keeper railed. "Ain't I done tole you 'bout runnin' away?" "You let him alone," Marion cried. The negro pushed her roughly from his side and knocked Sam down. The girl screamed for help, and old Stoneman hobbled down the steps, following Elsie. When they reached the gate, Marion was bending over the prostrate form. "Oh, my, my, I believe he's killed him!" she wailed. "Run for the doctor, sonny, quick," Stoneman said to Hugh. The boy darted away and brought Dr. Cameron. "How dare you strike that man, you devil?" thundered the old statesman. "'Case I tole 'im ter stay home en do de wuk I put 'im at, en he all de time runnin' off here ter git somfin' ter eat. I gwine frail de life outen 'im, ef he doan min' me." "Well, you make tracks back to the Poorhouse. I'll attend to this man, and I'll have you arrested for this before night," said Stoneman, with a scowl. The black keeper laughed as he left. "Not 'less you'se er bigger man dan Gubner Silas Lynch, you won't!" When Dr. Cameron had restored Sam, and dressed the wound on his head where he had struck a stone in falling, Stoneman insisted that the boy be put to bed. Turning to Dr. Cameron, he asked: "Why should they put a brute like this in charge of the poor?" "That's a large question, sir, at this time," said the doctor politely, "and now that you have asked it, I have some things I've been longing for an opportunity to say to you." "Be seated, sir," the old Commoner answered, "I shall be glad to hear them." Elsie's heart leaped with joy over the possible outcome of this appeal, and she left the room with a smile for the doctor. "First, allow me," said the Southerner pleasantly, "to express my sorrow at your long illness, and my pleasure at seeing you so well. Your children have won the love of all our people and have had our deepest sympathy in your illness." Stoneman muttered an inaudible reply, and the doctor went on: "Your question brings up, at once, the problem of the misery and degradation into which our country has sunk under negro rule----" Stoneman smiled coldly and interrupted: "Of course, you understand my position in politics, Doctor Cameron--I am a Radical Republican." "So much the better," was the response. "I have been longing for months to get your ear. Your word will be all the more powerful if raised in our behalf. The negro is the master of our State, county, city, and town governments. Every school, college, hospital, asylum, and poorhouse is his prey. What you have seen is but a sample. Negro insolence grows beyond endurance. Their women are taught to insult their old mistresses and mock their poverty as they pass in their old, faded dresses. Yesterday a black driver struck a white child of six with his whip, and when the mother protested, she was arrested by a negro policeman, taken before a negro magistrate, and fined $10 for 'insulting a freedman.'" Stoneman frowned: "Such things must be very exceptional." "They are everyday occurrences and cease to excite comment. Lynch, the Lieutenant-Governor, who has bought a summer home here, is urging this campaign of insult with deliberate purpose----" The old man shook his head. "I can't think the Lieutenant-Governor guilty of such petty villainy." "Our school commissioner," the doctor continued, "is a negro who can neither read nor write. The black grand jury last week discharged a negro for stealing cattle and indicted the owner for false imprisonment. No such rate of taxation was ever imposed on a civilized people. A tithe of it cost Great Britain her colonies. There are 5,000 homes in this county--2,900 of them are advertised for sale by the sheriff to meet his tax bills. This house will be sold next court day----" Stoneman looked up sharply. "Sold for taxes?" "Yes; with the farm which has always been Mrs. Lenoir's support. In part her loss came from the cotton tax. Congress, in addition to the desolation of war, and the ruin of black rule, has wrung from the cotton farmers of the South a tax of $67,000,000. Every dollar of this money bears the stain of the blood of starving people. They are ready to give up, or to spring some desperate scheme of resistance----" The old man lifted his massive head and his great jaws came together with a snap: "Resistance to the authority of the National Government?" "No; resistance to the travesty of government and the mockery of civilization under which we are being throttled! The bayonet is now in the hands of a brutal negro militia. The tyranny of military martinets was child's play to this. As I answered your call this morning I was stopped and turned back in the street by the drill of a company of negroes under the command of a vicious scoundrel named Gus who was my former slave. He is the captain of this company. Eighty thousand armed negro troops, answerable to no authority save the savage instincts of their officers, terrorize the State. Every white company has been disarmed and disbanded by our scallawag Governor. I tell you, sir, we are walking on the crust of a volcano----" Old Stoneman scowled as the doctor rose and walked nervously to the window and back. "An appeal from you to the conscience of the North might save us," he went on eagerly. "Black hordes of former slaves, with the intelligence of children and the instincts of savages, armed with modern rifles, parade daily in front of their unarmed former masters. A white man has no right a negro need respect. The children of the breed of men who speak the tongue of Burns and Shakespeare, Drake and Raleigh, have been disarmed and made subject to the black spawn of an African jungle! Can human flesh endure it? When Goth and Vandal barbarians overran Rome, the negro was the slave of the Roman Empire. The savages of the North blew out the light of Ancient Civilization, but in all the dark ages which followed they never dreamed the leprous infamy of raising a black slave to rule over his former master! No people in the history of the world have ever before been so basely betrayed, so wantonly humiliated and degraded!" Stoneman lifted his head in amazement at the burst of passionate intensity with which the Southerner poured out his protest. "For a Russian to rule a Pole," he went on, "a Turk to rule a Greek, or an Austrian to dominate an Italian is hard enough, but for a thick-lipped, flat-nosed, spindle-shanked negro, exuding his nauseating animal odour, to shout in derision over the hearths and homes of white men and women is an atrocity too monstrous for belief. Our people are yet dazed by its horror. My God! when they realize its meaning, whose arm will be strong enough to hold them?" "I should think the South was sufficiently amused with resistance to authority," interrupted Stoneman. "Even so. Yet there is a moral force at the bottom of every living race of men. The sense of right, the feeling of racial destiny--these are unconquered and unconquerable forces. Every man in South Carolina to-day is glad that slavery is dead. The war was not too great a price for us to pay for the lifting of its curse. And now to ask a Southerner to be the slave of a slave----" "And yet, Doctor," said Stoneman coolly, "manhood suffrage is the one eternal thing fixed in the nature of Democracy. It is inevitable." "At the price of racial life? Never!" said the Southerner, with fiery emphasis. "This Republic is great, not by reason of the amount of dirt we possess, the size of our census roll, or our voting register--we are great because of the genius of the race of pioneer white freemen who settled this continent, dared the might of kings, and made a wilderness the home of Freedom. Our future depends on the purity of this racial stock. The grant of the ballot to these millions of semi-savages and the riot of debauchery which has followed are crimes against human progress." "Yet may we not train him?" asked Stoneman. "To a point, yes, and then sink to his level if you walk as his equal in physical contact with him. His race is not an infant; it is a degenerate--older than yours in time. At last we are face to face with the man whom slavery concealed with its rags. Suffrage is but the new paper cloak with which the Demagogue has sought to hide the issue. Can we assimilate the negro? The very question is pollution. In Hayti no white man can own land. Black dukes and marquises drive over them and swear at them for getting under their wheels. Is civilization a patent cloak with which law-tinkers can wrap an animal and make him a king?" "But the negro must be protected by the ballot," protested the statesman. "The humblest man must have the opportunity to rise. The real issue is Democracy." "The issue, sir, is Civilization! Not whether a negro shall be protected, but whether Society is worth saving from barbarism." "The statesman can educate," put in the Commoner. The doctor cleared his throat with a quick little nervous cough he was in the habit of giving when deeply moved. "Education, sir, is the development of that which _is_. Since the dawn of history the negro has owned the continent of Africa--rich beyond the dream of poet's fancy, crunching acres of diamonds beneath his bare black feet. Yet he never picked one up from the dust until a white man showed to him its glittering light. His land swarmed with powerful and docile animals, yet he never dreamed a harness, cart, or sled. A hunter by necessity, he never made an axe, spear, or arrowhead worth preserving beyond the moment of its use. He lived as an ox, content to graze for an hour. In a land of stone and timber he never sawed a foot of lumber, carved a block, or built a house save of broken sticks and mud. With league on league of ocean strand and miles of inland seas, for four thousand years he watched their surface ripple under the wind, heard the thunder of the surf on his beach, the howl of the storm over his head, gazed on the dim blue horizon calling him to worlds that lie beyond, and yet he never dreamed a sail! He lived as his fathers lived--stole his food, worked his wife, sold his children, ate his brother, content to drink, sing, dance, and sport as the ape! "And this creature, half child, half animal, the sport of impulse, whim, and conceit, 'pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw,' a being who, left to his will, roams at night and sleeps in the day, whose speech knows no word of love, whose passions, once aroused, are as the fury of the tiger--they have set this thing to rule over the Southern people----" The doctor sprang to his feet, his face livid, his eyes blazing with emotion. "Merciful God--it surpasses human belief!" He sank exhausted in his chair, and, extending his hand in an eloquent gesture, continued: "Surely, surely, sir, the people of the North are not mad? We can yet appeal to the conscience and the brain of our brethren of a common race?" Stoneman was silent as if stunned. Deep down in his strange soul he was drunk with the joy of a triumphant vengeance he had carried locked in the depths of his being, yet the intensity of this man's suffering for a people's cause surprised and distressed him as all individual pain hurt him. Dr. Cameron rose, stung by his silence and the consciousness of the hostility with which Stoneman had wrapped himself. "Pardon my apparent rudeness, Doctor," he said at length, extending his hand. "The violence of your feeling stunned me for the moment. I'm obliged to you for speaking. I like a plain-spoken man. I am sorry to learn of the stupidity of the former military commandant in this town----" "My personal wrongs, sir," the doctor broke in, "are nothing!" "I am sorry, too, about these individual cases of suffering. They are the necessary incidents of a great upheaval. But may it not all come out right in the end? After the Dark Ages, day broke at last. We have the printing press, railroad, and telegraph--a revolution in human affairs. We may do in years what it took ages to do in the past. May not the black man speedily emerge? Who knows? An appeal to the North will be a waste of breath. This experiment is going to be made. It is written in the book of Fate. But I like you. Come to see me again." Dr. Cameron left with a heavy heart. He had grown a great hope in this long-wished-for appeal to Stoneman. It had come to his ears that the old man, who had dwelt as one dead in their village, was a power. It was ten o'clock before the doctor walked slowly back to the hotel. As he passed the armoury of the black militia, they were still drilling under the command of Gus. The windows were open, through which came the steady tramp of heavy feet and the cry of "Hep! Hep! Hep!" from the Captain's thick cracked lips. The full-dress officer's uniform, with its gold epaulets, yellow stripes, and glistening sword, only accentuated the coarse bestiality of Gus. His huge jaws seemed to hide completely the gold braid on his collar. The doctor watched, with a shudder, his black bloated face covered with perspiration and the huge hand gripping his sword. They suddenly halted in double ranks and Gus yelled: "Odah, arms!" The butts of their rifles crashed to the floor with precision, and they were allowed to break ranks for a brief rest. They sang "John Brown's Body," and as its echoes died away a big negro swung his rifle in a circle over his head, shouting: "Here's your regulator for white trash! En dey's nine hundred ob 'em in dis county!" "Yas, Lawd!" howled another. "We got 'em down now en we keep 'em dar, chile!" bawled another. The doctor passed on slowly to the hotel. The night was dark, the streets were without lights under their present rulers, and the stars were hidden with swift-flying clouds which threatened a storm. As he passed under the boughs of an oak in front of his house, a voice above him whispered: "A message for you, sir." Had the wings of a spirit suddenly brushed his cheek, he would not have been more startled. "Who are you?" he asked, with a slight tremor. "A Night Hawk of the Invisible Empire, with a message from the Grand Dragon of the Realm," was the low answer, as he thrust a note in the doctor's hand. "I will wait for your answer." The doctor fumbled to his office on the corner of the lawn, struck a match, and read: "A great Scotch-Irish leader of the South from Memphis is here to-night and wishes to see you. If you will meet General Forrest, I will bring him to the hotel in fifteen minutes. Burn this. Ben." The doctor walked quickly back to the spot where he had heard the voice, and said: "I'll see him with pleasure." The invisible messenger wheeled his horse, and in a moment the echo of his muffled hoofs had died away in the distance. CHAPTER XI THE BEAT OF A SPARROW'S WING Dr. Cameron's appeal had left the old Commoner unshaken in his idea. There could be but one side to any question with such a man, and that was his side. He would stand by his own men, too. He believed in his own forces. The bayonet was essential to his revolutionary programme--hence the hand which held it could do no wrong. Wrongs were accidents which might occur under any system. Yet in no way did he display the strange contradictions of his character so plainly as in his inability to hate the individual who stood for the idea he was fighting with maniac fury. He liked Dr. Cameron instantly, though he had come to do a crime that would send him into beggared exile. Individual suffering he could not endure. In this the doctor's appeal had startling results. He sent for Mrs. Lenoir and Marion. "I understand, Madam," he said gravely, "that your house and farm are to be sold for taxes." "Yes, sir; we've given it up this time. Nothing can be done," was the hopeless answer. "Would you consider an offer of twenty dollars an acre?" "Nobody would be fool enough to offer it. You can buy all the land in the county for a dollar an acre. It's not worth anything." "I disagree with you," said Stoneman cheerfully. "I am looking far ahead. I would like to make an experiment here with Pennsylvania methods on this land. I'll give you ten thousand dollars cash for your five hundred acres if you will take it." "You don't mean it?" Mrs. Lenoir gasped, choking back the tears. "Certainly. You can at once return to your home. I'll take another house, and invest your money for you in good Northern securities." The mother burst into sobs, unable to speak, while Marion threw her arms impulsively around the old man's neck and kissed him. His cold eyes were warmed with the first tear they had shed in years. He moved the next day to the Ross estate, which he rented, had Sam brought back to the home of his childhood in charge of a good-natured white attendant, and installed in one of the little cottages on the lawn. He ordered Lynch to arrest the keeper of the poor, and hold him on a charge of assault with intent to kill, awaiting the action of the Grand Jury. The Lieutenant-Governor received this order with sullen anger--yet he saw to its execution. He was not quite ready for a break with the man who had made him. Astonished at his new humour, Phil and Elsie hastened to confess to him their love affairs and ask his approval of their choice. His reply was cautious, yet he did not refuse his consent. He advised them to wait a few months, allow him time to know the young people, and get his bearings on the conditions of Southern society. His mood of tenderness was a startling revelation to them of the depth and intensity of his love. When Mrs. Lenoir returned with Marion to her vine-clad home, she spent the first day of perfect joy since the death of her lover husband. The deed had not yet been made of the transfer of the farm, but it was only a question of legal formality. She was to receive the money in the form of interest-bearing securities and deliver the title on the following morning. Arm in arm, mother and daughter visited again each hallowed spot, with the sweet sense of ownership. The place was in perfect order. Its flowers were in gorgeous bloom, its walks clean and neat, the fences painted, and the gates swung on new hinges. They stood with their arms about one another, watching the sun sink behind the mountains, with tears of gratitude and hope stirring their souls. Ben Cameron strode through the gate, and they hurried to meet him with cries of joy. "Just dropped in a minute to see if you are snug for the night," he said. "Of course, snug and so happy we've been hugging one another for hours," said the mother. "Oh, Ben, the clouds have lifted at last!" "Has Aunt Cindy come yet?" he asked. "No, but she'll be here in the morning to get breakfast. We don't want anything to eat," she answered. "Then I'll come out when I'm through my business to-night, and sleep in the house to keep you company." "Nonsense," said the mother, "we couldn't think of putting you to the trouble. We've spent many a night here alone." "But not in the past two years," he said with a frown. "We're not afraid," Marion said with a smile. "Besides, we'd keep you awake all night with our laughter and foolishness, rummaging through the house." "You'd better let me," Ben protested. "No," said the mother, "we'll be happier to-night alone, with only God's eye to see how perfectly silly we can be. Come and take supper with us to-morrow night. Bring Elsie and her guitar--I don't like the banjo--and we'll have a little love feast with music in the moonlight." "Yes, do that," cried Marion. "I know we owe this good luck to her. I want to tell her how much I love her for it." "Well, if you insist on staying alone," said Ben reluctantly, "I'll bring Miss Elsie to-morrow, but I don't like your being here without Aunt Cindy to-night." "Oh, we're all right!" laughed Marion, "but what I want to know is what you are doing out so late every night since you've come home, and where you were gone for the past week?" "Important business," he answered soberly. "Business--I expect!" she cried. "Look here, Ben Cameron, have you another girl somewhere you're flirting with?" "Yes," he answered slowly, coming closer and his voice dropping to a whisper, "and her name is Death." "Why, Ben!" Marion gasped, placing her trembling hand unconsciously on his arm, a faint flush mantling her cheek and leaving it white. "What do you mean?" asked the mother in low tones. "Nothing that I can explain. I only wish to warn you both never to ask me such questions before any one." "Forgive me," said Marion, with a tremor. "I didn't think it serious." Ben pressed the little warm hand, watching her mouth quiver with a smile that was half a sigh, as he answered: "You know I'd trust either of you with my life, but I can't be too careful." "We'll remember, Sir Knight," said the mother. "Don't forget, then, to-morrow--and spend the evening with us. I wish I had one of Marion's new dresses done. Poor child, she has never had a decent dress in her life before. You know I never look at my pretty baby grown to such a beautiful womanhood without hearing Henry say over and over again--'Beauty is a sign of the soul--the body is the soul!'" "Well, I've my doubts about your improving her with a fine dress," he replied thoughtfully. "I don't believe that more beautifully dressed women ever walked the earth than our girls of the South who came out of the war clad in the pathos of poverty, smiling bravely through the shadows, bearing themselves as queens though they wore the dress of the shepherdess." "I'm almost tempted to kiss you for that, as you once took advantage of me!" said Marion, with enthusiasm. The moon had risen and a whippoorwill was chanting his weird song on the lawn as Ben left them leaning on the gate. * * * * * It was past midnight before they finished the last touches in restoring their nest to its old homelike appearance and sat down happy and tired in the room in which Marion was born, brooding and dreaming and talking over the future. The mother was hanging on the words of her daughter, all the baffled love of the dead poet husband, her griefs and poverty consumed in the glowing joy of new hopes. Her love for this child was now a triumphant passion, which had melted her own being into the object of worship, until the soul of the daughter was superimposed on the mother's as the magnetized by the magnetizer. "And you'll never keep a secret from me, dear?" she asked Marion. "Never." "You'll tell me all your love affairs?" she asked softly, as she drew the shining blonde head down on her shoulder. "Faithfully." "You know I've been afraid sometimes you were keeping something back from me, deep down in your heart--and I'm jealous. You didn't refuse Henry Grier because you loved Ben Cameron--now, did you?" The little head lay still before she answered: [Illustration: MAE MARSH AS THE VICTIM OF RECONSTRUCTION.] "How many times must I tell you, Silly, that I've loved Ben since I can remember, that I will always love him, and when I meet my fate, at last, I shall boast to my children of my sweet girl romance with the Hero of Piedmont, and they shall laugh and cry with me over----" "What's that?" whispered the mother, leaping to her feet. "I heard nothing," Marion answered, listening. "I thought I heard footsteps on the porch." "Maybe it's Ben, who decided to come anyhow," said the girl. "But he'd knock!" whispered the mother. The door flew open with a crash, and four black brutes leaped into the room, Gus in the lead, with a revolver in his hand, his yellow teeth grinning through his thick lips. "Scream now, an' I blow yer brains out," he growled. Blanched with horror, the mother sprang before Marion with a shivering cry: "What do you want?" "Not you," said Gus, closing the blinds and handing a rope to another brute. "Tie de ole one ter de bedpost." The mother screamed. A blow from a black fist in her mouth, and the rope was tied. With the strength of despair she tore at the cords, half rising to her feet, while with mortal anguish she gasped: "For God's sake, spare my baby! Do as you will with me, and kill me--do not touch her!" Again the huge fist swept her to the floor. Marion staggered against the wall, her face white, her delicate lips trembling with the chill of a fear colder than death. "We have no money--the deed has not been delivered," she pleaded, a sudden glimmer of hope flashing in her blue eyes. Gus stepped closer, with an ugly leer, his flat nose dilated, his sinister bead eyes wide apart, gleaming apelike, as he laughed: "We ain't atter money!" The girl uttered a cry, long, tremulous, heart-rending, piteous. A single tiger spring, and the black claws of the beast sank into the soft white throat and she was still. CHAPTER XII AT THE DAWN OF DAY It was three o'clock before Marion regained consciousness, crawled to her mother, and crouched in dumb convulsions in her arms. "What can we do, my darling?" the mother asked at last. "Die--thank God, we have the strength left!" "Yes, my love," was the faint answer. "No one must ever know. We will hide quickly every trace of crime. They will think we strolled to Lover's Leap and fell over the cliff, and my name will always be sweet and clean--you understand--come, we must hurry----" With swift hands, her blue eyes shining with a strange light, the girl removed the shreds of torn clothes, bathed, and put on the dress of spotless white she wore the night Ben Cameron kissed her and called her a heroine. The mother cleaned and swept the room, piled the torn clothes and cord in the fireplace and burned them, dressed herself as if for a walk, softly closed the doors, and hurried with her daughter along the old pathway through the moonlit woods. At the edge of the forest she stopped and looked back tenderly at the little home shining amid the roses, caught their faint perfume and faltered: "Let's go back a minute--I want to see his room, and kiss Henry's picture again." "No, we are going to him now--I hear him calling us in the mists above the cliff," said the girl--"come, we must hurry. We might go mad and fail!" Down the dim cathedral aisles of the woods, hallowed by tender memories, through which the poet lover and father had taught them to walk with reverent feet and without fear, they fled to the old meeting-place of Love. On the brink of the precipice, the mother trembled, paused, drew back, and gasped: "Are you not afraid, my dear?" "No; death is sweet now," said the girl. "I fear only the pity of those we love." "Is there no other way? We might go among strangers," pleaded the mother. "We could not escape ourselves! The thought of life is torture. Only those who hate me could wish that I live. The grave will be soft and cool, the light of day a burning shame." "Come back to the seat a moment--let me tell you my love again," urged the mother. "Life still is dear while I hold your hand." As they sat in brooding anguish, floating up from the river valley came the music of a banjo in a negro cabin, mingled with vulgar shout and song and dance. A verse of the ribald senseless lay of the player echoed above the banjo's pert refrain: "Chicken in de bread tray, pickin' up dough; Granny, will your dog bite? No, chile, no!" The mother shivered and drew Marion closer. "Oh, dear! oh, dear! has it come to this--all my hopes of your beautiful life!" The girl lifted her head and kissed the quivering lips. "With what loving wonder we saw you grow," she sighed, "from a tottering babe on to the hour we watched the mystic light of maidenhood dawn in your blue eyes--and all to end in this hideous, leprous shame. No--No! I will not have it! It's only a horrible dream! God is not dead!" The young mother sank to her knees and buried her face in Marion's lap in a hopeless paroxysm of grief. The girl bent, kissed the curling hair, and smoothed it with her soft hand. A sparrow chirped in the tree above, a wren twittered in a bush, and down on the river's bank a mocking-bird softly waked his mate with a note of thrilling sweetness. "The morning is coming, dearest; we must go," said Marion. "This shame I can never forget, nor will the world forget. Death is the only way." They walked to the brink, and the mother's arms stole round the girl. "Oh, my baby, my beautiful darling, life of my life, heart of my heart, soul of my soul!" They stood for a moment, as if listening to the music of the falls, looking out over the valley faintly outlining itself in the dawn. The first far-away streaks of blue light on the mountain ranges, defining distance, slowly appeared. A fresh motionless day brooded over the world as the amorous stir of the spirit of morning rose from the moist earth of the fields below. A bright star still shone in the sky, and the face of the mother gazed on it intently. Did the Woman-spirit, the burning focus of the fiercest desire to live and will, catch in this supreme moment the star's Divine speech before which all human passions sink into silence? Perhaps, for she smiled. The daughter answered with a smile; and then, hand in hand, they stepped from the cliff into the mists and on through the opal gates of death. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Book IV--The Ku Klux Klan CHAPTER I THE HUNT FOR THE ANIMAL Aunt Cindy came at seven o'clock to get breakfast, and finding the house closed and no one at home, supposed Mrs. Lenoir and Marion had remained at the Cameron House for the night. She sat down on the steps, waited grumblingly an hour, and then hurried to the hotel to scold her former mistress for keeping her out so long. Accustomed to enter familiarly, she thrust her head into the dining-room, where the family were at breakfast with a solitary guest, muttering the speech she had been rehearsing on the way: "I lak ter know what sort er way dis--whar's Miss Jeannie?" Ben leaped to his feet. "Isn't she at home?" "Been waitin' dar two hours." "Great God!" he groaned, springing through the door and rushing to saddle the mare. As he left he called to his father: "Let no one know till I return." At the house he could find no trace of the crime he had suspected. Every room was in perfect order. He searched the yard carefully and under the cedar by the window he saw the barefoot tracks of a negro. The white man was never born who could make that track. The enormous heel projected backward, and in the hollow of the instep where the dirt would scarcely be touched by an Aryan was the deep wide mark of the African's flat foot. He carefully measured it, brought from an outhouse a box, and fastened it over the spot. It might have been an ordinary chicken thief, of course. He could not tell, but it was a fact of big import. A sudden hope flashed through his mind that they might have risen with the sun and strolled to their favourite haunt at Lover's Leap. In two minutes he was there, gazing with hard-set eyes at Marion's hat and handkerchief lying on the shelving rock. The mare bent her glistening neck, touched the hat with her nose, lifted her head, dilated her delicate nostrils, looked out over the cliff with her great soft half-human eyes and whinnied gently. Ben leaped to the ground, picked up the handkerchief, and looked at the initials, "M. L.," worked in the corner. He knew what lay on the river's brink below as well as if he stood over the dead bodies. He kissed the letters of her name, crushed the handkerchief in his locked hands, and cried: "Now, Lord God, give me strength for the service of my people!" He hurriedly examined the ground, amazed to find no trace of a struggle or crime. Could it be possible they had ventured too near the brink and fallen over? He hurried to report to his father his discoveries, instructed his mother and Margaret to keep the servants quiet until the truth was known, and the two men returned along the river's brink to the foot of the cliff. They found the bodies close to the water's edge, Marion had been killed instantly. Her fair blonde head lay in a crimson circle sharply defined in the white sand. But the mother was still warm with life. She had scarcely ceased to breathe. In one last desperate throb of love the trembling soul had dragged the dying body to the girl's side, and she had died with her head resting on the fair round neck as though she had kissed her and fallen asleep. Father and son clasped hands and stood for a moment with uncovered heads. The doctor said at length: "Go to the coroner at once and see that he summons the jury _you_ select and hand to him. Bring them immediately. I will examine the bodies before they arrive." Ben took the negro coroner into his office alone, turned the key, told him of the discovery, and handed him the list of the jury. "I'll hatter see Mr. Lynch fust, sah," he answered. Ben placed his hand on his hip pocket and said coldly: "Put your cross-mark on those forms I've made out there for you, go with me immediately, and summon these men. If you dare put a negro on this jury, or open your mouth as to what has occurred in this room, I'll kill you." The negro tremblingly did as he was commanded. The coroner's jury reported that the mother and daughter had been killed by accidentally failing over the cliff. In all the throng of grief-stricken friends who came to the little cottage that day, but two men knew the hell-lit secret beneath the tragedy. When the bodies reached the home, Doctor Cameron placed Mrs. Cameron and Margaret outside to receive visitors and prevent any one from disturbing him. He took Ben into the room and locked the doors. "My boy, I wish you to witness an experiment." He drew from its case a powerful microscope of French make. "What on earth are you going to do, sir?" The doctor's brilliant eyes flashed with a mystic light as he replied: "Find the fiend who did this crime--and then we will hang him on a gallows so high that all men from the rivers to ends of the earth shall see and feel and know the might of an unconquerable race of men." "But there's no trace of him here." "We shall see," said the doctor, adjusting his instrument. "I believe that a microscope of sufficient power will reveal on the retina of these dead eyes the image of this devil as if etched there by fire. The experiment has been made successfully in France. No word or deed of man is lost. A German scholar has a memory so wonderful he can repeat whole volumes of Latin, German, and French without an error. A Russian officer has been known to repeat the roll-call of any regiment by reading it twice. Psychologists hold that nothing is lost from the memory of man. Impressions remain in the brain like words written on paper in invisible ink. So I believe of images in the eye if we can trace them early enough. If no impression were made subsequently on the mother's eye by the light of day, I believe the fire-etched record of this crime can yet be traced." Ben watched him with breathless interest. He first examined Marion's eyes. But in the cold azure blue of their pure depths he could find nothing. "It's as I feared with the child," he said. "I can see nothing. It is on the mother I rely. In the splendour of life, at thirty-seven she was the full-blown perfection of womanhood, with every vital force at its highest tension----" He looked long and patiently into the dead mother's eye, rose and wiped the perspiration from his face. "What is it, sir?" asked Ben. Without reply, as if in a trance, he returned to the microscope and again rose with the little, quick, nervous cough he gave only in the greatest excitement, and whispered: "Look now and tell me what you see." Ben looked and said: "I can see nothing." "Your powers of vision are not trained as mine," replied the doctor, resuming his place at the instrument. "What do you see?" asked the younger man, bending nervously. "The bestial figure of a negro--his huge black hand plainly defined--the upper part of the face is dim, as if obscured by a gray mist of dawn--but the massive jaws and lips are clear--merciful God--yes--it's Gus!" The doctor leaped to his feet livid with excitement. Ben bent again, looked long and eagerly, but could see nothing. "I'm afraid the image is in your eye, sir, not the mother's," said Ben sadly. "That's possible, of course," said the doctor, "yet I don't believe it." "I've thought of the same scoundrel and tried blood hounds on that track, but for some reason they couldn't follow it. I suspected him from the first, and especially since learning that he left for Columbia on the early morning train on pretended official business." "Then I'm not mistaken," insisted the doctor, trembling with excitement. "Now do as I tell you. Find when he returns. Capture him, bind, gag, and carry him to your meeting-place under the cliff, and let me know." On the afternoon of the funeral, two days later, Ben received a cypher telegram from the conductor on the train telling him that Gus was on the evening mail due at Piedmont at nine o'clock. The papers had been filled with accounts of the accident, and an enormous crowd from the county and many admirers of the fiery lyrics of the poet father had come from distant parts to honour his name. All business was suspended, and the entire white population of the village followed the bodies to their last resting-place. As the crowds returned to their homes, no notice was taken of a dozen men on horseback who rode out of town by different ways about dusk. At eight o'clock they met in the woods near the first little flag-station located on McAllister's farm four miles from Piedmont, where a buggy awaited them. Two men of powerful build, who were strangers in the county, alighted from the buggy and walked along the track to board the train at the station three miles beyond and confer with the conductor. The men, who gathered in the woods, dismounted, removed their saddles, and from the folds of the blankets took a white disguise for horse and man. In a moment it was fitted on each horse, with buckles at the throat, breast, and tail, and the saddles replaced. The white robe for the man was made in the form of an ulster overcoat with cape, the skirt extending to the top of the shoes. From the red belt at the waist were swung two revolvers which had been concealed in their pockets. On each man's breast was a scarlet circle within which shone a white cross. The same scarlet circle and cross appeared on the horse's breast, while on his flanks flamed the three red mystic letters, K. K. K. Each man wore a white cap, from the edges of which fell a piece of cloth extending to the shoulders. Beneath the visor was an opening for the eyes and lower down one for the mouth. On the front of the caps of two of the men appeared the red wings of a hawk as the ensign of rank. From the top of each cap rose eighteen inches high a single spike held erect by a twisted wire. The disguises for man and horse were made of cheap unbleached domestic and weighed less than three pounds. They were easily folded within a blanket and kept under the saddle in a crowd without discovery. It required less than two minutes to remove the saddles, place the disguises, and remount. At the signal of a whistle, the men and horses arrayed in white and scarlet swung into double-file cavalry formation and stood awaiting orders. The moon was now shining brightly, and its light shimmering on the silent horses and men with their tall spiked caps made a picture such as the world had not seen since the Knights of the Middle Ages rode on their Holy Crusades. As the train neared the flag-station, which was dark and unattended, the conductor approached Gus, leaned over, and said: "I've just gotten a message from the sheriff telling me to warn you to get off at this station and slip into town. There's a crowd at the depot there waiting for you and they mean trouble." Gus trembled and whispered: "Den fur Gawd's sake lemme off here." The two men who got on at the station below stepped out before the negro, and as he alighted from the car, seized, tripped, and threw him to the ground. The engineer blew a sharp signal, and the train pulled on. In a minute Gus was bound and gagged. One of the men drew a whistle and blew twice. A single tremulous call like the cry of an owl answered. The swift beat of horses' feet followed, and four white-and-scarlet clansmen swept in a circle around the group. One of the strangers turned to the horseman with red-winged ensign on his cap, saluted, and said: "Here's your man, Night Hawk." "Thanks, gentlemen," was the answer. "Let us know when we can be of service to your county." The strangers sprang into their buggy and disappeared toward the North Carolina line. The clansmen blindfolded the negro, placed him on a horse, tied his legs securely, and his arms behind him to the ring in the saddle. The Night Hawk blew his whistle four sharp blasts, and his pickets galloped from their positions and joined him. Again the signal rang, and his men wheeled with the precision of trained cavalrymen into column formation three abreast, and rode toward Piedmont, the single black figure tied and gagged in the centre of the white-and-scarlet squadron. CHAPTER II THE FIERY CROSS The clansmen with their prisoner skirted the village and halted in the woods on the river bank. The Night Hawk signalled for single file, and in a few minutes they stood against the cliff under Lover's Leap and saluted their chief, who sat his horse, awaiting their arrival. Pickets were placed in each direction on the narrow path by which the spot was approached, and one was sent to stand guard on the shelving rock above. Through the narrow crooked entrance they led Gus into the cave which had been the rendezvous of the Piedmont Den of the Clan since its formation. The meeting-place was a grand hall eighty feet deep, fifty feet wide, and more than forty feet in height, which had been carved out of the stone by the swift current of the river in ages past when its waters stood at a higher level. To-night it was lighted by candles placed on the ledges of the walls. In the centre, on a fallen boulder, sat the Grand Cyclops of the Den, the presiding officer of the township, his rank marked by scarlet stripes on the white-cloth spike of his cap. Around him stood twenty or more clansmen in their uniform, completely disguised. One among them wore a yellow sash, trimmed in gold, about his waist, and on his breast two yellow circles with red crosses interlapping, denoting his rank to be the Grand Dragon of the Realm, or Commander-in-Chief of the State. The Cyclops rose from his seat: "Let the Grand Turk remove his prisoner for a moment and place him in charge of the Grand Sentinel at the door, until summoned." The officer disappeared with Gus, and the Cyclops continued: "The Chaplain will open our Council with prayer." Solemnly every white-shrouded figure knelt on the ground, and the voice of the Rev. Hugh McAlpin, trembling with feeling, echoed through the cave: "Lord God of our Fathers, as in times past thy children, fleeing from the oppressor, found refuge beneath the earth until once more the sun of righteousness rose, so are we met to-night. As we wrestle with the powers of darkness now strangling our life, give to our souls to endure as seeing the invisible, and to our right arms the strength of the martyred dead of our people. Have mercy on the poor, the weak, the innocent and defenceless, and deliver us from the body of the Black Death. In a land of light and beauty and love our women are prisoners of danger and fear. While the heathen walks his native heath unharmed and unafraid, in this fair Christian Southland our sisters, wives, and daughters dare not stroll at twilight through the streets or step beyond the highway at noon. The terror of the twilight deepens with the darkness, and the stoutest heart grows sick with fear for the red message the morning bringeth. Forgive our sins--they are many--but hide not thy face from us, O God, for thou art our refuge!" As the last echoes of the prayer lingered and died in the vaulted roof, the clansmen rose and stood a moment in silence. Again the voice of the Cyclops broke the stillness: "Brethren, we are met to-night at the request of the Grand Dragon of the Realm, who has honoured us with his presence, to constitute a High Court for the trial of a case involving life. Are the Night Hawks ready to submit their evidence?" "We are ready," came the answer. "Then let the Grand Scribe read the objects of the Order on which your authority rests." The Scribe opened his Book of Record, "_The Prescript of the Order of the Invisible Empire_," and solemnly read: "To the lovers of law and order, peace and justice, and to the shades of the venerated dead, greeting: "This is an institution of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy, and Patriotism: embodying in its genius and principles all that is chivalric in conduct, noble in sentiment, generous in manhood, and patriotic in purpose: its particular objects being, "First: To protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenceless from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent, and the brutal; to relieve the injured and the oppressed: to succour the suffering and unfortunate, and especially the widows and the orphans of Confederate Soldiers. "Second: To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and all the laws passed in conformity thereto, and to protect the States and the people thereof from all invasion from any source whatever. "Third: To aid and assist in the execution of all Constitutional laws, and to protect the people from unlawful seizure, and from trial except by their peers in conformity to the laws of the land." "The Night Hawks will produce their evidence," said the Cyclops, "and the Grand Monk will conduct the case of the people against the negro Augustus Cæsar, the former slave of Dr. Richard Cameron." Dr. Cameron advanced and removed his cap. His snow-white hair and beard, ruddy face and dark-brown brilliant eyes made a strange picture in its weird surroundings, like an ancient alchemist ready to conduct some daring experiment in the problem of life. "I am here, brethren," he said, "to accuse the black brute about to appear of the crime of assault on a daughter of the South----" A murmur of thrilling surprise and horror swept the crowd of white-and-scarlet figures as with one common impulse they moved closer. "His feet have been measured and they exactly tally with the negro tracks found under the window of the Lenoir cottage. His flight to Columbia and return on the publication of their deaths as an accident is a confirmation of our case. I will not relate to you the scientific experiment which first fixed my suspicion of this man's guilt. My witness could not confirm it, and it might not be to you credible. But this negro is peculiarly sensitive to hypnotic influence. I propose to put him under this power to-night before you, and, if he is guilty, I can make him tell his confederates, describe and rehearse the crime itself." The Night Hawks led Gus before Doctor Cameron, untied his hands, removed the gag, and slipped the blindfold from his head. Under the doctor's rigid gaze the negro's knees struck together, and he collapsed into complete hypnosis, merely lifting his huge paws lamely as if to ward a blow. They seated him on the boulder from which the Cyclops rose, and Gus stared about the cave and grinned as if in a dream seeing nothing. The doctor recalled to him the day of the crime, and he began to talk to his three confederates, describing his plot in detail, now and then pausing and breaking into a fiendish laugh. Old McAllister, who had three lovely daughters at home, threw off his cap, sank to his knees, and buried his face in his hands, while a dozen of the white figures crowded closer, nervously gripping the revolvers which hung from their red belts. Doctor Cameron pushed them back and lifted his hand in warning. The negro began to live the crime with fearful realism--the journey past the hotel to make sure the victims had gone to their home; the visit to Aunt Cindy's cabin to find her there; lying in the field waiting for the last light of the village to go out; gloating with vulgar exultation over their plot, and planning other crimes to follow its success--how they crept along the shadows of the hedgerow of the lawn to avoid the moonlight, stood under the cedar, and through the open windows watched the mother and daughter laughing and talking within---- "Min' what I tells you now--Tie de ole one, when I gib you de rope," said Gus in a whisper. "My God!" cried the agonized voice of the figure with the double cross--"that's what the piece of burnt rope in the fireplace meant!" Doctor Cameron again lifted his hand for silence. Now they burst into the room, and with the light of hell in his beady, yellow-splotched eyes, Gus gripped his imaginary revolver and growled: "Scream, an' I blow yer brains out!" In spite of Doctor Cameron's warning, the white-robed figures jostled and pressed closer---- Gus rose to his feet and started across the cave as if to spring on the shivering figure of the girl, the clansmen with muttered groans, sobs, and curses falling back as he advanced. He still wore his full Captain's uniform, its heavy epaulets flashing their gold in the unearthly light, his beastly jaws half covering the gold braid on the collar. His thick lips were drawn upward in an ugly leer and his sinister bead eyes gleamed like a gorilla's. A single fierce leap and the black claws clutched the air slowly as if sinking into the soft white throat. Strong men began to cry like children. "Stop him! Stop him!" screamed a clansman, springing on the negro and grinding his heel into his big thick neck. A dozen more were on him in a moment, kicking, stamping, cursing, and crying like madmen. Doctor Cameron leaped forward and beat them off: "Men! Men! You must not kill him in this condition!" Some of the white figures had fallen prostrate on the ground, sobbing in a frenzy of uncontrollable emotion. Some were leaning against the walls, their faces buried in their arms. Again old McAllister was on his knees crying over and over again: "God have mercy on my people!" When at length quiet was restored, the negro was revived, and again bound, blindfolded, gagged, and thrown to the ground before the Grand Cyclops. A sudden inspiration flashed in Doctor Cameron's eyes. Turning to the figure with yellow sash and double cross he said: "Issue your orders and despatch your courier to-night with the old Scottish rite of the Fiery Cross. It will send a thrill of inspiration to every clansman in the hills." "Good--prepare it quickly!" was the answer. Doctor Cameron opened his medicine case, drew the silver drinking-cover from a flask, and passed out of the cave to the dark circle of blood still shining in the sand by the water's edge. He knelt and filled the cup half full of the crimson grains, and dipped it into the river. From a saddle he took the lightwood torch, returned within, and placed the cup on the boulder on which the Grand Cyclops had sat. He loosed the bundle of lightwood, took two pieces, tied them into the form of a cross, and laid it beside a lighted candle near the silver cup. The silent figures watched his every movement. He lifted the cup and said: "Brethren, I hold in my hand the water of your river bearing the red stain of the life of a Southern woman, a priceless sacrifice on the altar of outraged civilization. Hear the message of your chief." The tall figure with the yellow sash and double cross stepped before the strange altar, while the white forms of the clansmen gathered about him in a circle. He lifted his cap, and laid it on the boulder, and his men gazed on the flushed face of Ben Cameron, the Grand Dragon of the Realm. He stood for a moment silent, erect, a smouldering fierceness in his eyes, something cruel and yet magnetic in his alert bearing. He looked on the prostrate negro lying in his uniform at his feet, seized the cross, lighted the three upper ends and held it blazing in his hand, while, in a voice full of the fires of feeling, he said: "Men of the South, the time for words has passed, the hour for action has struck. The Grand Turk will execute this negro to-night and fling his body on the lawn of the black Lieutenant-Governor of the State." The Grand Turk bowed. "I ask for the swiftest messenger of this Den who can ride till dawn." The man whom Doctor Cameron had already chosen stepped forward: "Carry my summons to the Grand Titan of the adjoining province in North Carolina whom you will find at Hambright. Tell him the story of this crime and what you have seen and heard. Ask him to report to me here the second night from this, at eleven o'clock, with six Grand Giants from his adjoining counties, each accompanied by two hundred picked men. In olden times when the Chieftain of our people summoned the clan on an errand of life and death, the Fiery Cross, extinguished in sacrificial blood, was sent by swift courier from village to village. This call was never made in vain, nor will it be to-night, in the new world. Here, on this spot made holy ground by the blood of those we hold dearer than life, I raise the ancient symbol of an unconquered race of men----" High above his head in the darkness of the cave he lifted the blazing emblem---- "The Fiery Cross of old Scotland's hills! I quench its flames in the sweetest blood that ever stained the sands of Time." He dipped its ends in the silver cup, extinguished the fire, and handed the charred symbol to the courier, who quickly disappeared. CHAPTER III THE PARTING OF THE WAYS The discovery of the Captain of the African Guards lying in his full uniform in Lynch's yard send a thrill of terror to the triumphant leagues. Across the breast of the body was pinned a scrap of paper on which was written in red ink the letters K. K. K. It was the first actual evidence of the existence of this dreaded order in Ulster county. The First Lieutenant of the Guards assumed command and held the full company in their armoury under arms day and night. Beneath his door he had found a notice which was also nailed on the courthouse. It appeared in the Piedmont _Eagle_ and in rapid succession in every newspaper not under negro influence in the State. It read as follows: "HEADQUARTERS OF REALM NO 4. "DREADFUL ERA, BLACK EPOCH, "HIDEOUS HOUR. "GENERAL ORDER NO. I. "The Negro Militia now organized in this State threatens the extinction of civilization. They have avowed their purpose to make war upon and exterminate the Ku Klux Klan, an organization which is now the sole guardian of Society. All negroes are hereby given forty-eight hours from the publication of this notice in their respective counties to surrender their arms at the courthouse door. Those who refuse must take the consequences. "By order of the G. D. of Realm No. 4. "By the Grand Scribe." The white people of Piedmont read this notice with a thrill of exultant joy. Men walked the streets with an erect bearing which said without words: "Stand out of the way." For the first time since the dawn of Black Rule negroes began to yield to white men and women the right of way on the streets. On the day following, the old Commoner sent for Phil. "What is the latest news?" he asked. "The town is in a fever of excitement--not over the discovery in Lynch's yard--but over the blacker rumour that Marion and her mother committed suicide to conceal an assault by this fiend." "A trumped-up lie," said the old man emphatically. "It's true, sir. I'll take Doctor Cameron's word for it." "You have just come from the Camerons?" "Yes." "Let it be your last visit. The Camerons are on the road to the gallows, father and son. Lynch informs me that the murder committed last night, and the insolent notice nailed on the courthouse door, could have come only from their brain. They are the hereditary leaders of these people. They alone would have the audacity to fling this crime into the teeth of the world and threaten worse. We are face to face with Southern barbarism. Every man now to his own standard! The house of Stoneman can have no part with midnight assassins." "Nor with black barbarians, father. It is a question of who possesses the right of life and death over the citizen, the organized virtue of the community, or its organized crime. You have mistaken for death the patience of a generous people. We call ourselves the champions of liberty. Yet for less than they have suffered, kings have lost their heads and empires perished before the wrath of freemen." "My boy, this is not a question for argument between us," said the father with stern emphasis. "This conspiracy of terror and assassination threatens to shatter my work to atoms. The election on which turns the destiny of Congress, and the success or failure of my life, is but a few weeks away. Unless this foul conspiracy is crushed, I am ruined, and the Nation falls again beneath the heel of a slaveholders' oligarchy." "Your nightmare of a slaveholders' oligarchy does not disturb me." "At least you will have the decency to break your affair with Margaret Cameron pending the issue of my struggle of life and death with her father and brother?" "Never." "Then I will do it for you." "I warn you, sir," Phil cried, with anger, "that if it comes to an issue of race against race, I am a white man. The ghastly tragedy of the condition of society here is something for which the people of the South are no longer responsible----" "I'll take the responsibility!" growled the old cynic. "Don't ask me to share it," said the younger man emphatically. The father winced, his lips trembled, and he answered brokenly: "My boy, this is the bitterest hour of my life that has had little to make it sweet. To hear such words from you is more than I can bear. I am an old man now--my sands are nearly run. But two human beings love me, and I love but two. On you and your sister I have lavished all the treasures of a maimed and strangled soul--and it has come to this! Read the notice which one of your friends thrust into the window of my bedroom last night." He handed Phil a piece of paper on which was written: "The old club-footed beast who has sneaked into our town, pretending to search for health, in reality the leader of the infernal Union League, will be given forty-eight hours to vacate the house and rid this community of his presence. "K. K. K." "Are you an officer of the Union League?" Phil asked in surprise. "I am its soul." "How could a Southerner discover this, if your own children didn't know it?" "By their spies who have joined the League." "And do the rank and file know the Black Pope at the head of the order?" "No, but high officials do." "Does Lynch?" "Certainly." "Then he is the scoundrel who placed that note in your room. It is a clumsy attempt to forge an order of the Klan. The white man does not live in this town capable of that act. I know these people." "My boy, you are bewitched by the smiles of a woman to deny your own flesh and blood." "Nonsense, father--you are possessed by an idea which has become an insane mania----" "Will you respect my wishes?" the old man broke in angrily. "I will not," was the clear answer. Phil turned and left the room, and the old man's massive head sank on his breast in helpless baffled rage and grief. He was more successful in his appeal to Elsie. He convinced her of the genuineness of the threat against him. The brutal reference to his lameness roused the girl's soul. When the old man, crushed by Phil's desertion, broke down the last reserve of his strange cold nature, tore his wounded heart open to her, cried in agony over his deformity, his lameness, and the anguish with which he saw the threatened ruin of his life-work, she threw her arms around his neck in a flood of tears and cried: "Hush, father, I will not desert you. I will never leave you, or wed without your blessing. If I find that my lover was in any way responsible for this insult, I'll tear his image out of my heart and never speak his name again!" She wrote a note to Ben, asking him to meet her at sundown on horseback at Lover's Leap. Ben was elated at the unexpected request. He was hungry for an hour with his sweetheart, whom he had not seen save for a moment since the storm of excitement broke following the discovery of the crime. He hastened through his work of ordering the movement of the Klan for the night, and determined to surprise Elsie by meeting her in his uniform of a Grand Dragon. Secure in her loyalty, he would deliberately thus put his life in her hands. Using the water of a brook in the woods for a mirror, he adjusted his yellow sash and pushed the two revolvers back under the cape out of sight, saying to himself with a laugh: "Betray me? Well, if she does, life would not be worth the living!" When Elsie had recovered from the first shock of surprise at the white horse and rider waiting for her under the shadows of the old beech, her surprise gave way to grief at the certainty of his guilt, and the greatness of his love in thus placing his life without a question in her hands. He tied the horses in the woods, and they sat down on the rustic. He removed his helmet cap, threw back the white cape showing the scarlet lining, and the two golden circles with their flaming crosses on his breast, with boyish pride. The costume was becoming to his slender graceful figure, and he knew it. "You see, sweetheart, I hold high rank in the Empire," he whispered. From beneath his cape he drew a long bundle which he unrolled. It was a triangular flag of brilliant yellow edged in scarlet. In the centre of the yellow ground was the figure of a huge black dragon with fiery red eyes and tongue. Around it was a Latin motto worked in scarlet: "_quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_"--what always, what everywhere, what by all has been held to be true. "The battle-flag of the Klan," he said; "the standard of the Grand Dragon." Elsie seized his hand and kissed it, unable to speak. "Why so serious to-night?" "Do you love me very much?" she answered. "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay his life at the feet of his beloved," he responded tenderly. "Yes, yes; I know--and that is why you are breaking my heart. When first I met you--it seems now ages and ages ago--I was a vain, self-willed, pert little thing----" "It's not so. I took you for an angel--you were one. You are one to-night." "Now," she went on slowly, "in what I have lived through you I have grown into an impassioned, serious, self-disciplined, bewildered woman. Your perfect trust to-night is the sweetest revelation that can come to a woman's soul and yet it brings to me unspeakable pain----" "For what?" "You are guilty of murder." Ben's figure stiffened. "The judge who pronounces sentence of death on a criminal outlawed by civilized society is not usually called a murderer, my dear." "And by whose authority are you a judge?" "By authority of the sovereign people who created the State of South Carolina. The criminals who claim to be our officers are usurpers placed there by the subversion of law." "Won't you give this all up for my sake?" she pleaded. "Believe me, you are in great danger." "Not so great as is the danger of my sister and mother and my sweetheart--it is a man's place to face danger," he gravely answered. "This violence can only lead to your ruin and shame----" "I am fighting the battle of a race on whose fate hangs the future of the South and the Nation. My ruin and shame will be of small account if they are saved," was the even answer. "Come, my dear," she pleaded tenderly, "you know that I have weighed the treasures of music and art and given them all for one clasp of your hand, one throb of your heart against mine. I should call you cruel did I not know you are infinitely tender. This is the only thing I have ever asked you to do for me----" "Desert my people! You must not ask of me this infamy, if you love me," he cried. "But, listen; this is wrong--this wild vengeance is a crime you are doing, however great the provocation. We cannot continue to love one another if you do this. Listen: I love you better than father, mother, life, or career--all my dreams I've lost in you. I've lived through eternity to-day with my father----" "You know me guiltless of the vulgar threat against him----" "Yes, and yet you are the leader of desperate men who might have done it. As I fought this battle to-day, I've lost you, lost myself, and sunk down to the depths of despair, and at the end rang the one weak cry of a woman's heart for her lover! Your frown can darken the brightest sky. For your sake I can give up all save the sense of right. I'll walk by your side in life--lead you gently and tenderly along the way of my dreams if I can, but if you go your way, it shall be mine; and I shall still be glad because you are there! See how humble I am--only you must not commit crime!" "Come, sweetheart, you must not use that word," he protested, with a touch of wounded pride. "You are a conspirator----" "I am a revolutionist." "You are committing murder!" "I am waging war." Elsie leaped to her feet in a sudden rush of anger and extended her hand: "Good-bye. I shall not see you again. I do not know you. You are still a stranger to me." He held her hand firmly. "We must not part in anger," he said slowly. "I have grave work to do before the day dawns. We may not see each other again." She led her horse to the seat quickly and without waiting for his assistance sprang into the saddle. "Do you not fear my betrayal of your secret?" she asked. He rode to her side, bent close, and whispered: "It's as safe as if locked in the heart of God." A little sob caught her voice, yet she said slowly in firm tones: "If another crime is committed in this county by your Klan, we will never see each other again." He escorted her to the edge of the town without a word, pressed her hand in silence, wheeled his horse, and disappeared on the road to the North Carolina line. CHAPTER IV THE BANNER OF THE DRAGON Ben Cameron rode rapidly to the rendezvous of the pickets who were to meet the coming squadrons. He returned home and ate a hearty meal. As he emerged from the dining-room, Phil seized him by the arm and led him under the big oak on the lawn: "Cameron, old boy, I'm in a lot of trouble. I've had a quarrel with my father, and your sister has broken me all up by returning my ring. I want a little excitement to ease my nerves. From Elsie's incoherent talk I judge you are in danger. If there's going to be a fight, let me in." Ben took his hand: "You're the kind of a man I'd like to have for a brother, and I'll help you in love--but as for war--it's not your fight. We don't need help." At ten o'clock Ben met the local Den at their rendezvous under the cliff, to prepare for the events of the night. The forty members present were drawn up before him in double rank of twenty each. "Brethren," he said to them solemnly, "I have called you to-night to take a step from which there can be no retreat. We are going to make a daring experiment of the utmost importance. If there is a faint heart among you, now is the time to retire----" "We are with you!" cried the men. "There are laws of our race, old before this Republic was born in the souls of white freemen. The fiat of fools has repealed on paper these laws. Your fathers who created this Nation were first Conspirators, then Revolutionists, now Patriots and Saints. I need to-night ten volunteers to lead the coming clansmen over this county and disarm every negro in it. The men from North Carolina cannot be recognized. Each of you must run this risk. Your absence from home to-night will be doubly dangerous for what will be done here at this negro armoury under my command. I ask of these ten men to ride their horses until dawn, even unto death, to ride for their God, their native land, and the womanhood of the South! "To each man who accepts this dangerous mission I offer for your bed the earth, for your canopy the sky, for your bread stones; and when the flash of bayonets shall fling into your face from the Square the challenge of martial law, the protection I promise you--is exile, imprisonment, and death! Let the ten men who accept these terms step forward four paces." With a single impulse the whole double line of forty white-and-scarlet figures moved quickly forward four steps! The leader shook hands with each man, his voice throbbing with emotion as he said: "Stand together like this, men, and armies will march and countermarch over the South in vain! We will save the life of our people." The ten guides selected by the Grand Dragon rode forward, and each led a division of one hundred men through the ten townships of the county and successfully disarmed every negro before day without the loss of a life. The remaining squadron of two hundred and fifty men from Hambright, accompanied by the Grand Titan in command of the Province of Western Hill Counties, were led by Ben Cameron into Piedmont as the waning moon rose between twelve and one o'clock. They marched past Stoneman's place on the way to the negro armoury, which stood on the opposite side of the street a block below. The wild music of the beat of a thousand hoofs on the cobblestones of the street waked every sleeper. The old Commoner hobbled to his window and watched them pass, his big hands fumbling nervously, and his soul stirred to its depths. The ghostlike shadowy columns moved slowly with the deliberate consciousness of power. The scarlet circles on their breasts could be easily seen when one turned toward the house, as could the big red letters K. K. K. on each horse's flank. In the centre of the line waved from a gold-tipped spear the battle-flag of the Klan. As they passed the bright lights burning at his gate, old Stoneman could see this standard plainly. The huge black dragon with flaming eyes and tongue seemed a living thing crawling over a scarlet-tipped yellow cloud. At the window above stood a little figure watching that banner of the Dragon pass with aching heart. Phil stood at another, smiling with admiration for their daring: "By George, it stirs the blood to see it! You can't crush men of that breed!" The watchers were not long in doubt as to what the raiders meant. They deployed quickly around the armoury. A whistle rang its shrill cry, and a volley of two hundred and fifty carbines and revolvers smashed every glass in the building. The sentinel had already given the alarm, and the drum was calling the startled negroes to their arms. They returned the volley twice, and for ten minutes were answered with the steady crack of two hundred and fifty guns. A white flag appeared at the door, and the firing ceased. The negroes laid down their arms and surrendered. All save three were allowed to go to their homes for the night and carry their wounded with them. The three confederates in the crime of their captain were bound and led away. In a few minutes the crash of a volley told their end. The little white figure rapped at Phil's door and placed a trembling hand on his arm: "Phil," she said softly, "please go to the hotel and stay until you know all that has happened--until you know the full list of those killed and wounded. I'll wait. You understand?" As he stooped and kissed her, he felt a hot tear roll down her cheek. "Yes, little Sis, I understand," he answered. CHAPTER V THE REIGN OF THE KLAN In quick succession every county followed the example of Ulster, and the arms furnished the negroes by the State and National governments were in the hands of the Klan. The League began to collapse in a panic of terror. A gale of chivalrous passion and high action, contagious and intoxicating, swept the white race. The moral, mental, and physical earthquake which followed the first assault on one of their daughters revealed the unity of the racial life of the people. Within the span of a week they had lived a century. The spirit of the South "like lightning had at last leaped forth, half startled at itself, its feet upon the ashes and the rags," its hands tight-gripped on the throat of tyrant, thug, and thief. It was the resistless movement of a race, not of any man or leader of men. The secret weapon with which they struck was the most terrible and efficient in human history--these pale hosts of white-and-scarlet horsemen! They struck shrouded in a mantle of darkness and terror. They struck where the power of resistance was weakest and the blow least suspected. Discovery or retaliation was impossible. Not a single disguise was ever penetrated. All was planned and ordered as by destiny. The accused was tried by secret tribunal, sentenced without a hearing, executed in the dead of night without warning, mercy, or appeal. The movements of the Klan were like clockwork, without a word, save the whistle of the Night Hawk, the crack of his revolver, and the hoofbeat of swift horses moving like figures in a dream, and vanishing in mists and shadows. The old club-footed Puritan, in his mad scheme of vengeance and party power, had overlooked the Covenanter, the backbone of the South. This man had just begun to fight! His race had defied the Crown of Great Britain a hundred years from the caves and wilds of Scotland and Ireland, taught the English people how to slay a king and build a commonwealth, and, driven into exile into the wilderness of America, led our Revolution, peopled the hills of the South, and conquered the West. As the young German patriots of 1812 had organized the great struggle for their liberties under the noses of the garrisons of Napoleon, so Ben Cameron had met the leaders of his race in Nashville, Tennessee, within the picket lines of thirty-five thousand hostile troops, and in the ruins of an old homestead discussed and adopted the ritual of the Invisible Empire. Within a few months this Empire overspread a territory larger than modern Europe. In the approaching election it was reaching out its daring white hands to tear the fruits of victory from twenty million victorious conquerors. The triumph at which they aimed was one of incredible grandeur. They had risen to snatch power out of defeat and death. Under their clan leadership the Southern people had suddenly developed the courage of the lion, the cunning of the fox, and the deathless faith of religious enthusiasts. Society was fused in the white heat of one sublime thought and beat with the pulse of the single will of the Grand Wizard of the Klan of Memphis. Women and children had eyes and saw not, ears and heard not. Over four thousand disguises for men and horses were made by the women of the South, and not one secret ever passed their lips! With magnificent audacity, infinite patience, and remorseless zeal, a conquered people were struggling to turn his own weapon against their conqueror, and beat his brains out with the bludgeon he had placed in the hands of their former slaves. Behind the tragedy of Reconstruction stood the remarkable man whose iron will alone had driven these terrible measures through the chaos of passion, corruption, and bewilderment which followed the first assassination of an American President. As he leaned on his window in this village of the South and watched in speechless rage the struggle at that negro armoury, he felt for the first time the foundations sinking beneath his feet. As he saw the black cowards surrender in terror, noted the indifference and cool defiance with which those white horsemen rode and shot, he knew that he had collided with the ultimate force which his whole scheme had overlooked. He turned on his big club foot from the window, clinched his fist and muttered: "But I'll hang that man for this deed if it's the last act of my life!" The morning brought dismay to the negro, the carpet-bagger, and the scallawag of Ulster. A peculiar freak of weather in the early morning added to their terror. The sun rose clear and bright except for a slight fog that floated from the river valley, increasing the roar of the falls. About nine o'clock a huge black shadow suddenly rushed over Piedmont from the west, and in a moment the town was shrouded in twilight. The cries of birds were hushed and chickens went to roost as in a total eclipse of the sun. Knots of people gathered on the streets and gazed uneasily at the threatening skies. Hundreds of negroes began to sing and shout and pray, while sensible people feared a cyclone or cloud-burst. A furious downpour of rain was swiftly followed by sunshine, and the negroes rose from their knees, shouting with joy to find the end of the world had after all been postponed. But that the end of their brief reign in a white man's land had come, but few of them doubted. The events of the night were sufficiently eloquent. The movement of the clouds in sympathy was unnecessary. Old Stoneman sent for Lynch, and found he had fled to Columbia. He sent for the only lawyer in town whom the Lieutenant-Governor had told him could be trusted. The lawyer was polite, but his refusal to undertake the prosecution of any alleged member of the Klan was emphatic. "I'm a sinful man, sir," he said with a smile. "Besides, I prefer to live, on general principles." "I'll pay you well," urged the old man, "and if you secure the conviction of Ben Cameron, the man we believe to be the head of this Klan, I'll give you ten thousand dollars." The lawyer was whittling on a piece of pine meditatively. "That's a big lot of money in these hard times. I'd like to own it, but I'm afraid it wouldn't be good at the bank on the other side. I prefer the green fields of South Carolina to those of Eden. My harp isn't in tune." Stoneman snorted in disgust: "Will you ask the Mayor to call to see me at once?" "We ain't got none," was the laconic answer. "What do you mean?" "Haven't you heard what happened to his Honour last night?" "No." "The Klan called to see him," went on the lawyer with a quizzical look "at 3 A. M. Rather early for a visit of state. They gave him forty-nine lashes on his bare back, and persuaded him that the climate of Piedmont didn't agree with him. His Honour, Mayor Bizzel, left this morning with his negro wife and brood of mulatto children for his home, the slums of Cleveland, Ohio. We are deprived of his illustrious example, and he may not be a wiser man than when he came, but he's a much sadder one." Stoneman dismissed the even-tempered member of the bar, and wired Lynch to return immediately to Piedmont. He determined to conduct the prosecution of Ben Cameron in person. With the aid of the Lieutenant-Governor he succeeded in finding a man who would dare to swear out a warrant against him. As a preliminary skirmish he was charged with a violation of the statutory laws of the United States relating to Reconstruction and arraigned before a Commissioner. Against Elsie's agonizing protest, old Stoneman appeared at the courthouse to conduct the prosecution. In the absence of the United States Marshal, the warrant had been placed in the hands of the sheriff, returnable at ten o'clock on the morning fixed for the trial. The new sheriff of Ulster was no less a personage than Uncle Aleck, who had resigned his seat in the House to accept the more profitable one of High Sheriff of the County. There was a long delay in beginning the trial. At 10:30 not a single witness summoned had appeared, nor had the prisoner seen fit to honour the court with his presence. Old Stoneman sat fumbling his hands in nervous, sullen rage, while Phil looked on with amusement. "Send for the sheriff," he growled to the Commissioner. In a moment Aleck appeared bowing humbly and politely to every white man he passed. He bent halfway to the floor before the Commissioner and said: "Marse Ben be here in er minute, sah. He's er eatin' his breakfus'. I run erlong erhead." Stoneman's face was a thundercloud as he scrambled to his feet and glared at Aleck: "_Marse_ Ben? Did you say _Marse_ Ben? Who's he?" Aleck bowed low again. "De young Colonel, sah--Marse Ben Cameron." "And you the sheriff of this county trotted along in front to make the way smooth for your prisoner?" "Yessah!" "Is that the way you escort prisoners before a court?" "Dem kin' er prisoners--yessah." "Why didn't you walk beside him?" Aleck grinned from ear to ear and bowed very low: "He say sumfin' to me, sah!" "And what did he say?" Aleck shook his head and laughed: "I hates ter insinuate ter de cote, sah!" "What did he say to you?" thundered Stoneman. "He say--he say--ef I walk 'longside er him--he knock hell outen me, sah!" "Indeed." "Yessah, en I 'spec' he would," said Aleck insinuatingly. "La, he's a gemman, sah, he is! He tell me he come right on. He be here sho'." Stoneman whispered to Lynch, turned with a look of contempt to Aleck, and said: "Mr. Sheriff, you interest me. Will you be kind enough to explain to this court what has happened to you lately to so miraculously change your manners?" Aleck glanced around the room nervously. "I seed sumfin'--a vision, sah!" "A vision? Are you given to visions?" "Na-sah. Dis yere wuz er sho' 'nuff vision! I wuz er feelin' bad all day yistiddy. Soon in de mawnin', ez I wuz gwine 'long de road, I see a big black bird er settin' on de fence. He flop his wings, look right at me en say, 'Corpse! Corpse! Corpse!'"--Aleck's voice dropped to a whisper--"'en las' night de Ku Kluxes come ter see me, sah!" Stoneman lifted his beetling brows. "That's interesting. We are searching for information on that subject." "Yessah! Dey wuz Sperits, ridin' white hosses wid flowin' white robes, en big blood-red eyes! De hosses wuz twenty feet high, en some er de Sperits wuz higher dan dis cote-house! Dey wuz all bal' headed, 'cept right on de top whar dere wuz er straight blaze er fire shot up in de air ten foot high!" "What did they say to you?" "Dey say dat ef I didn't design de sheriff's office, go back ter farmin' en behave myself, dey had er job waitin' fer me in hell, sah. En shos' you born dey wuz right from dar!" "Of course!" sneered the old Commoner. "Yessah! Hit's des lak I tell yer. One ob 'em makes me fetch 'im er drink er water. I carry two bucketsful ter 'im 'fo' I git done, en I swar ter God he drink it all right dar 'fo' my eyes! He say hit wuz pow'ful dry down below, sah! En den I feel sumfin' bus' loose inside er me, en I disremember all dat come ter pass! I made er jump fer de ribber bank, en de next I knowed I wuz er pullin' fur de odder sho'. I'se er pow'ful good swimmer, sah, but I nebber git ercross er creek befo' ez quick ez I got ober de ribber las' night." "And you think of going back to farming?" "I done begin plowin' dis mornin', marster!" "_Don't_ you call me marster!" yelled the old man. "Are you the sheriff of this county?" Aleck laughed loudly. "Na-sah! Dat's er joke! I ain't nuttin' but er plain nigger--I wants peace, judge." "Evidently we need a new sheriff." "Dat's what I tell 'em, sah, dis mornin'--en I des flings mysef on de ignance er de cote!" Phil laughed aloud, and his father's colourless eyes began to spit cold poison. "About what time do you think your master, Colonel Cameron, will honour us with his presence?" he asked Aleck. Again the sheriff bowed. "He's er comin' right now, lak I tole yer--he's er gemman, sah." Ben walked briskly into the room and confronted the Commissioner. Without apparently noticing his presence, Stoneman said: "In the absence of witnesses we accept the discharge of this warrant, pending developments." Ben turned on his heel, pressed Phil's hand as he passed through the crowd, and disappeared. The old Commoner drove to the telegraph office and sent a message of more than a thousand words to the White House, a copy of which the operator delivered to Ben Cameron within an hour. President Grant next morning issued a proclamation declaring the nine Scotch-Irish hill counties of South Carolina in a state of insurrection, ordered an army corps of five thousand men to report there for duty, pending the further necessity of martial law and the suspension of the writ of _Habeas Corpus_. CHAPTER VI THE COUNTER STROKE From the hour he had watched the capture of the armoury old Stoneman felt in the air a current against him which was electric, as if the dead had heard the cry of the clansmen's greeting, risen and rallied to their pale ranks. The daring campaign these men were waging took his breath. They were going not only to defeat his delegation to Congress, but send their own to take their seats, reinforced by the enormous power of a suppressed negro vote. The blow was so sublime in its audacity, he laughed in secret admiration while he raved and cursed. The army corps took possession of the hill counties, quartering from five to six hundred regulars at each courthouse; but the mischief was done. The State was on fire. The eighty thousand rifles with which the negroes had been armed were now in the hands of their foes. A white rifle-club was organized in every town, village, and hamlet. They attended the public meetings with their guns, drilled in front of the speakers' stands, yelled, hooted, hissed, cursed, and jeered at the orators who dared to champion or apologize for negro rule. At night the hoofbeat of squadrons of pale horsemen and the crack of their revolvers struck terror to the heart of every negro, carpet-bagger, and scallawag. There was a momentary lull in the excitement, which Stoneman mistook for fear, at the appearance of the troops. He had the Governor appoint a white sheriff, a young scallawag from the mountains who was a noted moonshiner and desperado. He arrested over a hundred leading men in the county, charged them with complicity in the killing of the three members of the African Guard, and instructed the judge and clerk of the court to refuse bail and commit them to jail under military guard. To his amazement the prisoners came into Piedmont armed and mounted. They paid no attention to the deputy sheriffs who were supposed to have them in charge. They deliberately formed in line under Ben Cameron's direction and he led them in a parade through the streets. The five hundred United States regulars who were camped on the river bank were Westerners. Ben led his squadron of armed prisoners in front of this camp and took them through the evolutions of cavalry with the precision of veterans. The soldiers dropped their games and gathered, laughing, to watch them. The drill ended with a double-rank charge at the river embankment. When they drew every horse on his haunches on the brink, firing a volley with a single crash, a wild cheer broke from the soldiers, and the officers rushed from their tents. Ben wheeled his men, galloped in front of the camp, drew them up at dress parade, and saluted. A low word of command from a trooper, and the Westerners quickly formed in ranks, returned the salute, and cheered. The officers rushed up, cursing, and drove the men back to their tents. The horsemen laughed, fired a volley in the air, cheered, and galloped back to the courthouse. The court was glad to get rid of them. There was no question raised over technicalities in making out bail-bonds. The clerk wrote the names of imaginary bondsmen as fast as his pen could fly, while the perspiration stood in beads on his red forehead. Another telegram from old Stoneman to the White House, and the Writ of _Habeas Corpus_ was suspended and Martial Law proclaimed. Enraged beyond measure at the salute from the troops, he had two companies of negro regulars sent from Columbia, and they camped in the Courthouse Square. He determined to make a desperate effort to crush the fierce spirit before which his forces were being driven like chaff. He induced Bizzel to return from Cleveland with his negro wife and children. He was escorted to the City Hall and reinstalled as Mayor by the full force of seven hundred troops, and a negro guard placed around his house. Stoneman had Lynch run an excursion from the Black Belt, and brought a thousand negroes to attend a final rally at Piedmont. He placarded the town with posters on which were printed the Civil Rights Bill and the proclamation of the President declaring Martial Law. Ben watched this day dawn with nervous dread. He had passed a sleepless night, riding in person to every Den of the Klan and issuing positive orders that no white man should come to Piedmont. A clash with the authority of the United States he had avoided from the first as a matter of principle. It was essential to his success that his men should commit no act of desperation which would imperil his plans. Above all, he wished to avoid a clash with old Stoneman personally. The arrival of the big excursion was the signal for a revival of negro insolence which had been planned. The men brought from the Eastern part of the State were selected for the purpose. They marched over the town yelling and singing. A crowd of them, half drunk, formed themselves three abreast and rushed the sidewalks, pushing every white man, woman, and child into the street. They met Phil on his way to the hotel and pushed him into the gutter. He said nothing, crossed the street, bought a revolver, loaded it and put it in his pocket. He was not popular with the negroes, and he had been shot at twice on his way from the mills at night. The whole affair of this rally, over which his father meant to preside, filled him with disgust, and he was in an ugly mood. Lynch's speech was bold, bitter, and incendiary, and at its close the drunken negro troopers from the local garrison began to slouch through the streets, two and two, looking for trouble. At the close of the speaking Stoneman called the officer in command of these troops, and said: "Major, I wish this rally to-day to be a proclamation of the supremacy of law, and the enforcement of the equality of every man under law. Your troops are entitled to the rights of white men. I understand the hotel table has been free to-day to the soldiers from the camp on the river. They are returning the courtesy extended to the criminals who drilled before them. Send two of your black troops down for dinner and see that it is served. I wish an example for the State." "It will be a dangerous performance, sir," the major protested. The old Commoner furrowed his brow. "Have you been instructed to act under my orders?" "I have, sir," said the officer, saluting. "Then do as I tell you," snapped Stoneman. Ben Cameron had kept indoors all day, and dined with fifty of the Western troopers whom he had identified as leading in the friendly demonstration to his men. Margaret, who had been busy with Mrs. Cameron entertaining these soldiers, was seated in the dining-room alone, eating her dinner, while Phil waited impatiently in the parlour. The guests had all gone when two big negro troopers, fighting drunk, walked into the hotel. They went to the water-cooler and drank ostentatiously, thrusting their thick lips coated with filth far into the cocoanut dipper, while a dirty hand grasped its surface. They pushed the dining-room door open and suddenly flopped down beside Margaret. She attempted to rise, and cried in rage: "How dare you, black brutes?" One of them threw his arm around her chair, thrust his face into hers, and said with a laugh: "Don't hurry, my beauty; stay and take dinner wid us!" Margaret again attempted to rise, and screamed, as Phil rushed into the room with drawn revolver. One of the negroes fired at him, missed, and the next moment dropped dead with a bullet through his heart. The other leaped across the table and through the open window. Margaret turned, confronting both Phil and Ben with revolvers in their hands, and fainted. Ben hurried Phil out the back door and persuaded him to fly. "Man, you must go! We must not have a riot here to-day. There's no telling what will happen. A disturbance now, and my men will swarm into town to-night. For God's sake go, until things are quiet!" "But I tell you I'll face it. I'm not afraid," said Phil quietly. "No, but I am," urged Ben. "These two hundred negroes are armed and drunk. Their officers may not be able to control them, and they may lay their hands on you--go--go!--go!--you must go! The train is due in fifteen minutes." He half lifted him on a horse tied behind the hotel, leaped on another, galloped to the flag-station two miles out of town, and put him on the north-bound train. "Stay in Charlotte until I wire for you," was Ben's parting injunction. He turned his horse's head for McAllister's, sent the two boys with all speed to the Cyclops of each of the ten township Dens with positive orders to disregard all wild rumours from Piedmont and keep every man out of town for two days. As he rode back he met a squad of mounted white regulars, who arrested him. The trooper's companion had sworn positively that he was the man who killed the negro. Within thirty minutes he was tried by drum-head court-martial and sentenced to be shot. CHAPTER VII THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER Sweet was the secret joy of old Stoneman over the fate of Ben Cameron. His death sentence would strike terror to his party, and his prompt execution, on the morning of the election but two days off, would turn the tide, save the State, and rescue his daughter from a hated alliance. He determined to bar the last way of escape. He knew the Klan would attempt a rescue, and stop at no means fair or foul short of civil war. Afraid of the loyalty of the white battalions quartered in Piedmont, he determined to leave immediately for Spartanburg, order an exchange of garrisons, and, when the death warrant was returned from headquarters, place its execution in the hands of a stranger, to whom appeal would be vain. He knew such an officer in the Spartanburg post, a man of fierce, vindictive nature, once court-martialed for cruelty, who hated every Southern white man with mortal venom. He would put him in command of the death watch. He hired a fast team and drove across the county with all speed, doubly anxious to get out of town before Elsie discovered the tragedy and appealed to him for mercy. Her tears and agony would be more than he could endure. She would stay indoors on account of the crowds, and he would not be missed until evening, when safely beyond her reach. When Phil arrived at Charlotte he found an immense crowd at the bulletin board in front of the _Observer_ office reading the account of the Piedmont tragedy. To his horror he learned of the arrest, trial, and sentence of Ben for the deed which he had done. He rushed to the office of the Division Superintendent of the Piedmont Air Line Railroad, revealed his identity, told him the true story of the tragedy, and begged for a special to carry him back. The Superintendent, who was a clansman, not only agreed, but within an hour had the special ready and two cars filled with stern-looking men to accompany him. Phil asked no questions. He knew what it meant. The train stopped at Gastonia and King's Mountain and took on a hundred more men. The special pulled into Piedmont at dusk. Phil ran to the Commandant and asked for an interview with Ben alone. "For what purpose, sir?" the officer asked. Phil resorted to a ruse, knowing the Commandant to be unaware of any difference of opinion between him and his father. "I hold a commission to obtain a confession from the prisoner which may save his life by destroying the Ku Klux Klan." He was admitted at once and the guard ordered to withdraw until the interview ended. Phil took Ben Cameron's place, exchanging hat and coat, and wrote a note to his father, telling in detail the truth, and asked for his immediate interference. "Deliver that, and I'll be out of here in two hours," he said, as he placed the note in Ben's hand. "I'll go straight to the house," was the quick reply. The exchange of the Southerner's slouch hat and Prince Albert for Phil's derby and short coat completely fooled the guard in the dim light. The men were as much alike as twins except the shade of difference in the colour of their hair. He passed the sentinel without a challenge, and walked rapidly toward Stoneman's house. On the way he was astonished to meet five hundred soldiers just arrived on a special from Spartanburg. Amazed at the unexpected movement, he turned and followed them back to the jail. They halted in front of the building he had just vacated, and their commander handed an official document to the officer in charge. The guard was changed and a cordon of soldiers encircled the prison. The Piedmont garrison had received notice by wire to move to Spartanburg, and Ben heard the beat of their drums already marching to board the special. He pressed forward and asked an interview with the Captain in command. The answer came with a brutal oath: "I have been warned against all the tricks and lies this town can hatch. The commander of the death watch will permit no interview, receive no visitors, hear no appeal, and allow no communication with the prisoner until after the execution. You can announce this to whom it may concern." "But you've got the wrong man. You have no right to execute him," said Ben excitedly. "I'll risk it," he answered, with a sneer. "Great God!" Ben cried beneath his breath. "The old fool has entrapped his son in the net he spread for me!" CHAPTER VIII A RIDE FOR A LIFE When Ben Cameron failed to find either Elsie or her father at home, he hurried to the hotel, walking under the shadows of the trees to avoid recognition, though his resemblance to Phil would have enabled him to pass in his hat and coat unchallenged by any save the keenest observers. He found his mother's bedroom door ajar and saw Elsie within, sobbing in her arms. He paused, watched, and listened. Never had he seen his mother so beautiful--her face calm, intelligent, and vital, crowned with a halo of gray. She stood, flushed and dignified, softly smoothing the golden hair of the sobbing girl whom she had learned to love as her daughter. Her whole being reflected the years of homage she had inspired in husband, children, and neighbours. What a woman! She had made war inevitable, fought it to the bitter end; and in the despair of a negro reign of terror, still the prophetess and high priestess of a people, serene, undismayed, and defiant, she had fitted the uniform of a Grand Dragon on her last son, and sewed in secret day and night to equip his men. And through it all she was without affectation, her sweet motherly ways, gentle manner and bearing always resistless to those who came within her influence. "If he dies," cried the tearful voice, "I shall never forgive myself for not surrendering without reserve and fighting his battles with him!" "He is not dead yet," was the mother's firm answer. "Doctor Cameron is on Queen's back. Your lover's men will be riding to-night--these young dare-devil Knights of the South, with their life in their hands, a song on their lips, and the scorn of death in their souls!" "Then I'll ride with them," cried the girl, suddenly lifting her head. Ben stepped into the room, and with a cry of joy Elsie sprang into his arms. The mother stood silent until their lips met in the long tender kiss of the last surrender of perfect love. "How did you escape so soon?" she asked quietly, while Elsie's head still lay on his breast. "Phil shot the brute, and I rushed him out of town. He heard the news, returned on the special, took my place, and sent me for his father. The guard has been changed and it's impossible to see him, or communicate with the new Commandant----" Elsie started and turned pale. "And father has hidden to avoid me--merciful God--if Phil is executed----" "He isn't dead yet, either," said Ben, slipping his arm around her. "But we must save him without a clash or a drop of bloodshed, if possible. The fate of our people may hang on this. A battle with United States troops now might mean ruin for the South----" "But you will save him?" Elsie pleaded, looking into his face. "Yes--or I'll go down with him," was the steady answer. "Where is Margaret?" he asked. "Gone to McAllister's with a message from your father," Mrs. Cameron replied, "Tell her when she returns to keep a steady nerve. I'll save Phil. Send her to find her father. Tell him to hold five hundred men ready for action in the woods by the river and the rest in reserve two miles out of town----" "May I go with her?" Elsie asked eagerly. "No. I may need you," he said. "I am going to find the old statesman now, if I have to drag the bottomless pit. Wait here until I return." Ben reached the telegraph office unobserved, called the operator at Columbia, and got the Grand Giant of the county into the office. Within an hour he learned that the death warrant had been received and approved. It would be returned by a messenger to Piedmont on the morning train. He learned also that any appeal for a stay must be made through the Honourable Austin Stoneman, the secret representative of the Government clothed with this special power. The execution had been ordered the day of the election, to prevent the concentration of any large force bent on rescue. "The old fox!" Ben muttered. From the Grand Giant at Spartanburg he learned, after a delay of three hours, that Stoneman had left with a boy in a buggy, which he had hired for three days, and refused to tell his destination. He promised to follow and locate him as quickly as possible. It was the afternoon on the day following, during the progress of the election, before Ben received the message from Spartanburg that Stoneman had been found at the Old Red Tavern where the roads crossed from Piedmont to Hambright. It was only twelve miles away, just over the line on the North Carolina side. He walked with Margaret to the block where Queen stood saddled, watching with pride the quiet air of self-control with which she bore herself. "Now, my sister, you know the way to the tavern. Ride for your sweetheart's life. Bring the old man here by five o'clock, and we'll save Phil without a fight. Keep your nerve. The Commandant knows a regiment of mine is lying in the woods, and he's trying to slip out of town with his prisoner. I'll stand by my men ready for a battle at a moment's notice, but for God's sake get here in time to prevent it." She stooped from the saddle, pressed her brother's hand, kissed him, and galloped swiftly over the old Way of Romance she knew so well. On reaching the tavern, the landlord rudely denied that any such man was there, and left her standing dazed and struggling to keep back the tears. A boy of eight, with big wide friendly eyes, slipped into the room, looked up into her face tenderly, and said: "He's the biggest liar in North Carolina. The old man's right upstairs in the room over your head. Come on; I'll show you." Margaret snatched the child in her arms and kissed him. She knocked in vain for ten minutes. At last she heard his voice within: "Go away from that door!" "I'm from Piedmont, sir," cried Margaret, "with an important message from the Commandant for you." "Yes; I saw you come. I will not see you. I know everything, and I will hear no appeal." "But you cannot know of the exchange of men," pleaded the girl. "I tell you I know all about it. I will not interfere----" "But you could not be so cruel----" "The majesty of the law must be vindicated. The judge who consents to the execution of a murderer is not cruel. He is showing mercy to Society. Go, now; I will not hear you." In vain Margaret knocked, begged, pleaded, and sobbed. At last, in a fit of desperation, as she saw the sun sinking lower and the precious minutes flying, she hurled her magnificent figure against the door and smashed the cheap lock which held it. The old man sat at the other side of the room, looking out of the window, with his massive jaws locked in rage. The girl staggered to his side, knelt by his chair, placed her trembling hand on his arm, and begged: "For the love of Jesus, have mercy! Come with me quickly!" With a growl of anger, he said: "No!" [Illustration: MIRIAM COOPER AS MARGARET CAMERON.] "It was a mad impulse, in my defence as well as his own." "Impulse, yes! But back of it lay banked the fires of cruelty and race hatred! The Nation cannot live with such barbarism rotting its heart out." "But this is war, sir--a war of races, and this an accident of war--besides, his life had been attempted by them twice before." "So I've heard, and yet the negro always happens to be the victim----" Margaret leaped to her feet and glared at the old man for a moment in uncontrollable anger. "Are you a fiend?" she fairly shrieked. Old Stoneman merely pursed his lips. The girl came a step closer, and extended her hand again in mute appeal. "No, I was foolish. You are not cruel. I have heard of a hundred acts of charity you have done among our poor. Come, this is horrible! It is impossible! You cannot consent to the death of your son----" Stoneman looked up sharply: "Thank God, he hasn't married my daughter yet----" "Your daughter!" gasped Margaret. "I've told you it was Phil who killed the negro! He took Ben's place just before the guards were exchanged----" "Phil!--Phil?" shrieked the old man, staggering to his club foot and stumbling toward Margaret with dilated eyes and whitening face; "My boy--Phil?--why--why, are you crazy?--Phil? Did you say--_Phil_?" "Yes. Ben persuaded him to go to Charlotte until the excitement passed to avoid trouble. Come, come, sir, we must be quick! We may be too late!" She seized and pulled him toward the door. "Yes. Yes, we must hurry," he said in a laboured whisper, looking around dazed. "You will show me the way, my child--you love him--yes, we will go quickly--quickly! my boy--my boy!" Margaret called the landlord, and while they hitched Queen to the buggy, the old man stood helplessly wringing and fumbling his big ugly hands, muttering incoherently, and tugging at his collar as though about to suffocate. As they dashed away, old Stoneman laid a trembling hand on Margaret's arm. "Your horse is a good one, my child?" "Yes; the one Marion saved--the finest in the county." "And you know the way?" "Every foot of it. Phil and I have driven it often." "Yes, yes--you love him," he sighed, pressing her hand. Through the long reckless drive, as the mare flew over the rough hills, every nerve and muscle of her fine body at its utmost tension, the father sat silent. He braced his club foot against the iron bar of the dashboard and gripped the sides of the buggy to steady his feeble body. Margaret leaned forward intently watching the road to avoid an accident. The old man's strange colourless eyes stared straight in front, wide open, and seeing nothing, as if the soul had already fled through them into eternity. CHAPTER IX "VENGEANCE IS MINE" It was dark long before Margaret and Stoneman reached Piedmont. A mile out of town a horse neighed in the woods, and, tired as she was, Queen threw her head high and answered the call. The old man did not notice it, but Margaret knew a squadron of white-and-scarlet horsemen stood in those woods, and her heart gave a bound of joy. As they passed the Presbyterian church, she saw through the open window her father standing at his Elder's seat leading in prayer. They were holding a watch service, asking God for victory in the eventful struggle of the day. Margaret attempted to drive straight to the jail, and a sentinel stopped them. "I am Stoneman, sir--the real commander of these troops," said the old man, with authority. "Orders is orders, and I don't take 'em from you," was the answer. "Then tell your commander that Mr. Stoneman has just arrived from Spartanburg and asks to see him at the hotel immediately." He hobbled into the parlour and waited in agony while Margaret tied the mare. Ben, her mother and father, and every servant were gone. In a few moments the second officer hurried to Stoneman, saluted, and said: "We've pulled it off in good shape, sir. They've tried to fool us with a dozen tricks, and a whole regiment has been lying in wait for us all day. But at dark the Captain outwitted them, took his prisoner with a squad of picked cavalry, and escaped their pickets. They've been gone an hour, and ought to be back with the body----" Old Stoneman sprang on him with the sudden fury of a madman, clutching at his throat. "If you've killed my son," he gasped--"go--go! Follow them with a swift messenger and stop them! It's a mistake--you're killing the wrong man--you're killing my boy--quick--my God, quick--don't stand there staring at me!" The officer rushed to obey his order as Margaret entered. The old man seized her arm, and said with laboured breath: "Your father, my child, ask him to come to me quickly." Margaret hurried to the church, and an usher called the doctor to the door. He read the question trembling on the girl's lips. "Nothing has happened yet, my daughter. Your brother has held a regiment of his men in readiness every moment of the day." "Mr. Stoneman is at the hotel and asks to see you immediately," she whispered. "God grant he may prevent bloodshed," said the father. "Go inside and stay with your mother." When Doctor Cameron entered the parlour Stoneman hobbled painfully to meet him, his face ashen, and his breath rattling in his throat as if his soul were being strangled. "You are my enemy, Doctor," he said, taking his hand, "but you are a pious man. I have been called an infidel--I am only a wilful sinner--I have slain my own son, unless God Almighty, who can raise the dead, shall save him! You are the man at whom I aimed the blow that has fallen on my head. I wish to confess to you and set myself right before God. He may hear my cry, and have mercy on me." He gasped for breath, sank into his seat, looked around, and said: "Will you close the door?" The doctor complied with his request and returned. "We all wear masks, Doctor," began the trembling voice. "Beneath lie the secrets of love and hate from which actions move. My will alone forged the chains of negro rule. Three forces moved me--party success, a vicious woman, and the quenchless desire for personal vengeance. When I first fell a victim to the wiles of the yellow vampire who kept my house, I dreamed of lifting her to my level. And when I felt myself sinking into the black abyss of animalism, I, whose soul had learned the pathway of the stars and held high converse with the great spirits of the ages----" He paused, looked up in terror, and whispered: "What's that noise? Isn't it the distant beat of horses' hoofs?" "No," said the doctor, listening; "it's the roar of the falls we hear, from a sudden change of the wind." "I'm done now," Stoneman went on, slowly fumbling his hands. "My life has been a failure. The dice of God are always loaded." His great head drooped lower, and he continued: "Mightiest of all was my motive of revenge. Fierce business and political feuds wrecked my iron mills. I shouldered their vast debts, and paid the last mortgage of a hundred thousand dollars the week before Lee invaded my State. I stood on the hill in the darkness, cried, raved, cursed, while I watched the troops lay those mills in ashes. Then and there I swore that I'd live until I ground the South beneath my heel! When I got back to my house they had buried a Confederate soldier in the field. I dug his body up, carted it to the woods, and threw it into a ditch----" The hand of the white-haired Southerner suddenly gripped old Stoneman's throat--and then relaxed. His head sank on his breast, and he cried in anguish: "God be merciful to me a sinner! Would I, too, seek revenge!" Stoneman looked at the doctor, dazed by his sudden onslaught and collapse. "Yes, he was somebody's boy down here," he went on, "who was loved perhaps even as I love--I don't blame you. See, in the inside pocket next to my heart I carry the pictures of Phil and Elsie taken from babyhood up, all set in a little book. They don't know this--nor does the world dream I've been so soft-hearted----" He drew a miniature album from his pocket and fumbled it aimlessly: "You know Phil was my first-born----" His voice broke, and he looked at the doctor helplessly. The Southerner slipped his arm around the old man's shoulders and began a tender and reverent prayer. The sudden thunder of a squad of cavalry with clanking sabres swept by the hotel toward the jail. Stoneman scrambled to his feet, staggered, and caught a chair. "It's no use," he groaned, "--they've come with his body--I'm slipping down--the lights are going out--I haven't a friend! It's dark and cold--I'm alone, and lost--God--has--hidden--His--face--from--me!" Voices were heard without, and the tramp of heavy feet on the steps. Stoneman clutched the doctor's arm in agony: "Stop them!--Stop them! Don't let them bring him in here!" He sank limp into the chair and stared at the door as it swung open and Phil walked in, with Ben and Elsie by his side, in full clansman disguise. The old man leaped to his feet and gasped: "The Klan!--The Klan! No? Yes! It's true--glory to God, they've saved my boy--Phil--Phil!" "How did you rescue him?" Doctor Cameron asked Ben. "Had a squadron lying in wait on every road that led from town. The Captain thought a thousand men were on him, and surrendered without a shot." * * * * * At twelve o'clock Ben stood at the gate with Elsie. "Your fate hangs in the balance of this election to-night," she said. "I'll share it with you, success or failure, life or death." "Success, not failure," he answered firmly. "The Grand Dragons of six States have already wired victory. Look at our lights on the mountains! They are ablaze--range on range our signals gleam until the Fiery Cross is lost among the stars!" "What does it mean?" she whispered. "That I am a successful revolutionist--that Civilization has been saved, and the South redeemed from shame." THE END 
36914	----	_Featuring_ BERT LYTELL AND CLAIRE WINDSOR NEW YORK THE MACAULAY COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY THE MACAULAY COMPANY PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. TO MY FRIEND DOROTHEA THORNTON CLARKE WITHOUT WHOSE HELP AND CONSTANT ENCOURAGEMENT NEITHER THIS NOR ANY OF MY BOOKS WOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN PREFACE A beach of white sand, the whisper of palms answering the murmuring moonlit sea, the fragrance of orange blossoms, the perfume of roses and syringa,--that is Grand Canary, a bit of Heaven dropped into the Atlantic; overlooked by writers and painters in general. Surely one can be pardoned a bit of praise and promise for this story, laid, as it is in part, in that magic island. The Canaries properly belong to the African continent. That is best proven by their original inhabitants who were of pure Berber stock. The islands are the stepping stone between Europe and the Sahara. Mysterious Arabs and a continual stream of those silent men who come and go from the great desert tarry there for a while, giving color and romance to the big hotels. The petty gossip, the real news of the Sahara "breaks" there.--Weird, passionate tales; believable or not, they carry an undercurrent of reality that thrills. From such a source came this story. Unaltered in fact, it is given to you, the life story of a man and a woman who turned their backs on worldly conventions that they might find happiness. If it is frank, forgive it. Life near the Equator is not a milk and water affair. THE PUBLISHERS. CONTENTS PART I PART II PART III ILLUSTRATIONS With Annette limp across his saddle, Casim Ammeh sped away . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ He had come to the harem to say farewell For sale as a common slave at the Taureg auction block "Let us both dance for you, so that you may judge between us" PART I A Son of the Sahara CHAPTER I In the days when France was pursuing a vigorous forward policy in Africa, a policy started by General Faidherbe and carried on by subsequent governors, one of the bravest among her pioneer soldiers was Colonel Raoul Le Breton. He was a big, handsome man with a swarthy complexion, coal-black hair and dark, fiery eyes, by nature impetuous and reckless. With a trio of white sergeants and a hundred Senegalese soldiers, he would attempt--and accomplish--things that no man with ten times his following would have attempted. But there came a day when even his luck failed. He left St. Louis, in Senegal, and went upwards to the north-east, intending to pierce the heart of the Sahara. From that expedition, however, he never returned. The Government at St. Louis assumed that he and his little pioneer force had been wiped out by some hostile negro king or Arab chief. It was but one of the tragedies attached to extending a nation's territory. When Raoul Le Breton went on that ill-fated expedition, he did what no man should have done who attempts to explore the Back of Beyond with an indifferent force. He took his wife with him. There was some excuse for this piece of folly. He was newly married. He adored his wife, and she worshipped him, and refused to let him go unless she went also. She was barely half his age; a girl just fresh from a convent school, whom he had met and married in Paris during his last leave. Colonel Le Breton journeyed for weeks through an arid country, an almost trackless expanse of poor grass and stunted scrub, until he reached the edge of the Sahara. Annette Le Breton enjoyed her travels. She did not mind the life in tents, the rough jolting of her camel, the poor food, the heat, the flies; she minded nothing so long as she was with her husband. He was a man of rare fascination, as many women had found to their cost; a light lover until Annette had come into his life and captured his straying heart once and for all. On the edge of the Sahara Le Breton met a man who, on the surface at least, appeared to see even more quickly than the majority of negro kings and Arab chiefs he had come in contact with, the advantages attached to being under the shadow of the French flag. It would be difficult to say where the Sultan Casim Ammeh came from. He appeared one afternoon riding like a madman out of the blazing distance; a picturesque figure in his flowing white burnoose, sitting his black stallion like a centaur. He was a young man, perhaps about twenty-four, of medium height, lean and lithe and brown, with fierce black eyes and a cruel mouth: the hereditary ruler of that portion of the Sahara. His capital was a walled city that, so far, had not been visited by any European. In his way he was a man of great wealth, and he added to that wealth by frequent marauding expeditions and slave-dealing. With a slight smile he listened to all the Frenchman had to say. Already he had heard of France--a great Power, creeping slowly onwards--and he wondered whether he was strong enough to oppose it, or whether the wiser plan might not be just to rest secure under the shadow of its distant wing, and under its protection continue his wild, marauding life as usual. As he sat with Colonel Le Breton in the latter's tent, something happened which caused the Sultan Casim Ammeh to make up his mind very quickly. It was late afternoon. From the open flap of the tent an endless, rolling expense of sand showed, with here and there a knot of coarse, twisted grass, a dwarfed shrub, or a flare of red-flowered, distorted cacti. The French officer's camp was pitched by an oasis; a little group of date palms, where a spring bubbled among brown rocks, bringing an abundance of grass and herbs where horses and camels browsed. As the two men sat talking, a soft voice said unexpectedly: "Oh, Raoul, I'd no idea you had a visitor!" All at once a girl had appeared in the entrance of the tent She was small and slim, with two thick plaits of golden-brown hair reaching to her knees; a beautiful girl of about eighteen, with wide grey eyes and a creamy white skin. Her voice brought Le Breton to his feet. "What is it, Annette?" he asked. "I thought----I'll come later," she said; the blushes mounting to her cheeks. The Sultan Casim Ammeh got to his feet also. Not out of any sense of deference; he had none where women were concerned, but drawn there by the beauty of the girl. "You needn't mind what you say in front of this man," her husband remarked. "He doesn't understand a word of French. "Ill tell you later, Raoul, when there's nobody here." She would have gone, but Le Breton called her forward and, in Arabic, introduced her to his visitor. Annette bowed to the lean, lithe, brown man in the white burnoose, and her eyes dropped under the fierce admiration in his. The Sultan looked at her, all the time wondering why the white man was such a fool as to let this priceless pearl, this jewel among women, go unveiled, and allow the eyes of strange men to rest upon her with desire and longing. Annette said she was pleased to meet him: a message her husband translated, and which brought a fierce smile to the young Sultan's face and made the wild desire in his savage heart suddenly blossom into plans. So she, this houri from Paradise, was pleased to meet him! This fair flower from a far land! But not so pleased as he was to meet _her_. And her husband let her say such things to strange men! What a fool the man was! Not worthy of this houri! He could not appreciate the treasure he possessed. Not as he, the Sultan, would, were she his. Casim Ammeh despised Colonel Le Breton utterly. As soon as the introduction was over, Annette would have gone. "Don't run away, my pet," her husband said fondly. "I shall soon have finished." But the girl went, anxious to get away from the Arab chief who watched her with such covetous desire and smouldering passion in his fierce black eyes. When she had gone, the two men seated themselves again. But the Sultan gave no thought to the business in hand. He only wanted one thing now--the girl who had just gone from the tent. Soon after Annette's departure he left, promising to visit Le Breton again within the course of a few days. He kept his word. Five days later he swept out of the desert with a horde of wild horsemen. And in less than half an hour there was only one of Raoul Le Breton's ill-fated expedition left alive. The next day, with Annette limp across his saddle, the Sultan Casim Ammeh set off with his following to his desert stronghold. CHAPTER II The city of El-Ammeh lies about a hundred miles within the Sahara proper. It is a walled town of Moorish aspect, built of brown rock and baked mud. Within the walls is a tangle of narrow, twisted, squalid lanes--a jumble of flat-roofed houses, practically devoid of windows on the sides overlooking the streets. Here and there a minaret towers, and glimpses of strange trees can be seen peeping over walled gardens. Along one side stands a domed palace; a straggling place, with horse-shoe arches, stone galleries and terraces. In front of it a blue lake spreads, surrounded by fertile gardens and groves of fruit trees. And the whole is encircled by the desert. Annette Le Breton remembered nothing of her journey to El-Ammeh. Her life was a nightmare of horror that held nothing but her husband's murderer, whom she could not escape from. She was taken to the palace, and placed in the apartment reserved for the Sultan's favourite. A big room with walls and floor of gold mosaic, furnished with ottomans, rugs and cushions, and little tables and stools of carved sandalwood inlaid with ivory and silver. On one side of the apartment a series of archways opened on a screened and fretted gallery, at the end of which a flight of wide, shallow steps led down into a walled garden, a dream of roses. But it was weeks before Annette knew anything of this. All day long she lay, broken and suffering, on one of the ottomans, and dark-faced women fawned upon her, saying words she could not understand; women who looked at her queerly, jealously, and talked about her among themselves. A strange girl, this new fancy of the Sultan's! Who wanted none of the things he piled upon her--not even his love. A girl who looked as though life were a mirage; as if she moved in bad dreams,--a listless girl, beautiful beyond any yet seen in the harem, who seemed to have neither idea nor appreciation of the honour that was hers; who lay all day in silence, her only language tears. Tears that even the Sultan could not charm away. In fact they seemed to fall more quickly and hopelessly when he came to see her. Yet he did everything that mortal man could do to comfort her. Jewels were showered upon her; jewels she refused to wear, to look at even; casting them from her with weak, angry hands, when her women would have decked her with them for her master's coming. And never before were so many musicians, singers, dancers, and conjurors sent to the women's apartments. Hardly a day passed without bringing some such form of diversion; or merchants with rare silks, perfumes and ostrich feathers. The harem had never had such a perpetual round of amusements. All for this new slave-girl. And she refused to be either amused or interested. She would look neither at the goods nor the entertainers. She just stayed with her face turned towards the wall and wept. One day when the Sultan came to the harem to visit his new favourite, some of the older women drew him aside and whispered with him. They suspected they had found a reason for the girl's strange behaviour. Their words sent the Sultan from the big hall of the harem to the gilded chamber set aside for Annette, with hope in his savage heart, and left him looking down at her with a touch of tenderness on his cruel face. He laid a dark hand on the girl, caressing her fondly. "Give me a son, my pearl," he whispered. "Then my cup will be full indeed." Annette shuddered at his touch. She had no idea what he said. He and his language were beyond her. As the long weeks ground out their slow and dreary course, Annette grew to suspect what her attendants now knew. The weeks became months and Annette languished in her captor's palace; her only respite the times he was away on some marauding expedition. He loved rapine and murder, and was never happy unless dabbling in blood. Sometimes he was away for weeks together, killing and stealing, bringing slaves for the slave-market of his city, and fresh women for his harem. During one of his absences Annette's baby arrived. The child came a week or so before the women had expected it. "The girl has wept so much," they said, "that her son has come before his time, to see what his mother's tears are about. And now, if Allah is kind, let us hope the child will dry them." For a fortnight Annette was too ill to know even that she had a son. When the baby was brought to her, she hardly dared look at it, not knowing what horror might have come from those ghastly nights spent with the Sultan Casim Ammeh. But when she looked, it was not his face, dark and cruel, that looked back at her. In miniature, she saw the face of Raoul Le Breton! This son of hers did not owe his life to the Sultan. He was a legacy from her murdered husband. Something that belonged to her lost life. With a wild sob of joy, Annette held out weak arms for her baby. Weeping she strained the mite to her breast, baptizing it with her tears. Tears of happiness this time. Light and love had come into her life again. For Raoul was not dead. He had come back to her. Weak and tiny he lay upon her heart, hers to love and cherish. She was lying on her couch one day, too absorbed in tracing out each one of her dead lover's features in the tiny face pillowed on her breast, to notice what was happening, when the voice she dreaded said in a fierce, fond manner: "So, Pearl of my Heart, you love my son, even if you hate me." Annette did not know what the Sultan said. But she held her child closer, watching its father's murderer with fear and loathing; afraid that he might put his dark, defiling hands upon her treasure. But he did not attempt to touch either her or the child. Seating himself at her side, he stayed watching her, tenderness on his cruel face, for the first time having pity on her weakness. The weakness of the woman who had given him the one thing his savage heart craved for, and which, until now, had been denied him--a son. CHAPTER III By the time Annette knew enough Arabic to make herself understood, and to understand what was said around her, she realized that if the Sultan learnt her boy was not his, this one joy of her tragic life would be taken from her. He would murder the son as he had murdered the father. As the baby grew, her one idea was to keep its true parentage from her savage captor. If she could have done so, she would have kept his dark, blood-stained hands from touching her son. But this was impossible. When in El-Ammeh, the Sultan came every day to see the child, often sitting with it in his arms, watching it with an air of proud possession. And fearsomely Annette would watch him, wondering why he never suspected. But he was too eaten up with his own desire for a son ever to give a thought to her dead husband. The baby was given the name of Casim Ammeh. But Annette always called her boy by another name, "Raoul Le Breton." And at the age of five he said to her: "Why do you always call me 'Raoul,' not 'Casim,' as my father does?" His father! Annette's heart ached. His father had been dead these long years, murdered by the man her son now called by that name. "The Sultan and myself are of different races," she said. "He calls you by his name. I, by one of my own choosing, Raoul Le Breton.'" "Why do you always say 'the Sultan,' and never 'your father'?" Sadly she smiled at her small questioner. "Some day, my son, I'll tell you. When you are a man and understand things." At five, Raoul Le Breton was a big, handsome boy, spoilt and pampered by the whole harem, and spoilt most of all by the man he proudly called "Father." The Sultan in his flowing white robes, with his half-tamed horses, his horde of wild followers and barbaric splendour, was a picturesque figure, one to capture any brave boy's heart. Annette did all she could to counteract her captor's influence, but, as the child grew, he was more with the Sultan than with her. What was more, he craved for men's company. He soon tired of the amusements the harem could offer. He much preferred to be on his own horse, galloping with the Sultan or some of his men along the desert tracks about the city. And knowing Annette loved her son, and hated him, despite their years together, the Sultan did all he could to win the boy's affection and wean him from his mother. He might have succeeded, except for one thing. The boy loved learning, and to hear of the great world that his mother came from; a world that seemed as remote from El-Ammeh as the paradise his Moslem teachers spoke of. The Sultan was not averse to the mother teaching her son. He was a shrewd man, if savage and cruel. And that France from where the girl came was growing ever more powerful. It would be to the boy's advantage to learn all the arts and cunning of his mother's people. The Sultan Casim gave Annette but one present that she took from him willingly; a sandalwood bureau with shelves and drawers and little sliding panels, an elaborately carved and handsome piece of furniture; stocked with slate and pencil, paper, quills and ink--such as the priests at the mosques used themselves. For this strange girl who hated him had more learning than all the priests put together. But, for all that, the youngster had to sit at their feet at appointed times, and be taught all the Sultan had ever been taught, to read and write, and recite scraps from the Koran, and to be a true Moslem. Annette hated this wild, profligate religion, and into her son she tried to instil her own Roman Catholic faith. But at eight years, although he learnt with avidity all her other teachings, he laughed at her religion. "Yours is a woman's religion, little mother," he said one day. "It's all right for you--a religion that prays to a woman, but it is not suitable for men. Give me my father's religion. A religion where men rule. In that, one does not bow the knee to a woman. A good religion, my father's, fierce and strong, of love and fighting, not a puling thing where one prays to a woman and a babe. No, little mother, keep your religion, and be happy with it. I prefer my father's and my own." "Raoul, my son, you mustn't forget the white side when you are with the Sultan," she said gently, a touch of chiding in her sad voice. The boy looked at her speculatively, knowing already that his mother had no affection for the man he called "father." "You should be proud, not sorry, to be the Sultan's wife," he remarked. "It is an honour for any woman to be loved by the Sultan. Even a woman as lovely and learned as you, little mother." At twenty-seven Annette was even more beautiful than on the day the Sultan Casim Ammeh first saw her; but more fragile and ethereal. Although her captor's fancy often strayed to other women, he never lost his passion for her. "Oh, my boy, you don't understand," she said sadly. "When you are a man I'll tell you, and then perhaps you'll think differently." "When I am a man, I shall be like my father, but richer and more powerful, because I shall have more knowledge, thanks to you, my mother." "I hope you will be like your father, Raoul, I ask for nothing better." When her boy reached manhood Annette intended to tell him the truth, and to leave him to deal with the situation as he would. At ten years, her son had as much general knowledge as the average French boy of his age, thanks to his mother's teachings. And he knew, too, a great deal more than she taught him. He was a big lad for his years, handsome and quick-tempered, the Sultan's acknowledged heir. On every side there were people anxious to spoil him and curry favour with him. In the scented, sensual atmosphere of the harem, he learnt things his mother would have kept from him. But she was powerless among so many, all ready to flatter her boy and gain his good graces. "When I grow up," he said to her one day, "I shall have a hundred wives, like my father." "In the France I come from a man has but one. You must always remember that, Raoul." "Only one! Then, mother, I call that a poor country. How can a man be satisfied with one woman? My father has promised me wives of my own when I am sixteen." It seemed to Annette that in this profligate atmosphere her boy was drifting further and further away from her and his own nation; becoming daily more akin to the barbaric people around him. Every day she felt she must tell him the truth. Yet every day she put it off. For her boy was only a child still, and in his anger and rage he would not be able to keep his knowledge from the Sultan; then evil would befall him. It was written that many years were to pass before Raoul Le Breton learnt the truth about himself. Soon after this episode the Sultan took the boy with him on some thieving expedition. Whilst they were away, one of the deadly epidemics that occasionally visited El-Ammeh swept through the city, claiming among its many victims Annette Le Breton. CHAPTER IV With the passing years, the Sultan Casim Ammeh increased in wealth and power. He gave very little thought to France now. It was a vague power, too far away to trouble him, and only once had it really sent a feeler in his direction; that ill-fated expedition headed by Colonel Le Breton. Emboldened by his success, he had extended his marauding. But, if he heard nothing more of France, France occasionally heard of him, in the form of complaints from various parts of the Protectorate, from other chiefs whose territory he had raided. The Government knew his name but it had no idea where he came from. On one occasion the Sultan and his robber horde swept down to within a hundred miles of St. Louis. But there he met with a severe defeat. He retired to his desert stronghold, deciding not to adventure in that direction again. And he owed his defeat to strange guns such as had not come into his life before. Guns that fired not a couple of shots, but a whole volley; an endless fusillade that even his wild warriors could not face. He went back to El-Ammeh determined to get hold of some of those wonderful guns. Obviously it was out of the question to attack St. Louis where they came from. If they were to be obtained, they must be searched for in some other direction. Sore with defeat, he brooded on the strange guns. And very often he talked of them to the boy he called his son. Raoul Le Breton was about thirteen when the Sultan met with his first rebuff at the hands of France. And he had the welfare and prestige of the desert kingdom at heart, and was as anxious as the Sultan to possess this new weapon. Far away in the south was the outpost of another European power; just a handful of white men struggling to keep a hold on a country an indifferent and short-sighted government was inclined to let slip. Round and about the River Gambia the British had a footing. Among the men most determined to keep a hold on this strip of territory was Captain George Barclay. He was a man of about twenty-eight, of medium height and wiry make, with a thin face and steady grey eyes where tragedy lurked. His confrères said that Barclay had no interests outside of his work. But they were wrong. He had one thing that was more to him than his own life; a tiny, velvety-eyed, golden-haired daughter. He had come out to North-West Africa in quest of forgetfulness. At twenty-three, although he was only a penniless lieutenant, the beauty of the London season, the prospective heiress of millions, had thought well to marry him. It was a runaway match. For his sake Pansy Carrington had risked losing both wealth and position. She was only nineteen, and her guardian and godfather, whose acknowledged heiress she was, had disapproved of George Barclay; gossip said because he was madly in love with her himself, although he was nearly thirty years her senior. However, whether this was so or not, Henry Langham had forgiven the girl. He had taken her back into his good graces, and, in due course, had become godfather to the second Pansy. "Grand-godfather," the child called him as soon as she could talk. It had seemed to George Barclay that no man's life could be happier than his. Then, without any warning, tragedy came upon him after five years of bliss. For one day his girl-wife was brought back to him dead, the result of an accident in the hunting-field. With her death all light had gone out of his life. To escape from himself he had gone out to Gambia; and his tiny daughter now lived, as her mother had lived before her, with her godfather, Henry Langham. But it was not of his daughter Barclay was thinking at that moment; other matters occupied his mind. He stood on the roof of a little stone fort, gazing at the landscape in a speculative manner. The building itself consisted of four rooms, set on a platform of rock some three feet from the ground. All the windows were small, and high up and barred. One room had no communication with the others: it was a sort of guardroom entered by a heavy wooden door. To the other three rooms one solid door gave entry, and from one of them a ladder and trap-door led up to the roof which had battlements around it. Below was a large compound, rudely stockaded, in which half a dozen native huts were built. In that part of Gambia Captain Barclay represented the British Government. He had to administer justice and keep the peace, and in this task he was aided by a white subaltern, twenty Hausa soldiers, and a couple of maxim guns. On three sides of the little British outpost an endless expanse of forest showed, with white mist curling like smoke about it. On the fourth was a wide shallow valley, with dwarf cliffs on either side, alive with dog-faced baboons. The valley was patched with swamps and lakes, and through it a river wended an erratic course, its banks heavily fringed with reeds and mimosa trees; a valley from which, with approaching evening, a stream of miasma rose. Barclay's gaze, however, never strayed in the direction of the shallow valley. He looked to the north. A week or so ago word had come through that a notorious raider was on the move; a man whom the French Government had been endeavouring to catch for the last five years or more. What he was doing so far south as Gambia, the district officer did not know. But he knew he was there. Only the previous day news had come that one of the villages within his, Barclay's, jurisdiction had been practically wiped out. A similar fate might easily fall to the lot of the British outpost, considering that the Arab chief's force outnumbered Barclay's ten to one. From the roof of his quarters the Englishman saw the sun set. It seemed to sink and drown in a lake of orange that lay like a blazing furnace on the horizon; a lake that spread and scattered when the sun disappeared, drifting off in islands of clouds, gold, rose, mauve and vivid red, sailing slowly across a tense blue sky, getting ever thinner and more ragged, until night came suddenly and swallowed up their tattered remains. A dense, purple darkness fell upon the land, soft and velvety, that reminded Barclay of his little daughter's eyes. And in a vault as darkly purple, a host of great stars flashed. Away in the forest an owl hooted. From the wide valley came the coughing roar of a leopard. Every now and again some night bird passed, a vague shadow in the darkness. In silver showers the fireflies danced in the thick, hot air. Down in the compound glow-worms showed, looking like a lot of smouldering cigarette ends cast carelessly aside. Upon the roof, with gaze fixed on the misty, baffling darkness that soughed and hissed around him, Barclay stayed, until the gong took him down to dinner. There his junior waited, a round-faced youngster of about nineteen. The meal was a poor repast of tinned soup, hashed tinned beef, yams and coffee, all badly cooked and indifferently served. During the course of the meal the youngster remarked: "What a joke if we nabbed the Sultan Casim Ammeh, or whatever he calls himself, and went one better than the French johnnies." "It would be more than a joke. It would be a jolly good riddance," Barclay responded. "It's queer nobody knowing where he really comes from." "You may be sure he doesn't play his tricks anywhere near his own headquarters. More likely than not, he and his cut-throat lot start out disguised as peaceful merchants, in separate bands, and join up when they reach the seat of operations. There are vast tracts of Senegal practically unexplored. They would give endless cover to one of his kidney." "If you had the luck to bag him, what should you do?" "Shoot him straight off, knowing the earth was well rid of a villain." "But what's his idea in coming as far south as this? He's never been heard of on this side of the Senegal River before." "Plunder. Guns, most likely. He's heard we're none too welcome, and hardly settled here, and thinks we shall prove an easy prey." However, the little English force was not to prove quite the easy prey the Sultan had imagined when he came south in quest of new weapons. The next night, without any warning, he attacked Barclay's headquarters. He struck at an hour when all was darkest; not with his usual swoop of wild horsemen, but stealthily. Unchallenged and unmolested, he and his following scaled the stockade and crept towards the tiny fort, vague shadows moving silently in the purple darkness. But each night Barclay had laid a trap for his expected foe. He knew the enemy force outnumbered his, and that his little handful could be starved out within a week, if the Arab chief wanted to make a siege of it. Barclay had no intention of letting this come to pass. He did a bold thing. Each night, after dark, the little British garrison divided into three units. A Hausa sergeant and fifteen men were left on the roof of the fort. Barclay, two soldiers and one maxim gun, his junior, with two more soldiers and the other gun, crept out from the place, and hid in the dense undergrowth, at different points outside of the stockade; first removing a plank here and there in the enclosure to enable them to work their guns through. Barclay's ruse succeeded. Whilst the Sultan and his followers were busy trying to scale the fort and get at the handful of men peppering at them from its roof, without any warning there came an unexpected fusillade from, the rear. He turned and attacked in that direction, only to find a further fusillade pouring in on him from another point. The Sultan sensed that he had fallen into a trap; that he was surrounded on all sides. Sore and furious he turned to go, more quickly than he had come. But before he had reached the stockade, the world slipped from him suddenly. CHAPTER V When the skirmish was over, Barclay and his junior, with half a dozen Hausas and a lantern or two, made a round of the compound, counting the dead and attending to the wounded. His own garrison was practically unscathed, but his guns had played grim havoc with the attacking party; fully fifty dead and wounded lay within the stockade. Barclay went about his task cautiously. He knew Arabs and their little ways. Giving no quarter themselves, they expected none, and would sham death and then stab those who came to succour them. Among the prisoners was a lean, lithe man of about forty, who appeared more stunned than hurt from a bullet that had grazed his forehead. Barclay came across the wounded man just when the latter was coming back to consciousness. Although in dress he differed in no way from the rest of his following, the knives in his belt were heavily jewelled, and gems flashed on his brown fingers. By the light of a lantern the Englishman scanned him, noting his array of jewels and his cruel, arrogant, commanding face, the face of a savage leader. "My son," he said to the subaltern, "I believe your joke has come to pass." "My joke!" the youngster repeated blankly. Then the light of understanding came to his face. "You don't mean to say this cruel-looking cuss is the Sultan Casim Ammeh!" "I'd be surprised to hear he wasn't," Barclay responded. Suspicious of his man, and knowing him to be no more than stunned, the captain had him handcuffed and locked up in one of the inner rooms of the fort. When the wounded had been attended to they were left in the guardroom, and the little garrison retired once more within the fort. The enemy had had such a thorough beating that Barclay did not expect another attack. For all that, he was taking no risks. Just before daybreak, when the world was a place of curling white mist and greyness, there came a stampede of horses. And, above the thunder of hoofs, the wild Mohammedan war-cry. "Deen! Deen Muhammed!" That wild swoop and yell was the Sultan's usual way of attacking. "It seems we didn't get our man last night," Barclay remarked, as the guns were trained in the direction of the sound. "According to report, this is his usual method of attack." Out of the greyness of approaching morning a mêlée of wild horsemen appeared. Their leader was hardly the man Barclay had pictured to himself as the blood-stained Arab chief, but a smooth-faced youth in white burnoose, mounted on a huge black stallion. More than this Barclay did not wait to see. He opened fire on the massed horsemen, his guns playing deadly havoc. Within a few minutes their ranks broke. In wild disorder they turned and stampeded back, soon to be lost in the screening mist. "I don't think they'll face another dose," the junior remarked. However, he was wrong. Presently from out of the fog came the same wild war-cry and the thunder of hoofs. There was another charge with sadly depleted numbers. For reckless courage Barclay had never seen anything to equal their youthful leader. Again and again he rallied his men and brought them on, until finally, with only about a dozen men, he swept through the deadly zone and on towards the fort. In the very teeth of the Maxims his black horse literally flew over the high stockade. But the youngster was the only one who faced the guns. His following broke up and turned back under the fierce fusillade. Although the leader got over the stockade alive, his horse did not. It crashed and fell dead beneath him. With a quick side spring--a marvellous piece of horsemanship--he avoided injury and, with drawn sword, rushed on towards the little fort. The Hausas would have shot down the reckless youngster, but Barclay stopped them. "We don't make war on children," he said in their dialect. A closer inspection showed the leader of the Arab horde to be hardly more than a child; a handsome boy of about fourteen who, suddenly, realising that his followers had deserted him, now stood gazing round in a fierce, thwarted fashion. On finding he was alone he did not retreat, although Barclay gave him every opportunity. Instead, he stood his ground and hurled a challenge in Arabic at the men clustered on the top of the fort. Since there was no reply to that, he shouted again, this time in French. "Who and what is the youngster?" Barclay asked. "He doesn't look any more Arabian than I do. And now he's yelling at us in pure Parisian French." However, nobody could find any reply. So Barclay descended alone to interview the one remaining member of the Sultan Casim's forces. He was hardly out in the compound before he wished he had not gone. He had just time to draw his sword when the boy fell upon him. Barclay was a skilled duellist, but in this wild youth from the desert he met his match. For all his finesse and superior height and weight, the Englishman had his cheek laid open and his arm ripped up in the course of a minute. Things would have gone badly with him, except that a shot from his junior put the boy's sword arm out of action. With a rattle his weapon fell to the ground, his arm useless at his side. But, even then, there was no plea for mercy. With a proud gesture he threw up his head, facing his enemy in arrogant fashion. "Kill me," he said in French, "but let my father live." "Who is your father?" Barclay asked, as with a handkerchief he tried to stop the blood gushing from his cheek. "The Sultan Casim Ammeh," the boy answered proudly. The reply told Barclay that the man he had under lock and key really was the marauding Arab chief. He scanned the boy closely. Except for his coal-black hair and eyes and fierce, arrogant expression, there was no resemblance between father and son. If he had not heard to the contrary, he would have said the boy was as French as the language he spoke. "I've no intention of killing _you_," Barclay remarked. "On the contrary, young man, I'm going to have your arm set and bound up before you bleed to death." The blood was dripping from the boy's fingers, making a pool on the ground. But he paid no heed to his own hurt. All his thoughts were for the Sultan Casim. "I'm not asking mercy for myself, but for my father," he said haughtily. "I'm afraid that's useless, considering two Governments have condemned him." "You will dare to kill him?" Barclay said nothing. But his very silence was ominous. A dazed, incredulous look crossed the boy's face. As the Englishman watched him it seemed that, blood-stained murderer as the Sultan was, at least this big, handsome son of his loved him. Like one stunned, the youngster submitted to being led into the fort, where his arm was set and his wounds bound up. When this was done he said to Barclay: "I'll give you wealth in jewels that will amount to three hundred thousand francs in French money if you will let my father go free and take my life instead." Barclay made no reply. "You will murder my father?" the boy went on, dreading the worst from Barclay's silence. The word made the Englishman wince. For it did seem like murder with this fierce, handsome boy pleading desperately for his father's life. Again he said nothing. To escape from the sight of the pain and anguish his silent verdict had aroused, Barclay went from the room, leaving the youngster in the charge of a couple of soldiers. About noon that day, at the hands of the British Government, the Sultan Casim Ammeh met a well-deserved end. He met it bravely, (refusing to be blindfolded), with a slight, cruel smile facing the guns levelled at him. It was evening before Barclay summoned up enough courage to meet his youthful prisoner. And when he did, it seemed he had never seen so much concentrated hatred on any face. "So, you shot my father?" the boy said in a slow, savage manner. Barclay had not come to discuss the dead malefactor. He wanted to learn more about the son--where he had learnt his excellent French; how he came to differ so in appearance from the Arab chief and his wild following. "Your father has paid the penalty of his crimes," he said quietly. "And you shall pay the penalty of yours!" the boy cried passionately; "for I shall kill you as you have killed my father. Your daughters I shall sell as slaves. Your sons shall toil in chains in my city. Your wives shall become the bondswomen of my servants. Remember, white man, for I do not speak lightly. I will be avenged. I, Casim Ammeh, whose father you have thought well to murder!" The savage threats of a wild, heart-broken boy did not trouble George Barclay much. But his mind did go to his tiny four-year-old daughter, and he was glad she was safe in England and not within reach of this savage lad. At that moment he was more worried about his youthful captive than the latter's wild threats. He did not want to make a criminal of the boy; for, obviously, whatever wrong he had done was done under the influence of his savage father. And there looked to be the makings of a fine man in him, if only he had good guidance. Barclay decided to put the case before the French Government, together with a suggestion of his own--that the youngster should be sent somewhere where he could be brought up to be of use to the country, not a constant thorn in its flesh, as his father had been. But Captain Barclay need not have troubled himself with making plans for the future of the youthful Sultan of El-Ammeh, for that night the boy escaped, and his future was left in his own hands. CHAPTER VI After some two years out in Gambia, George Barclay returned to England. He returned with a scar across his right cheek. That scar was the first thing his little daughter remarked upon when the excitement of reunion had died down. Perched on his knee, she touched it with gentle little fingers and kissed it with soft lips. "Who has hurt my nice new Daddy?" she asked distressfully. Then there followed the story of the youthful Sultan Casim Ammeh. "Oh, what a wicked boy!" she exclaimed. Then she glanced across at her godfather who was sitting near. "Isn't he a bad, naughty boy, Grand-godfather, to want to kill my Daddy and sell me as a slave?" Henry Langham had listened to the story with interest, and very heartily he agreed with her. "I shall tell Bobby," the little girl went on indignantly, "and he'll go and kill the Sultan Casim Ammeh." "Who's Bobby?" her father asked. "My sweetheart. Master Robert Cameron." "So in my absence I've been cut out, have I?" her father said teasingly. "I'm dreadfully jealous." But Pansy snuggled closer to him, and her arms went round his neck in a tight hug. "There'll never be anyone as nice as my Daddy," she whispered. George Barclay held the tiny girl closer, kissing the golden head. Often during his months in England, Pansy would scramble on his knee and say: "Daddy, tell me the story of Casim Ammeh. That naughty boy who hurt your poor face." To Pansy it was some new Arabian Nights, vastly interesting because her father was one of the principal characters. Although she had heard it quite fifty times, she was ready to hear it quite fifty times more. "But, my darling, you've heard it scores of times," Barclay said one day. For all that he told the story again. Quietly she listened until the end was reached. Then she said: "I don't like him. Not one little bit. Do you like him, Daddy?" "To tell you the truth, Pansy, I did like him. He was a very brave boy." "I shall never like him, because he hurt you," she said firmly, her little flower-like face set and determined. "Well, my girlie, you're never likely to meet him, so it won't make much difference to him whether you like him or not." But--in the Book of Fate it was written otherwise. CHAPTER VII Somewhere off the Boulevard St. Michel there is a cabaret. The big dancing hall has red walls painted with yellow shooting stars, and, overhead, electric lights blaze under red and yellow shades. There is a bar at one end, and several little tables for the patrons' use when they tire of dancing. In the evenings a band, in seedy, red uniforms with brass buttons, fills, with a crash of sound, an atmosphere ladened with patchouli and cigarette smoke, and waiters, in still more seedy dress-suits, attend to the tables. Never at any time is the gathering select, and generally there are quite a few foreigners of all colours present. One night, the most noticeable among the patrons was an Englishman, well-groomed and tailored, and a big youth of about eighteen in a flowing white burnoose. They were in no way connected with each other, but chance, in the shape of their female companions, had brought them to adjacent tables. The girl with the youngster was very pretty in a hard, metallic way, with the white face and vivid red lips of the Parisienne, and brown eyes, bright and polished-looking, that were about as expressionless as pebbles. She was attired in a cheap, black evening dress, cut very low, and about her plump throat was a coral necklace. Her hair was elaborately dressed, and her shoes, although well worn, were tidy. By day, Marie Hamon earned a meagre living for herself in a florist's shop. At night, she added to her earnings in the recognized way of quite a few of the working girls of Paris. And this particular cabaret was one of her hunting grounds. As Marie sat there "making eyes" at the youth in the white burnoose, the man at the next table remarked in French, in an audible and disgusted tone: "Look at that girl there making up to that young nigger. A beastly spectacle, I call it." Before his companion had time to reply the youth was up, his black eyes flashing, and he grasped the Englishman's shoulder in an angry, indignant fashion. "I am no nigger!" he cried. "I'm the Sultan Casim Ammeh." "I don't care a damn who you are so long as you keep your black paws off me!" The youth's hands were not black, but deeply bronzed like his face, which looked darker than it really was against the whiteness of his hood. "Take back that word," he said savagely, "or, by Allah, it shall be wiped out in blood!" He drew his knife. The girls screamed. Excited waiters rushed towards the table. The mixed company stopped dancing and pressed forward to watch what looked like the beginning of a royal row. Such incidents were by no means unusual in the cabaret. Only the Englishman remained calm. He grasped his opponent's wrist quickly. "No, you don't," he said. "You damned niggers seem to think you own the world nowadays." There was a brief scuffle. But the Englishman was big and heavy, and half a dozen waiters were hanging on to the enraged and insulted youth. His knife was wrested from his hand. He was hustled this way and that; and, finally, worsted and smouldering, he retired, to be led to another and more distant table by his female companion. The episode was over in a couple of minutes. Disappointed at the lack of bloodshed, the spectators returned to their dancing. Relieved, the waiters went back to their various spheres. The Englishman seated himself again as if nothing had happened. At a distant table the youth sat and glowered at him. "Who is that man?" he asked presently, pointing a lean forefinger at his late opponent. Marie shrugged her plump shoulders. "I've never seen him here before. He looks to me like an Englishman." With renewed interest the youth studied the distant figure, hate smouldering in his black eyes. So he was one of the nation who had murdered his father! This man who had insulted him. But, for all his hatred of the Englishman, reluctantly he admired his coolness and his clothes. The world had enlarged for Annette Le Breton's son since his first experience with the English. On escaping from Barclay, with the remaining handful of the defunct Sultan's following, he had returned to El-Ammeh, at the age of fourteen its recognised ruler. The boy was not lacking in sense. Defeat at the hands of both British and French made him decide to give up what had been the late Sultan's chief source of income--marauding. With a wisdom beyond his years, Casim Ammeh, as he was now always called, decided to go in for trading; and before many years had passed he saw it was a better paying game than marauding, despite its lack of excitement. Then he extended his operations. There were always caravans coming to his desert city, and a great demand for articles that came from the Europe his mother had told him of. With one or two of his principal merchants he went down to St. Louis, but he did not go as the Sultan Casim Ammeh; that name was too well known to the French Government. Instead, he went under the name his mother used to call him, Raoul Le Breton. And under that name he opened a store in St. Louis. There was a new generation in the town since his real father's day, and the name roused no comment. It was an ordinary French one. In St. Louis there were quite a few half-breed French-Arabs, as the youth supposed himself to be, living and trading under European names. His business ventures were so successful that he opened several more stores at various points between St. Louis and his own capital; but the whereabouts of his own city he did not divulge to strangers. At sixteen it had seemed to the boy that St. Louis was the hub of the universe; but at eighteen a craving that amounted to nostalgia drove him further afield--to Paris. And he went in Arabian garments, for he was intensely proud of his sultanship and the desert kingdom he ruled with undisputed sway. To his surprise, he felt wonderfully at home in his mother's city. It did not feel as strange as St. Louis had felt, but more as if he had once lived there and had forgotten about it. He had been a couple of days in Paris, wandering at will, when on the second evening his wanderings had brought him in contact with Marie Hamon. She was by no means the first of her sort to accost him, but she was the first he had condescended to take any notice of. She had smiled at him as, aloof and haughty, he had stalked along the Boulevard St. Michel, and had fallen into step beside him. He had looked at her in a peculiar manner that was half amusement, half contempt, but he had not shaken her off. She had suggested they should have dinner together, and he had fallen in with her suggestion; not exactly with alacrity, but as if he wanted to study the girl further. For all her plump prettiness and profession, there was a shrewd, sensible air about her. Afterwards, at her instigation, they had repaired to the cabaret. As the youth continued to scowl at the distant Englishman, with the idea of preventing further trouble, Marie tried to get his mind on other matters. "Casim, let's have a dance?" she suggested. "I can afford to pay for hired dancers, so why should I posture for the benefit of others?" he asked scornfully. She tittered. "Well, get me another drink instead, then." He beckoned a waiter and gave a curt order. However, he did not touch the cheap champagne himself. Instead, he kept strictly to coffee. "Have a drop of cognac in it to cheer you up a bit," Marie said. "You make me feel as if I were at a funeral." "I'm a Mohammedan, and strong drink is forbidden." "You are the limit! I shouldn't quarrel with the good things of this life even if I were a Mohammedan." "By my religion women have no souls," he replied in a voice that spoke volumes. But Marie was not easily abashed. "The lack of a soul doesn't trouble me in the least," she responded lightly. "A pretty body is of greater use to a woman any day. Do you think I'm pretty, Casim?" she finished coquettishly. "I shouldn't be with you unless you were," he replied, as if her question were an insult to his taste. For some minutes there was silence. As the girl sipped her champagne she watched her escort in a calculating manner. "You've got lots of money, haven't you?" she said presently. "Not as much as I intend to have," he replied. "But enough to buy me a new frock?" she questioned. "Fifty, if you want them." Marie threw her arms around his neck. "You nice boy!" she cried, kissing him soundly. He resented her attentions, removing her arms in a none too gentle manner. "I object to such displays of affection in public," he said, with an air of ruffled dignity. "Come home with me, then," she suggested. "Home" to Marie was an attic in a poor street. There Casim Ammeh went, not as a victim to her charms, as she imagined, but seeing in her a means to his own end. The next morning as he sat at breakfast with the girl--a meagre repast of black coffee and rolls--from somewhere out of his voluminous robes he produced a string of pearls and dangled it before his hostess. Marie looked at them, her mouth round with surprise, for they were real and worth at least ten thousand francs. "If I give you these, Marie, will you teach me to become a Frenchman?" he asked. "Won't I just!" she cried enthusiastically, and without hesitation continued: "First of all we must get an apartment. And, _mon Dieu!_ yes, you must cut your hair short." The youth wore his hair long, knotted under his hood in the Arab fashion. It was three months before Casim Ammeh left Paris. And he left it in a correctly cut English suit and with his smooth, black hair brushed back over his head. In the spick-and-span young man it would have been difficult to recognise the barbaric youth who had come there knowing nothing of civilised life except what his mother had told him and what he had seen in St. Louis; and, what was more, he felt at ease in his new garments, in spite of having worn burnoose and hood all his life. The day before he left, Marie sat with him in the _salon_ of the pretty flat they had occupied since the day they struck their bargain. And she looked very different, too. Her evening frock was no longer of shabby black. It was one of the several elaborate gowns she now possessed, thanks to the young man. And she no longer wore a string of coral beads about her pretty throat, but the pearl necklace. Although Marie had taken on the youth as a business speculation, within a few days she loved him passionately. She was loath to let her benefactor go, but all her wiles failed to keep him. "When you're back in Africa you won't quite forget your little Marie who taught you to be a man, will you?" she whispered tearfully. Her remarks made him laugh. "I've had women of my own for at least a year before I met you," he replied. It seemed to Marie she had never really known the youth who had come to her a savage and was leaving her looking a finished man of the world. He never talked to her of himself or his affairs. Although kind and generous, he demanded swift obedience, and he treated her always as something infinitely inferior to himself. "Say you love me," she pleaded. "That you'll think of me sometimes." "Love!" he said contemptuously. "I don't love women. I have them for my pleasure. I'm not one of your white men who spend their days whining at some one woman's feet pleading for favours. Women to me are only toys. Good to look upon, if beautiful, but not so good as horses." "Oh, you are cruel!" she said, weeping. "And I thought you loved me." "It is the woman's place to love. There are other things in a man's life." Marie realised she had never had any hold on her protégé. She had been of use to him, and he had paid her well for it, and there, as far as he was concerned, the matter ended. Being sensible, she sat up and dried her tears, gathering consolation from the fact that he had been a good speculation. There would be no immediate need to return to the florist's shop when he had gone. In fact, if she liked to sell the necklace, she could buy a business of her own. "Shall you come to Paris again, Casim?" she asked. "Oh yes, often. It's a good city, full of beautiful women who are easy to buy." But he made a reservation to himself. When he came again he would come under the name his mother used to call him--Raoul Le Breton, and he would come in European clothes. Then the English he hated would not be able to hurl that detestable word "nigger" at him. CHAPTER VIII In a select French boarding-school a girl sat reading a letter. She was about fifteen years old, a slender, lovely child, light and graceful, with a cascade of golden curls reaching to her waist, and wide, purple eyes. Her complexion was perfect. She had a vivid little red mouth, impulsive and generous, and a pink rose on each cheek. On reading the letter, sorrow clouded her face. For it ran:-- "My Dear Little Pansy, When you get this letter I shall be with your mother. I am leaving you the money she would not have. And it was worth having, you will agree, for it will bring you in about £60,000 a year. The only condition I make is that you take the name your mother refused, your own second name. And my one hope is that you will be more successful in love than I was. Your affectionate 'grand-godfather,' Henry Langham." For some minutes Pansy sat brooding on her godfather's end. The poor old boy had been awfully ill for a long time, and now he was dead. She blinked back a couple of tears. Then her thoughts went to the fortune she had inherited. Presently she crossed to the mirror and looked at herself. "No, old girl," she said to her reflection, "your head isn't turned." Then she slipped the letter into her pocket and made straight for her great friend and confidante. To the average eye there was nothing about Miss Grainger to attract a vivid, beautiful girl like Pansy Barclay--Pansy Langham as she would be now. Miss Grainger was middle-aged, grey-haired, thin and depressed-looking: the down-trodden English mistress, with no qualifications except good breeding. She was poor and friendless, and life had gone hard with her, but these facts were sufficient to fill Pansy's heart with a warmth of generous affection and sympathy. The girl's principal thought as she went along was not so much of the millions she had just inherited, but that she had always wanted to do something for Miss Grainger, and now she saw a way of doing it. She entered the room that served the English mistress as bedroom, study and sitting-room, disturbing the latter in the midst of correcting an accumulated pile of exercise books. "What is it, Pansy?" she asked, smiling at her favourite. "Miss Grainger, you'll be pleased to hear I'm a millionaire." The English mistress put down her pen carefully, and then sat staring at the child. "Really, my dear," she said in a bewildered tone, "you have a way of saying the most surprising things in the most matter-of-fact manner. But, since you're saying it, it must be true." "That's a character in itself," Pansy remarked, smiling, a smile that brought to view several bewitching dimples. She produced the letter and handed it to her friend. The English mistress read it through. "Sixty thousand pounds a year!" she exclaimed. "It makes my head reel." "Then yours can't be so firmly screwed on as mine. Mine isn't turned one little bit. I looked at myself in a glass to see." "But what are you going to do with it all?" the governess asked helplessly. "Spend it, of course. I take after my father and never shirk an unpleasant duty," she went on, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "To begin with, you, Miss Grainger, are going to be my companion, and we'll have a yacht and go all round the world together, and see and do everything that can be seen and done." "You'll get married, Pansy," the governess said, looking lovingly at the beautiful flower-like, little face. "Not much! You dear old antiquated thing. I'm not going to be tied by the leg in that fashion." "As the English mistress, I must remind you that 'tied by the leg' is slang." "When you're my companion you'll be talking slang yourself. I'm not so sure I won't make that one of the stipulations," the child went on teasingly. "It'll be such a change for you after thirty years of correcting stupid exercises." "It will be rather," Miss Grainger said wistfully. "And I shall come out at seventeen," Pansy went on. "I must start as early as possible if I'm to spend all that money. I shall write and ask my father if I may come out at seventeen. Do you think he'll refuse?" "No man will ever refuse you anything, Pansy. You're too sweet and good and beautiful." "And rich. Don't forget the rich. That'll be a tremendous draw." Miss Grainger smiled at her favourite. "I hope the man who marries you will pick you for your good heart and generous nature, not your looks and money," she remarked. "Still harping on that old string, Mrs. Noah. Women don't get married nowadays if they can afford to stay single." Then the school dinner-bell ringing sent Pansy from the room, but not before she had given an impetuous hug and kiss to her friend. CHAPTER IX Paris always has a welcome for millionaires. And it always had a specially warm welcome for Raoul Le Breton, the African merchant-prince. Not only was he fabulously rich, but he was young and remarkably good-looking. It was whispered that he had Arab blood in his veins, but he was wealthy enough for the majority to overlook this drawback. Like many modern Frenchmen, he dabbled in "le sport." He was a brilliant tennis player, a worthy opponent at billiards, and he kept a stud of race-horses. There was hardly an actress of any repute and with any pretence to youth and beauty who had not had his patronage at one time or the other. Match-making mothers with marriageable daughters laid snares about his feet. With surprising agility he avoided their traps. None of the daughters proved sufficiently tempting to turn him from the broad, smooth way of gay Parisian bachelorhood to the steep and jagged path of matrimony. Raoul Le Breton was about twenty-five when he paid his sixth visit to Paris. He came now for about three months every year. And he always came in style, with a whole retinue of Arab servants--silent, discreet men who never gossiped about their master. It was whispered also that out in Africa he had a whole harem of his own; moreover, that he was some big chief or the other. In fact, many things were whispered about him, for, on the whole, Paris knew very little except that he was wealthy and wild. His French acquaintances tried to learn more of his doings through the medium of his own private doctor, a stout Frenchman who accompanied the young millionaire to and fro. But Dr. Edouard refused to gossip about his friend and patron. In spite of his success, the young Sultan of El-Ammeh had not forgotten George Barclay. On getting more in touch with civilisation and its ways he had tried to find out the name of the man who was responsible for the death of his supposed father. It was not an easy task. George Barclay had left Gambia five years before Raoul Le Breton set about his investigations. There had been a succession of men since Barclay's time, and the shooting of a native malefactor was not a matter of great note in the annals of a Government. However, eventually Le Breton managed to establish the identity of the man he looked upon as his father's murderer. But to trace George Barclay in England proved an even more difficult task than tracing him in Africa. The Englishman had not stopped long in his country. In search of forgetfulness, he had gone from one place to another, holding posts in various parts of the Empire. The Sultan Casim Ammeh was twenty-five when he heard that Barclay was in the Malay Straits. The news came to him in Paris just when he was setting out for an evening's amusement in company with Dr. Edouard. The letter was brought to him as he stood in dress-suit, opera hat in hand, in his own private sitting-room at the palatial hotel he always patronised when in Paris. On perusing it he turned to his companion, and said, with an air of savage triumph: "Well, Edouard, I've managed to trace my man at last." The doctor knew who the man in question was, for he, Edouard, was the Sultan Casim's one confidant. Rather uneasily he glanced at his patron. He wished the young man would be content with money and the many joys and pleasures it could buy--for Casim Ammeh was no longer a strict Mohammedan--and would not be always hankering after vengeance, a vengeance that might embroil him with England and bring his wild and brilliant career to an abrupt close. "Where is George Barclay?" Edouard asked uneasily. "In the Straits Settlements." The doctor experienced a feeling of intense pleasure on hearing Barclay was in so remote a spot. "It'll be difficult for you to get hold of him there," he remarked, trying to keep out of his voice the relief he was feeling. "He won't stay there for ever. I've waited eleven years for my vengeance. I can go on waiting a little longer, until Fate thinks well to place him in a more accessible position." With a savage expression Le Breton turned to a desk. Sitting down, he wrote to his agents telling them to keep him informed of George Barclay's movements. PART II CHAPTER I The harem in the palace of El-Ammeh led into a large hall with carved doors and tiny arabesque windows, fretted and scrolled, with no one spot big enough to squeeze more than a hand through. Generally speaking, the women of the harem preferred the large hall, where they could gossip among themselves and with their attendant women, to the little rooms that were their own private quarters. But there was one special apartment that they all in turn had striven after and, in turn, had failed to attain. No one in the harem had seen the room except old Sara, and she had plenty of tales to tell about its magnificence. It was a big gilded chamber, with a ceiling like the sky on a desert night, and great golden, jewelled lamps. There was a wonderful bathroom, a fretted gallery that gave a wide view of the desert, a walled garden full of roses, and, above all, a door that led into the Sultan's private suite. The room had had no occupant since the days of the Sultan's mother, the Lady Annette, the first wife and favourite of his father. And Sara had been her special slave and attendant. It could be reached from the harem. At one point behind the silken curtains a narrow stairway led upwards, and ended in a scented, sandalwood door. But the door was always locked, and only the Sultan had the key. It was common harem gossip that in that room he would place the one among his slaves whom he deigned to make his first wife. Although the law allowed him four, and as many slaves as he fancied, so far he had no legal wife. It was strange, considering he was nearly thirty. But, in many ways, he differed from all the previous Sultans. According to old Sara, it was because his mother belonged to quite another race, and had come from a land as remote from El-Ammeh as Paradise, where the women were all white, a land that the Sultan now visited yearly. For that land he was starting to-morrow. He had just been to the harem to say farewell to the half-dozen girls there, departing with promises of new jewels and novelties to please and amuse these toys of his on his return. And now he lingered with his newest slave and favourite, Rayma, the Arab girl he had bought but six weeks ago. [Illustration: He had come to the harem to say farewell.....] Envious glances were cast towards the door behind which the Sultan Casim Ammeh and his new slave, Rayma, took farewell of one another. One girl more than the others watched the door with hurt, angry, jealous eyes. She was about twenty-three, with a full figure, a creamy skin, a profusion of long black curls, and great soft, languid eyes--a half-breed Spanish-Moorish girl of the true odalesque type. Her attire was scanty. A red silk slip draped her from shoulder to knee, held on by ribbon straps; and on her hands and wrists and neck a quantity of barbaric jewelery flashed. "I pray to Allah that on his travels our Sultan will find some woman he loves better than Rayma," she said, spite and jealousy in her soft voice. "No, I don't pray that, Leonora," one of her companions remarked. "For _you_ took him from _me_, and what am I now? Like you, a scent that has lost its savour; for it is but a shred of love that the Lord Casim has now for me. No; I pray may _he_ know what it is to love and be denied, for too easily do women's hearts go to him. And no man values what comes to him cheaply. Our day is done, mine and yours, Leonora, as Rayma's will be when another woman takes his fancy. No, pray as I do, that he may love a woman who has no desire for him, who spurns his love--a woman whose people will not sell her, who is no slave put up for auction, as we were. May his heart ache, as mine has ached. May passion keep him sleepless, with empty arms and craving desire. May love prove to him a mirage that he can see yet never grasp!" Unconscious of these wishes, the Sultan Casim Ammeh and the slave girl Rayma lingered together behind closed doors. The moon shone into the little apartment, showing a big man in a white burnoose, and at his side a girl lay, looking at him with tearful, love-laden eyes. She was about seventeen, with an amber skin and a cloud of straight black hair that reached to her heels. A cloud out from which looked a little oval face, with great black eyes and a small red mouth, a perfect type of Arab beauty. "My Lord Casim, beloved, my heart breaks at the thought of your going," she said tearfully. Smilingly he watched her, caressing her in an indulgent fashion. "But, my desert flower, I shall come back again." "But it is so far. And in that Paris there are so many women. I know, because Sara has told me. And all their arms will be stretched out to keep you there." "No arms have kept me there for longer than three months," he replied. "And mine! Mine are not strong enough to keep you here?" she sobbed. He drew the sobbing little beauty into his embrace, and kissed her tear-stained face. "Tell me, my jewel, what favour can I grant you before I go?" "I want nothing but just to rest upon your heart for ever." With a tender hand he stroked her long black hair, and tried to soothe away the tears; flattering tears, resulting from his coming departure. "Don't go to Paris, Casim, beloved," she whispered. "Stay in El-Ammeh. Paris is so far, and I am so ignorant of all outside of the desert. Ignorant of everything except love and you. Think, my lord, only six weeks have we been together, and now you would go! Only six weeks since my father brought me from the desert to sell me to the Sultan Casim Ammeh. How afraid I was until I saw you. And then I was afraid I might not find favour in your sight. For my heart was yours the moment our eyes met. Only six weeks ago! Casim, don't go," she implored. "Stay with me, for my heart is breaking." "Little one, there is business as well as love," he said gently. "I think of nothing but love." "Love is quite enough for any girl to think of." "And those women in Paris, do they think only of love?" "No; they think of money as well. That's why I prefer you." She slipped her slim arms about his neck, pressing, her slight form against him, kissing him passionately. "Let me live in the gilded chamber until you come back," she whispered, "and then I should feel the most honoured among your slaves." However, he avoided this suggestion. "We'll see about that when I return," he answered with an amused, indulgent air. Then he held the girl closer. "Now, before I go, Rayma, is there nothing you want? Nothing I can do for you?" "There is one thing, my Sultan. Sell Leonora. I hate her. She's a great fat toad, always plotting and planning to steal your heart from me." "I couldn't do that. I'm not quite like your desert men, remember. I can't sell a woman who has once pleased me. But, on my return, I'll find her a nice husband, if that will satisfy you." There was a note in his voice that brooked no argument; and the girl, reared for the harem, was quick to notice it. She gave a sharp glance at her owner. It seemed that a man she did not know stood behind her Sultan, indulgent master as he had proved. A man she had no hold over. CHAPTER II In one of the hotels in the Island of Grand Canary dinner had just been served. Around the door of the large dining-hall the manager, the head waiter and several underlings hovered, with an air of awaiting the arrival of some important personage. Presently two people appeared in the doorway. One was a middle-aged woman with grey hair and a prim expression. She was wearing a plain black silk evening dress, and she had the look of a retired governess. Her companion was of quite another type. She was a slender, graceful girl of medium height, with a mop of short, golden curls dancing round a small, frank face, that gave her the look of some lovely, delicate schoolboy. She wore a simple white silk frock, and her only mark of wealth was a large diamond hanging from a thin platinum chain about her slender neck; a gem in itself worth a fortune. Evidently she was the personage expected. As she appeared the manager went forward to meet her. She smiled at him in a friendly, affable manner. With him at her side, she and her companion went up the big room, towards a specially reserved table, the head-waiter and a little group of others following behind. As she came up the room, a man seated at one of the tables in the center of the room said to his neighbour: "Who is that girl? The whole hotel is falling over itself to wait on her." The speaker was a short, thick-set man, with a red face and fishy eyes. "That's Pansy Langham, the millionairess," his neighbour replied. "She came over in her yacht from Teneriffe this afternoon. Barclay her name was before she came into her money." "A millionaire, is she? That's the second one of the species in Grand Canary then. For there's a French millionaire staying in a villa at the back here. Le Breton, his name is. But what's brought the girl to these parts? There's not much here to attract a woman with money." "She's here for her health, I believe." "Not lungs, surely! She looks healthy enough." "No, she had an accident about a couple of months ago. Some half-mad horse mauled her horribly, all but killed her. I remember reading about the case in the papers. They say she's a very decent sort, in spite of her millions. Gives an awful lot away in charity." As the girl approached the table, the red-faced man screwed an eyeglass into one fishy eye and surveyed her from head to foot. "She's not bad looking," he said in a condescending manner, as if it were his prerogative to criticise every woman who crossed his horizon. "But she's not a patch on the red-haired woman in the villa at the back here. Now, she's what I call a beauty." He did not trouble to lower his voice, and his words reached Pansy. She glanced in his direction and wrinkled her pretty nose, as if she were smelling a bad smell. And with no more notice than that, she passed on to her own table. CHAPTER III Just off the main road between the Port and the city of Las Palmas, Grand Canary, a villa stood. It was situated on a hill; a white, flat-roofed building, set in a pleasant garden. Long windows opened on a lawn surrounded by trees. Out from one of the windows a flood of light streamed and mingled with the silver of the night. The apartment it came from was elaborately furnished, in an ornate French style, with gilded furniture, bevelled mirrors, and satin-covered chairs and lounges. On one of the latter a woman lolled back amongst an array of soft cushions. She was big and voluptuous-looking, with a dead-white skin, a mass of flaming red hair, and eyes green as the emerald necklace she wore. She had on an extremely low-cut, black satin dress, that suited her style and colouring. And she made a striking, if somewhat bizarre, picture. But attractive and unique as she looked, the man sitting with her appeared more interested in the view from the window than in his companion. From there, a glint of moonlit sea showed between the vaguely moving trees; a peaceful stretch that spread away to the purple, misty horizon. He was a big man of about thirty, well groomed and handsome, with smooth black hair, close-clipped moustache, and dark, smouldering eyes that had a latent searching look at the back of them. He was in evening attire, with black pearl studs in his pleated dress shirt. For some time the two had been sitting in silence; the man's gaze on the sea; the woman's on the man, in a hungry, anxious manner. "You've got one of your restless moods on to-night, Raoul," she said presently. "I get them frequently nowadays. Nothing ever satisfies me for long." She smiled at him, a soft, slow smile. "Yet I have satisfied you longer than most, for you are still here with me." "It's not you so much, Lucille, as business that keeps me here." "I believe you have no heart at all," she cried, a catch of pain in her voice. "You look upon all women as animals." "You are a most handsome animal, you must agree," he replied. "You talk as if you'd bought me." "I don't know that I ever put it quite so crudely as that." "Put it as crudely as you like," she cried in a sudden gust of temper. "You have taken all from me and given me nothing in return." He made no reply. In a slightly amused manner his glance rested on her emerald necklace. "You may look," she went on passionately. "But I want more than gifts. I want love, not just to be the creature of your passions." "Then you want too much. There's no such thing as love between men and women. There's only passion." "You are cruel," she moaned. "Cruel! Merely because I refuse to be enslaved by any one woman, eaten up in mind and body and soul, as some of the men I know are? I wasn't brought up to look upon women as superior beings, and I've never met one yet to make me want to change my sentiments. They are here for my convenience and pleasure, and nothing more." There was silence again. Lucille sighed. She knew she had no hold over him other than her sex, and never had had. Heroics, temper and entreaties had no effect on him whatsoever; he remained always unmoved and indifferent. With a shrug she picked out a chocolate from a large box at her side. Then she changed the conversation. "What's the business, Raoul? I'd no idea you had any here. I thought ours was a pleasure trip, purely--or impurely." "The business is strictly private," he replied, a savage note in his voice. A month before, on leaving Paris, when Le Breton had asked Lucille Lemesurier, the actress, to accompany him on his yacht and spend a week or so in Grand Canary, it had been for pleasure solely. But a few days ago a letter had reached him. A letter to the effect that his enemy, now Sir George Barclay, had been appointed governor of Gambia. The Sultan Casim Ammeh was waiting in Grand Canary until certain that his man was _en route_ for his new post. CHAPTER IV On the balcony of her bedroom Pansy Langham stood, slim and boyish-looking in a suit of silk pyjamas. Beneath, the hotel grounds spread, running down to the shore. Beyond, the sea stretched, a silver mirror, away to the sparkling, frosty mist of the horizon. In the milky sky the moon soared, a molten globe, touching the drooping palms and making their quivering fronds look like silver fountains. A little line of waves lapped murmurously on the shore, in a running ridge of white fire. The stone wall edging the garden was turned into marble. Here and there across the beach the taller trees threw thick, ebony shadows. On the whole expanse of silvered sea, only one mark showed like a black dot in the distance. Pansy had seen the mark when it had been much nearer the shore; a man's dark head. He had swum out and out, away into the mist and moonlight. It was long after midnight. In the whole white world there was no sign of life except that dark head and the girl on the balcony who was watching the swimmer. The black dot grew bigger, as, with powerful overhand strokes, the man made his way shorewards. When about two hundred yards away from the beach the strong ease of his limbs altered suddenly. They grew contorted. He threw up his arms, and a moment later vanished completely. Pansy gave a quick gasp of alarm. But the man appeared again, trying to float, as a level-headed swimmer does when cramps seize him, in order to get air between the spasms that send him writhing under water; a hopeless task usually, unless aid is quickly forthcoming. For just one second Pansy watched with horror and distress on her face. Then she turned sharply and vanished into her bedroom. A moment or so later she was out of the hotel and running swiftly through the silent garden towards the shore. To Le Breton out there with the water choking his powerful lungs, gasping and fighting for his life against a death that only his own nerve and wit kept at bay, that struggle seemed an eternity. All at once, he was caught and held from behind, just on the surface of the water; a slight support, but sufficient to keep him from going under when the spasms were on. Unlike the average swimmer in difficulties, he did not snatch at his unseen rescuer. For all his dire straits he had the presence of mind to let his preserver alone. For another ten minutes or more the attack lasted. Then his muscles unknotted and strength came back to his limbs. He turned himself over to see who had come to his aid. Out of the misty moonlit sea a young face looked at him from under a mop of short curls. "You didn't come a moment too soon, my boy," he said. There was a tired look about Pansy, but that did not prevent her dimpling in an effort not to smile. And to hide her mirth she dived suddenly and struck out towards the land. Le Breton struck out too. He reached the shore first. Pansy, however, did not go in his direction. She turned off and landed where the shadows were the thickest. From where the man stood, he saw what looked to be a slim, fragile boy of about fourteen, who staggered slightly with fatigue as he made towards the most shadowed pair of steps leading into the hotel grounds. Quickly Le Breton went towards his rescuer, with the idea of lending a hand, for it looked as if the boy were thoroughly worn out. By the time he reached her Pansy was leaning against the wall under cover of the thickest shadows. "I'm afraid you've over-exerted yourself on my account," he said in a solicitous way. "I don't usually get knocked out so quickly," she replied. "But I had a nasty accident some weeks ago, and I've not quite recovered yet." The answer was in French, as fluent and Parisian as his own. "You must let me help you back to the hotel," he said. "Oh no, it's not necessary. I shall be all right in a moment." "What you need, my boy, is a dose of brandy," he remarked. "That would soon put you right." Pansy put her hand to her mouth to hide her smiles. Her short hair, pyjamas, and the shadows had deceived him completely. "It wouldn't be a bad idea," she replied; "but I don't happen to have any." "Ring for some, then, when you get back to the hotel." "I wouldn't dream of disturbing people at this hour of the night," she said in an indignant tone of voice. "What else are the servants there for?" he asked in a surprised and peremptory way. "They're not there for me to root out of bed at two o'clock in the morning." He laughed in an amused manner. "I'm not so considerate of menials as you appear to be. But tell me the number of your room and I'll bring you some." There was a brief pause. Out from the shadows Pansy scanned the man. She could not see much, except that he was big and of splendid proportions. But he had a well-bred air, and his deep voice, if imperious, was pleasant and cultured. Then her eyes started to sparkle with mischief. "My room is number three on the first floor," she said. "Don't knock; come straight in. I'll leave the door ajar. I don't want to disturb my neighbours with my midnight prowls." "Very well. I'll be there in ten minutes or so," They parted company, Le Breton going along the shore, Pansy up the shadowed steps. On reaching her own room she switched on the light. Slipping off her sodden garments, she dried herself quickly and put on a low-necked, short-sleeved, silk nightgown embroidered with purple pansies. Giving a quick, vigorous rub to her curls, she opened the door an inch or so. Then she skipped into bed and sat there, bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked, delighted with the surprise she had prepared for the man. Unaware of what was in store for him, Le Breton returned to the hotel. Knowing the place well, he made his way noiselessly along the dim, deserted corridor towards a door that stood slightly ajar, letting out a sharp knife of light. He was in shirt and trousers, and in his hand he carried a small jewelled flask. Without any preamble he went into the room. The apartment he entered was a sumptuous one to average eyes, the best the hotel boasted. On the wide dressing-table was a litter of silver toilet appointments, each with a pansy in purple enamel on it. Le Breton did not give the room a glance. He had eyes for nothing but the figure sitting up in bed. A figure no longer in pyjamas--they lay in a wet heap in the middle of the floor--but in a pretty nightgown; and from beneath a flood of golden curls wide, purple eyes looked at him, sparkling with innocent mischief. It was no boy who had come to his assistance, but a girl! A lovely girl with a full, perfect mouth, vividly red, a milk-white skin and cheeks where roses bloomed. He backed slightly and locked the door, as if the situation were one he was quite accustomed to and equal to dealing with. "There's no need to lock the door," Pansy said. "It's on your account, not mine. A little incident of this sort won't damage my reputation." "I'd forgotten about my reputation," she said, a note of concern in her voice. "I only thought about giving you a surprise." "It is. A most delightful one, too. In fact, I don't think I've ever experienced anything quite so delightful and unexpected," he responded drily. He crossed to the bed, and stood looking at the girl with a critical, appreciative air. And Pansy looked at him with candid, friendly gaze, taking stock of him equally. He struck her as being remarkably good-looking, but his expression was too arrogant, his mouth too hard; it even had a suspicion of cruelty. He had an air, too, of having ridden rough-shod over people all his days. In spite of his well-groomed, well-bred appearance, there was a suggestion of the wild about him, as if he had never been properly broken in. There was a brief silence as the two surveyed one another. Le Breton was the first to speak, and his remark was of a critical nature. "Why do you wear your hair short? It would suit you far better long, as a woman's hair ought to be." "I like it short. It's less trouble." There was a note in her voice as if his or any man's opinion about her appearance did not worry her in the least; an air of thorough independence, out of keeping with her years, that he was quick to notice. "Do you always do as you like?" he asked. "Always. It's an excellent habit to cultivate, and one you've cultivated to the fullest by the look of you, since criticism is the order of the day," she replied. Le Breton thought of the desert kingdom he had ruled with undisputed sway for sixteen years. "I dare say I do as I like more than most people you've come across," he answered with emphasis. Pansy dimpled. There was an air about her visitor as if he expected and were accustomed to people standing in awe of him. However, he did not inspire her with this feeling, only with a desire to tease and plague him; he was so big and masterful looking, as if he thought himself "monarch of all he surveyed," even herself, at that moment. "Are you in the habit of asking strange men to your bedroom?" he asked suddenly. "If I remember rightly, you volunteered to come." "And now I'm here, what am I supposed to do?" "To be _most_ surprised. To give me a drink of brandy; and then go, nicely and quietly, like a good 'boy.'" An amused look crossed Le Breton's face. Innocent mischief had not come into his life before. "I am most surprised," he said. "I flattered myself I could tell a woman anywhere." "I'm not a woman, not until next year. So that must account for your deplorable mistake." "You look even younger than twenty. Are you English or American?" "Why can't I have a choice of being either French or Russian or Italian or Spanish or German?" "Only an English or an American girl would play this sort of a trick. Not that I've had any dealings with either. I'd like to hear you were American." "What's wrong with being English?" "I dislike and despise the English," he replied, a latent note of savagery in his deep voice. "Then you'll have to dislike and despise me, because I'm one of them." Pansy stretched out her hand. The action brought into view a network of disfiguring red ridges and scars on her upper arm, marring an otherwise perfect limb. "Please give me a drink," she finished. The excitement of the surprise she had prepared was dying down, leaving her looking what she really was--worn out with the exertion of saving him. Crossing to the wash-stand, Le Breton picked up a glass. Pouring a small dose of brandy into it, he added the requisite water and brought it back to the girl. Then he seated himself on the bedside, watching her as she drank it. "What a nasty scar you have on your arm," he remarked, is if any flaw on such perfection annoyed him. "I've worse scars here and here," she replied, touching her side and thigh; "and they don't look at all pretty. 'The Sultan' did them." He started slightly. "The Sultan! What Sultan?" "A brown Sultan. A very nice Sultan, but we understand one another now." Le Breton took the girl's arm into his grip with the light, firm, careful touch of a man who is used to handling women. "They're the marks of a horse's teeth," he remarked after a brief survey. With an air of relief, Pansy held the empty glass towards him. "Thank goodness that's finished. Now, with your permission, I'll go to sleep." He took the glass, placing it on a table near; but he did not move from his seat on the bedside. "You must tell me your name," he said. "You'll find out quite soon enough without my telling you. It's not at all necessary for me to advertise myself nowadays." "Won't you tell me?" he asked in a cajoling tone. Pansy shook her head. "Then I must find a name for you," he said. "A flower name would suit you admirably. Let me see, what do you call the flower in English?" He hesitated. "Pansy," he finished, after a moment's thought. "But why 'Pansy' specially?" she asked, smiling at him. "Why not Lily or Rose or May, since I'm to be given a stupid flower name?" "There are pansies in your eyes, on your nightgown, on the appointments of your dressing-table, on your handkerchief here." With a deeply bronzed hand he touched a scrap of embroidered muslin that peeped out from beneath her pillow and which had a pansy worked on it in one corner. Pansy laughed, amused at his perception. "Now, I'm too tired to entertain you any longer," she said. "Good night, and thank you for bringing the brandy." Le Breton was not accustomed to being dismissed when he was prepared to stay.' "Are you really anxious to get rid of me?" he asked. "Most anxious. I'm dying to go to sleep." In a reluctant manner he got to his feet. Stooping over the bed, he gave a caressing pat to the tired, small face. "Good night, Pansy, little flower," he said softly. "I'll go if you really want me to, but I'm not in the habit of going unless _I_ want to." "What an autocrat you sound! And please--don't forget my reputation. I can't afford to lose it so early in life." There was anxiety in the girl's voice, for all her light tone. "Your reputation will be quite safe with me," he said. He stood for a moment watching her, an amused expression lurking in his dark, fiery eyes. Then he turned and, switching off the light, went noiselessly from the room. It was not until he had gone that Pansy recollected that he had touched her twice and she had not minded or reproved him, and usually she very strongly resented being touched by men. And it was not until Le Breton reached his villa that he remembered the girl had not even troubled to ask his name. In fact, once the trick had been played, her only desire had been to get him out of the room. CHAPTER V In one of the private sitting-rooms of the hotel, Miss Grainger was lolling back in a comfortable wicker chair reading a newspaper. The door opening made her look round. A slim, boyish figure entered the room, clad in a well-cut white riding suit, the neatest of brown boots and leggings, and a white felt hat pulled well on to a mop of curls. "You're late starting this morning, Pansy." "I am. But--last night I saved a man's life." "Saved a man's life! Really, my dear, what a way you have of springing surprises on one." Teasingly Pansy glanced at her old governess. "Miss Grainger, I must remind you that 'springing surprises' is slang." Miss Grainger ignored the reprimand. "But what man did you save, and how did you save him?" she asked in a slightly bewildered manner. "I forgot to ask his name. I fished him out of the sea. He had cramps." "But he might have dragged you under!" her companion said in a horrified voice. "I should have thought that last experience of yours with that awful horse would have taught you not to go diving headlong into danger." "'The Sultan' isn't awful. You know it was all a mistake on his part. Besides, nothing will keep me from 'diving headlong into danger,' as you call it, when I see things being hurt. It's all part of my silly, impetuous nature." "Well, I hope the man was grateful." "He never even thanked me." Such gross ingratitude left Miss Grainger aghast. "My dear!" she exclaimed. "He thought I was a boy, and when he found I was a girl he was too astonished to remember his manners," Pansy explained. "But don't say anything about it to anybody. You know I hate a fuss." "What was he like?" "Big and dark and awfully good-looking, with an arrogant, high-handed manner. He badly needed taking down a peg or two." "Quite different from Captain Cameron," Miss Grainger suggested. "Oh, quite. Bob's a kid beside him." There was a brief pause. Miss Grainger glanced at the girl. "Do you know, Pansy, I'm sorry for Captain Cameron." "So am I," the girl replied, a touch of distress in her voice. "But my sorrow refuses to blossom into love." "He's a very good sort." "I know; but then I'm not given to falling in love." "Some day you'll find yourself in love before you know it." Pansy smiled at her old governess in a merry, whole-hearted fashion. "What a persistent bird of ill-omen you are!" she said. Then she glanced at the clock. "Now I'm off. I shan't be back for lunch. So-long," she finished. She went, leaving Miss Grainger with the feeling of a fresh, sweet breeze having been wafted through the room. CHAPTER VI In the large palm-decked patio of the hotel, Le Breton sat sipping coffee as he went through the newspapers solicitous waiters had placed on a table at his elbow. It was not often he came to the hotel, but when he did the whole staff was at his disposal, for he scattered largess with a liberal hand. He had lunched there, his gaze wandering over the crowded dining-room as if in search of someone; and afterwards he had stayed on. It was now about three in the afternoon, an hour when the patio was practically deserted. As he sat there reading, Pansy entered the big hall, still in breeches and leggings, just as she had returned from her ride. She would have passed through the patio without coming within his vision, except that something about the smooth black head was familiar. So she changed her route and went in Le Breton's direction instead. "Have you gotten over your disappointment?" she asked. In an unperturbed manner he looked round. Then he got to his feet leisurely, surveying the slim, boyish figure with disapproval. Pansy stood with her hands deep in her pockets, smiling at him, a smile that deepened under his lack of appreciation of her attire. "What disappointment?" he asked. "Of finding I was a girl you had to be polite to instead of a boy you could bully." "I'm inclined to go back to my first impression," he said. "Don't you like my get-up?" "Decidedly I do not. Why don't you wear something feminine? Not go about masquerading as a man." Adverse criticism rarely came Pansy's way. She laughed. "What a back number you are! All women ride in breeches nowadays. But, since you don't approve of me, come along and see if you like 'The Sultan' any better. You were most interested in his mark and seal." There was an air about her as if she never expected to be gainsaid if she felt like favouring a man, for she turned at once and led the way towards the main entrance. Picking up his hat, Le Breton followed. Once outside, he said: "I've not yet thanked you for saving my life." "I couldn't do less than lend a hand," she replied with a casual air. "It was a risky thing to do. I might have dragged you under." "Well, you didn't. And we're neither of us any the worse for the little adventure." "I hope we shall be all the better. That we shall be excellent friends," he replied. Then he drew a leather case from his pocket and held it towards her. "I've brought you a little memento," he finished. With inquisitive hands Pansy took the case and snapped it open. Inside was a string of pearls worth at least £500. He watched the girl as she opened the case, but none of the coos of delight and surprise at his generosity, that he expected and was accustomed to under such circumstances, were forthcoming. Instead, she closed the case and handed it back to him. "It's very pretty, and very kind of you to think of it," she said. "But I couldn't keep it." To have his gift thrust back on him was the last thing Le Breton was prepared for or desired. "Why not?" he asked abruptly. "I never take presents from men, but I appreciate your kindness all the same." He glanced at her, a peculiar look at the back of his eyes. To get off the topic Pansy hurried forward. From a building close at hand there came a gentle whinny. "That's 'The Sultan,'" she remarked. "He hears me coming." When the stables came into view, over the open door of a box a long brown head and neck were seen stretched towards the approaching girl. "I'm going to let him out," she said; "but you mustn't come too close. He hates strangers; and so should I if I'd been through the hell he's been through." Le Breton laughed, as if anyone, more especially the slim girl with him, telling him to be careful of anything in the shape of a horse had its intensely funny side. As Pansy opened the door his glance ran swiftly over the animal. It was a huge, gaunt beast, a chestnut, with wild, roving eyes; a great, vicious-looking creature, well on in years and undoubtedly an old race-horse, for speed was written all over it. And on it, too, were scars and weals that spoke of past ill-treatment. Pansy kissed its soft nose, and patted and stroked it and pulled its ears; and the great animal fawned on her. Then she led it out, keeping a tight grip on its mane. For it bared its teeth at Le Breton, and stood shivering and expectant, as if suspecting every man's hand to be against it. He, however, ignored its attentions and came closer. But it swung round and lashed at him with iron heels. "Oh, do be careful! Don't come so close," Pansy cried. In spite of its snarls and the iron hoofs, she kept her grip on its mane. But neither teeth nor hoofs, were in her direction. Ignoring her entreaties, Le Breton came closer, all the time talking to the horse gently in a strange language. The animal seemed to recognize a friend. It quietened down suddenly, and stretched a long neck in his direction. Still talking, he patted and stroked it. The horse submitted to his attentions, and before many moments had passed was rubbing its nose against him. All interest, Pansy watched the two make friends. "What are you saying to him?" she asked. "Usually he won't let a stranger near him." "I was talking to him in the language all race-horses understand--Arabic," he replied. "But how did you come by such a brute?" The animal was of the type only the most hardened of stable-men could handle; the very last horse for a girl to ride. "I dropped across him quite by accident." Le Breton thought of the scars he had seen on the girl's arm, and he had heard there were others and worse beyond his view. "I should say it was 'by accident,'" he remarked drily. "I'd like to hear the story." Pansy patted the big horse fondly. "We met in a London slum," she said. "I happened to be passing a stable yard when I heard a noise like a horse being hurt or frightened, and men laughing. So I opened the gate and went in. There was poor old Sultan tied up in one corner and half a dozen roughs baiting him, all the time taking good care not to get within his reach, for he was almost mad with terror and rage and ill-treatment. I told them what I thought, and in the telling I got too close to 'The Sultan,' and he grabbed me by the arm. In ten minutes he had made such a mess of me that it took a month to patch me up. And the men were such cowards that they never tried to rescue me. It was 'The Sultan' himself who seemed to realise he'd set on his best friend, for he stopped chewing me, and stood sniffing at me, and let me crawl away. And I didn't remember anything more until I found myself back home. Then I remembered the poor horse left to the mercy of those cruel wretches; and I sent someone along to buy him and take him away from his awful surroundings. It was so obvious he had known better days, although he had sunk right down to dragging some East End coal higgler's cart. The first time I was allowed out I went to his paddock and had a look at him. And I'm sure he knew me. He stretched his long neck over the gate and sniffed and snuffed at me and seemed quite conscience-stricken. At the end of a fortnight I was on his back, and now I take him everywhere I go, as he gets worried if he doesn't see me about. He can't believe his awful days are over unless I'm here to reassure him." As Pansy told the tale she leant against the big horse; and she told it as if her own hurts were nothing. "And you took him into your favour after he had treated you so abominably!" Le Breton said. "I couldn't be hard on him for what was the result of his awful surroundings." "You are very magnanimous." Pansy smiled. "You'll forgive me for not accepting that pretty necklace, won't you?" she asked. "Some day, when we know each other better, you'll honour me by accepting it," he said. He spoke to the girl now as if she were his equal, not just some pretty toy he happened to have fancied. "I never take anything from men--except perhaps a few flowers." There was a subtle contempt for his sex in her voice which Le Breton was quick to note. "So you despise men?" "Not that exactly, but I've had rather an overdose of them. Since I've been here, Sultan and I go off early every morning usually, and are miles away before there are any men about to bother us." With this Pansy turned and led the horse back to its box. "Now," she said, when this was done, "I mustn't keep you. Good-bye, and I'm glad you're none the worse for last night." Again Le Breton was dismissed when he would have lingered. And on this second meeting she still had not troubled to ask his name. There was a curious glint in his eyes as they rested on the slim, white, indifferent figure of the girl who was making her way back to the hotel without a further glance in his direction. CHAPTER VII At six o'clock in the morning the road that joins the port and the city of Las Palmas shows very little sign of the peaceful English invasion. It is given over to the Islanders. To peasant women with baskets of produce on their heads; to men driving donkeys laden with fruit and vegetables, and creaking bullock carts. The early morning was Pansy's favourite time; the world was a place of dew and brightness with the sun glinting gold on sandy hills and air that sparkled like champagne. She trotted along on her big horse towards the white city, its flat roofs, low houses and palms giving it an oriental aspect. Biding through the town, she crossed a wide bridge and went upwards through a grove of palms, past banana gardens, into a deserted world, with a blue sky overhead and an endless stretch of sea behind. As she mounted higher, the hill grew vine-clad, and great ragged eucalyptus trees stood in tatters by the roadside. Here and there was a stunted pine, the deep green of a walnut tree, a clump of bamboo, a palm and occasionally, a great patch of prickly cacti, whose flaming flowers stood out red against a dazzling day. She rode without spurs or whip, when necessary urging her horse with hand and voice only. A village was reached, where black-browed men in slouch hats and blanket cloaks lounged in groups, smoking and gossiping, and swarthy women with bright handkerchiefs around their heads stared at the girl astride the big horse. In the dust of the road a little group of half-clad, bare-footed children dragged a trio of unfortunate lizards along by strings around their necks, and screamed with delight at the writhings of the tortured reptiles. The sight brought a look of distress to Pansy's face. Reining in her horse, she slipped of and went towards the group. In indifferent Spanish she gave a brief lecture on cruelty. There was a sprinkling of small coins, and the lizards changed owners. Pansy stooped. Loosening the strings from their soft throats, she picked them out of the dust. They were pretty, harmless little things, each about eighteen inches long and bright green in colour, that hung limp in her gentle hands, and looked at her with tortured eyes. Holding them carefully, she went back to her horse, and with the reins over her arm, made her way through the village. Once well out of sight of the place, she seated herself on a bank at the side of the road, and laid the three limp little forms on a warm, flat, sunny rock. Then she tried to coax them back to life and their normal state of bright friskiness. As she sat rubbing, with a gentle forefinger, their soft, panting throats, crooning over them with pitying words, too intent on her task to notice what was going on around her, a deep voice said with an unexpectedness that made her jump: "They'll do exactly the same with the next lizards they catch." She looked round quickly. In the middle of the road, mounted on a huge black horse, was the man whose life she had saved. Pansy's gaze rested on him for a moment before she replied. He made such a picture on the black horse, with his strong, sunburnt face and well-cut khaki riding suit; the most perfect combination of horse and man she had ever seen. "I know they will," she said. "But still, I've done my best for these three." "Do you always try to do your best for everything that comes your way, Pansy?" he asked tenderly. "Only a few privileged people are allowed to call me 'Pansy,'" she said tartly. "What else can I call you, since you refuse to tell me your name?" "You mean to say you haven't found out yet?" she exclaimed. "I never gossip," he replied in a haughty tone. "I don't know yours," she answered, "so we're what is called in English 'quits.'" "What exactly does 'quits' mean? I don't know much English." As Pansy petted the lizards she explained the meaning of the word. During the explanation one of her protégés recovered, and darted off in a most thankless manner into a crevice in the rocks. "My name is Le Breton," he said when he had grasped her meaning. "Raoul Le Breton." Pansy stared at him. She had surprised him on the occasion of their first meeting, but he had turned the tables on her. During her stay in Teneriffe she had heard of Raoul Le Breton. He was a French millionaire, an African merchant prince, so rumour said. She had had a feeling that he had followed her that morning, and she was inclined to be angry about it. Now she saw that if he sought her out, it was not from mercenary motives, since he was quite as wealthy as she was. What was more he had no idea who she was. "I'm always interested in millionaires," she said, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "All women are," he responded grimly. "But you're not the only millionaire in the islands," she remarked. "So I've gathered. There is, or was, one here quite recently. An Englishwoman of the name of Langham. I detest women with money. They are invariably ugly and conceited." Pansy laughed--a ripple of sheer enjoyment. "Perhaps their independence annoys you," she suggested. "I believe you're what is known as the 'masterful' type." With that, her attention went back to the lizards. Dismounting, Le Breton came to her side. "You speak French remarkably well," he commented, as the moments passed and no notice was taken of him. "I was educated in Paris." She glanced at him, her eyes brimming with mischief, and, as she glanced, another of her protégés frisked thanklessly away. "Wouldn't you like to know my name?" she asked. "At present it's sufficient that you are 'Pansy.' 'Heart's Ease,' don't you say in English?" "I wish I could ease this one poor little beast," she said, touching the remaining lizard. "But I fear it's hurt beyond redemption." Stooping he picked up the little reptile and examined it. It hung limp in his grasp; a hopeless case. "The best thing to do with it is to kill it," he commented. "Oh, I couldn't," she said quickly. But it appeared he could. He went some distance away from the girl and placed the lizard on a flat rock. In a moment he had ground all tortured life out of it with his heel. "Thank you," she said gratefully. "I knew it was suffering, but I couldn't have done that to save my life. As a reward, will you come and have breakfast with me?" "There's nothing I should like better," he answered. Pansy got to her feet. He helped her to mount. Then he rode at her side up the hill. "I love the clear heights," she remarked presently. "I don't know much about them. The miry depths are more in my line," he replied. Critically she surveyed him. "You don't look so specially muddy." "No? What do I look like--to you?" he asked, a caressing note in his voice. "Very proud, very passionate, very strong, and as if you could be cruel." "Then I can't look very attractive," he said, smiling slightly. "Being proud is all right, so long as it makes you too proud to do mean things." "And what about the passionate?" he asked, "since you're making excuses for me. "I don't know anything about it." "Well, what about my being strong then?" "I don't like men unless they are." "And the cruelty?" "I hate it." "Life sometimes combines to make people cruel who otherwise might not be," he remarked, as if unaccustomed to finding excuses for himself. "You can't judge a person fairly until you know all that has gone to form their character." Pansy patted her gaunt steed. "I know that," she said, "that's why I stuck to 'The Sultan' when my friends tried to persuade me to have him shot. There's a lot in his life that I don't know. These marks tell me that." She pointed to the various old scars on the animal. "Now you shall see what 'The Sultan' can do," she went on. "I'll race you to the farm over there, where breakfast is waiting," she finished, pointing to a green patch away in the distance. A touch of her spurless heel sent the gaunt beast flying along the dusty, deserted road, in a long, loping gallop that grew more and more rapid, egged on by the sound of another horse persistently at his heels. Pansy had not expected that her escort would be able to keep up with her. No horse she had met could keep pace with her protégé. At the end of half a mile she had been prepared to rein up and wait for Le Breton. But at the end of a mile he was a length behind her. And at the end of two he was there just the same. Pansy tired before either the man or the horses. "Oh!" she panted, as Le Breton drew up beside her. "I wasn't trained as a jockey." "You didn't get away from me quite so easily as you expected," he remarked with curious emphasis. "I didn't know there was a horse in the Islands to touch 'The Sultan,' in spite of his years." "This horse I'm on has won several races in Paris. And you challenged me, Pansy, without pausing to consider what you might be let in for," he said, watching her in a fierce, fond manner. "I always leap before I look. It's my besetting sin," she replied. Then she pointed to a side track, leading to a low building, half white-washed mud, half timber. "That's the way to my farm," she said. "But I don't know that my breakfast will appeal to millionaires." "Don't thrust that down my throat just now," he answered. "I want to see life from your point of view." The farm they were approaching was a tiny place, with a spreading garden where orange and fig trees grew. In one corner a little summer-house stood, wreathed with red roses, that gave a wide view of the island and a glimpse of the sea. Evidently Pansy was expected. A coarse white cloth was spread on the table in the summer-house, and it was set with thick crockery and leaden-looking forks and spoons. Leaving Le Breton to attend to the horses, she made her way to the tiny homestead, to announce her presence and the fact of a guest. Then she passed on towards the summer-house. Tossing her hat on a seat, she sat with the light glinting on her golden curls, her elbows on the table, watching the scene dreamily, in a frame of red roses. This vision of her greeted Le Breton as he turned the corner, bringing a hungry glint to his eyes. Breakfast proved a simple repast. There was a thick jug full of coffee, another of milk, a large omelet, a dish of fruit, rolls, butter and honey. "Now," she said when it was set before them, "how do you like your coffee?" "As it should be according to the orientals--black as sin, hot as hell, sweet as--love," he finished, lingering over the word. She poured his out, and handed it to him, black as he desired. "I can get on very well without either the sin or the love," she remarked as she helped herself to a cup that was mostly milk, and with no sugar in it. "I thought all girls liked sweet things and lived for love," he said as he set about serving the omelet. "There's a lot more in life for women nowadays than love." "Being in love is a woman's normal condition," he said in a forcible, dogmatic manner. Pansy smiled. "I always thought you had come out of the Ark, and now I'm sure of it. You've got such antiquated, early Victorian ideas about women. They mustn't wear knickers. They must always be yearning after some mere male. Very flattering to him, I'm sure," she finished, wrinkling a disdainful nose. Le Breton's gaze rested on the vivid, beautiful little face, with the full, perfect, generous mouth, telling of an unselfish, disinterested nature that would love swiftly and deeply. "Some day you'll find yourself in love before you know it," he commented. "So other people have said. And it makes me horribly nervous at times. Like a blind man walking on the edge of a precipice." "So long as you fell in love with a man who could appreciate you, it would be all right,--a man sufficiently versed in women to know you have qualities beyond your beauty to recommend you." With some surprise Pansy glanced at him. A soft heart lay beneath her light manner. Quite half her income was spent for the benefit of others. She wondered how he knew about these "qualities," considering their brief acquaintance. And she wondered, too, why she was sitting there discussing love with him; a subject she never would let any man approach, if it could be avoided. She put it down to the fact that her identity was unknown to him, and she could talk to him freely, knowing her millions were no temptation. "One thing," she said mischievously, "money will never attract me. I've no expensive tastes. I like views and flowers and sunsets. Moons and stars and seas and sago pudding. Horses and chocolates and--my own way. All things that don't require a tremendous income." There was a brief silence. In a calculating manner Le Breton watched her. She was a new type to him; a girl who could not be approached in the way most women could be--by the easy route of costly presents. The air was heavy with the scent of roses. In the distance a guitar was playing; a throb of melody, faint and seductive, that fed the craving in the man's heart. Pansy glanced at him. "How quiet you are all at once. What are you thinking about?" "Ways and means," he replied, smiling slightly. "I thought only hard-up people were troubled in that way." "The trouble with me now is that I want something which I fear can't be bought with money." "What an unpleasant position for a millionaire to be in. Still, it makes you 'realise your limitations,' as an old governess of mine used to say." She paused for a moment, watching him with an air of subtle mockery. "And, Mr. Le Breton, it won't do you any harm to have to go without a few of the things you want. There's a look about you as if you always had things too much your own way." "I'm not so sure yet that I'm going to do without it. Fortunately I have two other courses left open to me--persuasion and power," he replied. "Power! I thought that was the prerogative of kings." Le Breton said nothing. He knew if this English girl had any idea who he was, she would not be sitting there talking to him so freely. Although he was the Sultan of El-Ammeh, in the eyes of her nation he was a "nigger." There was a further silence which Pansy broke. "What made you swim out all those miles the other night?" she asked. "I get moods when I want to lose the earth and find a heaven to my own liking." "What sort of heaven would that be?" "Where there would be only one houri, and she all-sufficing." "A houri? Why that's a sort of Mohammedan angel-woman." Evidently Le Breton was in a confessional mood, for he said: "Nowadays I often wonder what use my life is. There's no pleasure in it except, perhaps--women." "So long as it's 'women,' it's all right. The trouble starts when it comes to--'woman.'" These words from the innocent girl's lips made him laugh. "Who told you that?" he asked. "Captain Cameron. He likes to pose as an authority on such subjects." "And who is Captain Cameron?" There was a suspicion of jealousy in Le Breton's voice. "At present he's possessed with a demon of tennis. But when the devil has been cast out, he's my father's secretary." "And how can the devil be cast out?" "There's no really permanent cure, but it can be assuaged _pro tem_, if he meets someone who can beat him. In Teneriffe, he carried all before him. And he's coming over here to-morrow to beat all the local champions. He's one of the few people I really like. I've known him all my life." These remarks of hers had the effect of reducing Le Breton to silence again. CHAPTER VIII In the library of the villa, Le Breton sat alone. The hour was late, getting on to midnight. He was stretched in a deep chair smoking, his gaze fixed on a desk close by, on which was a wide, shallow, crystal bowl full of water where half a dozen purple pansies floated. As he sat there indulging in some dream of his own, a door opened and he looked round sharply, by no means pleased at being roused from his reverie. The room was his special sanctum; no one was supposed to enter without his permission. In the doorway Lucille stood, in a foamy white dressing-gown, her wealth of red hair in two thick ropes down her back. On seeing her, a look of suppressed annoyance crossed his face. "What is it?" he asked in a none too cordial tone. She crossed to his side, and stood looking down at him anxiously. "What has happened to you the last two days?" she asked. "Happened to me! What do you mean?" "You've been so very indifferent." "Was I ever particularly effusive?" She laid her hand on his sleeve with a lingering, caressing touch. "I see nothing of you now except at meals," she said. With an impatient gesture he drew his arm away. "I'm not always in the mood for women," he said coldly. "Perhaps it would be nearer the truth if you said some other woman has taken your fancy," she suggested. There was no reply. Le Breton got to his feet and crossed to the desk, standing there with his back to her as if he resented her presence. It was most obvious to Lucille that she was not welcome. "What is this new fancy of yours like?" she asked in a hurt, jealous tone. He made no answer, but his very back oozed annoyance. "What's her price, Raoul?" she asked in a wild manner. "Is it emeralds or pearls or diamonds? Or is she one whose price is above rubies?" He faced round suddenly, anger flashing in his eyes. "Be quiet, woman!" he said savagely. She laughed hysterically. "So she's something too good for me to talk about, is she? Does she know of all your gay doings in Paris?" "Oh, you women!" he ejaculated contemptuously. "Can you never learn the virtue of silence?" In an angry manner he went from the room, leaving Lucille in possession. She watched him until the door closed. Then she sank down into the chair he had vacated and stayed there with bowed head, weeping bitterly. CHAPTER IX At a spot about ten miles away from Las Palmas there are some well-known orange groves. Stretch upon stretch of scented trees, they made a lattice-work of smooth boughs and shiny leaves overhead, with a glint of blue sky here and there. The ground was strewn with white petals, and clusters of white blossoms made fragrant the gilded greenness. A glimpse of the sea could be had, and the waves filled the air with a constant, soft, distant murmur. At one spot in the scented grove preparations had been made for an elaborate picnic. Piles of soft silk cushions were set upon the ground. On a cloth of finest linen was spread an array of frail china and heavy silver, with here and there some golden dish holding dainties. Two impassive men with lean, brown faces, clad in flowing white robes, stood near. Beyond all view of the feast came a faint rattle of pots and pans, and a little wavering column of smoke rose from a fire where breakfast was being prepared. When Pansy had come down the hotel steps for her usual early morning ride she had not been very surprised to find Le Breton there waiting for her. She had had a wide experience of men and their ways, and she knew what she called "the symptoms." Generally "the symptoms" annoyed her; she felt they had more to do with her money than herself. But Le Breton's case was different. She knew who he was, but he had no idea of her identity. "I'm going to take you out for breakfast this time," he said on seeing her. "Where are we going?" she asked. "To the orange groves beyond Telde." They had ridden through the white city, and then on, skirting the coast, past banana plantations, cindery-looking cliffs and a lava bed where the poisonous euphorbia grew, ten to twelve feet high, stiff and straight, like gigantic candelabras. "I was thinking about you last night," Pansy remarked once, between their canters. "What you said about the miry depths. And I remember having read somewhere that water can always reach to the level it rises from. When people get into the depths they should remember that; it'll help them to scramble out." The miry depths of dissipation into which he occasionally plunged had never troubled Le Breton in the least. He was not actively aware that they did now, although he hoped that Pansy would not get to hear of them. But it was all part of the girl's nature to have ready the helpful hand. "So, Pansy," he said, "having saved my body, you're now after my soul." "Oh no, I'm not a missionary! But if you like people, there's no harm in giving them a word in season." He brought his horse closer, and bent towards the girl. "So you like me?" he said in a caressing tone. "I shouldn't be here if I didn't," she answered candidly. "And what if I say I like _you_?" he asked, laughing softly. "I should say it's very nice of you, considering you know nothing at all about me." "I can see you are beautiful. I know your heart is kind. Circumstances have shown me you are not mercenary. What more could I wish to know about you? Isn't the combination enough to attract any man?" "Considering you are French, you've missed the vital point," she said demurely. "You haven't said anything about a _dot_." "No man in his senses would want a _dot_ with you." "He wouldn't get much money out of my father, anyhow," she said. "He's a poor man who has to work hard for his living; and I love him better than anyone in the whole wide world." "I'd like to meet him," Le Breton remarked. "So you will, if you behave yourself. He's coming out here very soon." "What constitutes behaving myself?" he asked. "People have never complained of my behaviour so far." Pansy knew he was arrogant and overbearing. By his own telling, she guessed he was inclined to be wild. She suspected him of having little or no respect for women, although he had been unfailingly courteous to her. "I might complain if I had much to do with you, though," she said. "It would be refreshing, to say the least," he remarked, with a slight smile hovering on his lips. "And what would you complain of especially?" "You need a lot of reforming in quite a few ways." "Tell me, and I'll endeavour to mould myself according to your ideals," he said with laughter. "You know you're very well pleased with yourself as you are." "But I'm even better pleased with you, Pansy," he answered, watching her with glowing gaze. This Pansy knew quite well. To get off the topic, she touched her horse lightly and broke into a canter. For it seemed to her "the symptoms" were coming to a head even more rapidly than she had expected. When the edge of the orange grove was reached, a couple of white-robed men came forward to take their horses--dark men, with hawk-like faces, lean and sun-scorched, who bowed low before her escort with the utmost servility. "They look like Arabs," Pansy said. "They are Arabs; some of my servants from Africa. I generally have half a dozen with me." It seemed to Pansy the whole half-dozen were in the grove, ready to wait on her. No sooner was she settled among the cushions than one of the servants placed a little box before her, about six inches long and four wide: a costly trifle made of beaten gold, inlaid with flat emeralds and rubies. "Is it Pandora's box?" she asked, picking it up and examining it with curiosity. "It and the contents are for you," Le Breton replied. She turned the tiny golden key. Inside, three purple pansies reposed on a nest of green moss, smiling up at her with velvety eyes. "I'll have the contents," she said. "The box you can keep for another time." With slim white fingers she picked out the pansies and tucked them into her coat. "Still only a few flowers, Pansy?" he said, annoyed, yet pleased that her friendship was disinterested. "Suggest something else that you would accept." "Breakfast," she said promptly. "I'm dying of hunger." A sumptuous feast was spread for her benefit, served in gold and jewel-encrusted dishes; an array of the most expensive luxuries. If Le Breton's idea had been to impress her with his wealth and magnificence, he failed. It seemed to pass her by unnoticed; for Pansy was much more interested in his Arab servants, the grove, the distant view of the sea, than any of the regal extravagance immediately before her. When the meal was over she sat, wistful and dreamy-looking, listening to the sigh of the sea. For some moments Le Breton watched her. Just then her mood appeared very out of keeping with her boyish attire. "I'd like to see you dressed in something really feminine," he remarked presently. "What's your idea of something 'really feminine?'" she inquired. "Just one garment, a robe that would come from your shoulders to your knees, loose and clinging, soft and white, with a strap of pearls to hold it on." "It sounds draughty," she commented; "and it might show my horrid scars." "It would suit you admirably." "And, I suppose, it would suit you admirably, too, to be lying about on cushions with me so attired waiting on you," she said quickly. "Bringing you sherbet and hubble-bubbles, or whatever you call those big pipe things that men smoke in Eastern pictures and on cigar-box lids. And I shouldn't dare call my soul my own. I should tremble at your look. That one garment would place me at a terrible disadvantage." "I might not be a severe task-master. I might only ask you to do one thing." "And what would that be?" "In English, I could say it in two words; spell it in six letters." Pansy darted a quick look at him, and a little mocking smile came and hovered on her mouth. She was too accustomed to men and their ways not to guess what the two words that could be spelt in six letters were. She sat quiet for a moment or two, an impish look on her face. Then she rattled off a riddle in English:-- "My first is in apple, but not in pie, My second is in do, but not in die, My third is in veal, but not in ham, My fourth is in sheep, but not in lamb, My fifth is in morning, but not in night, My sixth is in darkness, but not in light, My whole is just a word or two, Which is known to me as well as to you." Le Breton knew more English than he pretended, but riddles did not often come his way. "Say it again slowly," he requested. Pansy repeated her composition. He stored it up in his mind, deciding to go into the matter later on when there was no lovely little face, dimpled with mischief, looking at him teasingly from beneath a halo of golden curls. Soon after this Pansy glanced at her wrist watch. "I mustn't stay any longer," she said, getting to her feet. "It's not nine o'clock yet," he remarked. "I didn't hurry away from you so quickly yesterday." This Pansy knew quite well. He had sat on, and on, with her in the summer-house with the red roses, and she had been pleased to let him stay. In fact, it had been afternoon before they had come down to earth again. "Captain Cameron is coming this morning," she said. "And I promised to be on the quay to meet him." So saying, she turned towards the spot where the horses were waiting, leaving him to follow or not as he liked. Pansy wanted to linger in the grove with Raoul Le Breton as she had been pleased to stay with him among the red roses on the previous day; but she decided the mood was not one to be encouraged, especially considering his desire for the two words, containing in all six letters, and her own desire for untrammelled liberty. CHAPTER X Under the trees that shadowed one corner of the tennis-courts of the hotel a couple stood. One was a young man of about twenty-four, in white flannel trousers and shirt-sleeves, who held a tennis racket in one hand and a couple of balls in the other. He was of medium height, fresh and fair and boyish looking. At his side Pansy stood, in short skirt and blouse and Panama hat. "Well, old pal, is there anything doing yet?" he was asking cheerfully. "There's nothing doing, Bob, much as I try." "Anyhow, it's a standing order," he said. "I know; and I'm doing my best," she said. "I try to go to bed every night with your name on my lips, but more frequently I go with a yawn. All for the sake of the 'dear dead days beyond recall.'" "Which ones especially?" Cameron inquired. "When I was five and you were nine, and we were all the world to one another." "In the days of my 'dim and distant' youth I learnt a rotten poem, from dire necessity, not choice, you bet. About some bore of a Scotch king and a spider, and the chorus or the moral, I've forgotten which, ran, 'If at first you don't succeed, try again.' Perseverance, Pansy. It's a wonderful thing. You'll find yourself there in the end." Pansy smiled a trifle wistfully at the boy she had known all her life, who always gave her nonsense for nonsense, and, incidentally, his heart. "Bob, I wish I could love you," she said, suddenly grave. Smiling at her, he started juggling with the two balls. "So the spirit is willing, etc.?" he responded. "Well, I shall go on hoping for a triumph of mind over matter." For some reason Pansy felt intensely sorry for her old playmate. She caught herself making comparisons, and something within her suddenly whispered that they would never be more than friends, something she did not quite realise--some change that had taken place within herself since they had parted in Teneriffe only a week before. CHAPTER XI Raoul Le Breton took Pansy's riddle home to solve. He went about it in his own private sanctum. Seating himself at the desk, he wrote out the verse, with a French-English dictionary, making sure his spelling was correct. Then he set out to find the solution. He was not long in doing so. Afterwards he sat on, gazing at the pansies in the crystal bowl on the desk, a tender look on his arrogant face. A daring little creature, that beautiful English girl, frank as the boy she looked in her riding suit, with attractions beyond those of her sex and beauty; a courage that roused his admiration; a kindness that moved his heart; a disinterestedness sweet as it was novel; an ability to touch parts of his being no woman had touched before, and with a subtle something about her that brought him an ease of spirit he rarely experienced. "Heart's Ease," truly! As he brooded on Pansy he forgot his vengeance--that he was only waiting in Grand Canary until quite certain Sir George Barclay was on his way to Gambia. He thought only of the velvety-eyed girl who had answered him so deftly and laughingly. The riddle had told him the one thing he would ask her to do; his two words, spelt with six letters: "Love me." The fact sent Le Breton to the hotel that evening for an interview with the verse-maker. The place was a blaze of light and a crash of music. In the big patio the usual bi-weekly dance was taking place, and a crowd of people disported themselves to the strains of a ragtime band. Le Breton made a striking figure in evening clothes, and more than one woman glanced at him with invitation. He took no notice of them. All he wanted was a slim girl with a mop of short, dancing, golden curls. The room was so crowded that he could get no glimpse of his quarry, although he altered his point of view several times. At the end of half an hour he decided to take a turn round the grounds. The garden was soft with moonlight, filled with a misty brightness, and the palms hung limp and sighing. From beyond the wall came the murmur of the sea. Syringa and roses filled the night with perfume. At one spot a fountain sang sweetly to itself. There Le Breton lingered with the moonlight and the ebony shadows, the tropical trees sighing languorously around him. As he waited there, deep in some reverie of his own, the sound of footsteps reached him. Then, from an adjacent path, voices talking in English--a man's thick, low, and protesting, then a girl's clear and indignant. "When did I encourage you?" she asked, her voice raised in righteous anger. "Once you brought me a cup of tea I didn't want. Twice you mixed my books and papers with somebody else's. I was three times your partner at Bridge, and that wasn't any fault of mine. I defy you to mention more encouragement than that. Go to your woman with red hair, and don't talk nonsense to me." The man's voice came again. Then there was a little cry of anger and the sound of a struggle. The girl's voice brought Le Breton out of his reverie. He knew it, although he could not follow a quarter of what was said. But the little cry and the subsequent scuffle sent him quickly in that direction. He saw Pansy struggling vainly to get away from a short, thick-set man with a red face and fishy eyes, who held her by one bare arm. Le Breton was not long in covering the distance that lay between himself and the couple. His coming made Pansy's persecutor let go quickly, and make off. The girl had been struggling with all her might to escape from his coarse, hot grip. And she was too intent on getting out of an undesirable situation even to notice that someone's approach was responsible for her sudden freedom. The force of her struggles sent her staggering backwards, right on Le Breton. His arm went round her. He held her pressed against him, his hand on her heart. It seemed to Pansy, she had gotten out of the frying-pan into the fire. Quivering with indignation she looked up. Then she laughed in a tremulous manner. "Oh, it's you, is it? I wondered who else was on my trail." "You ought not to be out at night alone," he said severely. "A beautiful girl is a temptation to any man." "I'm no temptation. It's my money. He likes women with red hair." Le Breton scanned Pansy more closely. He had noticed she was dressed in white, but with her unexpectedly in his arms he had not troubled to look further. She was wearing a dress of chiffon, light as air, vague as moonlight, that clung about her like a mist, caught up here and there with tiny diamond buckles which made the garment look as if studded with dewdrops. And on a thin platinum chain about her neck was hung one great sparkling drop of light. Le Breton knew real gems when he saw them, and that one diamond alone was worth a fortune. He bent his proud head, until his lips just touched the fluff of golden curls. "Who are you really, Pansy?" he asked softly. "You despise and dislike me already, so why should I get further into your black books?" "I, despise and dislike you?" "You said you disliked all the English." "I'm quite willing to make an exception in your favour." "When you learn the truth you'll 'detest' me." "Never!" he said emphatically. "Well then, I'm 'that woman of the name of Langham.'" "You!" he exclaimed. Then he laughed. "Pansy, you're a little creature of rare surprises." The surprise held him silent for some moments. Or else it was sufficient to have the girl there, unresisting against his heart. Up till now Pansy had avoided all male arms as far as it was possible for a girl who was beautiful, wealthy and light-hearted. Whenever caught she had wriggled out indignantly. From the arm that held her now she made no attempt to escape. A fearsome fascination lay within its embrace. It seemed that he would have but to close the hand that rested on her bosom, and her heart would be in his grip, snatched out of her keeping before she knew it. Suddenly it dawned on Pansy that if she stayed there much longer she would want to stay for ever. One by one she lifted the sinewy, brown fingers from her dress, holding them in one hand as she went about her task with the other. With a slight smile Le Breton watched her. But when the last of his fingers was removed, she was still a prisoner, held secure within his arm. Then Pansy descended to strategy. "Mr. Le Breton, will you lend me your handkerchief?" she asked in a mild tone. "Why do you want it?" the voice of the master demanded. "To dip it in the fountain there and wash my arm. It feels all horrid and nasty and clammy where that odious man touched it," she said meekly. The sentiment was one Le Breton approved of and sympathised with. Letting her go, he drew out his handkerchief. Taking it, Pansy turned towards the fountain. He followed and stood beside her, obviously waiting until her task was finished before carrying the situation further. As Pansy scrubbed away at her arm, she kept a rather nervous eye on him. When the task was completed, she screwed the handkerchief up into a loose, wet ball. But she did not throw it on the ground as Le Breton expected and was waiting for her to do, before taking her into his arms again. Instead, she threw it into his face. It took him by surprise; an indignity that had not come his way hitherto. People were not in the habit of throwing wet handkerchiefs with stinging force into the face of the Sultan Casim Ammeh. The force and wetness temporarily blinded him. He was perhaps ten seconds in recovering his sight and his dignity. Then he looked for the girl. She was running as fast as she could away from him, down a misty, moonlit path, in her chiffon and diamonds looking a shimmer of moonlight and sparkling dew herself. Pansy's only desire just then was to get out of the white, romantic moonlit world with its scents and sighs and seductive murmurs, back to one of electric light and ragtime, where there was no Raoul Le Breton looking at her gravely, with glowing eyes. He had suddenly become a startling menace to her cherished liberty, this big, dark man with his masterful air and high-handed ways. Whatever he said she would have to listen to. Perhaps even--agree with! CHAPTER XII Le Breton did not run after the girl. He watched her go, with a feeling that he could afford to bide his time. But at six o'clock the next morning he was round at the hotel waiting for Pansy to come for her usual ride. However, there was no sign of her either that morning or the following. In fact, it was not until the afternoon of the second day that he saw anything of her. A tennis tournament was taking place at the hotel. Le Breton went feeling sure Pansy would be there, and incidentally, to find out what Captain Cameron, the local tennis champion, was like. He saw a fresh-faced youngster, decidedly better-looking than the rest of the men there, but too much like the girl herself ever to be able to hold her. Then he looked for Pansy. She was seated with a group of acquaintances, awaiting her turn on the courts. On seeing Le Breton, she vouchsafed him a smile and a nod, but no further attention. After a three days' tournament, Cameron emerged victor, but Le Breton had managed to get no word with Pansy. Whenever he came within speaking distance she edged away, taking cover behind someone. To catch her was like setting a trap to catch a moonbeam. At the end of the tournament word went round that a rank outsider had challenged the victor. "Who is it, Bob?" Pansy asked when the news reached her. Cameron pointed with his racket across the court, to where Le Breton stood, in panama hat and grey flannels. "That big chap over there," he said. "He's got a nerve, hasn't he?" "And did you accept?" Pansy asked. "Of course I did. I couldn't let that sort of cheek pass." Other people had heard what was happening. An interested crowd collected around the court. For word had gone round that the man who had challenged the English champion was Raoul Le Breton, the French millionaire. Captain Cameron had not been long on the court before he discovered he had met his equal, if not his superior. With a long, lithe movement Le Breton was all over the ground, seemingly unhurried, but always there at the right moment, making his opponent's play look like a heated scramble. But Le Breton's serving was his great point; a lightning stroke that gave no hint as to where the ball would land; sometimes it was just over the net; sometimes just within the furthermost limits of the court. Cameron was beaten; a beating he took with a boyish smile, as he congratulated the winner. Others crowded round Le Breton, anxious to add their quota to the praise. When the crowd dispersed Pansy approached him, as he stood cool and dignified, despite the strenuous game. "You never told me you could play tennis," she remarked. "There are lots of things about myself I haven't told you," he replied drily. "What are they?" she asked. "You mustn't rouse my curiosity and then not satisfy it." "You needn't worry. I shall tell you some day," he answered. As Pansy talked to him she played battledore and shuttlecock with her racket and ball. "When will that day be?" she asked. "The sooner, the better. It's bad for my health to be kept in a state of inquisitive suspense." "The sooner the better will suit me admirably," he said. "For I shall tell you when we are--married." Pansy just stared at him. "Then I shall never hear," she said, when she had recovered her breath. "For I shall never get married. Never. At least, not before I'm forty." There was a brief pause. "Why are you avoiding me?" he asked presently. "What a stupid thing to say! Aren't I here talking to you now?" "With a whole crowd of people round, yes." She tapped the tennis ball from her racket to his chest, hitting it back and back again, as if he were a wall. For some minutes Le Breton watched her in an amused manner, as if she were something so favoured that she could do what she liked with him. Then he caught the ball and stopped the game. "I've a challenge for you, too, Pansy," he said. "Will you meet me to-night, after dinner, near the fountain?" "It wouldn't require a great amount of courage to do that." "Will you come then?" "You said I wasn't to wander about in the grounds alone at night." "I'll come for you then, since you're so anxious to comply with my desires." "'Comply with my desires,'" she repeated mockingly. "That's a nice useful phrase to hurl about." There was an air of unusual and unaccustomed patience about Le Breton, as he argued with his moonbeam. Curious glances were cast in the direction of the couple. Miss Langham had never been seen to favour a man as she was favouring the French millionaire. "Birds of a feather," someone remarked. With some surprise young Cameron watched her. Another watched her too. The red-faced, fishy-eyed man from whose undesired attentions Le Breton had rescued her a few nights before. "If you don't come I shall know what to think," Le Breton said. "That you dare not." A suspicion of a blush deepened the pink in the girl's cheeks. "And if I do come, what shall you think then?" she asked him with a nonchalant air. "It'll be quite time enough to tell you when that comes to pass," he answered. Pansy had no intention that it should come to pass. Raoul Le Breton might keep the tryst if he liked, but she would not be there. Not if she could help it--a little voice within her added. CHAPTER XIII When night came Pansy tried not to think of Le Breton, but the idea of him out there in the moonlight haunted her. She wondered how long he would wait; patience did not look to be one of his virtues. There was a dance at the hotel again that evening. As she whirled round and round, slim and light, looking in her chiffon and diamonds a creature of mist and dew, her thoughts were with none of her partners. They were out in the garden with the big, masterful man who was so different from all others of his sex who had come into her life. By midnight the gaieties were over. Pansy went up to her room. But she did not go to bed. Dismissing her maid, she went out on the balcony, and stood there watching the sea, as she had watched it barely a week before, when Le Breton had come into her life. The world was as white and peaceful as then; the sea a stretch of murmurous silver; the garden vaguely sighing; the little, moist, cool puffs of wind ladened with the scent of roses and the fragrance of foreign flowers. As she watched the scene, an overpowering desire to go and see if Le Breton were still there seized her; a desire that rapidly became an obsession. Of course he would not stay from nine o'clock until after midnight! For all that Pansy felt she must go. That she must linger for a moment in the spot where he had lingered. She turned quickly into her room; then out into the corridor; down the stairs and on towards a door that led out into the grounds. Once there, the moonlight drew her on towards the fountain. On reaching the trysting-place there was no sign of anybody there. With a feeling of intense disappointment Pansy turned towards the sea-wall, and stood there with the soft light shimmering on her, her face wistful as she watched the molten sea. Now that she had come, to find Le Breton gone hurt her. If he really liked her, he would have stayed all night on the chance of her coming. She would, if she were really fond of anybody. A tear came and sparkled on her long, dark lashes. He could not love her very much, or he would not have left. A slight movement in the shadows behind made her face round quickly, her heart giving a sudden bound. "Well, Pansy," the voice she knew so well said in a caressing tone. She laughed tremulously. "I thought you'd gone hours ago," she said. Le Breton came to her side, a mocking look in his dark, smouldering eyes as he watched her. "There are two things a man will always wait for if they cut deeply enough," he replied. "Love and revenge." "How dramatic you sound! Which has kept you on the prowl to-night?" she asked lightly, edging away from him. But his arm went round her quickly, and she was drawn back to his side. "No, my little girl, not this time," he whispered. She tried to free herself from his embrace. "I didn't mean to come. I really didn't," she said breathlessly. He laughed in a tender, masterful fashion. "Possibly not, but since you're here I intend that you shall stay." "No, no," she said quickly. "Let me go." Pansy struggled after a liberty that she saw rapidly vanishing. But he just held her, firmly, strongly, watching her with an amused air. "I shall spoil my dress if I have to wrestle with you like this," she panted presently. "Don't wrestle then," he said coolly. "Stay where you are, little moonbeam, and no harm will come to the dress." It was fatal to be in his arms again. She stopped struggling and stayed passive within his embrace. With easy strength Le Breton lifted her. Going to a bench, he sat down with her on his knee. "Why did you run away from me the other night?" he asked. A slim finger played rather nervously with a black pearl stud in the front of his dress shirt. "I don't know," she said, her eyes avoiding his. Then she laughed. "Oh, yes, I do," she went on. "Because I couldn't do as I liked if I stayed with you." "I could never be a hard taskmaster. Not with you," he said softly. "Are you with some people?" she asked. Le Breton thought of the desert kingdom he ruled alone, and he laughed. Then he kissed the little mouth so temptingly close to his own; a long, passionate caress that seemed to take all strength from the girl. Her head fell on his shoulder, and she lay limp within his arms, watching him in a vague, dreamy manner. For a time there was silence. Le Breton sat with her pressed against his heart, as if to have her there were all-sufficient. "I feel like Jonah," Pansy said presently. "All swallowed up. There seems to be nothing in the whole wide world now but you." With a loving hand he caressed her silky curls. "And I, Heart's Ease, want nothing but you, henceforth and forever." Pansy snuggled closer to him. "To think I'm sitting here on your knee," she whispered. "A week ago I didn't know there was any you. And now I only know your name and----" She broke off, a blush deepening the roses on her cheeks. "And what, my darling?" he asked tenderly. "Put your ear quite close. It's not a matter that can be shouted from the house-tops." He bent his proud head down, close to the girl's lips. "And that I love you," she whispered. Then she kissed the ear the confession had been made into. "And that you will marry me," he added. "Perhaps, some day, twenty years hence," she said airily. "When I've had my fling." Le Breton had never had to wait for any woman he fancied, and he had no intention of waiting now. "No, Pansy, you must marry me now, at once," he said firmly. "What a hustler you are, Raoul. You must have American blood in you." She said his name as if she loved it: on her lips it was a caress. With a touch of savagery his arms tightened round the girl. Even with her in his embrace he guessed that if she knew of the Sultan Casim Ammeh there would be no chance for him. His dark blood would be an efficient barrier; one she would never cross willingly. "Say you will marry me next week, my little English flower," he said in a fierce, insistent tone. "I couldn't dream of getting married for ages and ages." He held her closer, kissing the vivid lips that refused him. "Say next week, my darling," he whispered passionately. "I shall keep you here until you say next week." Pansy looked at him with love and teasing in her eyes. "It's midnight now, or perhaps it's one, or even two in the morning. Time flies so when I'm with you. But at six o'clock the gardeners will be here with rakes and brooms, and they'll scratch and sweep us out of our corner. Six hours at most you can keep me, but the gardeners won't let you keep me longer than that. Good-night, Raoul, I'll go to sleep in the meantime." In a pretence of slumber Pansy closed her eyes. With a tender smile he watched the little face that looked so peacefully asleep on his shoulder. "Wake up, my flower, and say things are to be as I wish," he said presently. One eye opened and looked at him full of love and mischief. "In ten years' time then, Raoul. That's a great concession." "In a fortnight. That would seem eternity enough," he replied. "Well, five years then," Pansy answered, suddenly wide awake. "I could see and do a lot in five years, if I worked hard at it. Especially with the thought of you looming ominously in the background." "In three weeks, little girl. I've been waiting for you all my life." Pansy stroked his face with a mocking, caressing hand. "Poor boy, you don't look like a waiter." He took the small, teasing hand into his own. "Never mind what I look like just now," he said. "Say in three weeks' time, my darling." "Two years. Give me two years to get used to the cramped idea of matrimony." "A month. Not a day longer, Heart's Ease, unless you want to drive me quite mad," he said, a note of desperate entreaty in his voice. Suddenly Pansy could not meet the eyes that watched her with such love and passion in their smouldering depths. This big, dark man who had come into her life so strangely, seemed to leave her nothing but a desire for himself. At that moment she could refuse him nothing. "In a month then, Raoul. But it's very weak-minded of me giving in to you this way." He laughed in a tender and triumphant manner. "My darling, I promise you'll never regret it," he said, a slight catch in his strong voice. Then he sat on, with Pansy pressed close against him. And the latent searching look had gone from his eyes, as if the girl lying on his heart had brought him ease and peace. And Pansy was content to stay. Just then it was sufficient to be with him; to feel the tender strength of his arms; to listen to the music of his deep, caressing voice; to have his long, passionate kisses. Nothing else mattered. Even liberty was forgotten. CHAPTER XIV The next morning the sun streaming into Pansy's bedroom roused her. She awoke with the feeling of having indulged in some delightful dream, which, like all dreams, must melt with the morning. She thought of the episode with Le Breton in the garden. A gentle look lingered on her face. He was a darling, the nicest man she had ever met; the only one she had ever liked enough to let kiss her; the only one in whose arms she had been content to stay. But about marrying? A frown came and rested on her white brow. Marrying was quite another matter. In a month's time, _impossible_. A thing not to be contemplated. Pansy sat up suddenly, hugging her knees as she gazed thoughtfully at the brilliant expanse of dancing, shimmering sea that sparkled at her through the open bedroom window. She, engaged to be married! She who had vowed never to fall in love until forty! It was love Pansy had wanted in the moonlit garden with Le Breton's arms about her. But it was liberty she wanted now, as she sat hugging her knees, amazed at herself and her own behaviour. She had bartered her liberty for a man's arms and a few kisses! Pansy could hardly believe herself capable of such folly. She had been swept off her feet--over her depth before she knew it. By daylight her freedom and independence were as sweet to her as Le Breton's love had been by the romantic light of the moon. In the sober light of morning she tried to struggle back to where she had been before the hot flood of love he had poured over her had made her promise more than she was now prepared to fulfill. "It's a woman's privilege to change her mind." Pansy grasped at the old adage; but to her a promise was a promise, not lightly given or lightly snatched away. So she did not derive much comfort from dwelling on the old saw. She was sitting up in bed, hugging her knees and frowning in dire perplexity when her maid came in with the early morning tea. And the frown was there when the woman came to say her bath was ready. A thoughtful mood enveloped her during her dressing. And out of her musing this note was born:-- "My Dearest Raoul, I can call you that because you are dearer to me than any one on this earth, dearest beyond all things except my liberty. Do not be horrid and cross when I say I cannot marry you, in spite of all I promised last night. Not for ten years at least. And even then I cannot bind myself in any way, for I might be still hankering after freedom. I do love you really, more than anything in the whole wide world except my independence. You must not be too hard on me, Raoul. I am not quite the same as other women. It is not every girl of twenty who is her own mistress, with £60,000 a year to do what she likes with. It has made life seem so vast, matrimony such a cramped, everyday affair. And I do not want to handicap myself in any way. This letter sounds awfully selfish, I know. I am not selfish really. Only I love my liberty. It is the one thing that is dearer to me than you. Always your loving PANSY." When the letter was written, Pansy suddenly remembered she did not know his address. Once satisfied that he was disinterested, she had bothered about nothing else. And after that one day spent among the red roses he had become something quite apart from the rest of the world, not to be gossiped about to mere people. However, she knew that twenty pesetas given to the hall-porter would ensure the note reaching its destination. The hotel staff would know where he was staying, even if she did not. Because the note was to Le Breton, Pansy took it down herself and gave it to the hall-porter. When this was done she wandered as far as the spot where she had made her fleeting vows, to see how it looked by daylight. She lingered there for some minutes, and then returned to her suite. In the interval a message had come from Le Breton. It stood on one of the little tables of her sitting-room--a huge gilded wicker basket full of half-blown, red roses. In the midst of the flowers a packet reposed, tied with red ribbon. Pansy opened the package. Inside was the gold casket she had once refused. It was filled with purple pansies, still wet with dew. On them a ring reposed, with one huge sapphire, deeply blue as her own eyes. There was a note in with the flowers, written in a strong masculine hand. With a flutter about her heart, Pansy picked it out and read it:-- "Heart's Ease, My Own Dear Little Girl, This little gift comes to you with all my love, my heart, my soul, my very life indeed, given forever into your keeping. A week ago, if anyone had told me I should write such words to a woman, I should have laughed at them. Until meeting you I did not know what love was. I had no idea one woman could be so satisfying. In you I have found the heaven I have been searching for all my life. My one houri, and she all-sufficing--my little English flower, so sweet and winsome, so kind and wayward, so teasing and yet so tender, who has brought a new fragrance into my life, a peace my soul has never known till now, a love and gratitude into my heart that will keep me hers for ever. Your devoted lover now and through all eternity. RAOUL LE BRETON." As Pansy read the note her lips trembled. She wished she had never tasted of the sweets of liberty and independence; that the grand-godfather had not left her his millions. She wished she was Pansy Barclay again, a mere girl, not one with enormous riches luring her towards all sorts of goals where love was not. Just Pansy Barclay, who could have met his love with kisses and not a cruel counter note. CHAPTER XV Considering it was nearly two in the morning before Le Breton would let Pansy out of his arms, he did not expect her to be out and about at six o'clock for her usual ride. Nevertheless, he looked in at the hotel at that hour and then rode on, indulging in blissful daydreams. He knew Pansy had no idea who he really was. He was prepared to marry her according to her creed, for her sake to put aside the fierce profligate religion the late Sultan Casim Ammeh had instilled into him. And he was prepared to do very much more than this. In spite of his colossal pride in his sultanship and his desert kingdom, he knew that if Pansy got an inkling of that side of his life his case would be hopeless. His one idea was to keep all knowledge of the supposed Arab strain in him from her. The sultanship could go, his kingdom be but a source of income. He would buy a house in Paris. They would settle down there, and he would become wholly the European she imagined him to be. Full of a future that held nothing but the English girl to whom; he was betrothed, and a desire to keep from her all knowledge of his dark, savage heritage, at least until it would be too late for her to draw back, Le Breton rode on, rejoicing in the early morning freshness that reminded him of the girl he loved. On returning to the villa he interviewed the head gardener. Then he went to the library to write a note and tie up the package he was sending to Pansy; and from there down to breakfast, a solitary meal with no companion save a few purple pansies smiling at him from a crystal vase. As he sat at his light repast one of his Arab servants entered with a note on a beaten-gold salver. Le Breton took it. On the envelope was just his name, written in a pretty, girlish hand. Although he had never seen Pansy's writing before, he guessed it was hers. A tender smile hovered about his hard mouth as he opened it. What had she to say to him, this slim, winsome girl, who held his fierce heart in her small white hands? Some fond reply, no doubt, in return for his gifts and flowers. Thanks and words of love that she could not keep until he went round to see her. There were many things Le Breton expected of Pansy, but certainly not the news the note contained. He read it through, unable to believe what he saw written before him. And as he read his face lost all its tender, caressing look and took on, instead, a savage, incredulous expression. Women had always come to him easily, as easily as Pansy herself had come. But they had not withdrawn themselves again: he had done the withdrawing. For some moments he just stared at the note. He, flouted and scorned and played with by a girl! He, to whom all women were but toys! He, the Sultan of El-Ammeh! Le Breton was like one plunged suddenly into an icy cold bath. The unexpectedness of it all left him numb. Then a surge of hot rage went through him, finally leaving him cold, collected, and furious. She had dared to scorn him, this English girl! Dared to hurl his love and protestations back into his teeth. Protestations such as he had made to no other woman. It was the greatest shock and surprise Le Breton had had during the course of his wild life of unquestioned power and limitless money. He was in no mood to see the love her note breathed. He saw only one fact--that he had been cast aside. A woman had dared to act towards him as he had often acted towards women. As he brooded on the note, trying to grasp the almost incredible truth, the cruel look about his mouth deepened. Putting the note into his pocket, he poured himself another cup of coffee. Then he sat on, staring at the purple pansies, no longer lost in dreams of love and delight, where his one aim was to be all the girl imagined him to be; but in a savage reverie that had love in it, perhaps, but of quite another quality than that which he had already offered. Full of anger and injured pride as Le Breton was, it did not prevent him going over to the hotel and inquiring for Miss Langham. He learnt that she was out, on board her yacht. And it seemed to him that she had fled from his wrath. But he was wrong. Pansy had gone there knowing he would be sure to come and inquire into the meaning of her note. On board her yacht there was more privacy; a privacy she wanted for Le Breton's sake, not her own. Considering his fiery Latin temperament, he might not take his _congé_ in the manner of her more stolid nation. There might be a scene. She never imagined he would take her decree calmly. There was an air about him as if he had never been thwarted in any way. She was prepared for some unpleasant minutes--minutes, nevertheless, that she had no intention of shirking, which she knew she had brought upon herself by her impetuous promises. She was sitting alone in her own special sanctum on the yacht. It was a large saloon--boudoir, music-room, and study combined; white and gold and purple, like herself, with a grand piano in one corner, deep chairs upholstered in yellow with purple cushions, a yellow carpet and white walls and ceiling. In the midst of it she sat cool and collected, in a simple white yachting suit. As Le Breton entered she rose, scanning him quickly. She had never seen him so proud and aloof-looking, his face so set and hard. But there was a look of suppressed suffering in his eyes that cut her to the quick. Neither said a word until the door closed behind the steward. Then Le Breton crossed to the girl's side. "What nonsense is this?" he asked in a cold, angry voice, holding her note towards her. "You promised to marry me, and you must carry out your promise. I'm not going to be put lightly to one side in this manner." "I haven't put you lightly to one side," she answered. "I think I explained exactly how things were in my note." "Explanations! I'm not here for explanations," he said, with cold impatience; "but to insist that you fulfill your promise." "I couldn't do that," she replied quietly. With the air of still moving in the midst of some incredible truth, he stared at her. "You've been flirting with me," he said presently, a note of savagery and scorn in his voice. "You are a true English _demievierge_. You rouse a man without the least intention of satisfying him." Pansy flushed under his contempt. She hated being called "a flirt"; she was not one. She did not know why she had acted as she had done the previous night. But once in his arms, she had wanted to stay. And once he had started talking of love, she wanted to listen. With him she had forgotten all about her own scheme of life and her cherished liberty. She knew she had not played the game with Le Breton. From the bottom of her heart she was sorry. She did not blame him, but herself. "I'm not a flirt," she said quietly. "I've never let any man kiss me before. I'm very sorry for all that happened last night." He laughed in a harsh, grating manner. "Good God, Pansy! there are a hundred women and more plotting and scheming to try and make me feel for them what I feel for you. And you say you're sorry!" He broke off, his proud face twisted with pain and chagrin. Pansy knew his was no idle boast. An army of women must lie in wait for a man of his wealth combined with good looks and such powers of fascination. "I'm only sorry you picked on me," she said, a note of distress in her voice. "More sorry than I can say. You know I hate giving pain." Like one dazed, the Sultan Casim Ammeh listened to a woman saying she was sorry he had favoured her as he had no other of her sex--To an extent he had never imagined he would favour any woman, so that he was ready to change his religion, his whole mode of life, for her sake. "But I couldn't give up my liberty," her voice was saying. "I couldn't get married. And I've a perfect right to change my mind." "It's not a privilege I intend to allow you," he said in a strangled voice. "Well, it's one I intend to assert," she answered, suddenly goaded by his imperious attitude. "You've deliberately fooled me," he said savagely. "No, I haven't really," she replied, patient again under the pain in the fierce, restless eyes watching her. "I like you immensely, but not enough to marry you." "I suppose I ought to feel flattered," he said cuttingly. Pansy laid a hand on his sleeve with a little soothing, conciliatory gesture. "Don't be so horrid, Raoul. Do try and see things as I see them. I didn't mean to say 'yes' last night; but when you held me in your arms and kissed me there was nothing else I could do." His name on her lips, her touch on his arm, broke through his seethe of cold anger. "And if I held and kissed you again, what then?" he asked, suddenly melting. "Here in the 'garish light of day' it wouldn't alter my intention in the least," she said. "There are so many things that call me in the daytime. But last night, Raoul, there was only you." He bent over her, dark and handsome, looking the king the Sultan Casim Ammeh had made him. "Give me the nights, Pansy," he whispered, "and the days I'll leave to you." "Oh no, I couldn't. Before so long you'd have swallowed up my days too. For there's an air about you as if you wouldn't be satisfied until you had the whole of me. But I shall often think of last night," she went on, a touch of longing in her voice. "In days to come, when we're thousands of miles apart, in the midst of my schemes, when the lights are brightest and the bands their loudest and the fun at its highest, I shall stop all at once with a little pain in my heart and wonder where the nice man is who kissed me under the palms in the Grand Canary. And I shall say to myself, 'Now, if I'd been a marrying sort, I'd have married him.' And twenty years hence, when pleasure palls, I shall wish I had married him; because there'll never be any man I shall like half as much as I like you." As she talked Le Breton watched her, wild schemes budding and blossoming in his head. "And I? What shall I be thinking?" he asked. "You! Oh, you'll have forgotten all about me by next year--Perhaps next month, even," she replied, smiling at him rather sadly. "One girl is much the same to you as the next, provided she's equally pretty. And you'll be thinking, 'What an idiotic fuss I made over that girl I met in Grand Canary. Let me see, what _was_ her name? Violet or Daisy, or some stupid flower name. Who said yes in the moonlight, and no in the cool, calm light of day. Good Lord! but for her sense I should be married now. Married! Phew, what an escape! For if she'd roped me in there'd have been no gallivanting with other women'!" Le Breton laughed. "Now I'm forgiven," she said quickly. "Forgiven, Heart's Ease, yes. But whilst there's life in me you'll never be forgotten." He paused, looking at her speculatively. "So far as I see, there's nothing between us except that you're too fond of your own way to get married," he remarked presently. "Yes. I suppose that's it really." "'If I were a king in Babylon and you were a Christian slave,'" he quoted, "or, to get down to more modern times, if I were a barbaric Sultan somewhere in Africa and you a girl I'd fancied and caught and carried off, I'd just take you into my harem and nothing more would be said." "I should fight like a wildcat. You'd get horribly scratched and bitten." "Possibly, but--I should win in the end." Pansy's face went suddenly crimson under the glowing eyes that watched her with such love and desire in their dark depths. "I think we're talking a lot of nonsense," she remarked. "What is it you English say? 'There's many a true word spoken in jest,'" he replied with curious emphasis. It was not jest to him. Even as he stood talking to Pansy he was cogitating on how he could best get her into his power, should persuasion fail to bring her back to his arms within a week or two. His yacht was in the harbour. She was in the habit of wandering about alone. He had half a dozen Arab servants with him, men who would do without question anything their Sultan told them. To abduct her would be an easy matter. Once she was in his power, he would take her to El-Ammeh and keep her there. As his wife, if she would marry him; as his slave, if she would not. Le Breton had no desire to do any such thing except as a last resource, but he had no intention of letting Pansy go. Her voice broke into his broodings. "Since you've been so nice about everything, I'm going to keep you and take you for a cruise round the island. I want to have just one day alone with you, so that in years to come I shall know exactly how much I've missed." He smiled in a slightly savage manner. It amused him to hear the girl talking as if he were but a pleasant incident in her life, when he intended to be the biggest fact that had ever been there. "In your way of doing things, Pansy, you remind me rather of myself," he remarked. "You're carrying me off, willy nilly, as I might be tempted to carry you." "It must be because we're both millionaires," she replied. "Little facts of the sort are apt to make one a trifle high-handed." She touched a bell. When a steward appeared she put Le Breton into his care. Leaving the saloon, she went herself to interview the captain about her plans. She was leaning against the yacht's rail, slim and white, with the breeze blowing her curls when Le Breton joined her. And she smiled at him in a frank, boyish fashion, as if their little difference of opinion had never been. "What can I do to amuse you?" she asked. "I don't need any amusing when I'm with you," he said. "You're all-sufficing." "You mustn't say things like that, Raoul," she replied; "they're apt to make one's decisions wobble." For Pansy the morning sped quickly. For Le Breton it was part of the dream he had dreamt before her note had come and upset his calculations, making him rearrange his plans in a manner that, although it would give him a certain amount of satisfaction, might not be so pleasing to the girl. The vessel skirted the rounded island, bringing glimpses of quiet bays where white houses nestled, rocky cliffs, stony barrancos cut deep into the hill-side, and pine-clad heights. There was a lunch _à deux_, with attentive stewards hovering in the background. Afterwards they had coffee and liqueurs and cigarettes on deck. An hour or so was dawdled away there, then Pansy took her guest back to her own special sanctum. He went over to the piano, touching a note here and there. "Play me something," she said, for he touched the instrument with the hand of a music lover. "I was brought up in the backwoods," he replied, "and I never saw a piano until I was nearly nineteen. After that I was too busy making money and doing what I thought was enjoying myself to have time to go in for anything of the sort. But I'd like to listen to you," he finished. Willingly Pansy seated herself at the piano. Le Breton likewise sat himself in a deep chair close by, and gave himself up to the delight of her playing. She wandered from one song to another, quick to see she had an appreciative audience. In the end she paused and glanced at him as he sat quiet, all his restless look gone, as if at peace with himself and the world. "Does music 'soothe your savage breast'?" she asked. "It could never be savage where you're concerned, Pansy," "You talk as if I were quite different from other people." "So you are. The only woman I've ever loved." "When you talk like that, the wobbling comes on," she remarked. To avoid his reply, she started playing again. Getting to his feet, Le Breton went to the piano. Standing behind her, his arms encircling her, he lifted the small, music-making hands from the keys, and holding them, drew her back until her head rested against him. "Pansy, suppose I consent to a six months' engagement? The waiting would be purgatory; but I could do it with paradise beyond." "I'm not taking on any engagements. Not for the next ten years, at least." He laughed softly and put the slim hands back on the piano with a lingering, careful touch, letting them pursue their way. Whether she liked it or not, this lovely, wayward girl would be his before many weeks had passed. Then he returned to his chair and sat there deep in some reverie, this time not planning the sort of home he would make for her in Paris, but how he would have certain rooms in his palace at El-Ammeh furnished for her reception. A steward announcing tea brought him out of his meditations. Tea was served on deck, with the sun glinting on the blue water and running in golden cascades down the hill-side. Together they watched the sun set and saw night barely shadow the world when the moon rose, filling the scene with silver glory. Its white light led them back into harbour, and in its flood the two walked to the hotel together. In the garden Le Breton paused to take leave of his hostess. "Just one kiss, Heart's Ease, for the sake of last night," he whispered. Willingly Pansy lifted her flower-like face to his. "Just one then, Raoul, you darling, since you've been so nice about everything." As Le Breton stooped to kiss her it seemed to him that he would not have to resort to force in order to get the girl. Only a little patience and persuasion were needed, and he would win her in her own, white, English way. CHAPTER XVI Along the deserted corridor of the big hotel Pansy was hurrying. Her outing with Le Breton had made her late. By the time she was dressed and ready dinner was well started. She went along quickly, still thinking over the events of the day. Everything had turned out exactly as she had hoped. She wanted to keep Le Breton's love, and yet not be tied in any way--to have him in the background to marry if, or when, she felt so disposed. In the full glare of the electric light, going down the wide stairs, she entered the large patio, looking a picture. She was wearing a dress of some yellow, gauzy material that matched her hair, a garment that clung around her like a sunbeam, bright and shimmering. There were gold shoes on her feet, and around her neck a long chain of yellow amber beads. As she crossed the big, empty hall, making towards the dining-room, a man rose from his chair--the short, red-faced man from whom Le Breton had rescued her a few nights before. There was an air about him as if he had been waiting there to waylay her. Pansy saw him and she swerved slightly, but beyond that she gave him no attention. However, he was not so easily avoided. He took up his stand immediately before her, leering at her in a malicious, disagreeable fashion. "You're fond of chucking red-haired women in my teeth," he said. "Go and chuck 'em at the fellow you were spooning with outside just now." Annoyed that the man should have witnessed her parting with Le Breton, Pansy would have passed without a word; but he dodged, and was in front of her again. "At least, she isn't my fancy woman," he went on. "I don't run a villa for her, even if I do admire her looks." The weight of insinuation in his voice brought the girl to a halt. "What is it? What do you want to say?" she asked coldly. "You mean to tell me you don't know Le Breton runs that French actress, Lucille Lemesurier?" Pansy did not know. Nor did she believe a word the man said. "How dare you say such things about Mr. Le Breton?" she flashed. "Hoity-toity! How dare I indeed!" He laughed coarsely. "It isn't only me that's talking about it. Everybody knows," he went on. Everybody did _not_ know. Pansy among the number. "I don't believe a word you say," she said in an angry manner. "Don't you? All right. Trot along then, and ask the manager. Ask anybody. They're all talking about it. You would be, too, except that you're so conceited that you never come and gossip with the crowd. Ask who is running that villa for Lucille Lemesurier, and they'll tell you it's that high and mighty French millionaire chap, Le Breton, the same as I do." For a moment Pansy just stared at him, horror and disbelief on her face; then she turned quickly away. She did not go towards the dining-room, but towards the main entrance of the hotel. She had never troubled to make any inquiries about Le Breton. She had liked him, and that was enough. Pansy could not believe what the man said. For all that, she was going to the fountain-head--to Le Breton--to hear what he had to say on the subject. CHAPTER XVII A flood of light poured out from Le Breton's villa, from wide-open French windows on to a moonlit lawn. Around the house, palms drooped and bamboos whispered. The night was laden with the scent of roses and syringa, and about the fragrant shrubs fireflies glinted like showers of silver sparks. In one of the apartments opening on the lawn Le Breton sat at dinner with Lucille, over a little round table, sparkling with crystal and gold, where pink-shaded electric lights glowed among banks of flowers. It was a large room, lavishly furnished, with priceless rugs, and furniture that might have come out of some Paris museum. There were three Arab servants in attendance, deft-handed, silent men, well trained, and observant, who waited upon their master as if their lives held nothing but his wishes and desires. Opposite to him Lucille sat, in a white satin gown that left none of her charms to the imagination, with the emerald necklace flashing against her dead-white skin. She was talking in a soft, languid voice, sometimes witty, often suggestive, but never at a loss for a subject, as women do talk who are paid well to interest and amuse their masters. Le Breton did not look either particularly interested or amused. In fact, he looked bored and indifferent, answering her in monosyllables, as if her perpetual chatter interrupted some pleasant reverie of his own. As he sat, intent on his own thoughts, one of the servants came to his side. Stooping, he said in a deferential voice in Arabic: "There is the English lady your Highness deigned to breakfast with in the orange groves of Telde." Le Breton started. He glanced round, his gaze following the Arab's to one of the wide French windows opening on the lawn. Standing there, light and slight, a graceful, golden reed, was the girl who was now all the world to him. But Pansy was not looking in his direction, but at Lucille, as if she could not believe what she saw before her. The sight brought Le Breton quickly to his feet. "Pansy!" he exclaimed. His voice and action made Lucille glance towards the window. She looked at the girl standing there; then she smiled lazily, a trifle maliciously. Lucille saw before her the rival she had suspected, who had changed Le Breton's lukewarm liking into cutting indifference. With the perception of her kind she realised that Pansy was something quite different from herself and the women Le Breton usually amused himself with. That slim girl with her wide, purple eyes and vivid, flower-like face was no courtesan, no toy; but a woman with a spirit and a soul that could hold and draw a man, apart from her physical attractions; the sort of woman, in fact, that a man like Raoul Le Breton might be tempted to marry. At sound of his voice Pansy came into the room, her eyes blazing, her breast heaving, her two hands clutching the long amber chain in an effort to keep herself calm and collected. So it was true! He was living here with that red-haired creature, this man who had come to her vowing she was the only woman he had ever loved! This man whom she had kissed and whom she had allowed to kiss and fondle her! Pansy looked at Lucille in her white satin and emeralds--Lucille, big and voluptuous, her profession written on her face. "Who is that woman?" she demanded. Lucille did not wait for Le Breton to answer. One glance at him told her everything. On his face were concern, love, and annoyance; the look that comes to a man's face when the girl he would make his wife and the woman who is his mistress by some unfortunate circumstance chance to meet. Her star, never particularly bright, had waned and set within a week, all thanks to this slim girl in the yellow dress. Any day she, Lucille, might be shipped back to France, with only the emerald necklace to soothe her sore heart. As things were she could lose nothing, and she might have the pleasure of parting Le Breton from the woman he really loved. The girl looked one who would countenance no backslidings. Before he could say anything she said in a languid voice: "My name is Lucille Lemesurier. I'm an actress. At Mr. Le Breton's invitation I came here with him from Paris, to stay until he tires of me or I of him. _Comme vous voulez_," she finished, with a shrug. For a moment Pansy just stared at the truth confronting her: the truth, lazy, languid, and smiling, in white satin and emeralds. There was a little noise, hard and sharp, like a shower of frozen tears rattling down on the table. The hands clinging to the string of amber beads clung just a thought too hard, for the necklace snapped suddenly. The beads poured down like tears--the tears Pansy herself was past shedding. The knowledge of Le Breton's treachery and deceit had turned her into ice. She cast one look at him of utter contempt and scorn. Then, silently as she had come, she turned and went from the room. She did not get far, however, before Le Breton was at her side. Ignoring him, she hurried across the moonlit lawn, her only desire to escape from his presence. "Pansy----" he began. Like a whirlwind she turned on him. With a hand that shook with rage, she pointed to the open dining-room window. "Go! Go back to that red-haired creature," she said in a voice that trembled with anger. "I never want to see or speak to you again. Never!" At her words Le Breton's hands clenched and his swarthy face went white. "Do you think I'm going to be dismissed in this manner?" he asked in a strangled voice. Without a further word Pansy would have hurried on; but, before she knew what was happening, he had taken her into his arms. "How dare you touch me! How dare you touch me!" she gasped, struggling furiously after freedom, amazed at his audacity. But he laughed and, crushing her against him, kissed her fiercely. Le Breton knew his case was hopeless. No amount of persuasion would bring the girl back to his arms. He was no longer a polished man of the world, but the Sultan of El-Ammeh, a barbaric ruler who knew no law save his own desire. Pansy was too furious to be afraid. With all her might she struggled to get away from his arms and the deluge of hot, passionate kisses, not because of the danger oozing from the man, but because she knew he had held and kissed that other woman. But all her struggles were in vain. She was helpless against his strength; crushed within his arms; almost breathless under the force and passion of the kisses she could not escape from. "If you go on behaving in this brutal manner I shall scream," she panted presently. Her words sobered him. The road lay not twenty yards away, and her screams might bring a dozen people to her rescue. He remembered that he was in Grand Canary, where even _he_ had to conform with rules, not in El-Ammeh, where none would dare question his doings. He let Pansy out of his arms. "Look what a state you've put me in!" she flashed the moment she was free, as she endeavoured to tidy her torn and crumpled dress with hands that shook with anger. "You're a brute. A savage. I hate you!" she finished. But Le Breton just stood and laughed. To-night she might go; but to-morrow----! To-morrow she would be on his yacht, where she might scream to her heart's content without a soul coming to her rescue. His laughter, fierce and fond, followed Pansy from the garden. CHAPTER XVIII The hotel patio was full of people just out from dinner. In the midst of a crowd of acquaintances Captain Cameron stood, laughing and talking with those around him. All at once a voice at his elbow said tensely: "Bob, I want to speak to you alone for a moment." He turned quickly. Then he stood surveying the speaker with surprise, for the girl beside him looked very different from the Pansy he knew. There was an almost tortured air about her. Her face was set and white; there were deep, dark rings under eyes that were limpid pools of pain. "Hello, old pal, what has happened?" he asked, with concern. Pansy did not stop to answer him. With impatient hands she led him away from the crowd of listening, staring people into a quiet corner. "I'm going back to England at once. To-night! Help me to get off, please," she said. With blank amazement Cameron stared at her. "What's got hold of you now?" he managed to ask. "I'm going home," she said, "at once." "But I thought you were staying here until Sir George came out?" "Well, I've changed my mind," she snapped. "And I'm going back, even if you aren't." All Pansy wanted now was to get to the one other man she loved, her father. To get to him as quickly as possible with her bruised and wounded heart. "Of course I'll come with you, old girl," Cameron said, a trifle helplessly. "I wouldn't dream of leaving you in the lurch. But you have a way of springing surprises on people. I'll send along and tell the captain to get steam up." "Yes, do, Bob, please," she said gratefully. "And ask Miss Grainger to see about the packing. And find out where Jenkins is, and send him along to the stables. I--I'm past doing anything." Cameron scanned the girl quickly, suddenly aware that something more than a whim was at the bottom of her hurried departure. "What is it, Pansy?" he asked. "Nothing," she answered bravely. "But I get moods when I just feel I must see my old dad." She turned away quickly to avoid any further questions, leaving Cameron staring at her receding back. CHAPTER XIX The next morning Le Breton set about his scheme for trapping Pansy. The task appeared easy. He would get one of his men to note when she left the hotel and mark which route she took. There were not many roads in the place, and it would not be difficult to guess where she was going. He and his men would follow, and waylay and capture her at some lonely spot. They would take her across the island to a little port on the far side, where his yacht would be waiting. Once he had her safely on board, he would start for Africa. As he sat at breakfast, savage and brooding, craving for the girl who had flouted him, one of his servants entered. "Well?" he asked, glaring at the man. The Arab made a deep obeisance. "Your Highness, the English lady has gone." "Gone!" the Sultan repeated in an incredulous tone. "Gone! Where?" "She left the island last night, in her yacht, about two hours after she was here." Like one thunderstruck, Le Breton stared at the Arab. This unexpected move of Pansy's had upset his calculations altogether. Without a word he rose from the table. There and then he went over to the hotel to see the manager, his only idea to find out where the girl had gone. He could not believe that she had escaped him; yet the mere thought that she might have done so filled him with a seething passion. By the time he reached the hotel he had recovered himself in some degree, sufficiently to inquire in a normal tone for the manager. He was taken to the latter's office. "You had an English lady staying here, a Miss Langham," Le Breton said the moment he was ushered in. "I wanted to see her rather particularly, but I hear she has left. Can you tell me where she's gone?" On seeing who the visitor was, the manager was anxious to give all possible assistance, but he knew little more about Pansy than Le Breton did. "She left rather hurriedly," he said; "and, as far as I could gather, she was going back to England." "Do you know her address there?" Le Breton asked. "No, I don't," the manager said regretfully. "Miss Langham did not talk much about herself." This was all Le Breton was able to learn. But he knew one thing--that the girl his fierce heart hungered for had escaped him. That morning his black horse had a hard time, for Le Breton rode like a madman in a vain endeavour to get away from the whirl of wild love and thwarted hopes that raged within him--the Sultan Casim Ammeh for the first time deprived of the woman he wanted; wanted as he had never wanted any other. He went to the rose-wreathed summer-house where Pansy had been pleased to linger with him; to the orange groves at Telde where they had breakfasted together. Night found him in the hotel gardens, near the fountain where they had met and plighted their troth. His hands clenched at the thought of all she had promised there. Phantom-like, she haunted him. Her ghost was in his arms, kissing and teasing him, a recollection that was torture. The one real love of his life had proved but Dead Sea fruit. He would have given his kingdom, all his riches, to have Pansy back in his arms as he had had her that night, unresisting, watching him with eyes full of love, wanting him as much as he had wanted her. The one woman who had ever scorned him! CHAPTER XX In his study Sir George Barclay sat alone. Sixteen years had passed since, in far-away Gambia, he had had to condemn to death the marauding Arab chief. In a few weeks' time he would be returning to the country, not in any minor capacity, but as its Governor. Although his thoughts just then were in Gambia, the incident of the shooting of the Sultan Casim Ammeh had long since gone from his mind. And he never gave a thought nowadays to the boy who, unavailingly, had come to the Arab chief's rescue. But he still carried the mark of the youngster's sword upon his cheek. The passing years had changed Barclay very little. His hair was grey, his face thinner, and a studious look now lurked in the grey eyes where tragedy had once been. For, in his profession, Barclay had found some of the forgetfulness he had set out in search of. As he sat at his desk the door opened suddenly. The manner of opening told him that the daughter he imagined to be a thousand or more miles away was home again. For no one, save this cherished legacy from his lost love, would enter his study with such lack of ceremony. He looked round quickly, as a slim girl in ermine and purple velvet entered. "Why, Pansy, my darling, I thought you were in Grand Canary," he said, rising quickly to greet her. "So I was, father, five days ago. And then ... and then----!" She paused, and laughing in a rather forced manner, kissed him affectionately. "Father, will you take me out to Gambia with you?" she finished. There was very little George Barclay ever refused his daughter. On this occasion, he did make some sort of stand. "Gambia is no place for you, my darling. There's nothing there to amuse and interest a young girl." "Perhaps not," Pansy said as she took off her hat and gloves, watching him with a rather set smile. "But I don't care where I go so long as I can be with you and get away from myself." Her words made Barclay look at her sharply. To want to get away from one's self was a feeling he could understand and sympathise with, only too well. But to hear such a sentiment on his daughter's lips surprised and hurt him. "My little girl, what has happened?" he asked gently. Pansy laughed again, but there was a sharp catch of pain in her mirth. "I think my heart is broken, that's all," she said with a would-be casual air. Barclay did not wait to hear any more at that moment. He drew her down on to a couch and sat there with his arm about her. "My poor little girl," he whispered. "Tell me all about it." Pansy laid her head on his shoulder, and smiled at him with lips that trembled woefully. "It's nobody's fault but my own, Daddy," she said. "I brought it on myself with my silly, impetuous ways. And it serves me right for hankering after strange men, and not being content with my old father." For all her light talk Barclay knew something serious had happened. To him his daughter was but a new edition of a well-read book; the girl was her mother over again. There was a brief pause as Sir George sat watching his child, stroking her curls with a thin, affectionate hand, wondering what tragedy had come into this bright, young life. "Hearts are silly things, aren't they?" Pansy said suddenly. "Soft, flabby, squashy sort of things that get hurt easily if you don't keep a sharp eye on them. And I'd so many things to keep an eye on that I forgot all about mine. Hearts ought not to be left without protection. They should have iron rails put round them to keep all trespassers off, like the rails we put round the trees in the park to keep the cattle from hurting them." There was a further pause, and a little sniff. Then Pansy said: "Father, lend me your handkerchief, I know it's a nice big one. I believe I'm going to cry. For the first time since it happened. It must be seeing you again. And I shall cry a lot on your coat, and perhaps spoil it. But, since it's me, I know you won't mind." Sir George drew out a handkerchief. "I was walking along in heaven with my head up and my nose in the air," the sweet, hurt voice explained, "blissfully happy because he was there. There was a hole in the floor of heaven and I never saw it. And I fell right through, crash, bang, right down to earth again. A rotten old earth with all the fun gone out of it. And I'm awfully sore and bruised, and the shock has injured my heart. It has never been the same since and will never be the same again, because ... because, I did love him, awfully." As she talked Sir George watched her with affection and concern, his heart aching for this slim, beautiful daughter of his, to whom love had come as a tragedy. "Oh, Daddy," she said, tears choking her voice, "why is life so hard?" Then the storm broke. Sir George listened to her sobs, as with a gentle hand he stroked the golden curls. All the time he wondered who was responsible for her tears, who had broken the heart of his cherished daughter. He went over the multitude of men she knew. But he never gave one thought to the savage boy who, sixteen years before, had scarred his face--the Sultan Casim Ammeh. CHAPTER XXI In a fashionable London hotel a little party of three sat at dinner. The dining-room was a large place, full of well-dressed people. It was bright with electric light, and under a cover of greenery a band played not too loudly. Among the crowd of diners none seemed better known than the girl with the short, golden curls who sat with the thin, studious-looking man and the fresh-faced, fair-haired boy. Very often lorgnettes were turned in her direction; for, when in town, no girl was more sought after than Pansy Langham. As Pansy sat with her father and Captain Cameron a man who had been sitting at the far end of the room came to their table, greeting all three with the air of an old acquaintance. Afterwards he turned to Cameron. "Well, and how's tennis? Are you still champion in your own little way?" he asked. "To tell you the truth, Dennis," Cameron answered, "in Grand Canary one man gave me a thorough licking. And he was a rank outsider too!" "How pleased you must have felt. Who was your executioner?" "A man of the name of Le Breton. A French millionaire." Dennis laughed in a disparaging manner. "French he calls himself, does he? That's like his cheek. I met him once in Paris, a haughty sort of customer who thinks the whole world is run for him. He's a half-breed really, for all his money and his high-handed ways." The conversation had taken a turn that held a fearsome interest for Pansy. But to hear Raoul Le Breton described as a half-breed was a shock and surprise to her. "Mr. Le Breton a half-caste!" she exclaimed. Dennis glanced at her. "Where did you drop across him?" he asked sharply. "In Grand Canary also." "Well, the less you have to do with 'sich' the better," he said in a brotherly way. "He's a hot lot. The very devil. No sort of a pal for a girl like you." "I thought he was French," Pansy said in a strained voice. "He poses as such, but he isn't. He's a nigger cross, French-Arab. And what's more he's a Mohammedan." "You're a trifle sweeping, Dennis," Sir George interposed. "If you'd dealt with coloured people as much as I have, you'd know there was a great difference between a nigger and an Arab. An Arab in his own way is a gentleman. And his religion has a great resemblance to our own. He is not a naked devil-worshipper like the negro." Pansy welcomed her father's intervention. At that moment her world was crashing into even greater ruins around her. Raoul Le Breton a half-caste! The man she loved "a nigger"! Pansy did not hide from herself the fact that she still loved Le Breton, but this last piece of news about him put him quite beyond the pale. Also it put a new light on the affair of Lucille Lemesurier. He was of a different race, a different religion, a different colour, with a wholly different outlook. After the first gust of temper was over, Pansy had wanted to find some excuse for Le Breton over the affair of the French actress. It is easy to find excuses for a person when one is anxious to find them. And now it seemed she had one. He was a Mohammedan. His religion allowed him four wives, and as many other women as he pleased. No wonder he had been angry at the fuss she had made over Lucille Lemesurier! According to his code he had done no wrong. Now Pansy wanted to apologise for her rudeness in invading his villa; for her temper, and the scene that followed. The fault was all hers. She ought to have found out more about him before letting things go so far. She had liked him, and she had troubled about nothing else. She ought never to have encouraged him. For when they had breakfasted together that morning among the red roses, she knew he was in love with her. "There are lots of things about myself I haven't told you." Le Breton's remark came back to her mind. No wonder he had wanted to marry her at once! Before she found out anything about him. Pansy tried to feel angry with her erstwhile lover. But, phantom-like, the strength of his arms was around her, his handsome, sunburnt face was close to her own, his voice was whispering words of love and longing, his lips on hers in those passionate kisses that made her forget everything but himself. Her eyes went round the room, a brave, tortured look in them. Were there other women there, suffering as she was suffering? Suffering, and who yet had to go on smiling? The world demanded her smiles, and it should have them, although her heart was bleeding at the tragedy of her own making. Not only her heart, but Raoul's. Because she had encouraged him. She must not blame him. For the odds were all against him. She must try and see things from his point of view--the point of view of a polygamist. That night when Pansy got back home, she wrote the following note:-- "Dear Mr. Le Breton, I owe you an apology. Only to-night I have learnt that you are of another race, another religion than mine. It makes things look quite different. You see things from the point of view of your race, I, of mine. I am sorry I did not know all this sooner; I should have acted very differently. I should not have come to your villa that night and made a stupid fuss, for one thing. About such matters men of your race and religion are quite different from men of my own. I am sorry for all that occurred. For my own bad temper and the annoyance I must have caused you. But I did not know anything about you then. Yours regretfully, Pansy Langham. P.S.--I shall be calling at Grand Canary in about ten days' time with my father, Sir George Barclay. I am going out to Africa with him. If you care to come on board during the evening I should like to see you and say how sorry I am. P. L." CHAPTER XXII One day when Le Breton returned from one of the mad rides he frequently indulged in, in a vain effort to assuage the pain and chagrin that raged within him, he found among a pile of letters put aside for his inspection, one with an English stamp. Letters from that country rarely came his way. But it was not the novelty that attracted him, making him pick it out from the others, but the writing. He had seen it once before, on a note that had turned his heaven into hell, when for the first time he had learnt what it was to be rejected by a woman. He tore the envelope open, eager for the contents. What had the girl to say to him? Why had she written? With a wild throb of hope, he drew out the message. Once he had called Pansy a little creature of rare surprises. But none equalled the surprise in store for him now. It was not the apologies in the note he saw; nor a girl's desire to try and see things from his point of view; nor the fact that, despite everything, she was unable to break away from him. He saw only one thing. She was Sir George Barclay's daughter! The girl he loved to distraction was the child of his father's murderer! Astounded he stared at the note. He could not believe it. Yet it was there, written in Pansy's own hand. "With my father, Sir George Barclay." Pansy, the child of the man he hated! That brave, kind, slim, teasing girl, who for one brief week had filled him with a happiness and love and contentment such as he had once deemed impossible. As he brooded on the note a variety of emotions raged within him. A vengeance that had rankled for sixteen years fought with a love that had grown up in a week. Then he pulled himself together, as if amazed at his own indecision. He took the note, with its pathos and pleading; a girl's endeavour to meet the view of the man she loved, whose outlook was quite beyond her. Deliberately he tore it across and across, into shreds, slowly and with a cruel look on his face, as if it were something alive that he was torturing, and that gave him pleasure to torture. For Le Breton had decided what his course was to be. The vengeance he had promised long years ago should be carried out, with slight alterations. He had a way now of torturing Sir George Barclay that would be punishment beyond any death. And Pansy was the tool he intended to use. What was more, she was to pay the penalty of her father's crime. For he would mete out to her the measure he had promised sixteen years ago. However, this decision did not prevent Le Breton from going to Pansy's yacht the evening of its arrival in Grand Canary. After dinner he made his way along the quay towards the white vessel with its flare of light that stood out against the dark night. Evidently he was expected. On inquiring for Miss Langham, he was shown into the cabin where he had had his previous interview with her; and with the feeling that things would go his way, if he had but a little patience: a virtue he had never been called upon to exercise where a woman was concerned. Le Breton's feelings as he stayed on in the pretty cabin would be difficult to describe. Everything was redolent of the girl, touching his heart with fairy fingers; a heart he had hardened against her. But, as he waited there, he despised himself for even having momentarily contemplated letting a woman come between him and his cherished vengeance. Once in Africa Sir George Barclay would prove an easy and unsuspecting prey. According to custom, the Governor should tour his province. That tour would bring him within six hundred miles of Le Breton's desert kingdom. The latter intended to keep himself well posted in his enemy's movements. And he knew exactly the spot where he would wait for the Governor and his suite--the spot where sixteen years before the Sultan Casim Ammeh had been shot. He, Le Breton, would wait near there with a troop of his Arab soldiers. Unsuspecting, the Governor would walk into the trap. The whole party would be captured with a completeness and unexpectedness that would leave no trace of what had happened. With his prisoners he would sweep back to the desert. Once in El-Ammeh, the daughter should be sold as a slave in the public market, to become the property of any Arab or negro chief who fancied her. And her father should see her sold. But he should not be killed afterwards. He should live on to brood over his child's fate--a torture worse than any death. "Put your ear quite close. It's not a matter that can be shouted from the house-tops." Like a sign from the sea, the echo of Pansy's voice whispered in his ear, a breath from his one night in heaven. But he would not listen. Vengeance had stifled love--vengeance he had waited sixteen years for. He glanced round with set, cold face. It seemed to him no other woman could look so lovely and desirable as the girl entering. Pansy was wearing a flounced dress of some soft pink silky material that spread around her like the petals of a flower. The one great diamond sparkled on her breast--a dewdrop in the heart of a half-blown rose. On seeing her Le Breton caught his breath sharply. This girl the daughter of his father's murderer! This lovely half-blown English rose! What a trick Fate had played him! Then, ashamed of his momentary craving, he faced her, a cruel smile on his lips. There was a brief silence. Pansy looked at him, thinking she had never seen him so handsome, so proud, so aloof, so hard as now. He stood watching her coldly with no word of welcome, no greeting on his lips. He was the first to speak. And he said none of the things Pansy was expecting and was prepared for. "Why did you tell me your name was Langham?" he asked in a peremptory manner. "It is Langham," she answered, with some surprise. "How is it, then, that you say Sir George Barclay is your father?" "He is my father. Langham was my godfather's name, my own second name. I had to take it when I inherited his money. That was his one stipulation." Another pause ensued. There was a hurt look in Pansy's soft eyes as she watched Le Breton. As he looked back at her a hungry gleam came to his hard ones. "What have you learnt about me?" he demanded presently. "That you're half Arab." He had almost expected her to say she had discovered he was the Sultan Casim Ammeh, her own and her father's sworn enemy. "Is that all?" he asked, with a savage laugh. "It's quite enough to account for everything," Pansy replied. "Even for your coming into my arms and letting me kiss and caress you," he said, with biting sarcasm. Pansy flushed. "I didn't know anything about you then. And you know I didn't," she said with indignation. "Or you wouldn't have listened to a word of love from me." Much as he tried to hate the girl, now that he was with her he could not keep the word "love" off his lips. Pansy felt she was not shining. She wanted to apologise, but he seemed determined to be disagreeable. What was more, she had a feeling she was dealing with quite a different man from the Raoul Le Breton who had won and broken her heart within a week. She put it down to her own treatment of him and it made her all the more anxious for an understanding. She could not bear to see him looking at her in that hard, cruel way, as if she were his mortal enemy--someone who had injured him past all forgiveness. "It's not that I want to talk about at all," she said desperately. "What do you want to talk about, then?" he asked, his cruel smile deepening. "I want to say how sorry I am that I was angry with you that night. But I ... I didn't know you were ... are----" Pansy stopped before she got deeper into the mire. She was going to say "a coloured man," but with him standing before her, her lips refused to form the words. However, Le Breton finished the sentence for her. "'A nigger.' Don't spare my feelings. I've had it cast up at me before by you English." "You know I wouldn't say anything so cruel and untrue." Again there was silence. Le Breton watched her, torturing himself with the thought of what might have been. "If you'd kept your word, you'd be my wife now. The wife of 'a nigger,'" he said presently. "Don't be so cruel. I never thought you'd be like this," she cried, her voice full of pain. "And I never thought you would break your word." "In any case, I couldn't have married you, considering you're a Mohammedan," she said, goaded out of all patience by his unfriendly attitude. "Religion is nothing to me nowadays. I was quite prepared to change to yours." "You couldn't have done that. There would be your ... your wives to consider." "I have no wife by my religion or yours." "But that woman at your villa, wasn't she----" Pansy began. "I've half a dozen women in one of my--houses; but none of them are my wives. You're the only woman I've ever asked for in marriage. You!" He laughed in a cruel, hard way, as if at some devil's joke. Pansy's hand went to her head--a weary, hopeless gesture. He was beyond her comprehension, this man who calmly confessed to having a half a dozen women in one of his houses, to a woman he would have made his wife. "I'm sorry," she said in a dreary tone, "but I can't understand you. I'd no idea there were men who seemed just like other men and yet behaved in this ... this extraordinary fashion." "I'm not aware that my behaviour is extraordinary. Every man in my country has a harem if he can afford it." Deliberately he put these facts before the girl in his desire to hurt and hate her as he hated her father. But the look of suffering on her face hurt him as much as he was hurting her. And he hated himself more than he hated her, because uprooting the love he had for her out of his heart was proving such a difficult task. "It's a harem, is it?" Pansy said distastefully. "Now I'm beginning to understand. But I don't want to hear anything more about it. I see now it was a mistake my asking you here. But I wanted you to know--to know----" She floundered and stopped and started again, anxious to be fair with him in spite of everything. "I wanted you to understand that the fact of your religion and race made your behaviour seem quite different from what it would have been were you a ... a European. I want you to see that I know you have your point of view, that I can't in all fairness blame you for doing what is not wrong according to your standpoint, even if it is according to mine." With his cold, cruel smile deepening, he watched her floundering after excuses for him, endeavouring to see his point of view, to be just and fair. "You're very magnanimous," he said, with biting scorn. "And you are very unkind," she flashed, suddenly out of patience. "You're making everything as hard for me as you possibly can. You're doing it deliberately; and you look as if you enjoyed hurting me. I never thought you'd be like this, Raoul. I would have liked to part as friends since ... since anything else is impossible." His name on her lips made a spasm cross Le Breton's face. As he stood there fighting against himself he knew he was still madly in love with the girl he was determined to hate, and he despised himself for his own weakness. Pansy watched him, a look of suppressed suffering shadowing her eyes. She would have given all she possessed--her cherished freedom, her vast riches, her life--to have had him as she once thought him, a man of her own colour, not with this dreadful black barrier between them; a tragedy so ghastly that the fact of Lucille Lemesurier now seemed a laughing matter. He was lost to her for ever. No amount of love or understanding could pull down that barrier. "Good-bye," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm sorry we ever dropped across one another." Le Breton made no reply. Cold and unsmiling, he watched her. There was a brief silence. Outside, the sea sobbed and splashed like tears against the vessel's side. But all the tears in the world could not wash the black stain from him. As they stood looking at one another, a verse came and sang like a dirge in Pansy's head: What are we waiting for? Oh, my heart, Kiss me straight on the brow and part: Again! Again, my heart, my heart What are we waiting for, you and I? A pleading look--a stifled cry-- Good-bye for ever. Good-bye, good-bye. "Good-bye," she said again. Then he smiled his cold, cruel smile. "No, Pansy. I say--au revoir." Ignoring her outstretched hand, he bowed. Then, after one long look at her, he turned and was gone. As the door closed behind him Pansy blinked back two tears. It had hurt her horribly to see him so set and cold, with that cruel look in his eyes where love once had been. She wished that "The Sultan" had killed her that day in the East End of London; or that Raoul Le Breton had been drowned that night in the sea. Anything rather than that they should have met to make each other suffer. PART III CHAPTER I Over El-Ammeh great stars flashed, like silver lamps in the purple dome above the desert city. Their light gave a faint, misty white tinge to the scented blueness of the harem garden. There, trees sighed softly, moving vague and shadow-like as a warm breeze stirred them. The walled pleasance was filled with the scent of flowers, of roses, magnolia, heliotrope, mimosa and a hundred other blossoms, for night lay heavy upon the garden. In sunken ponds the stars were mirrored, rocking gently on the surface of the ruffled water. Close by one of the silvered pools, a man's figure showed, big and white, in flowing garments. Against him a slender girl leant. Rayma's eyes rivalled the stars as she gazed up at her sultan and owner. Yet in their dark depths a touch of anxiety lurked. A fortnight ago, the Sultan had returned to El-Ammeh. The first week had been one of blissful happiness for the Arab girl. For her master had returned more her lover than ever. But, as the days went on, doubts crept into her heart, vague and haunting. At times it seemed to her he was not quite the same man who left her for Paris. For he had a habit now that he had not had before he went away--a disconcerting habit of looking at her with unseeing eyes, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. This mood was on him now. Although the night called for nothing but love and caresses, none had fallen to her lot. Although she rested against him, she might not have been there for all the notice he took. He appeared to have forgotten her, as he gazed in a brooding, longing manner at the soft, velvety depths of the purple sky--sky as deeply, softly purple as pansies. Rayma pressed closer to her lord and sultan, looking at him with love-laden, anxious eyes. "Beloved," she whispered softly, "are your thoughts with some woman in Paris?" With a start, his attention came back to her. In the starlight he scanned her little face in a fierce, hungry, disappointed manner. For the slight golden girl who now rested upon his heart brought him none of the contentment he had known when Pansy had been there. "No, little one," he said gently. "I prefer you to all the women I met in Paris." Her slim arms went round his neck in a clinging passionate embrace. "Oh, my lord," she whispered, "such words are my life. At times I think you do not love me as you once did. You seem not quite the same. For, often, although your arms are around me, you forget that I am there!" A bitter expression crossed his face. He did not forget that she was there. Although he had come back to the desert girl he had once loved, it was not her he wanted, but the girl who had scorned and flouted him, his enemy's daughter. And he tried to forget her in the slim, golden arms that held him, with such desire and passion. "No, Rayma, I'm not quite the same," he said, stroking the little face that watched him with such love and longing. "For sixteen years and more I have waited to avenge my father's death. And now----" He broke off, and laughed savagely. "And now--my father's murderer is almost within my grip. Next week I start out with my men to capture him." Revenge was a sentiment the Arab girl could understand. "Oh, my lord," she whispered, "little wonder that your mind wanders from me, even though I am within your arms. I wept when you went to Paris. But I would speed you on this quest for vengeance." The Sultan made no reply. Deep down in his own heart he knew his excuse was a false one. It was not vengeance that came between him and Rayma--but Pansy. And now he hated the English girl, for she had robbed all other women of their sweetness. CHAPTER II Over the old fort near the river the British flag drooped limply. Many years had passed since it had last hung there. Nowadays, the place was not used. The country was too peaceful to need forts, and the district officer lived in a corrugated iron bungalow just beyond the remains of the stockade. It was getting on towards evening. The mist still rose from forest and shadow valley, as it had risen sixteen years before when Barclay first came to these parts. And in the stunted cliffs another generation of baboons swarmed. On the roof of the old fort Pansy stood with her father, watching as she had often watched during her months in Africa, the sunset that each night painted the world with glory. A golden mist draped the horizon, its edge gilded sharply and clearly. Across the golden curtain swept great fan-like rays of rose and green and glowing carmine, all radiating from a blurred mass of orange hung on the world's edge where the sun sank slowly behind the veil of gold. The mist rolled up from the wide shallow valley, in banks and tattered ribbons, rainbow tinted. And the lakes that, in the dry season, marked the course of the shrunken river, gleamed like jewels in the flood of light poured out from the heavens. The constant change and variety of the last few months had eased Pansy's pain a little. With her father she had toured the colony. She had slept under canvas, in native huts, and iron bungalows. And there were half-a-dozen officers on the governor's staff, all anxious to entertain his daughter. But for the nights, Pansy would have enjoyed herself immensely. "Give me the nights, Pansy, and the days I'll leave to you." Very often Raoul Le Breton's words came back to her, as she lay sleepless. It seemed that he had her nights now, that man she loved yet could not marry. Often her heart ached with a violence that kept her awake until the morning. Pansy tried to make her nights as short as possible. She was always the last to bed and the first to rise, often up and dressed before Alice--her plump, pretty, mulatto maid, a Mission girl Pansy had engaged for her stay in Africa--appeared with the early morning tea. And whenever it was possible, she was out and away on her old racehorse, with some member of her father's staff. And the day that followed was generally full of novelty and interest. There were new people to see; a wild country to travel through; some negro chief to interview; a native village to visit. As the journey continued, the Europeans grew fewer. Until that day, it was nearly a week since Pansy had seen a white face, except those of her father's suite. Only that afternoon the furthermost point of the tour had been reached. A mile or so beyond was French territory. With her father Pansy often went over the maps of the district and the country that lay around it. She knew that beyond the British possessions lay a sparsely populated and but little known district; vast areas, scarcely explored, of scrub and poor grass, that led on to the Back of Beyond, the limitless expanse of the burning Sahara. But, interested as Pansy always was in all connected with her father's province, and all that lay about it, she was not thinking of any of these things as she stood on the roof with him, but of her old playmate, Captain Cameron. The Governor, his staff, and the district officer were going the next day to visit some rather important negro chief. Pansy was to have been one of the party, but on reaching their journey's end, Cameron had suddenly developed a bad attack of malaria. "I don't think I'll go to-morrow, father," she was saying. "I don't like leaving Bob. I know his orderly can look after him all right. But he says he feels better when I'm about, so I promised to stay and hold his hand." "Just as you like," Sir George answered. "In any case the pow-pow will be very similar to a dozen others you've seen. And Bob needs keeping cheerful." "He takes it very philosophically," Pansy answered. "It's the only way to take life," her father answered, a trifle sadly. Pansy rubbed a soft cheek against his in silent sympathy. She loved and understood her quiet, indulgent father more than ever. But the dead girl he still grieved for was only a misty memory to his child. "Yes, Daddy, I've learnt that too," she said. "It's no use grousing about things. It's far better to laugh in the teeth of Fate." George Barclay's arm went round his daughter. She had followed out her own precepts, this brave, bright girl of his. As she went about his camp, no one would have guessed her life was a tragedy. And even he knew no more than she had told him on her unexpected return from Grand Canary. She was fighting her battle alone, as he in past years had fought his, in her own unselfish way, refusing to let her shadows fall on those about her. CHAPTER III About five miles away from the old fort, deep in the forest, there was a large grassy glade, an unfrequented spot. Within it now were encamped what looked to be a large party of Arab merchants. There were about a hundred of them, and they had come early that morning, with horses, and camels, and mules, and bales of merchandise. And they outnumbered Barclay's party by nearly three to one. His following were not more than forty, including thirty Hausa soldiers. Immediately on arriving in the glade, two of the Arabs, with curios, had been dispatched to the English camp, outwardly to sell their goods, but, in reality, as spies. They had hardly gone, before the rest of the party put aside its peaceful air. Out of their bales weapons were produced; guns of the latest pattern and vicious-looking knives. In his tent the Sultan Casim Ammeh sat, in white burnoose, awaiting the return of his spies. With him was Edouard, his French doctor, who was watching his royal master with an air of concern. "I shall be glad when this thing is through and done with," he remarked presently, his voice heavy with anxiety. "And all I hope is that the English don't get hold of you. There'll be short shrift for you, if you're caught meddling with their officials." "They'd shoot me, as Barclay shot my father," the Sultan replied grimly. "But I'm willing to risk that in order to get hold of him." "I wish we were safely back in El-Ammeh," the doctor said. "You've never experienced either a deep love or a deep hate, Edouard. The surface of things has always satisfied you. You're to be envied." "Well I hope that love will never run you into the dangers that this revenge of yours is likely to," Edouard replied, getting up. He went from the tent, leaving the Sultan alone, awaiting the return of his spies. It was nearly midday when they got back to the glade. At once they were taken into the royal presence. "What have you learnt?" the Sultan demanded. The Arabs bowed low before their ruler. "Your Highness, the English party has broken up," one replied. "The chief and his officers, with half the soldiers, have gone to a village that lies about half way between here and the fort. And the white lady, his daughter, is left behind, with but fifteen men to guard her." As Le Breton listened, the task he had set himself appeared even easier than he had imagined. At the head of his men he would waylay and capture the governor and his party on their return from the village. When this was accomplished he would send off a contingent to seize Pansy. With this idea in view, he summoned a couple of native officers into his presence. When they appeared, he gave them various instructions about the matter on hand, and, finally, his plans concerning Pansy. "No shot must be fired in the presence of the English lady," he finished. "At all costs she must be captured without injury." With deference the Arab officers listened to his instructions, then they bowed and left the royal presence. Not long afterwards the glade was practically empty save for the tents and camels and mules. At the head of his men the Sultan Casim Ammeh had gone in quest of the vengeance he had waited quite sixteen years for. CHAPTER IV In the guard-house of the old fort where George Barclay had once housed his wounded Arab prisoners, Captain Cameron sat propped up with pillows in a camp bed. It was a cool, dim, white-washed room with thick stone walls, tiny windows high up near the ceiling, and a strong wooden door, that was barred from the inside. Beside him Pansy sat, pouring out the tea that his orderly had just brought in, and trying to coax an appetite that malaria had left capricious. Cameron's fever had burnt itself out in twenty-four hours as such fevers will, but it had left the young man very weak and washed out, scarcely able to stand on his legs. As Pansy sat talking and coaxing, trying to make a sick man forget his sickness, into the stillness of the drowsy afternoon there came a sound that neither of them expected. The thunder of horses' hoofs, like a regiment sweeping towards them. As far as Cameron knew there were no horses in the district except their own, and they numbered only about half a dozen, not enough to produce anything like that amount of sound. "What on earth can that be?" he asked, suddenly alert. Almost as he spoke there was a further sound. A sound of firing. Not a single shot, but a volley. It was followed immediately by cries and screams, and a hubbub of native voices. Cameron had seen active service. That sound made him forget all about his fever. He knew it for a surprise attack. But who had attacked them, and why, he could not imagine; for the district was peaceful. Barefooted and in pyjamas, he scrambled out of bed. Swaying, he fumbled under his pillow, and producing a revolver, slipped it into his pocket. Then he staggered across to the door, Pansy at his heels. When they looked out, it appeared that the stockade was filled with white-robed figures on horseback, lean, brown, hawk-faced men whom Pansy immediately recognised for Arabs. The surprised Hausa soldiers had been driven into one corner of the compound, and back to back were fighting valiantly against overwhelming odds. Cameron did not wait to see any more. Already a score or more of the wild horsemen were sweeping on towards the old fort where the two stood. Quick as thought he shut the guardroom door. With hands that shook with fever, he stooped and picked up one of the two iron bars that held it in position. "Lend me a hand, Pansy," he said sharply. But Pansy did not need any telling. Already she had seized the other end of the heavy bar. It was in position just as the horde outside reached the guard-house. There was a rattle of arms, the sound of horses being brought sharply to a halt. Then orders shouted in a wild, barbaric language. There followed a shower of heavy blows upon the door. When the second iron bar was in position, the boy and the girl stood for a moment and looked at one another. Pansy was the first to speak. "What has happened?" she asked. "It looks like a desert tribe out on some marauding expedition," he replied in as cool a voice as he could muster. "But I'm sure I don't know what they're doing down as far as here." "My father?" Pansy said quickly. Cameron made no reply. He hoped the Governor's party had not fallen foul of the marauders. But the fate of Sir George and his staff was not the one that troubled him now. All his thoughts were for the girl he loved, to keep her from falling into the hands of that barbaric horde. And fall she must, dead or alive, before so very long. Strong as the door was, it would not be able to withstand the assaults the Arabs could put upon it. With a casual air Cameron examined his revolver, to make sure that the five cartridges were complete. Then he glanced at the girl. She caught his eye, and smiled bravely. She had grasped the situation also. "We all have to die sooner or later," she remarked. "I hope it'll be sooner in my case." Cameron's young face grew even whiter and more drawn; this time with something more than fever--the thought of the task before him. "Four shots for them, Pansy, and the fifth for you," he answered hoarsely. "Yes, Bob, whatever you do, don't forget the fifth." As they talked, thundering blows were falling on the door, filling the room with constantly recurring echoes. But the wood and iron withstood the assault. The noise stopped suddenly. From outside, voices could be heard, evidently discussing what had better be done next. Pansy and Cameron crossed to the far side of the room, and stood there side by side, their backs against the wall, waiting. When the blows came again they were different; one heavy, ponderous thud that made the door creak and groan, with a pause between each blow. "They've got a battering-ram to work now, a tree trunk or something," Cameron remarked. "That good old door won't be able to stand the strain much longer." Then he glanced at the girl, longing in his eyes. "Let me give you one kiss, Pansy. A good-bye kiss," he whispered. "It's years since I've kissed you. You're such a one for keeping a fellow at arm's length nowadays." With death knocking at the door Pansy could not refuse him; this nice boy she had always liked, yet never loved. She thought of the man who had feasted so freely on her lips that night in the moonlit garden in Grand Canary. She wanted no man's kisses but his, no man's love but his, and his race and colour barred him out from her for ever. "Kiss me if you like, Bob, for old time's sake. But----" She broke off, listening to the noises from outside, the heavy, regular thud on the iron-bound door, that had now set the stone walls trembling. "Now, I shall die a young maid instead of an old one, that's all," she said suddenly. Cameron watched her, pain on his face; this girl who could face death with a courage that equalled his own. Then he kissed her tenderly. "Good-bye, Pansy, little pal," he said hoarsely. Afterwards there was silence in the room. Between the heavy blows flies droned. Droned as if all were well with the world. As if nothing untoward were happening. Pansy listened to them, a strained look on her face. So they would go on droning after she was dead. How painful the thought would once have been. But the world had grown so tragic since she had met and parted with Raoul Le Breton. Life had become so dreary. There was a constant gnawing pain at her heart now, a pain that Pansy hoped would not follow her from this world into another. There was a crash of falling timber. The door gave way suddenly, letting in a flood of wild, white-clad men. If Cameron thought of anything beyond getting his four shots home among the swarming crowd, it was to wonder why they did not fire, instead of rushing towards him and the girl. But he did not give much time to the problem. Within four seconds, four shots had been fired at the onrushing Arabs. And with ruthless joy Cameron noted that four of them fell. Then he turned his weapon on the girl beside him. Now that her turn had come, Pansy smiled at him bravely with white lips. But, as Cameron turned, a shot grazed his hand, fired by the leader of the Arabs, who appeared to have grasped what the Englishman was about to do. The bullet did not reach Pansy's brain as Cameron intended. For the pain of his wound sent his hand slightly downwards just as he pulled the trigger. His bullet found a resting-place in her heart, it seemed. With a faint gasp she fell as if dead at his feet, a red stain on the front of her white dress. This contretemps left the onrushing horde aghast. They halted abruptly. In silence they stood staring at the limp form of the prostrate girl, the fear of death upon their swarthy faces. CHAPTER V In his tent the Sultan Casim Ammeh was waiting for the return of the party sent on to the old fort to capture Pansy. So far there had been no hitch in his schemes. Sir George and his staff had proved an easy prey. Already one portion of his Arab following, with Barclay's officers, had set out on the long journey back to El-Ammeh. Sir George and Pansy, the Sultan had arranged to take up himself, as soon as the girl was in his hands. For he had no desire to linger in British territory. But it was not the punishment England would dole out to him if he were caught that filled Le Breton's mind as he sat cross-legged among the cushions, with the cruel lines about his mouth very much in evidence. His thoughts were all with Sir George Barclay's daughter. What desert harem would be her future home? What wild chief would call that golden-haired girl his chattel? Casim Ammeh had determined to carry out his vengeance to the letter, where Pansy was concerned. To sell her in the slave-market of his capital; and keep her father alive, tortured by the knowledge of his daughter's fate. What would the girl say when she saw him? When she recognised him for the Sultan of El-Ammeh, the man her father had wronged past all forgiveness. Would that sweet, brave face go white at the knowledge of the fate before her? Would she try to plead with him or herself and her father? Would----! Le Breton pulled his straying thoughts up sharply, lest they should go wandering down forbidden ways--ways that led to where love was. He had determined to hate Pansy; a hatred he had to keep continually before him, lest he should forget it. The afternoon wore on, bringing long shadows creeping into the glade. And the Sultan sat waiting for the full fruit of his vengeance. There might be peace in his heart once the wrong done to his father was righted. Peace in the restless heart that throbbed within him, that seemed always searching for a life other than the one he lived; a peace he had known just once or twice when a girl's slight form had rested upon it. His enemy's daughter! The sound of approaching hoofs broke into his thoughts. He knew what they were. Those of the party sent on to capture Pansy. When the cavalcade halted, his eyes went to the open flap of the big tent, a savage expression in them. He could not see the returned party from there; only the guards posted outside of the royal quarters. Presently a couple of men in flowing white robes came into view; the two officers who had headed the expedition. They were challenged by the sentries, then they passed on towards the tent where their Sultan was waiting. There was concern upon their faces, that deepened to resignation and despair when the royal gaze rested upon them. "Where is the English lady?" their Sultan demanded coldly. "Your Highness, there was a man of her colour with her, and----" one of the officers began. Le Breton made an impatient gesture. "Bring me the girl," he commanded. The officers glanced at one another. Then one knelt before the Sultan. "The instructions were carried out," he said. "But the English lady is dead." There was a moment of tense silence. A feeling of someone fighting against an incredible truth. Pansy dead! Impossible! The Sultan sat as if turned into stone. The contretemps was one he had never anticipated. "Dead," the echoes whispered at him mockingly through the silk-draped tent. "Dead," they sighed unto themselves as if in dire pain. And that one tragic word stripped love of its garment of hate, and set it before him, alive and vital. The tent suddenly became charged with suffering, and the feeling of a fierce, proud heart breaking. "Dead!" the Sultan repeated in a hoarse, incredulous voice. "Then Allah have pity on the man who killed her, for I shall have none." "Your Highness, there was a white man with her. He shot her," the kneeling officer explained. Le Breton hardly heard him. For the first time in his wild, arrogant life he felt regret; regret for a deed of his own doing. The regret that is the forerunner of conscience, as conscience precedes the birth of a soul--the soul he had once laughingly accused Pansy of trying to save. His schemes had brought her to her death. Morally his was the hand that had killed her. His hand! The thought staggered him. He got to his feet suddenly, reeling slightly, as if in dire agony. The officer kneeling before him bowed his head submissively. He expected the fate of all who bring bad news to a Sultan--the Sultan's sword upon his neck. But Le Breton hardly noticed the man. He only saw his own deed before him. Love had leapt out of its scabbard of hate. The one fact he had tried to keep hidden from himself was shouting, loud-voiced, at him. In spite of who and what Pansy was, he still loved her, madly, ragingly, hopelessly. But it had taken her death to bring the truth home to him. "Where is the girl?" he asked, in a stiff, harsh voice. "We brought her so that your Highness could see we spoke the truth," the officer replied. "Let her be brought in to me then, and laid there," the Sultan said, indicating a wide couch full of cushions. Glad to escape with their lives the officers hurried out to do the royal bidding. There were no cruel lines about the Sultan's mouth as he waited their return, but deep gashes of pain instead. A silent cavalcade entered the tent some minutes later: as silent as the Sultan who stood awaiting them; as silent as the girl with the red stain on her breast and the red blood on her lips. A look from the Sultan dismissed the men. When they had gone, he crossed to Pansy's side, and stood gazing down at her. She lay limp and white, a broken lily before him, His enemy's daughter! This still, white, lovely girl. This pearl among women, whom he had tried to hate. And now----! Pain twisted his face. He thought of Pansy as he had last seen her, that night on her yacht. She had wanted to bring about an understanding between them. She had tried to see things from his point of view. She was prepared to make allowances, to find excuses for him. And he had treated her with harshness; wilfully set her at a disadvantage; purposely had misunderstood her; deliberately had said all he could to wound her. He had done his best to hate her. He had put vengeance before love. Now he had his reward. His wild lust for revenge had stilled that kind heart that had lived to do its best for all. A stifled groan came to his lips. What a trick Fate had played upon him! Leaning over the couch he took one of her limp, white hands into his strong brown one. The little hand whose touch could always soothe his restless spirit, that had once teased and caressed him, opening out visions of a Paradise that his own deeds had now shut out from him for ever. The Fruit of the Tree of Vengeance is bitter. And this Le Breton realized to the fullest as he gazed at the silent girl. "Pansy, don't mock me from beyond the Styx," he whispered. "For you know now that my heart is broken. There's nothing but grief for me here and hereafter." Then it seemed to the tortured man that a miracle happened. The girl's eyes opened. For a brief second she gazed at him in a dazed, bewildered manner. Then her lids dropped weakly, as if even that slight effort were too much for her. CHAPTER VI Blue-black night surrounded the Arab encampment. Here and there a red watch-fire punctuated the darkness. Although well past midnight, a light burnt in the Sultan's tent. It came from a heavy silver lamp slung from the bar joining the two main supporting poles. The light flickered on the couch where Pansy still lay, limp and white among the silken cushions, her curls making a halo about her pain-drawn face. She was no longer clad in her muslin frock, but in a silk nightgown with her namesakes embroidered upon it. A light silk rug covered her up to her waist; on it her hands lay, weak and helpless. On discovering there was a spark of life left in his prisoner, the Sultan had sent post-haste to an adjacent tent for Edouard. When the doctor arrived, Le Breton stood silent whilst the patient was examined, in an agony of tortured love awaiting the verdict. "There's no hope unless I can get the bullet out," the doctor had remarked at the end of the examination. "It escaped her heart by about half an inch; but it means constant haemorrhage if it's left in the lungs." "And if it's removed?" the Sultan asked hoarsely. Edouard shrugged his shoulders in a non-committal manner. "It'll be touch and go, even then. But she might pull through with care and attention. She's young and healthy. But if she survives, she'll feel the effects of that bullet for some time to come." With that Edouard left to fetch his instruments, leaving the Sultan gazing down at the result of his own mad desire for vengeance--a red, oozing wound on a girl's white breast. When the doctor returned, whilst he probed after the bullet Le Breton held Pansy with firm, careful strength, lest, in pain, she should move and send the instrument into the heart Cameron's shot had just missed. But she was unconscious through it all. Although the probing brought a further gush of blood, Edouard managed to locate the bullet and extract it. After the wound was dressed, and Pansy bound and bandaged up, the doctor left. With his departure the Sultan sent for Pansy's belongings, which his soldiers had brought up as plunder from the raid. There was no woman among his following, so he sent one of the guards to inquire if there was one among the captives. Presently Pansy's mulatto maid was brought to him. Alice was a pretty brown girl of about seventeen, clad in a blue cotton slip, and she wore a yellow silk handkerchief tied around her black curls. With awe she gazed about the sumptuous tent; with admiration at her handsome, kingly captor. He, however, had nothing to say to her, beyond giving her instructions to serve her mistress and warning her to use the utmost care. When Alice set about her task he went from the tent to interview Edouard. Pansy's condition had upset his plans. Even if the girl recovered, she could not be moved for a week at least, no matter how carefully her litter was carried. And a force as large as his could not stay a week in the neighbourhood without the fact becoming known. When Le Breton returned he dismissed Alice, and he seated himself by the couch and stayed there watching the unconscious girl. Evening shadows crept into the tent, bringing a deft-handed, silent servant, who lighted the heavy silver lamp and withdrew as silently as he had come. Dinner appeared; a sumptuous meal that the Sultan waved aside impatiently. Then Edouard came again, to see how the patient was faring; to give an injection and go, after a curious glance at the big, impassive figure of his patron sitting silent and brooding at his captive's side. Gradually the noises of the camp died down, until outside there was only the sough of the forest, the whisper of the wind in the tree-tops, the occasional stamp of a horse's hoof, the hoot of an owl in the glade, and, every now and again in the distance, the mocking laugh of hyenas. Mocking at him, it seemed to Le Breton; at a man whose own doings had brought his beloved to death's door. Within the tent there was no longer silence. Faint little moans whispered through it occasionally, mingling with the rustle of silken curtains and the sparking of the lamp. And every now and again there were weak bouts of coughing; coughs that brought an ominous red stain to Pansy's lips; stains the Sultan dabbed off carefully with a handkerchief, his strong hand shaking slightly, his arrogant face working strangely, for he knew he was responsible for the life-blood upon her lips. Every hour Edouard came to give the injection which held the soul back from the grim, bony hands of death that groped after it. Once or twice Pansy's eyes opened, but they closed almost instantly, as if she had not strength enough to hold them open. But before daybreak her coughs had ceased. An hour passed, then two, without that ominous red stain coming to her lips. Edouard nodded to himself in a satisfied way as he left the tent. A little of the strained look left the Sultan's face. The haemorrhage had stopped; youth and health were winning the battle. Just as the first pink streak of dawn entered the tent Pansy's eyes opened again and stayed open, purple wells of pain that rested on the Sultan's with a puzzled expression. Into the misty world of suffering and weakness in which she moved it seemed to her that Raoul Le Breton had come, looking at her as he had once looked, with love and tenderness in his glowing eyes. She could not make out where she was or how he came to be there. She had no recollection of the horde who had broken into the guardroom where she and Cameron had been. She was too full of suffering to give any thought to the problem. Raoul Le Breton was with her, that was enough. A wan smile of recognition trembled for a moment on her lips. "Raoul," she said faintly. It was more a sigh than a word. But his name whispered so feebly brought him kneeling beside her couch, bending over her eagerly. "My darling, forgive me," he whispered passionately. He bent his head still lower, with infinite tenderness kissing the white lips that had breathed his name so faintly. Pansy's eyes closed again. A look of contentment came to mingle with the suffering on her face. Outside the hyenas still laughed mockingly: derisive echoes from a distance. But Le Breton did not hear them. Despite his treatment of her, Pansy had smiled upon him. For the first time in his wild life he felt humility and gratitude, both new sensations. When Edouard came again he pronounced the girl sleeping, not unconscious. "With care and attention she'll pull through," he said. "Thank God!" his patron exclaimed, with unfeigned relief and joy. Edouard glanced at his master speculatively. He had heard nothing about Pansy's existence until he had been hurriedly summoned to attend her, and he wondered why his friend and patron had made no mention of the girl. "You never told me Barclay had a daughter," he commented. "I did not know myself until quite recently," the Sultan replied. "Is she to share her father's fate?" the doctor asked drily. Tenderly the Sultan gazed at the small white face on the cushions. "She's not my enemy," he said in a caressing tone. With a feeling of relief, Edouard left the tent. It was most evident that the Sultan had fallen in love with his beautiful captive. If the girl played her cards well, she would be able to save her father, and prevent his patron doling out death to a British official, thus embroiling himself still further with the English Government. After the doctor had left, Le Breton sat on Pansy's couch. Yet he had not learnt his lesson. Although he loved the daughter, he hated the father as intensely as ever. Now he was making other plans; plans that would enable him to keep both love and vengeance. Plans, too, that might make the girl forget his colour and give him the love he now craved for so wildly. CHAPTER VII In one of the tents in the glade Sir George Barclay sat, an Arab guard on either side of him. There was an almost stupefied air about him; of a man whose world has suddenly got beyond his control. The previous afternoon, without any warning, his party had been set upon and captured; but by whom, and why, he did not know. There was no rebellious chief in the district; no discontent. Yet he was a prisoner in the hands of some wild tribe; captured so suddenly that not one of his men had escaped to take word to the next British outpost and bring up a force to his assistance. There was but one streak of consolation in his broodings--the knowledge that his daughter had not fallen alive into the hands of the barbaric soldiery. Some little time after he had been brought a prisoner to the glade he had seen Cameron come in, white and shaking with fever. On seeing his chief, the young man had shouted across the space: "Thank God! the niggers haven't got Pansy alive." They were given no time for further conversation, for one was hustled this way and one that. As Barclay sat brooding on the fate that had overtaken his party and trying to find a reason for it, someone entered the tent. In the newcomer he recognised the leader of the force that had waylaid and captured him and his party. "So, George Barclay, we meet for a second time," a deep voice said savagely in French. Barclay scanned the big man in the white burnoose who stood looking at him with hatred in his dark, fiery eyes. To his knowledge he had never seen him before. "Where did we first meet?" he asked quietly. "Sixteen years ago, when you murdered my father, the Sultan Casim Ammeh." Sir George started violently and scanned the man anew. He had a reason now for the untoward happenings. "Do you remember all I promised for you and yours that day you refused to listen to my pleadings?" the savage voice asked. Barclay remembered only too well. And as he looked at the ruthless face before him he was more than ever thankful for one thing. "Thank God; my daughter is dead!" he said. The Sultan smiled, coldly, cruelly. "Your daughter is not dead," he replied. "She is alive; just alive. And you may rest assured that she'll have every care and attention." The news left Barclay staring in a stricken manner at his captor. "My doctor assures me that she will live," the Sultan went on. "And you will live, too, to see her sold as a slave in the public market of my city." Sir George said nothing. The thought of Pansy's ghastly fate placed him beyond speech. At that moment he could only pray that she might die. CHAPTER VIII Three days elapsed before Pansy returned to full consciousness, and even then the world was a very hazy place. One morning she woke up, almost too weak to move, with a feeling that she must have had a bad attack of fever. She tried to sit up, but Alice, her mulatto maid, bent over her quickly, pressing her back gently on the pillows. "No, Missy Pansy," that familiar, crooning voice said with an air of authority. "De doctor say you stay dere and no move." Pansy was not at all anxious to move after that one attempt. The effort had brought knife-like pains cutting through her chest, and she had had to bite her lip to keep herself from crying out in agony. All day she lay in silence, sleeping most of the time, when awake, thankful just to lie still, for even to talk hurt her; grateful when Alice fed her, because she would rather have gone hungry than have faced the pain that sitting up entailed. Sometimes, from outside, came the rattle of harness, the stamp of a hoof, men's voices talking in a strange language. But Pansy was used to such sounds now, and thought nothing of them; they had been around her all the time she had been on tour with her father. The next day the mist had cleared considerably. Pansy realised she was in a big tent, not an affair of plain green canvas, such as she had lived in quite a lot during her expedition into the wilds, but a place of barbaric splendour. Silk hangings draped the canvas walls; rich curtains heavily embroidered with gold. The very poles that held the structure up were of silver, and a heavy silver lamp was suspended from the central bar. Priceless rugs covered the ground, and here and there were piles of soft, silk cushions. There were one or two little ebony tables and stools inlaid with silver and ivory. Her bed was a low couch of soft silk and down cushions. And on the floor beside her was a beaten gold tray where jewelled cups reposed, and dishes with coloured sherbets and other tempting dainties. Pansy's gaze stayed on Alice in a puzzling manner. Alice looked much the same, as plump and pretty as ever, but with an even more "pleased with herself" expression than usual upon her round smiling face. From her maid Pansy glanced towards the entrance of the tent. The flap was fastened back, letting in a flood of fresh, gold-tinged morning air. Just outside, two dark-faced, white-robed men were stationed, and, beyond, were others, and a glimpse of trees. Pansy's eyes stayed on the Arabs guarding her quarters. In a vague way they were familiar. With a rush came back the happenings of the afternoon when she had been having tea with Cameron in the old guardroom. Men such as those outside had burst in upon them when the brave old door had given way. A wave of sickly fear swept over the girl. Was she a prisoner in the hands of that wild horde? But, if so, what was she doing in the midst of all this splendour, this riot of luxury, with the softest of cushions to lie on, the choicest of silk rugs to cover her, and Alice sitting contentedly at her side? Perhaps Bob could give her the key to the situation. "Alice," she said weakly, "run and tell Captain Cameron I want to speak to him." "He no be here, Miss Pansy," the girl replied. "He go to de Sultan Casim Ammeh's city." Alice pronounced the Sultan's name with gusto. The desert ruler with his barbaric splendour and troop of wild horsemen had impressed her far more than the English governor and his retinue. She did not at all mind being his prisoner. Moreover she was a privileged person, told off specially by the Sultan to nurse her mistress. For some moments Pansy pondered on what her maid had said. "The Sultan Casim Ammeh," Pansy repeated presently, with an air of bewilderment. "Dat be him," Alice assured her. "A great big, fine man, awful good-looking. I see him. An' my heart go all soft. He so rich and proud and grand. But he no look at me, only at you, Miss Pansy," she finished, sighing. Pansy hardly heard this rhapsody over her captor. His name was familiar but half forgotten, like the fairy tales of her childhood. Then she suddenly remembered who and what he was. The youthful Sultan who, long years ago, had sworn to kill her father and sell her as a slave! The man Alice mentioned must be the boy grown up! It must have been his hordes who had swept down on her and Bob that afternoon. But it was not of herself that Pansy thought when the truth dawned on her with vivid, sickening force. In anxiety for her father she forgot the fate promised for herself. "My father! What has happened to him?" she asked in quick alarm. "De Sultan, he catch Sir George too," Alice answered coolly. Pansy's heart stood still. "Is he still alive?" she asked breathlessly, horror clutching at her. "Sir George he go also to the city of El-Ammeh, de Sultan's city." A feeling of overwhelming relief swept over Pansy on hearing her father was still alive. For some minutes she lay brooding on the horrible situation and how she could best cope with it, all the time feeling as if she were in some wild nightmare. Then she remembered her own vast riches. All these Arab chiefs knew the value of money. She might be able to ransom her father, herself, the whole party. "Where is the Sultan? Tell him I want to see him," she said suddenly in a weak, excited way. "He no be here. He go back to El-Ammeh. You go, too, Miss Pansy, an' I go wid you, when Doctor Edouard say you be fit to move." Pansy clutched at the name of Edouard. After that of the Sultan Casim Ammeh it had a welcome European sound. "Where is Doctor Edouard? Can I speak to him?" she asked quickly. She hardly noticed the pain within herself now, torn as she was with anxiety for her father and friends. Alice rose, ready to oblige. "I go fetch him," she said. Leaving the tent, she interviewed one of the guards. Then she passed on beyond Pansy's view. She reappeared some few moments later accompanied by a short, stoutish man with a pointed, black beard, unmistakably of French nationality, who was dressed in a neat white drill suit and a sun helmet. Anxiously Pansy watched him approach, with no room in her mind to think how he came to be there, a person as European as herself, in this savage Sultan's following. "Do tell me what has happened!" she said, without any preliminaries, the moment he halted at her bedside. However, Edouard did not tell Pansy much more than she had already culled for herself. But she learnt that the whole of her father's party were prisoners in the hands of this desert chief and were now on their way back to his capital. "But can't you do something?" she asked in despair. "I'm virtually a prisoner, like yourself," Edouard replied in a non-committal tone. He was not a prisoner, but he was paid a good price for his services and his silence; and he had no intention of playing an excellent friend and patron false. "But is there nothing I can do?" Pansy asked, aghast at her own utter helplessness. Edouard smiled, remembering the Sultan's concern for the beautiful captive girl. "Yes; there's one thing," he replied in a soothing tone. "Don't worry about the matter just at present. But when you get to El-Ammeh use all your personal influence with the Sultan. In the meantime you can rest assured that no harm will happen to Sir George and his staff. Afterwards I rather fancy everything depends on you." With this Pansy had to be content. CHAPTER IX In Bathhurst, the deputy Governor awaited news of Sir George Barclay. More than a month had passed since he had left the town, and during most of the time letters had come through regularly to official headquarters. The deputy knew that the furthermost point of the tour must now be about reached; but nearly a week had passed without any communication, official or otherwise, coming from the party. The fact was not alarming; the part Sir George must now be in was the wildest in the colony, and a week might easily pass without any message coming through. But when another day or so passed without bringing any news, the deputy began to wonder what had happened. "The letters must have gone astray," one of the officers remarked. "Or some leopard has gobbled up the postman," another suggested. For a couple of days longer the deputy and military officers waited, hourly expecting some message from the Governor's party, but none came. There was no reason to think that harm had befallen them, for the colony was in perfect order. Then they sent up for news to the next town of any importance, only to hear that nothing had been heard there either. The answer astounded them. An expedition was sent off post-haste to find out what had happened to the party. They were nearly a fortnight in reaching the old fort, the last spot where any message had come from. And there they found the British flag still flying over the official headquarters, but both the bungalow and the fortress were deserted. In the old guardroom and the compound were a few gnawed human bones; but there was no other trace of the missing expedition, although there was every sign that disaster had overtaken it. The officials were aghast. Sir George and his staff had completely disappeared. That there had been fighting was evident. The bones in the guardroom and compound told them that much, but all trace of their identity had been gnawed off by prowling hyenas. The country around was scoured, but it brought no clue. The French Government was communicated with, but it could throw no light on the affair. When the news reached England it caused a sensation, for Society culled that Sir George Barclay's daughter, the lovely twenty-year-old heiress, Pansy Langham, was among those missing--dead now, or perhaps worse; the chattel of one of the wild marauders who had fallen so swiftly and silently upon her father's party. And in a pleasant English country house Miss Grainger wept for the bright, brave girl who had always been such a generous friend and considerate mistress. CHAPTER X By the time the news of the disappearance of Sir George Barclay's party reached England, Pansy was well on her way to El-Ammeh. She arrived there one night after dark, a darkness out from which high walls loomed and over them strange sounds came; the thin wail of stringed instruments; a tom-tom throbbing through the blue night; the plaintive song of some itinerant musician, and the shuffle of crowded human life. She was not given much time to dwell upon those things. Her escort skirted the high walls. A big horse-shoe arch loomed up, with heavy iron gates; gates that clanged back as they approached. And the flare of torches showed a long passage leading into darkness. Into the passage her litter was carried with a swaying, somnolent movement. Then the gates closed with a clang behind her, leaving the escort outside; and she and Alice were alone with the flaming torches, the black, engulfing passage, and half a dozen huge negroes in gorgeous raiment. With a sickly feeling, Pansy slipped from her litter. Her journey's end! The journey had lasted over six weeks. Under other circumstances Pansy would have enjoyed it. It could not have been more comfortable. She had travelled in the cool of the morning and in the cool of the evening. Always for the long midday halt the same sumptuous tent was up, awaiting her reception, taken down again after she had departed, and up again before she arrived at the next halting place. The country she travelled through was an interesting one, park-like and grassy at first, as the weeks passed becoming ever more sandy and arid, with occasional patches that were wonderfully fertile. Until, finally, like a glowing, yellow sea before her, she had her first glimpse of the Sahara on its southern side--billow upon billow of flaming sand, stretching away to a tensely blue sky, with here and there a stunted bush, a twist of coarse grass, or a clump of distorted cacti with red flowers blazing against the heated, shimmering air--a vast solitude where nothing moved. For a week they had journeyed through the desert. Late one evening a lake came into view, with fruitful gardens growing around it, where date palms, olives, and clustering vines flourished. On the far side a walled city showed. It lay golden in the misty glow of evening, its minarets standing out against a shadowed sky. Even as she approached it had been swallowed by darkness. Softly the lake lapped as they skirted it, and the world was filled with a constant hissing sigh, the sound of shifting sand when the wind roamed over it--the voice of the desert. Much as Pansy dreaded her journey's end, she welcomed it. She lived for nothing now but to see the Sultan; to plead with him for her father, her friends, herself. And she buoyed herself up with the hope that her own riches would enable her to ransom them all. But if she failed! She grew sick at the thought. And the thought was with her as she stood in the stone passage, her strained eyes on the gigantic negro guards who had come to escort her to her new quarters. They were attired from head to foot in rich, brightly coloured silks, and they literally blazed with jewels. The man who was their master might have so much money that he would prefer revenge. This thought was in Pansy's mind some minutes later when she sat alone with her maid in one of the many apartments in the palace of El-Ammeh. It was a big room with walls and floor of gold mosaic, and a domed ceiling of sapphire-blue where cut rock-crystals flashed like stars. Five golden lamps hung from it, suspended by golden chains; lamps set with flat emeralds and rubies and sapphires. It was furnished very much as her tent had been, except that there were wide ottomans against the gilded walls, and the tables and stools were of sandalwood. In one corner stood a large bureau of the same sweet-scented wood, beautifully carved. Three heavy, pointed doors of sandalwood led into the apartment. The place was heavy with its sensuous odour. In a little alcove draped with curtains of gold tissue the negroes deposited Pansy's belongings. Then they withdrew, leaving the girl and her maid alone; Pansy with the depressing feeling that money might not have much influence with the Sultan Casim Ammeh. Two of the doors of her gilded prison were locked, Pansy quickly discovered. Outside of the one she had entered by a couple of negro guards were stationed, who refused to let her pass. On learning this, she went out into the fretted gallery. Below a garden lay. She stood at the head of the steps leading into it, anxious to get away from the dim scented silence of the great room, in touch with the trees and stars and the cool, rose-scented breath of night that she understood. She tried to argue that all the splendour and luxury placed at her disposal boded well for the future, that her captor might not be going to carry out his threats. Her gaze turned towards the room, with its wealth and luxury--a fit setting for a Sultan's favourite. Pansy shivered. What price might she not have to pay for her father's life? Then she thought of Raoul Le Breton. The dark blood in him seemed nothing now, compared with the thought of having to become the chattel of this wild, desert chief. Slight sounds in the big room roused her from her reverie. She started violently, expecting to see the Sultan coming to make his bargain. But only a couple of white-robed servants were there. The biggest of the inlaid tables was set for dinner; a dinner for one, set in a European way. And the meal that followed was the work of a skilled French _chef_. But the sumptuous repast had no charm for a girl worried to death at the thought of her own fate and her father's. To please Alice she made some pretence of eating. Leaving her maid to revel in the neglected dainties, Pansy went back to her vigil in the arches. In course of time, the lamps burning low, Alice's prodigious yawns drove her to lie wakeful among the soft cushions of one of the ottomans. From fitful slumbers Alice's voice roused her the next morning. Alice with the usual early morning tea, a tray of choice fruit, and a basket full of rare and beautiful flowers. Distastefully Pansy looked at the choice blossoms. She felt they were from the Sultan to his unwilling visitor; a silent message of admiration; of homage, perhaps. "Take them away, Alice," she said quickly. "And put them where I can't see them." With a curious glance at her mistress, the girl obeyed. Pansy drank her tea, all the time pondering on her future. If she had to go under, she would go under fighting. If this wild chief were prepared to give her her father's life in exchange for herself, she would see that he got as little pleasure as possible out of his bargain. If he were infatuated with her as Alice and Dr. Edouard seemed to think, so much the better. All the more keenly he would feel the lashes her tongue would be able to give. Pansy knew he spoke French, for this fact had come into the story her father had told her in years gone by. In thinking of the cutting things she would be able to lay to her captor, Pansy tried to keep at bay the dread she felt. Since he was not there to hit at in person, she hit at him with sneers at his race to Alice. "I don't suppose there's anywhere I can have a bath," she remarked when her tea was finished. "Cleanliness isn't one of the virtues of these Arabs." "Dere be one," Alice assured her. "De most beautifullest one you eber saw." Pansy agreed with her maid some minutes later when she was splashing about in its cool waters. Alice had pointed out the place to her. In dressing-gown and slippers, Pansy had passed through the wide gallery, a lacy prison of stone it seemed to the girl, for although it gave a wide view of the desert, there was not one spot in its carved side that she could have put her hand through. Immediately beneath lay a garden, surrounded by a high wall. Pansy had seen many gardens, but none to equal the one before her in peace and beauty. It was a dream of roses. In the middle was a sunken pond where water-lilies floated and carp swam and gaped at her with greedy mouths when her shadow fell across them, as if expecting to be fed. Vivid green velvety turf surrounded the pond, a rarity in that arid country. There was nothing else in the garden but roses, of every shade and colour. They streamed in cascades over the high walls. They grew in banks by the pond, in trellised alleys and single bushes. The garden was a gem of cool greenness, scent and silence, and over it brooded the shadows of gigantic cypresses. The bath-room lay beneath the stone gallery, with fretted and columned arches where more roses clung and climbed, opening directly on the scented quiet of the garden. It was a huge basin of white marble, about thirty feet across and deep enough to swim in, with a carved edge, delicate as lace. Pansy was in no mood to appreciate her fairy-like surroundings. And the beauty of her prison in no way softened her heart towards her captor. As she splashed about in the bath, over the high walls came the sound of bells, like church chimes wrangling in the distance on an English Sunday. Wistfully Pansy stopped and listened to them. She was travelled enough to recognize them as camel bells; some train coming to this barbaric city. When she returned to the dim, gilded room, breakfast was awaiting her; an ordinary Continental breakfast. She pecked at it, too sick at heart to eat. Then she sat on, awaiting Edouard's appearance. He had parted with her the previous night, promising to come and see her when she was installed in the Sultan's palace. It was evening before he came. Pansy greeted him eagerly. All day she had dreaded that her captor might appear. But she wanted to see him, to satisfy herself about her father. Edouard's visits to her were purely professional, and brief. Always his idea was to get away, for his conscience pricked him where Pansy was concerned. He was used to his patron's wild ways, and he knew the girl's position was not of her own choosing. "Will you tell the Sultan I want to see him?" she said when he rose to go. "Hasn't he paid you a visit yet?" the doctor asked with surprise. "No, and I'm so worried about my father." Edouard left, promising to deliver her message. But he came the next day, saying the Sultan had refused to grant her an interview. "I wonder why he won't see me," she said drearily. Edouard wondered also. That evening he dined with his friend and patron, not in a gorgeous Eastern apartment like Pansy's, but in one that was decidedly Western in its fittings and appointments. And the Sultan was attired as Pansy had seen him several times in Grand Canary, in black dress-suit, white pleated shirt and the black pearl studs. Dinner was over before Edouard approached the subject of the girl-prisoner. "If I were you I'd see Miss Barclay," he said. "This suspense won't do her any good. She frets all day about her father." "It's not in my plans to see her just yet," the Sultan replied. Edouard glanced at him. Then he did what for him was a bold thing, fat and comfortable and fond of his easy berth as he was. He challenged his royal master concerning his intentions towards the captive girl. "What are your plans with regard to Miss Barclay?" he ventured. "She's not one of the sort who can be bought with a string of pearls or a diamond bracelet." "I'm going to marry her," the Sultan said easily. Edouard experienced a feeling of relief, on his own account as much as Pansy's. The doctor studied her with renewed interest the next day when he paid her his usual visit. "If I sent a note to the Sultan, do you think it would be any use?" Pansy asked him anxiously, the moment he had done with professional matters. "It would do no harm at any rate," he replied. Pansy got to her feet quickly. She knew Edouard was in touch with her captor--a prisoner like herself she imagined, but free to come and go because of his calling. She did not know he was a man so faithful to his master that the latter's smallest wish was carried out to the letter. Going into the alcove where her belongings were, Pansy seated herself on the edge of a couch, with a writing-pad on her knee. For some minutes she stayed frowning at a blank piece of paper. It was so difficult to know what to say to this savage chief who held the lives of her father and friends in his hands. After some minutes thinking she wrote: "To the Sultan Casim Ammeh. Perhaps you do not know that I am very rich. Any price you may ask I am prepared to give for my father's life and freedom, for the lives and freedom of my English friends who are also your prisoners, and for my own. The ransom will be paid to you in gold. All you will have to do will be to mention the sum you want, and allow me to send a message through to my bank in England. Pansy Langham Barclay." The note was put into an envelope, sealed, addressed and taken out to Edouard. On handing it over, however, Pansy suddenly recollected that the Sultan, for all his wealth and power, might be ignorant of the arts of reading and writing. "Can he read French?" she asked. An amused look came to the doctor's face. "If he can't make it out, I'll read it to him," he replied. It was evening before Le Breton got the note. Le Breton again as Pansy knew him, in khaki riding-suit, just as he had returned from a ride on her old race-horse, that had been brought to his camp the day of her capture, and was now in the palace stables. The note was lying on his desk, with the name that Pansy now hated--the Sultan Casim Ammeh--written on the envelope in her pretty hand. A tender look hovered about his mouth as he picked up the letter and read it. Again the girl was "doing her best" for some helpless creatures--his prisoners. Although the fact filled him with an even greater admiration for Pansy, it did not lessen his hatred for her father. He sat down and dashed off a brief reply in an assumed hand. "All the gold in Africa will not buy my vengeance from me. Casim Ammeh." His answer reached Pansy with her dinner, reducing her to despair. It seemed that nothing she could do would have any influence with this savage ruler. Hopeless days followed; days that brought her nothing but a series of elaborate meals. Yet she knew that life went on around her; a life quite different from any she had been accustomed to. Morning and night she heard faint voices wailing from unseen minarets. Over the high walls of her garden came the hum of a crowded city. From her screened gallery she saw camel trains loom out of the haze of distance to El-Ammeh, with a wrangle of sweet bells; camels that came from some vast unknown. And there was another sound that Pansy heard; a sound that hailed from somewhere within the Palace; that always came about bedtime, and always set her shivering; the sound of a girl screaming. Each morning with her early tea there was a basket of rare flowers, flowers she did not trouble to tell Alice to move now; she put them down to some palace custom, nothing that had any bearing on the Sultan. She never thought of Le Breton's words: "Still only a few flowers, Pansy?" And each evening she sat in the dim, scented room and waited for those muffled screams. She knew where they came from now; from somewhere behind one of the locked doors leading into her room. Limp and listless, she dragged through the hot, monotonous days, brooding on her own fate and her father's, envying the ragged black crows that flew, free, like bits of burnt paper, high in the scorching sky. Pansy had been about a fortnight in El-Ammeh, when something happened. One morning, as she stood by the sunken pond, feeding the greedy carp with rolls she was too miserable to eat, Alice came to her round-eyed and startled-looking. "Oh, Miss Pansy, dey hab come for you," she gasped "Who?" Pansy asked quickly. "De Sultan's soldiers." "Are they going to take me to him?" she asked, feeling the interview she desired and dreaded was now at hand. "Dey take you to de slave market. To be sold. Oh, oh!" the girl wailed. Alice's hysterical sobs followed Pansy down the dim passage some minutes later, when, with strained face and tortured eyes, she went with a guard of eight Arab soldiers to meet the fate the Sultan Casim Ammeh had promised for her more than sixteen years before. CHAPTER XI Sir George Barclay and most of his staff had a knowledge of Eastern prisons from the outside. They knew them to be abodes of misery; dark, insanitary dens, alive with vermin, squalid and filthy, filled with a gaunt, ragged crowd who, all day long, held piteous hands through iron bars, begging for food from the passers-by, the only food they were given. The Governor's staff did not look forward to a sojourn in El-Ammeh. As for Sir George himself, he had other matters than his own personal comfort to dwell on. His thoughts were always with Pansy, and always in his heart was the prayer that she would succumb to the effects of Cameron's bullet, and not have to meet the fate his enemy had in store for her. After the one interview the Sultan had ignored Barclay. But during the long journey, Sir George often saw his enemy, and if he thought of anything outside of his daughter's fate, it was to wonder why Casim Ammeh looked so different from the wild hordes he ruled. Exactly like a man of the well-bred, darker, Latin type, certainly not the son of the savage marauder whom he, Barclay, had had to condemn to death. On reaching El-Ammeh, the Europeans found the quarters awaiting them very different from what experience had led them to expect. They were ushered into a large courtyard dotted with trees and surrounded by high walls. Into it a dozen little cells opened. Within the enclosure they were free to wander as they pleased; a glance around the place showed them why. The walls were twenty feet high, and as smooth as glass, and there were always a dozen Arabs stationed by the gate, watching all they did. At night they were each locked in separate cells. It was impossible to bribe the guards, as Cameron and his fellow officers discovered before a week had passed. For the imprisoned Englishmen the time passed slowly. Often they speculated on their own ultimate fate. Whether death would be their portion, or whether they would be left there to stew for years, after the manner of more than one European who had had the misfortune to fall into the clutches of some desert chief. They all knew the reason of their capture--merely because they happened to be on the Governor's staff. He had told them the story of Casim Ammeh, and the promised revenge. They never thought of blaming Barclay. What the present Sultan of El-Ammeh called "murder" was the sort of thing any one of them might be called upon to do. A day came when it seemed to Barclay that the fate that wild youth had promised him long years ago was at hand. One morning an escort came for him. In their company he was led out of prison, to his execution, he expected. His staff thought so too; for they took a brief, unemotional farewell of him. They expected the same fate themselves at any moment. However, Barclay was not led to his death. The escort took him through a twist of narrow streets, into a house and up a flight of dark stairs. He was left alone in an upper room, with a heavily barred window, through which came a hum of wild voices, with an occasional loud, guttural, excited call. He crossed to the window, and stood there, riveted. There was a big square beneath, seething with dark-faced, white-robed men, all gazing in one direction--in the direction of a raised platform where a girl stood. A slim, white girl. It would have been much easier for Sir George to have faced death than the sight before him. Pansy was on the platform. His daughter! Standing there in full view of the wild crowd. Being sold as a slave in the market of this desert city. To become the property of one of those savages. Barclay's hand went across his anguished face, to try and shut out the horrible sight. It could not be true! It must be some hideous nightmare. Yet there she was, with white face and strained eyes, meeting her fate bravely, as his daughter would. Pansy, as he had often seen her, in a simple white muslin dress, and a wide white, drooping hat with a long, blue, floating veil. Garbed as she had gone about his camp during his fatal tour. Even as Sir George looked, Pansy's tortured eyes met his, and she tried to smile. The sight broke him utterly, bringing a groan to his lips. At the sound a voice said in French, with a note of savage triumph: "Now perhaps _you_ understand what _I_ suffered when you shot my father?" Standing behind him was a big man in a khaki riding-suit, a European, he looked. For the moment Barclay did not know him for his enemy, the Sultan Casim Ammeh. When he recognised him he did for Pansy what he would never have done for himself--he begged for mercy. "For God's sake, for the sake of the civilisation you know, don't condemn my child to such a fate!" he entreated in a voice hoarse with agony. "You showed my father no mercy. Why should I show you any now?" the Sultan asked coldly. "At least have pity on the girl. Do what you like with me, but spare my daughter." "Did you show me any pity when I begged for my father's life? 'As ye sow, so shall ye reap.' Isn't that what you Christians say? There is your harvest. A pleasing sight for me, when I think of my father." The Sultan's gaze went to the window, but there was more tenderness than anything else in his eyes as they rested on the slim girl who faced the crowd with such white courage. Now one figure stood out from the surge, that of a big, lean man in turban and loin-cloth, with long matted hair and beard, the latter foam-flecked. He stood at the foot of the platform, and his eyes never left the girl as he bid up and up against the other competitors; cursing everyone who bid against him, yet always going higher. "Look at that wild man from the desert," the Sultan said. "I know him. He is a feather merchant. A miser. His home is a squalid tent, yet he has more money than any man who comes to El-Ammeh. Love has unlocked his heart. He will give all his hoarded wealth to possess that pretty slave on the platform there. He will be a fitting mate for your daughter. Think of her in his arms, and remember the man you murdered--my father, the Sultan Casim Ammeh, whom I have now avenged." At the taunts, despite the difference in their years and physique, George Barclay turned on his tormentor. "You brute! You devil!" he cried, springing at him. With easy strength the Sultan caught and held him. "You misjudge me," he said; "it's justice--merely 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.'" Then he pushed the older man from him and, turning on his heel, went from the room. CHAPTER XII The market of El-Ammeh was situated in the centre of the city. It was surrounded by a huddle of whitewashed houses, of varying heights and shapes, leaning one against the other, with here and there, over some high wall, a glimpse of greenery--the feathery head of a palm, the shiny leaves of a camphor tree, a pomegranate, an orange or a fig tree. On the side overlooking the square the houses were practically without windows, and the few there were were small and iron-barred. Under most of the buildings were dim, cave-like shops hung with rare silks and ostrich feathers, or littered with articles in beaten silver, copper, and iron. There was quaint leatherwork and coarse pottery and a good sprinkling of European goods. Several narrow, passage-like streets led into the square, entering it, in some cases, under dark archways. Sometimes these ways were barred to the mere public--the poorer people who daily sold produce in the square--and only those with special permits were allowed to enter: men of wealth and substance. Every month a sale of slaves was held in the market, generally of Arab and negro girls; but occasionally something very different figured there--perhaps some black-haired, black-eyed, creamy beauty brought right across the Sahara from the Barbary States, a thousand miles away; or some half-caste girl from the Soudan, even further afield. When this happened there were always plenty of buyers. Men of wealth flocked in from hundreds of miles around, for any skin lighter than brown was a rarity. Within the last few weeks word had gone round the district, blown hither and thither in the desert, that a girl even more beautiful than those creamy beauties from the Barbary States was to be on sale at the next auction--a girl hailing from, Allah alone knew, what far land--Paradise, if her description were a true one. A girl with a skin white as milk, hair golden as the sunshine, and eyes of a blue deep as desert night; a maid, moreover, not another man's discarded fancy. For days before the sale, as flies are drawn towards a honey-pot, the caravans of wealthy merchants came trickling in from the desert. When the day itself arrived they hurried with their retinues to the square; some to buy, if possible; others, less wealthy, to see if the maid were as beautiful as report said. On one side of the market square was a raised platform. From the house behind a room opened on it, a big, shadowy room, whitewashed and stone-flagged, with a barred window high up near the ceiling. Into that room Pansy was taken by her escort in a curtained litter. During the journey to the market she had had the sensation of moving in some ghastly nightmare from which she could not wake herself, much as she tried. It could not be possible that she, Pansy Langham, the fêted and much-courted heiress, was to be sold as one might sell a horse or a cow. She had the horrible feeling of having lost her own identity and taken on someone else's, yet all the time remembering what had happened when she was Pansy Langham. She felt she must have slipped back hundreds of years to some previous existence, when girls were sold as slaves; for surely this appalling fate could not be happening to her in the twentieth century? A riot of thought ran through the girl's head during the journey from the palace to the market; a riot of numb, sickly terror, the outstanding feature of which was an inability to credit the fate before her. When Pansy reached the room she gave up all hope. She knew she was awake--painfully, horribly wide awake, with a future before her that made her shudder to contemplate. There were a dozen or more girls in the room, but they were railed off from Pansy by a thick wooden trellis, like sheep in a pen; brown and black girls, the majority attired in nothing more than a cloth reaching from waist to knee. They had been chattering shrilly among themselves at her entry, apparently in no way appalled at the fate before them; but they broke off when she came in, and crowded to the lattice to get a closer view, gazing at the newcomer and giving vent to little exclamations of awe and envy and admiration. Pansy's arrival brought a stout, bearded man in white burnoose in from the house behind. His glance ran over the English girl, but he made no attempt to touch her. Then he looked at her escort, who had stationed themselves on either side of her. "By Allah!" he exclaimed. "This is a houri straight from Paradise you have brought me. Never have I sold such loveliness. There will be high bidding in the market of El-Ammeh this morning." "I, for one, can't understand why the Sultan has not kept this pearl for himself," the leader of the escort said. The auctioneer smiled in a peculiar, knowing fashion. "Our Sultan has been in lands where there are many such," he replied. "Now he gives his subjects a chance to revel in delights that have been his." Other men appeared from behind, negroes. At a word from their master they opened the door leading out on the platform. Then they stood on either side whilst he passed through. Through the open door came a blaze of sunshine, the buzz of a multitude, and presently a long declamation in Arabic as the auctioneer enlarged upon the quality of his wares. The girls behind the trellis craned their necks to see what was going on, chattering shrilly among themselves. From where Pansy stood she could see nothing. She did not want to see anything. The horror would be upon her quite soon enough. One of the negro assistants opened a gate in the trellis and motioned to a girl. As she appeared on the platform, from outside there came a sigh of disappointment, then guttural voices bidding. Another and another of the girls passed out, all apparently indifferent to the ordeal before them. Then the auctioneer appeared on the threshold. On seeing him Pansy felt her turn had come, and the world started reeling around her. She knew she passed from shadow into sunshine, that dead silence greeted her appearance on the dais--a silence that was followed by a din of wild, excited shouting. It seemed to her that the world was nothing but eyes: the eyes of a surging crowd of dark-faced men, watching her with desire and admiration. To Pansy, high-bred and fastidious, it was a vision of hell, this swarm of wild men looking at her with covetous desire. The Pit gaped at her feet, peopled with demons, any one of which might spring upon her. Then the din died down to a subdued hum as men whispered one to another, their eyes still on the golden-haired girl on the dais. There was a horrible sort of despair on the faces of some as they thought of their more wealthy neighbours; lustful triumph on the faces of others as they thought of their own hoarded gold. [Illustration: For sale as a common slave at the Taureg auction block.....] Then out from the crowd a voice made an offer. The sum staggered the auctioneer. It equalled nearly five hundred pounds of English money. No girl, even the creamy Barbary beauties, had ever fetched that amount. Wild commotion followed. But the price went up and up, doubling itself in ten minutes. To escape for a moment from the sea of covetous eyes, Pansy raised her own. There was someone watching her from a window, someone who looked as tortured as herself--another soul condemned to hell. It was a moment before she recognised that drawn, haggard face as her fathers; it looked an old man's. He was there, the father she loved, condemned by his enemy to see her sold. She tried to smile. It was a woeful effort. And when the blur of tears that seeing him brought to her eyes had passed he was gone. It seemed to Pansy that for an eternity she stood on the edge of the Pit, waiting until one of the devils, more powerful than the rest, should drag her in. The din died down as the sale proceeded, lost in tense excitement. Of the twenty or more who had started bidding for her, only three were left now. One of them, mad with lust and excitement, had forced his way up to the edge of the dais and was clinging to it with grimy hands--a lean man in turban and loin-cloth only, with long matted hair and beard, who, foaming at the mouth, was cursing his competitors, yet always bidding higher as he stared at Pansy with the glare of a maddened beast. Pansy tried not to see him, but he was always there, horrible beyond comprehension, the worst of the demons in the hell surrounding her. Presently, over the murmur of the crowd, came the thunder of a horse's hoofs; of someone riding at breakneck speed through one of the resounding arches leading into the market. Pansy did not notice this. She realised nothing now but the half-naked, foaming horror at her feet. Suddenly another cry rang through the market-place. Fortunately for Le Breton's plans Pansy knew no Arabic or she would have recognised that cry as: "The Sultan! The Sultan!" For Casim Ammeh had had his vengeance, and now had come in pursuit of love. The cry grew to such a roar of sound that it penetrated the world of dumb terror in which Pansy moved, and made her raise her eyes. The crowd in the square had opened up, giving way to a khaki-clad man on a huge, prancing black stallion. Across the market-place tortured blue eyes met fiery black ones. Then it seemed to Pansy that she must be dreaming--a vision of heaven beyond this hell. For Raoul Le Breton was there, a god among these demons. Some figment of her own creating that must vanish as she gazed. But he did not vanish. He came closer, straight towards her, the crowd receding like a wave before him. Raoul Le Breton, looking more handsome, more arrogant, more of a king than ever; sitting his black horse like a centaur. Pansy's hands went to her heart, and the world started spinning around her. Like a knight of old, he had come to her rescue. How he could have got there she was in no condition to consider. It was enough that he was there, in time to save her from the Pit of Hell gaping at her feet. He rode ride up to the dais, reining in at her side. With outstretched arms, he went towards her. "Come, Heart's Ease, my own brave little girl, there's nothing to fear now," he said. Swaying slightly, Pansy looked at him again as if he were some vision. Then, for the first time in her life, she fainted. With a little laugh of tender triumph, he caught her and lifted her on his horse. As he turned to go, grimy, covetous hands clutched Pansy's skirts--the hands of the miser feather merchant. With a savage oath, the Sultan raised his heavy riding whip and felled the defiler. Then he rode off with Pansy. But before this happened Sir George Barclay had been taken from the room overlooking the slave market. He did not see the Sultan Casim Ammeh come in person to save the girl. He did not know that, in Pansy's case, at any rate, the auction had been but a pretence. CHAPTER XIII When Pansy returned to consciousness she felt she had awakened from some nightmare and was back in her own world, a civilized world; her capture by the Sultan Casim Ammeh and all the subsequent happenings some wild dream, terrifying in its reality as dreams can be. She was lying on a big bed in a shady room, among sheets and pillows of finest linen; a solid brass bedstead such as might have come from any good shop in London, not among silken cushions and rugs on an ottoman. And there was a bedroom suite of some choice grey wood with a litter of gold toilet appointments on the wide dressing-table. An elderly woman, brown skinned and black eyed, dressed in a swathing of white muslin, was seated by the bedside, fanning herself with a gentle, regular movement, and the air was fresh with the scent of eau-de-Cologne. Beyond the woman--all down one side of the room--ran a series of arches, over which were drawn blinds of split bamboo. With the feeling of fragments of her nightmare still clinging about her, Pansy sat up. Then, with a rush, came back the scene in the slave market. "Where is Mr. Le Breton?" she asked in a dazed manner. She expected the woman to disclaim all knowledge of any such person. However, she rose immediately. "I'll fetch him," she said in French. She made towards a curtained doorway. Pansy watched her go. And her gaze stayed anxiously on the spot where the woman had disappeared. A few moments passed and the curtains were drawn aside again. The woman entered. In her wake was a big man in white drill, with sleek, black hair and a close-clipped, black moustache. On seeing him Pansy gave a little hysterical cry. "Oh, Raoul, I was so afraid you were just a dream!" "No, I'm not a dream, but a solid fact," he replied, going towards her. "Come quite close. I want to touch you to make sure." Nothing loath, he seated himself on the bed. Pansy took one of his hands, holding it in a tight, nervous grip. "Yes, it is really you," she said. "In the whole wide world there's no one who feels quite the same as you." She had forgotten his coldness and harshness on the occasion of their last meeting in Grand Canary--his colour, his religion, everything except that he was there and she was safe. He laughed tenderly and put the loose curls back from her face with a lingering, caressing touch. It was Pansy as he had never known her, frightened and clinging to him. Pansy as he would have her, looking at him with eyes full of love. "So, little girl, you're quite pleased to see me?" "Did you buy me?" she asked in a bewildered voice. "How else could I get you?" he asked, smiling slightly. His voice and touch calmed her a little. "But _you_! How did _you_ get here?" she asked. "You know I'm an African merchant, don't you?" he said easily. "This is my special province. I do most of the trading in this part. And El-Ammeh is my headquarters." "But how did you know _I_ was here?" she asked in a dazed tone. "You told me you were coming out to Africa. I heard the Governor of the adjacent English colony was on tour, his ultimate point a spot some six hundred miles or so from here. Some weeks ago the Sultan went out on a foray, returning with some English prisoners, a girl among them. There are not many blue-eyed, golden-haired girls in these parts, Pansy, so I guessed who she was." It all sounded very feasible. And Pansy was in no mood to dispute with miracles. "He hates my father; that's why he did it," she began in a weak, wild way. "Never mind about that just now," he replied. "Fortunately I was there to save you." She clung tighter to the strong, sinewy hand that had snatched her back from the brink of hell. "Oh, Raoul, what would have happened if you hadn't come?" she whispered. "Well, I did come, so there's nothing more for you to worry about," he said tenderly. "There's my father. The Sultan has threatened to kill him," she began hysterically. "You mustn't worry about your father, either. Leave things to me. You may be sure I'll do my best for him, too." Under the tension of the last few weeks and the final reaction Pansy broke down completely. In a weak, wild manner she started sobbing, almost as if her brain had snapped under the strain and relief. Evidently Le Breton had expected something of the sort. Going to a table, he poured some water into a glass and dropped a couple of cachets into it. When they had melted he came back to the distraught girl. Seating himself on the edge of the bed, he slipped an arm around her. "Come, drink this up," he said authoritatively; "then, when you've had a good sleep, you can tell me all your adventures." "I daren't go to sleep," she sobbed, "for fear I should wake up in hell!" He drew the golden head on his shoulder with a soothing, protective touch. "I'll stay with you and see that doesn't happen," he said tenderly. At the promise, Pansy drank the proffered draught. Then she lay back among the pillows. He held the empty glass towards the Arab woman. She took it, and would have gone from the room, as she was accustomed to going when the Sultan pleased to linger with any one of his slave girls; but his voice stopped her. "There's no need to go, Sara," he said. Then he stayed, smiling down at the worn little face on the pillows, until the wild blue eyes closed in drugged slumber. Afterwards he sat watching Pansy in a calculating manner. Just then it seemed to Le Breton that his plans had succeeded; that he was going to have all he wanted. Revenge he had had; love now seemed within his grip. A sense of gratitude for her supposed rescue, in conjunction with the love Pansy still had for him, would be a strong enough combination to make her forget his colour and bring her into his arms in the way he wanted--of her own free will. Yet he was not wholly satisfied, for the method he had used to attain his ends was not one a civilised person would approve of. A huddled heap against one of the fluted columns, old Sara sat and watched him. From time to time she muttered to herself and cracked her knuckles for luck and to keep off the "evil eye." She had seen another Sultan bewitched by one of these lovely white girls; and she hoped that this girl would prove kinder to the son than the Lady Annette had been to the father. CHAPTER XIV Great stars flashed in a desert sky, a sky deep and soft, like purple velvet. They looked down on a sea of sand over which the wind roamed; and always and ever in its train there followed a sighing hiss, sometimes loud, sometimes soft, but always there, a constant, stealthy menace in the night. In the dark depths, one great curling billow of sand showed, the coarse grass that fringed its crest looking like spray lashing through the night. Beneath, a little yellow fire glowed. In the glimmer a few ragged tents stood, patched and squalid dwellings. Among them mangy camels lay and groaned and gurgled and snored, with their long necks stretched along the sand, looking like prehistoric beasts. Here and there half-naked men and boys slept and gaunt dogs prowled--slinking, furtive shadows through the encampment, nosing about for scraps of the evening meal. There had been no meal for the owner of the caravan that night. A hunger that could not be assuaged with food, and a thirst that no drink could quench, raged within him. Now a burning lust kept sleep at bay and sent him prowling like some wild beast into the desert, hoping that there relief might be found. But for him none was to be had there. The blue of the sky was like the eyes of the girl he had lost. Her skin had rivalled the stars in its purity. The very fire that burnt outside of his squalid home mocked him. It was golden as her hair. But for the Sultan that girl would be his. Now! This night. His, to hold within his arms--that milk-white maid! He flung his arms out to the night, then strained them across his chest. But for the Sultan all that maddening beauty would lie within his grip. His to crush and caress. His! The thought was torture. "Curse him! Curse him! Curse him!" he cried aloud to the mocking night. Then he stretched grimy paws towards a voiceless heaven. "Allah, give him into my hands, the Sultan Casim Ammeh, who has robbed me of the flower of my desire. That milk-white maid--a houri of thy sending. Guide my step to those who are his enemies. To those who would break him, as he has broken me. Surely a man so mighty has others as mighty who hate him. There are always kings ready to make war on other kings. Allah, most high, let me find them. Allah, most merciful, grant my prayer. Like the wind in the desert I will roam--to the east, the west, the north, the south--until I find them.--His enemies. Then I will deliver him unto their hands." The mad prayer of a wandering feather merchant against his Sultan; the prayer of a man whom, in his wealth and power and arrogance, Casim Ammeh had not considered. But one which was to bear fruit. CHAPTER XV Giving no thought to the grimy wretch out there in the desert, the Sultan was seated in one of the deep, open galleries of his palace. Some ten feet below a garden sighed, and the soft wind that wandered in and out of the fretted arches was ladened with the scent of a thousand flowers. Close at hand a fountain whispered, and from the distance came the gentle lap of the lake. However, he noticed none of these things. There was something of far greater interest close beside him. Among the cushions of a wicker lounge Pansy lay, her head pillowed on silk and down, a worn look still on her face. Night had fallen before she awoke from her drugged slumber. She had found Le Breton still beside her, and the room full of the soft glow of shaded lamps. Once she was fully awake he had left, promising to come again after dinner. She had dined in the gallery. The roofed terrace was lighted by the glow coming from the two rooms behind. One was her bedroom; the other a gorgeously appointed _salon_. But at the end of these two rooms an iron grille went across the gallery, stopping all further investigations. When Le Breton came he found Pansy on the terrace. Once he was seated, she told him what had happened to her father's party. Then she went back to the beginning, sixteen years before, with the story of the youthful Sultan; but she did not mention that she had been wounded and ill, for fear of having to meet a host of anxious enquiries. Without comment he listened. When she finished, all he said was: "Well, I suppose the Sultan has his point of view, since it appears your father was responsible for the death of his." "But it was my father's duty to condemn him. He would hate doing it, for he can't bear to hurt people. It was not 'murder,' as the present Sultan seems to think." To this Le Breton had nothing to say. "You must let the French Government know my father is a prisoner here," she went on. "Then they'll send an expedition and rescue him and his officers." "I couldn't do that, Pansy. You forget I'm half Arab. I can't go back on my father's people." Pansy had forgotten this fact about him; and it seemed her father's freedom was not quite so close at hand as she had imagined. "Could I send my father a note?" she asked anxiously. "That cruel Sultan sent him to see me sold. It must have been torture for him; for I'm all he's got, and he's awfully fond of me. I want to say I'm safe here with you. I can't bear to think of him in torment." "Write a note if you like, and I'll see what I can do," he replied. At once she got up and went into the _salon_ where she had noticed a writing-table. The place was more like a hall than a room; a spreading columned apartment, with walls and floor and ceiling of white marble, where fountains played into fern-grown basins and palms stood in huge, gilded tubs. There were deep, soft, silk-covered chairs and lounges, a sprinkling of gilded tables, and a large grand piano. Some minutes later Pansy returned to her host with a letter in her hand. He took it, and then rose to go. "You mustn't sit up too late," he said, looking down at her with an air of possession; "you've had a trying day, and don't worry any more about anything or anybody." So saying, he left her. Full of gratitude, Pansy watched him go. And her conscience smote her. On the whole she had treated him rather badly. She had promised to marry him, and then had gone back on her word. She did not deserve his kindness and consideration. He had been so cold and harsh that night on her yacht in Grand Canary. He was none of these things now. He was just as he had been during their one brief week of friendship, but even nicer. Pansy sighed, and her face grew wistful. Why wasn't he just like other men? Why had Fate been so unkind? Giving her love, but in such a form that pride revolted from taking it. Then Pansy went to bed, to lie awake for some time, brooding on the miracle the day had brought forth and the black barrier that stood between her and her lover. She was about early the next morning and wandering in the garden. It was a long stretch of shady walks and sunken ponds and splashing fountains, full of tropical trees, scented shrubs, and rare blossoms--a tangle of delights. In one spot she found a tennis court, walled with pink roses. The grounds went on, ending in a wide, flagged terrace, with stone seats and shallow steps leading down to the blue waters of the lake. High walls ran down either side of the spreading garden. Behind, a huge building rose in domes and turrets and terraces--the palace of El-Ammeh had Pansy but known it, of which her new quarters were but a further portion. Blissfully ignorant of this fact, she turned her steps from the rippling lake and wandered along a flower-decked path that twisted under shady trees and creeper-grown arches, coming presently to a locked iron gate let into the massive walls. It gave a view of a scorched paddock where a dozen or more horses were browsing. Pansy paused and scanned the animals. One was strangely familiar. That gaunt chestnut browsing there could only be "The Sultan"! Amazed at her discovery, she called the horse by name. At once the brown head was up, and the beast came galloping in her direction. Even in the days of her illness and during her imprisonment in the palace, Pansy had spared a thought for her protégé. She imagined he had become the property of one of the Arab raiders, and she hoped his new master would be kind to him and understand him as she did. Through the iron bars Pansy caressed her pet. "I never expected to see you again, Sultan, old boy," she said. "Raoul must have bought you, too." She was standing there talking to and petting the animal when Le Breton's step roused her. "Are you pleased to see him again?" he asked, after greeting her. "Pleased isn't the word for it. But how did you manage to get hold of him?" "He was really the cause of my getting hold of you," he replied without hesitation. "I saw him in the possession of one of the soldiers who had come back from that foray. That made me doubly certain who the white girl was whom the Sultan was going to put up for sale." "Raoul, you must let me give you back all you had to pay for me," she said. "Why should you?" he asked, a slight smile hovering about his lips. "You saved my life. Now we're 'quits.' Isn't that what you called it?" Pansy did not argue the point. Nevertheless, she determined to repay him once she and her father were back in civilisation. "How long will it take to get my father free?" she asked. "It all depends on the sort of mood I catch the Sultan in. With the best of luck, it'll be some weeks." "Has he got my note yet, do you think?" she asked anxiously. "He'll go grey with worrying over me. I can't bear to think of the look on his face when he saw me in that ... that awful slave market." Le Breton had destroyed her message the moment he had reached his own rooms. Now he could not meet the beautiful eyes that looked at him with such perfect trust. "I expect the message will get through before the day is out," he answered. "It's merely a matter of 'baksheesh.'" At his words the world became quite a nice place again for Pansy, the only shadow in it now the dark blood in her lover. CHAPTER XVI Night filled the harem with shadows and scent. The silver lamps cast a soft glow through the huge hall, glinting on wide ottomans and piles of cushions, on little tables set with coffee and sherbet, sweets and fruit and cigarettes. There were perhaps thirty women in the great room, but the majority of them were the attendants of the half-dozen girls lolling on couches and cushions around the splashing fountain. Full length on a wide ottoman Leonora was stretched, her dark eyes fixed spitefully on an adjacent lounge where the Arab girl lay, her face hidden in the cushions, her golden form almost buried in her wealth of black hair. "See, Rayma, it's night again," Leonora said, malice in her soft, drawling voice. "Night! And still our lord Casim has not come to visit you." There was a sob from the other girl, but no reply. "How you jeered at me, Rayma, when you stole his heart from me," Leonora went on. "But now it seems another has stolen his heart from you, since he no longer comes to see you. Another whom I shall welcome as a sister." At the taunt Rayma sat up suddenly, with a wild gesture pushing the mass of black hair back from her face. "For weeks and weeks he has not been here," she wailed. "Oh, my heart it breaks for love of him." Leonora laughed, but an elderly woman sitting near laid a soothing hand on the distraught girl. "Hush, Rayma, my pearl," she said. "Haven't I often told you our Sultan has had thoughts for nothing but vengeance of late?" "Would vengeance keep him away from me all these weeks? It's more than vengeance. It's love. Love for some other girl." Rayma clutched at the woman with slim, jewelled hands. "Tell me, Sara, you come and go at will through the palace. Is there one?" "My pearl, if there was one, wouldn't she be here in the harem?" Sara answered diplomatically. "Yes, and so she would," Rayma replied more quietly. "And I could measure my beauty against hers." Then she started rocking herself to and fro, in an agony of grief. "Did he but come, my love, my Lord Casim, his heart would be mine again," she sobbed. Then she stopped wailing suddenly, and faced the old woman anxiously. "Sara, tell me quickly, have these weeks of weeping made me less beautiful?" However, she did not wait for any reply. Her gaze went to the arches, where night looked in at her mockingly. "Look. It is night," she cried. "And my heart is hungry for love. For the love of my Lord Casim. For his arms. His kisses. Again it is night. And he has not come." Then through the vaulted room piercing shriek after piercing shriek rang--the shrieks of a lovesick girl in the throes of hysteria. As Sara sat patting Rayma's hands and trying to soothe her, she thought of the milk-white maid with the wide blue eyes and the golden curls, whom the Sultan himself had brought unconscious to his palace, and who was lodged--as no other slave girl had ever been--in his own private suite. And who treated her master--as no other slave had ever treated him--as if she were his equal, even his superior, making him wait on her. A task the Sultan seemed to find pleasure in! CHAPTER XVII On the terrace of her quarters, Pansy sat at dinner with her host. Three days had passed since her rescue from the slave-market; three delightful days for the girl, assured of her own safety, her father's coming freedom and the welfare of her friends. During the time, Le Breton had been with her almost constantly. From breakfast time until after dinner always at her disposal, ready to fall in with her wishes so long as they did not entail too much exertion on her part. She was anxious to be on "The Sultan," and off for a long gallop, but this he vetoed firmly. "It would cause too much of a sensation," he had said. "In this country women don't ride about on horseback. We should have the whole city at our heels." Pansy had no desire for this to happen, lest the Sultan Casim should learn she had fallen into the hands of a friend, and snatch her away from her rescuer, so she did not urge further. But it was on account of her health, and not the idea of a crowd of his own subjects, that made Le Breton refuse this indulgence; for fear she should not be strong enough to stand the shaking. He was quite willing to take her rowing on the lake, to play croquet with her, or a game of billiards; but most of all willing to sit at her side in the peaceful, scented garden, or in the cool gallery, or the _salon_, watching her; an occupation that Pansy, with an extensive knowledge of men and their ways, knew the ultimate end of. An end she was doing her best to keep at bay. But, in spite of everything, she had the feeling of being a prisoner. The iron grilles at either end of the long gallery were never unlocked; nor was the gate into the paddock. There was never a boat at the foot of the steps leading to the lake except when Le Breton was with her. She had explored her quarters further. Beyond the _salon_ there was a combined billiard-room and library, and its one exit led into a sort of big alcove dressing-room. Beyond that was her host's bedroom, as to her dismay she had discovered on opening the door. For she had found him there in shirt sleeves and trousers with a dark-faced valet, who, on seeing her, had melted away discreetly. Pansy would have melted away also, but it was too late. In a perfectly unperturbed manner, Le Breton had crossed to her side. "So, Pansy, you've come to pay me a visit?" he said teasingly. "That's hardly the sort of thing I'd expected of you." "I'd no idea----" she began in a confused manner. "There's no need to make excuses. You'll find all the roads here lead to Mecca. And I'm always pleased to see you," he broke in, in the same teasing strain. "If you'd kept your promise, we should be quite a staid married couple by now. And you'd be free to come and go in my apartments. Think of it, Pansy." Pansy thought of it, and her face went crimson. Her blushes made him laugh. To the sound of his laughter, soft and mocking, she retreated, and she did not explore in that direction again. She explored by way of her own bedroom instead, only to find that led into his study. And after that she did no more exploring. For it seemed that all roads did lead to Mecca. Whichever way she turned, Raoul Le Breton was there, coming between her and the man she feared and hated--the Sultan Casim Ammeh. "I feel like a prisoner," she remarked on one occasion. They were sitting by the lake, under the shade of fragrant trees, with the blue water lapping the marble steps and the sun setting over the desert. A gilded world, where a golden sunset edged the golden sand, one flaming yellow sea above another. "You're a novelty here," he replied. "A pearl of great price. If I didn't keep you well guarded, there would be a hundred ready to steal you. And I flatter myself that, on the whole, you'd rather be with me." He paused, watching her with dark, smouldering eyes. "Am I right, Heart's Ease?" he finished tenderly. Pansy coloured slightly under the ardour of his gaze. Had he been as other men were, she would not have hesitated in her reply. She would have said in her own impulsive, truthful way: "I'd rather be with you than anyone in the whole wide world." But now his colour and religion were constantly before her. And pride kept any such confession from her lips. So instead she said: "No one could have been kinder than you, Raoul. I can never be grateful enough." His kindness had been before her that night when she dressed for dinner. Pansy had no clothes except the ones in which he had brought her. But, within three days, there was an elaborate wardrobe at her disposal; the frocks fashioned like those she had worn in Grand Canary. In one of these dresses she now sat at dinner with him; a misty robe of chiffon, but there were no diamonds sparkling like dew upon it. All her jewels had been left behind in the dim, gilded room in the palace of El-Ammeh. When dinner was over, as they sat together in the _salon_, Le Breton remarked on the fact. "They've stolen all your pretty jewels, Pansy," he said. "You must let me give you some others." "You've done quite enough for me already," she replied promptly. "I can manage without jewels until I get back to England." At her words his eyes narrowed. "Couldn't you be content to stay here?" he asked in a rather abrupt manner. "For a few weeks, perhaps, then I should be craving change and variety. 'The Light of the Harem' act isn't one that would satisfy me for long." Then Pansy was sorry she had spoken. She remembered that he had admitted to having a harem, probably somewhere in this very house. But she had spoken with the idea of letting him see his case was hopeless; of saving him the pain of refusal. "Considering how ill you've been, the 'Light of the Harem act,' as you call it, would be the best sort of life for you for some time to come." "How do you know I've been ill?" she asked quickly. Le Breton saw he had made a slip, but he covered it up smartly. "Gossip told me," he said coolly. There was silence for a time, during which he sat with his gaze on her. "Why don't you smoke?" Pansy asked suddenly, anxious to get something between herself and him. "When you're about I don't need any soothing syrups," he replied. He was approaching dangerous ground again. To ward him off Pansy rose and went to the piano. Seating herself there, she wandered from one item to another, with scarcely a pause between. But the feeling of his eyes never off her made her stop all at once and laugh hysterically. A crisis had to be faced sooner or later. Things might as well come to a head now as to-morrow or next week. At that moment Pansy remembered the man who had held her with such fierce strength and passion in the moon-lit garden of the villa. And she wondered, not without a touch of alarm, how he would take her refusal. She got up and went to his side. "I must give you something else to do than just watching me. It makes me nervous," she said. From a box on a table near she took a cigarette and placed it between his lips. Then she struck a match and held it towards him. In a lazy, contented manner, he let her do it. But when the cigarette was lighted, he did not give her time to draw her hand away. He caught her wrist, and drawing her hand a little closer, blew out the match. When this was done, he did not let her hand go. Instead, he took one or two puffs at the cigarette, all the time watching her closely. "I didn't give you my hand 'for keeps,'" she said. "I want it back again, please." It was hint enough for any man, but Le Breton did not take it. In a deliberate manner, and with her still a prisoner, he got to his feet, and put the cigarette on the table. Pansy did not try to free herself. The situation had to be faced. When the cigarette was laid down, he took the other delicate wrist into his keeping. Then he drew the girl right up to him, until her hands were resting on his chest. "Pansy, suppose I ask you to redeem your promise?" he said. "Oh no, I couldn't," she answered, a trifle breathlessly. "Why not? I'm exactly the same man now that I was when you promised to marry me. A much better man, if you only knew it. Thanks to meeting you." "I didn't know anything about you then." "But you knew you loved me." "I do now, Raoul," she said. "Does the fact of my Arab blood make marriage between us impossible?" There was no reply. In her silence Le Breton read his answer. His hands tightened on her wrists, and a baulked look crossed his face. So the black barrier was one that neither love nor gratitude would make her cross willingly. There were some bitter moments for him, as he realised this. For all his wealth and power, for all his scheming, despite the fact that Pansy confessed to loving him, she refused to be his wife. It seemed that nothing he could do would bring her into his arms in the willing way he wanted. Pansy was the first to speak. In that crushing grip on her wrists, she read an agony of pain and disappointment, that her one desire now was to soothe. "It's not you, Raoul. It's the idea," she said in a low voice. "So the idea of marrying me is repugnant. And yet you love me?" She nodded. Loosing her wrists he turned to the table, and took another cigarette. This, however, he lighted for himself. Pansy watched him, marvelling at the cool way he had taken her refusal. Considering the fire and temper in the man and his air of never having been thwarted in any way, it was hardly what she had expected. She put it down to the fact that she was completely at his mercy, alone and helpless in this barbaric city. Her heart ached at the thought that through no fault of his own she could only give him pain in return for all his kindness. Going to his side, she laid a slim hand on his sleeve. "Raoul, I hope you know you're awful nice about things," she said. He glanced at her. At the beautiful eyes raised to his with infinite gentleness in their velvety depths. And he laughed. "Am I?" he said. Then he laughed again. And his mirth was a mingling of bitterness and savagery. CHAPTER XVIII Pansy saw nothing of her host until the following afternoon. Almost immediately after his declaration Le Breton left her. Most of his time had been spent in contemplating the truth now before him. His scheming had failed. A sense of gratitude had not made the girl forget his colour. After a sleepless night, he was up and away, riding madly along one of the sandy tracks that served his kingdom as roads, in a vain endeavour to escape from his chagrin and disappointment, and trying to decide on his next move. He was surprised at his own hesitation. Having failed to attain his object, he was astonished that he should pause before doing what was obviously the only course left open to him. Just take the girl, whether she liked it or not. But he knew why he hesitated. Pansy loved him in her own way, as she might love a man of her own nationality. If he took her in his high-handed fashion, that love might be swept from him. And the idea was one that he could not bear to contemplate. He returned from his wild ride still undecided on the next move. In this frame of mind he came upon Pansy, in the midst of a solitary afternoon tea, set in a shady corner of the tennis court. She greeted him as if the episode of the previous afternoon had never been. "What have you been doing with yourself all day?" she asked, as she handed him a cup of tea. "I've been trying to ride off my disappointment," he replied. Pansy, too, had been fighting a battle of her own. Most of her night had been spent in arguing with temptation. She was rich and independent. Why shouldn't she marry the man she loved, even if it were going against all the canons of her society? She was wealthy enough to defy society. She owed more than her life to him. Gratitude as well as love urged her towards him. Why should she make him suffer through no fault of his own? Why should she suffer herself? Why should she shut herself up from the man she loved because he happened to be a--a---- "A nigger." The echo of Dennis's voice shouted the word at her, as it had seemed to shout that night in the London hotel, when Le Breton's name had been mentioned. Pansy looked at her host as he lolled beside her; a picture of strength and handsomeness. She wished his dark blood were more in evidence. That he did not look exactly like some of the big French, Spanish, and Italian men she had seen occasionally in various places on the continent. So absolutely European was he that it was impossible to think he was half-Arab. "I wish you weren't so nice and handsome, Raoul," she said impulsively. He cast a quick, speculative glance at her. Perhaps, after all, a little more patience was all that was needed--patience combined with his own presence. When tea was over, Pansy got up in a restless way. "I feel I must do something active, or else go mad," she remarked. The feeling was one he could sympathise with. "We'll have a game of tennis then, if you promise to go easy." Pansy remembered the way he had played that afternoon in Grand Canary. "You'll simply mop the floor with me," she said. "I'll play you left-handed." Only too anxious to get away from her own thoughts and the temptation they brought, Pansy turned towards the court. When the game started he handled his opponent carefully, putting the balls where she could get them without any effort. At the end of the first set Pansy objected to his methods. "You're not really trying, you're only playing with me," she said. "It wouldn't be fair for me to pit all my strength against yours, would it now?" he asked. "Well, do make a game of it. If you go on like this, I could sit down comfortably in the middle of the court and win. You needn't put the balls on my racket. I can stretch an inch or so around without fatal results." The next game was more strenuous. But, as it went on, Pansy, getting excited, forgot caution. A long stretch and an upward spring to intercept one of her opponent's balls, brought cutting, knife-like pains tearing at her chest. The racket dropped from her grip. She stood, white and swaying, her hand on her heart. In a moment he had vaulted the net, and was at her side, his arm about her, concern on his face. "It's nothing," she gasped. "It's that accursed bullet," he said, conscience-stricken. "When Edouard extracted it, he warned me you'd feel the effects for some time." He spoke without thinking, the sight of her suffering making him forget his double rôle. At the moment Pansy was too full of pain to grasp what he had said. Half leading, half carrying her, he took her to the nearest chair, settling her there with a cushion at her head. With white lips she smiled at him; her only desire to allay his concern. "There's nothing to worry about," she said faintly. "I'm a long way from being dead." "It's all my fault," he said hoarsely. "Oh no, you always said I mustn't be too strenuous," she contradicted. Le Breton let it stay at that, aware that he had said more than he intended to say, and hoping the girl had not grasped all that lay within his comment. For some minutes Pansy sat quiet, and, as her pain receded, her companion's sentence came more to the fore. "It's that accursed bullet. When Edouard extracted it he warned me you'd feel the effects for some time." From Alice, Pansy had learnt that the bullet had been extracted on the day she was brought into her enemy's camp. Then Raoul must have been there! With the Sultan's forces! But why hadn't he told her? Why had he pretended that he only had _guessed_ she was the girl captured? Why had he never mentioned Dr. Edouard before? Why had Dr. Edouard never mentioned him? It looked as if he had not wanted her to know. But why hadn't he wanted her to know? As Pansy pondered on the problem, mingled with the sweetness of the roses came another scent she knew--one that had greeted her every morning during her stay in the palace. Above the screening trellis of roses, a tree grew, covered with great bunches of pink flowers, like apple blossom but more vivid, filling the air with fragrance. Pansy had seen the flower before; among the blossoms that used to come to her every morning in the dim, gilded chamber. "Still only a few flowers, Pansy?" Le Breton's remark in the orange groves at Telde suddenly flashed across her mind. She remembered also his array of Arab servants, how obsequious they had been to their master on that occasion; and his wealth and magnificence; a splendour that was almost regal. Close to where she sat, the tea-table stood. Among the assortment of cakes were one or two of a kind she had seen previous to her rescue. Tiny, diamond-shaped dainties, made from layers of sponge cake and marzipan with chocolate icing on the top. Often, in those long, hopeless days in the gilded prison, a similar morsel was all she had been able to eat for her tea. Sixteen years ago a boy of about fourteen had sworn to kill her father. He would be thirty now. The same age as----! And the Sultan spoke French too! They were little things, but they all pointed in one and the same direction. And, as Pansy brooded on them, an incredulous expression came to her eyes, and, with it, a look as if she were fighting to keep some horrible, impossible truth at bay. Her gaze went to Le Breton. "A great, big, fine man, awful good-looking." Alice's description of the Sultan Casim Ammeh came back to her. Words that fitted her host exactly. As she looked at him, from the paddock came the stamp of a horse's hoof. She was here. Her favourite horse was here. Raoul Le Breton was here. All of them in this desert city hundreds of miles from civilisation. Such a combination could not be unless---- "If I were a king in Babylon and you were a Christian slave. Or to get down to more modern times. If I were a barbaric Sultan somewhere in Africa and you a girl I'd fancied and caught and carried off..." His own words came echoing through her head; condemning words. Then she recollected with what unpleasant emphasis he had said "au revoir," on parting with her that night on her yacht. All at once Pansy's miracle exploded. She wondered how she could have been such a fool as not to have guessed sooner. This was the Sultan Casim Ammeh! This man standing before her! He caught her gaze and smiled; it seemed to the girl, mockingly. "Well, Heart's Ease, are you feeling better?" he asked. "After this you'll agree with me that 'The Light of the Harem' act is the most suitable life for you just at present." It seemed to Pansy that he was gibing her.--At her trust, her belief, her incredulous folly. What a blind fool she had been! It was all as plain as daylight now. Raoul Le Breton was the Sultan Casim Ammeh. It was her father's enemy she had confessed to loving; had wept in front of, clung to, trusted, displaying a weakness that had fallen to no man's lot, save her father's. At the thought Pansy's soul writhed within her. How could she have been such a fool! How he must have laughed at her! Raoul Le Breton had condemned her to the unspeakable ordeal of the slave market in order to torture her father. He had done it! Raoul Le Breton! The man she loved. Pansy did not love him now. She hated him. For a moment she was too stunned by her discovery to say or do anything. Then she said in a voice that wild anger stifled somewhat: "So _you_ are the Sultan Casim Ammeh." As Pansy spoke she got to her feet, her eyes blazing. There was no mistaking what was on her face. She had guessed the truth. On realising this, he made no attempt at further deception. "_I_ am the Sultan Casim Ammeh," he said, smiling. "And, my little slave, _you_ are my most cherished possession. More to me than my kingdom." His cool confession staggered her. As he stood there, unabashed and unrepentant, she looked round quickly, in search of something to strike him with. For the knowledge of his deceit and duplicity had made her beside herself with rage. Since there was no weapon at hand, she set off rapidly across the lawn, heedless of where she went, her only desire to get away from him. She had not gone very far, however, before he was at her side. "Where are you going, Pansy?" he asked with a masterful air. That he should dare to follow her; dare to call her by her name enraged her beyond all bounds. And his words added to her fury. They made her realise there was nowhere she could go to escape him. Like a whirlwind she turned upon him. "I wish ... I wish I could kill you," she gasped. There was a tennis racket lying at her feet. As if to carry out this design, she stooped and picked it up; her only desire now to send it crashing into the mocking, masterful face. But he guessed her intention. In a moment he had grasped the racket and wrested it away. "No, Pansy," he said. "No one has ever struck me, and you're not going to. For I don't quite know what the consequences might be." There was a brief, tense silence. As he looked at the girl, it seemed that Fate had decided the next move for him. "We may as well come to an understanding," he went on. "I hate your father, but I love you. And you've got to have me, whether you like it or not. I'd prefer to marry you in your English way. But if you won't consent to that, then--I shall take you, in mine. The choice is with you." There was only one part of his ultimatum that Pansy thoroughly grasped. And there seemed no limit to his audacity. "I'd rather die than marry you," she flamed. "For I hate you. Do you hear? I hate you more than anything on this earth." He heard right enough, and his face blanched at her words. Then, before he had recovered from this blow, Pansy struck him across the mouth, with all her strength, bringing blood to the lips that dared to talk of love to _her_. CHAPTER XIX There was a new slave in the Sultan's harem, a dazed girl who looked as if she moved in dreams. She was not reclining on a lounge or cushions, as the other girls around the fountain were. She half sat, half knelt upon her cushions, her slim bare legs beneath her, her hands lying listlessly on her knee, staring straight ahead as if in a trance. Since that episode on the tennis court, Pansy felt as if she were living in the midst of some wild story, in which Raoul Le Breton and the Sultan Casim Ammeh had got mixed. The Sultan wanted to marry her. And she had refused. Then----! Then, infuriated with the sense of her own helplessness and his complete power, she had struck him. She could see him now, with the blood oozing on his lips, his face white with rage, his eyes flaming, looking as if he could kill her. And she had wished he would. Then there would have been an end of it all. She would have done with him, herself, her own folly, and the hatred that raged like a fire within her. But he had not touched her. White with passion he had just stood and looked at her. And she had looked back, waiting for the end that had not come. Instead, three women had come. And she had been taken out of his presence. Through the big _salon_ and along dim passages, past silk-clad, jewelled guards, and into a little room, with an ottoman and cushions and a tiny window, all fretted like lace, impossible to get out of. Then the women had undressed her. They were three to one. It was useless to struggle: dignity seemed all that was left to her. There was not much of that even when the women had done with her. They put her into a white silk slip that reached only to her knees, and with nothing more than a strap of pearls on either shoulder. They would have heaped more pearls upon her, string upon string about her neck. But she would not have that. She tore them off, so angrily that the slender threads snapped and they fell like frozen tears upon the marble floor, as her amber beads had fallen that night in his villa! What a minor thing Lucille Lemesurier was now! Forgivable when she had learnt his race and religion. Not like this gigantic deception. A deception that had forced her into saying she loved the Sultan Casim Ammeh--the man who had tortured her father. Leaving the women grovelling after the scattered pearls Pansy had rushed from the room, her only desire to seek some way of escape. She had gone in her short slip and short curls, looking like some lovely, rebellious child. Her steps had taken her into a big room like a hall, where a crowd of women were gathered; half a dozen of them, girls dressed in a similar style to herself. Then Pansy's strength went from her suddenly. She realized where she was. In the Sultan's harem! And she knew there would be no escape. Sara had come to her, and had led her towards a pile of cushions set by a fountain where the other girls were. And the woman had said sharp words to the assembly, who had risen as if to crowd around her--words that had kept them at bay. When she was seated they had stayed looking at her, most of them with curiosity and friendliness. But there was one face that Pansy, for all her numbness, saw was hostile; the face of a beautiful, golden-skinned girl. There was one girl, too, who was more than specially friendly, who said to her in a soft, cooing voice: "Where do you come from, sister, for your skin is whiter than mine?" Pansy did not answer Leonora's question. She was wondering herself where she came from. From another world, it seemed. It was incredible that she, Pansy Langham, could be a slave in a Sultan's harem, garbed as these other slave girls were. Incredible that only that afternoon she had been playing tennis with Raoul Le Breton, as she might have played with any man in her own place in England. What ages ago it was! Yet perhaps it was only an hour. Like a beautiful dream that had vanished. There was no Raoul Le Breton. No big, masterful man whom she had had to love, in spite of everything. There was only this barbaric Sultan who hated her father. Who, because she refused to marry him, had sent her to this strange room. His harem! And she was his slave! She Pansy Langham, who had never obeyed any will except her own. Her hands clenched. How she hated him! He was so supremely master. Any moment he might come to pick whichever of his slaves he fancied. And--he might pick her. The ignominy of it! Just to be a man's chattel. And, hitherto, all men had been _her_ abject and willing slaves. Heedless alike of Leonora's cooing advances, and Rayma's dark scowls, Pansy sat down. The shadows gathered. The lamps were lit. Then dinner time came. A conglomeration of sweets and fruit and dainties set out on silver trays, with only a spoon to eat with. Again Leonora's voice broke into Pansy's broodings. "Come, won't you eat, my sister?" she coaxed, pushing one of the trays closer. But Pansy felt as if she could never eat a bite again. Rayma ate nothing either. With angry eyes, she studied the newcomer. Pansy was very beautiful in her way, but no more beautiful than Rayma was in hers. And what was more, she was not perfect. There was an ugly red scar on one of her milk-white arms. And the Lord Casim hated flaw or blemish on a woman. Would this new slave's presence bring him to the harem? If he came----! Rayma clenched her little white teeth. Then there would be a battle royal between this white girl and herself for his favors. But she would not let his heart go lightly. Stretched full length on her couch, her elbows on the soft cushions, her pointed chin in the cup of her hands, the Arab girl lay watching her rival and waiting. The evening wore on. The lamps burnt low, and started to flare and crackle, without any sign of the Sultan coming. Presently, shriek after shriek, echoing through the vaulted hall, roused Pansy from her broodings, making her look round in a quick, startled manner. The shrieks were familiar. Muffled they had reached her every evening in that dim, gilded chamber. "It's only Rayma," Leonora said indifferently. "She has hysterics every night because the Sultan does not come. He has not been to the harem now for three months or longer. Not since he left the city on some foray. She fears some other girl has stolen his heart from her." Leonora paused, her great eyes on the new-comer. "Is it you, my sister?" she finished inquisitively. "For, if so, I shall love you." But Pansy had nothing to say. At that moment she was wondering why Rayma shrieked because the Sultan had not come. There seemed to her more reason to shriek if he did come. CHAPTER XX On one of the terraces of his palace the Sultan sat and brooded, his face hard and savage, as he glowered at the scene ahead of him; a harmless scene where night shadows settled on a scented garden with the glint of a lake beyond. Never in his life had such an indignity been put upon him. Never had anyone dared dispute his right to do what he pleased. Never! Until this English girl had come into his life. And she had struck him. The Sultan! As if he were some erring menial whose ways had annoyed her. Under the recollection the man's untamed soul writhed. She had done as she liked all her life. All that money of hers had given her ideas no woman ought to have. Now she had to learn that he was her master. She was in the harem now. And there she could stay. A spell there would cool her temper and make her more amenable to his wishes. The trees in the garden sighed faintly. The soft wind brought the scent of roses and the splash of a fountain. His mind went back to another garden, in far-away Grand Canary. The echoes of a girl's voice whispered: "Put your ear quite close. It's not a matter that can be shouted from the house-tops." She had shouted loud enough that she hated him. She had not whispered that fact. A spasm of pain crossed his face. Why did she fight against him? This slender, lovely, helpless girl, whom he could break with one hand. She fought bravely, with all the odds against her. And she had dared to do what no one else in the place dared do. What no one had ever done in the whole of his wild, unbridled life. She had dared to strike him, fair and square, with all her strength, across the mouth. Then suddenly his anger melted. A smile came and played about his scarred lips. Surely no man could be angry for long with a girl so brave and helpless. He deserved it for his deception. Just as he had deserved her scorn and contempt over Lucille. She was always giving him what he deserved, this little English flower of his. More than he deserved, a struggling conscience breathed. For he had never deserved those three words she had once whispered in his ear: "I love you." CHAPTER XXI All the following day Rayma waited for the Sultan's coming. Pansy waited, also. By now she realised more fully what she had done: struck and infuriated the man who held her father's life in his hand. However, nothing was seen of the Sultan either that day or the next. For Pansy the days were the longest she had ever spent in her life. She could not doze away her time as the other girls did, with coffee and sherbet and cigarettes; their greatest exertion a bath, or making sweetmeats over a charcoal brazier, or doing intricate embroidery. She kept out of their way as much as possible, in her own room, or wandering aimlessly in the garden, looking at walls impossible for her to scale, wondering what had happened to her father and her friends, and what would happen to herself. But even the garden was barred to her except in the very early morning, and the brief space after sunset. If she tried to go at other times there were twenty women to stop her. The order was the Sultan's, she was told, lest to escape him she should wander in the tropic heat and make herself ill. All her meals had to be taken in the harem, and for bathing there was only the harem bathroom. That was a vast underground tank, approached by marble steps, cool and still and dim, its silence only broken by the dip of water. There the girls disported themselves several times a day. But Pansy was not used to company when she bathed. And to avoid them, she rose very early, when she was sure of having the great marble tank to herself. During the afternoon of the third day the Sultan came. Pansy was not in the harem at the time, but lying on the lounge in her own room. Sara's entrance roused her. "My pearl, the Sultan is here," she said cajolingly. "And he desires to see you." "I prefer to stay where I am," was the cold response. The woman looked at her, speculating on the relations between this girl and the Sultan. They had once been so fond of one another, always together. And now the girl had been sent to the harem, and for three days the Sultan had not come near her. "It's useless to resist, my pearl," Sara explained. "If you don't come when the Sultan commands, servants will be sent to fetch you." Pansy had no wish to be dragged into her captor's presence. Since she had to go, she might as well go with dignity. However, she did not go very far. Only just beyond the door of her own quarters. Once there she sank down quickly on a pile of cushions, in her usual position, half sitting, half kneeling; a position that made the scantiness of her garment not quite so obvious. At once she knew who the man in the white burnoose was, although she had never seen him in anything but civilised attire before. He was sitting on an ottoman near the fountain, with the girls clustered around him, fawning on him like dogs round a loved master. Pansy turned a slender, disdainful shoulder on the scene. But if she did not look in the direction of the group, there was one at least who kept a sharp suspicious eye on her. By the Sultan's side Rayma sat, with her pointed chin resting upon his knee. "Why haven't you come sooner to see that new slave of yours, Casim beloved?" she asked, pointing a slim finger at the distant girl. "I've had other things than women to think about," he replied evasively. A bitter reminiscent smile curved his lips as he spoke. Some words of Pansy's were in his mind. "So long as it's 'women,' it's all right. The trouble starts when it comes to 'woman.'" Certainly for him the trouble had started when it came to "woman"; when this slender, wayward, golden-haired girl came into his life. For she had robbed all other women of their sweetness. With longing his gaze rested on Pansy. What a fool he was not to take her.--To let her whim come between himself and his desires. But there was something more than a girl's whim had he but realised it; a feeble new self that Pansy was responsible for: the man he might have been but for his profligate training. Rayma saw where his gaze was. To get his eyes away from Pansy, she took one of his hands and pressed it on her bosom. "When first I came here, my lord," she whispered, "there was nothing else you could think of." His attention came back to her. "You were very pretty, Rayma," he said a trifle absently. "And am I not beautiful still?" she asked quickly. "You're always a picture," he answered. He talked as if to a spoilt child who bored him. Rayma hitched herself closer, until her soft breast pressed against his knee. But he remained silent, without look or caress, his gaze still on the distant girl. He was wondering whether he would take Pansy out of her present surroundings, or if a spell in the harem might not make her realise to the fullest her own helplessness and his complete supremacy. Leonora watched her master, her dark eyes full of joy and malice. "There are some people who never know when they're not wanted," she remarked _sotto voce_, and to no one in particular. Rayma cast a venomous look at her. But Leonora only smiled at her dagger-like glances. "Can she dance, this new slave of yours?" the Arab girl asked suddenly. "She dances very nicely," he answered in an indifferent manner. "As well as I do?" she asked jealously. He thought of the snake-like writhing Rayma called "dancing." "She dances quite differently from you." "Let us both dance before you then, so that you may judge which is the better of us," she said quickly. [Illustration: "Let us both dance for you, so that you may judge between us" .....] However, he vetoed this neat arrangement. "The girl has been wounded. And she's still not strong enough for much exertion." Rayma brooded on this fact, and the more she thought about it, the less she liked it. "Did you capture her on that foray?" she asked presently. "She was part of my booty," he said, a lingering tenderness in his voice. Again Rayma was silent. Very quickly she put two and two together. The Sultan had not been near the harem since his return from that quest for vengeance. And this new slave had been captured during that foray. So this was the girl who had stolen the Sultan's heart! Who had kept him away from the harem all these dreary weeks. The girl sitting there by the distant doorway. The girl who would not come near him; whom he watched, yet did not go to. Rayma scowled at Pansy's back. Then she turned to one of the women attendants sitting near. "Fetch that girl to me," she said, pointing to Pansy. The woman rose, ready and anxious to do a favourite's bidding. But the Sultan motioned her down again. "She comes at no one's bidding, except mine," he said firmly. Pouting, Rayma wriggled closer to him. "May _I_ not even call her?" she asked softly. "The rule applies to all here," he replied. Somewhat impatiently he pushed Rayma aside. Then he got to his feet, and went towards Pansy. His step behind her made the girl's heart start beating violently. He was coming to issue some further ultimatum. Perhaps not an ultimatum even, but an order. Pansy had wanted to see her captor, to plead for her father. Now that he was there, the words refused to pass her lips. To have asked any favour of him would have choked her. "Well, Pansy, are you going to marry me?" he asked. He might not have been there, for all the notice she took of him. "Come," he went on, in an authoritative manner, "you must realise that I'm supreme, and that you must obey me." Pansy realised this to the fullest, and the sense of her own helplessness only infuriated her. Since she had no weapon she could turn on him except her tongue, she hit at him with that. And she hit her very hardest on the spot she knew would hurt the most. "English women don't marry niggers," she said contemptuously. The word cut deep into his proud spirit; all the deeper for coming from her lips. Although he whitened under the insult, the knowledge of his own complete supremacy held his fiery temper in check. "The marrying is just as you like," he replied. "Forms and ceremonies are nothing to me, but I'd an idea you preferred them." There was a brief silence. With her face turned away Pansy sat ignoring him entirely, leaving him only a slender white neck, a small ear and part of a rose-tinted cheek to study. And the Sultan studied them, amused that anything so helpless should dare to defy him. "You've not only yourself to consider when you set me at defiance in this manner," he remarked presently. "There's your father, and your English friends." His words brought Pansy's eyes to him, fear in their velvety depths. At her look he laughed. "Your kind heart has given me some hostages, Pansy," he said. "But nothing will happen to them for another week. I'll give you that much time to make up your mind. Not longer. For my patience is wearing very thin. And I've had a lot where you're concerned. More than I ever dreamt I was capable of. In the meantime, my little girl, try and remember I'm not quite the hopeless villain you think me, or you wouldn't have liked me, even for a day." But just then it seemed to Pansy there was no greater villain on earth than the Sultan Casim Ammeh. CHAPTER XXII Early the next morning when Pansy was splashing about in the great underground tank, a voice made her look up in a startled fashion. So far no one had intruded on her ablutions. It was a soft, purring, malicious little voice that said in lisping French: "Now I see why you always come here early. Why you don't bathe with me and the other girls." On the broad marble steps Rayma stood, looking down at her rival spitefully. "I come early because I'm not used to bathing before people," Pansy replied, hoping the other would take the hint and go. But Rayma did not go. She seated herself on the steps and stayed there, her black eyes fixed on the graceful girl in the water. "Has the Sultan seen those scars?" she asked, pointing a slim disparaging finger at the network of red marks and ridges on Pansy's thigh and side. Pansy flushed at the question. "Of course not," she cried indignantly. "When he bought me I stood before him with only my hair for a covering. And I stood gladly, for I knew I was perfect." Rayma finished, as if the fact gave her pleasure. Pansy had no desire to discuss the Sultan's likes and dislikes. To avoid further conversation, she swam out to the far end of the great bath and stayed there until Rayma had gone. All that day, whenever the Arab girl's eyes met hers, there was a look of malicious triumph in them. And when the two girls came within speaking distance that purring, little voice whispered spitefully: "Only wait until the Sultan comes. I shall find a way of taking his love from you." Despondently Pansy wished this would come to pass. She was between the upper and nether millstones, her father on one side, her captor on the other. Several days passed without anything being seen of the Sultan. Then, one night, he came, when the girls were gathered in the harem, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes after dinner. Pansy, was in the group, and the sight of his big, white-clad figure brought her to her feet sharply, with a feeling of choking alarm. Then she stayed where she was, fully aware that escape was impossible. He seated himself at her side. She would have edged away, but his voice stopped her. "No, Pansy, stay where you are," he said quickly. "And since I don't smoke 'bubble bubbles' like the men in 'Eastern pictures and on cigar-box lids' you once mentioned, you can give me a cigarette, and light it, if you like," he added, with a touch of teasing. Pansy did not like. She stood slim and straight and defiant, ignoring his request, conscious that all eyes were upon them, all ears listening to what was said. Since she refused to do the Sultan's bidding, and since he made no attempt to force obedience, there were half a dozen pairs of hands ready and eager to do the task Pansy scorned. Rayma's gaze rested jealously on the English girl, "Is it always what she likes, Casim, my Lord, and never what you wish?" "She has been ill, and I humour her," he replied shortly. "Ill or not she should be only too pleased to do your bidding. Are you not her Sultan and her master? _I_ have no will except your wishes. _I_ have no secrets hidden from you." There was a world of insinuation in Rayma's voice. And it made the Sultan glance at Pansy in a quick, suspicious manner. The only thing he suspected her of doing was trying to escape. He failed to see how she could get out of her present quarters, but the mere idea of losing her sent a chill through him. "What are you hiding from me, Pansy?" he asked presently. His close scrutiny brought a flush to her face, not through any sense of guilt, but because of her unaccustomed and scanty attire. He saw the flush and his suspicions deepened. She was capable of doing herself some injury in order to get away from him. "What do you mean, Rayma?" he asked, as Pansy refused to answer. The Arab girl sidled up to Pansy, malice and triumph in her eyes. "Do you really want to know, my Lord?" she asked, smiling at him softly. He nodded. Before Pansy realised what was happening, there was a feeling of cold steel at her breast. Totally unprepared, it seemed that Rayma was going to stab her. She moved back quickly. As she moved there was the sharp snip of scissors, a rending sound, a quick jerk, and her one garment was dragged from her. The Arab girl retreated quickly, holding the silk slip behind her, leaving Pansy nothing but her curls to cover her; a covering that reached no further than the nape of her neck. With a heart-broken cry she sank on the floor, and crouched there, her face hidden in her hands, flushed with shame from head to foot. Laughing triumphantly Rayma pointed a scornful finger at her rival. "Look, Casim, look, beloved," she cried, "that is the secret she would hide from you. Those ugly scars. And she bathes early in the morning when none of us are there, so that we shall not see them and tell you. For she knows that you would not love a woman so flawed." The other women looked at Pansy in an unconcerned manner. Clothing was of no great consequence to them. Moreover, it was just as well not to interfere when Rayma chose to play her tricks and amuse their master. But he did not look at all amused. What was more, his gaze did not go to the slim bare girl crouched on the floor. He looked instead at Rayma. "Give the girl back her garment," he said in an ominously quiet tone. "Look, Casim. Look, my Lord. A girl so blemished is not worthy of _you_. Often you have said no woman has a form as perfect as mine. But look and compare. Then say which of us is more deserving of your favour." She snatched off her own light garment, and stood before him, slim and perfect, a golden statue, a model for an artist. The Sultan's eyes were fixed on her still. But there was no appreciation in them, only anger. "Give the girl back her garment," he said again. "When you have looked at her, and not before," Rayma cried, defiant in the surety of her own perfections. "Give it back when I tell you," he said in a savage voice. A tense silence followed. The girls and women glanced at one another, and waited for what they had seen happen from time to time--the fall of a favourite. Rayma's "coup" had fallen surprisingly, ominously flat. The Sultan refused to look at the girl whose blemishes had been unveiled for his inspection. Rayma knew it too. And as she gazed at the cold, angry face of her master, she saw her star had set. She threw the silk slip at Pansy who still crouched on the floor, paralysed with shame. Beside herself with jealous rage the Arab girl then stooped and picking up a heavy silver goblet hurled it at her rival. Fortunately it missed its aim and went skimming and crashing along the marble floor. This attempted assault was the last straw. A savage, merciless expression came to her master's face. At this look Rayma fell prostrate at his feet. "Casim, love me a little, and I ask for nothing else," she wailed. A gong stood at his side. Ignoring her, he struck it angrily. Its musical notes echoed through the room. A moment later a couple of negroes appeared in the doorway of the harem. The Sultan gave a sharp order in Arabic. What it was Pansy did not know. She was now the centre of a group of women who, with brooch and jewelled pin, were adjusting her silk slip. They were all anxious to gain her good graces, since there was no doubt now who was the Sultan's favourite. In her ear Leonora was whispering: "There's no need to be ashamed, my sister. Our Lord Casim never once glanced at you. His eyes and his anger were all for Rayma. Thanks to you, she now feels what I once felt. And her heart is breaking." But if Pansy did not know what the Sultan said, the crowd around her did. They whispered affrightedly among themselves, and edged further away from their master. For the Sultan in a temper was a person to be avoided. And Rayma knew what was going to happen. She started up with dilated eyes and screaming, then clung piteously to his feet. "Casim, my Lord, beloved, not that," she cried, her little face frantic. "Not that, I entreat you, for the sake of the nights that have been." There was no pity on his face, only savagery. All mercy had been swept out of him by her attempt to shame and injure Pansy. The guards returned, bringing whips. On seeing them Rayma's screams broke out afresh. Piteous little pleas for mercy, wild promises never to offend again, that he ignored completely. Then she fell a sobbing, golden statue at the Sultan's feet. Rayma's cries, terror-stricken and helpless, reached Pansy in the midst of her own dazed shame, making her glance in the direction of the man she hoped never to have to face again. She saw the huge negroes with their whips, awaiting the Sultan's order. The sobbing, helpless girl at his feet, and on his face a look she had never seen before--the look of an angered and pitiless despot. For a moment she stood aghast, not able to credit the scene before her. As she looked the Sultan nodded. The guards raised their whips. And they fell with cruel, stinging force. But they did not fall on Rayma. There was one in the harem who dared come between the Sultan and his wrath. The whips fell on white shoulders, not golden ones, bringing the blood oozing to satin-smooth skin. The weight and pain brought Pansy to her knees before her captor. "Raoul," she gasped, "I can't let you do this dreadful thing." The whips fell from the negroes' hands. Aghast, they stared at the girl before them. It was not their fault the lashes had fallen on the new favourite and not on the culprit. But they would be held responsible, and doubtless beaten nevertheless. The women and girls started to scream and wail. Their master might turn on them for letting the new slave get within reach of the whips. But who was to know she would dare come between the Sultan and a girl he thought well to punish. He paid no heed to the frightened stares of the guards, the wails of the scared women, to Rayma still sobbing, with fright, not pain. He had thoughts and eyes for nothing but the girl on her knees before him, with the red weals on her shoulders, horror and entreaty in her eyes--Pansy calling him once again by name. With a fierce, possessive movement, he stooped and gathered her into his arms, crushing her against him, until she was almost lost in his voluminous robes. "My little English flower, you can't quite hate me," he whispered passionately. "Or you wouldn't try to keep me what you once thought me. You wouldn't try to come between me and the man I am." With the girl in his arms, he rose. Scared eyes watched him as he crossed the big hall, and disappeared behind the silken curtains. Then the girls started to whisper among themselves. For the Sultan had taken this new slave to the gilded chamber of their desires. CHAPTER XXIII Through the open arches of the gilded chamber the moonlight dripped, making silver ponds on the golden floor, filling the place with a vague shimmering glow. One bar of moonlight fell on a couch where Pansy lay, her face buried in the cushions. By her side the Sultan knelt, one arm across her, watching her with glowing, passionate eyes. The last few minutes had been a haze to the girl; a blur of great negroes with whips; of Rayma, sobbing and helpless; of Raoul Le Breton, cruel, as she had always felt he might be. He had come back into her life suddenly, that lover with the strong arms and the deep, caressing voice, the big, half-tamed, arrogant man, whom from the first she had liked and had never been afraid of. "What dare I hope? What dare I think?" his voice was saying. "Dare I think that you don't quite hate me? Look at me, my little slave, and let me see what is in your eyes." But Pansy did not look at him. She was too full of shame and confusion, despite Leonora's assurance; a shame and confusion that the Sultan guessed at, for he stayed caressing her golden curls with a soothing touch. For a time there was silence. Through the room the wind strayed, its soft, rose-ladened breath mingling with the subtle scent of sandalwood. Somewhere in the garden an owl hooted. A peevish wail in the night, came the cry of jackals prowling around the city walls. Under that firm, strong, soothing hand, Pansy's shame subsided a little. For the girl there was always magic in his touch, except when anger raged within her. There was no anger now, only a sense of her own helplessness, and the knowledge of the lives he held in his power. Under the silence and his soothing hand, a question trembled to her lips, born of her own helplessness and the dire straits of her father and friends. "If ... if I marry you, will you send my father and friends safely back to Gambia?" she asked, in a low voice. He laughed tenderly. "If I were as big a villain as you think me, I'd say 'yes,' and then break faith with you, Pansy--as you broke faith with me. If I sent them back, my little flower, do you know what would happen? Your English friends would complain to the French Government. An expedition would be sent up here, and they would dole out to me the fate your father doled out to mine." His words made Pansy realise for the first time that his summary abduction of his father's party had brought him foul of two Governments. Horrified, she gazed at him; her father and friends all forgotten at the thought of the fate awaiting her captor. They would shoot him, this big, fierce man. All fire would die out of those flashing eyes. That handsome face would be stiff and stark in death. Never again would that hard mouth curve into lines of tenderness when he smiled at her. There would be no strength left in his arms. No deep, passionate, caressing voice. No untamed, masterful man, using all his power to bend her to his will. It was one thing for Pansy to want to kill him herself, but quite another for other people to set about it. At that moment she realised that, in spite of everything, she did not hate the Sultan Casim Ammeh. And what was more he knew it too. For he bent over her, laughing softly. "So, Heart's Ease, you don't quite hate me," he said. "That fact will keep me patient for quite a little time. And you will be whispering 'yes' in my ear, as I would have you whisper it--of your own free will, as you whispered 'I love you,' on that sweet night six months ago." He bent still lower, and kissed the little face that watched him with such strained anxiety. "Good night, my darling," he said fondly. Long after he had gone Pansy lay trying to crush the truth back into its hiding-place in her heart. And his voice, tender and triumphant, seemed to echo back mockingly from the jewelled ceiling. For surely she could not love a man so cruel, so barbaric, so profligate as the Sultan Casim Ammeh. CHAPTER XXIV The next morning Pansy awoke to find herself back in her gilded prison, and Alice beside her with the customary morning tea, a dish of fruit and a basket of flowers, all as if the last ten days had never been. She knew now the flowers were from the Sultan. But she did not tell Alice to take them away. Instead, as she drank her tea and ate some fruit, she looked at them in a meditating manner. And Alice looked at her mistress in an inquisitive way, wondering what had happened to her during the last few days. "De Sultan, he no sell you den, Miss Pansy?" "No," Pansy replied in an absent manner. "Since you go I lib wid de oder servants in anoder part ob de palace. Dere be hundreds ob dem," the girl continued, her eyes round with awe at her captor's wealth and power. She spoke, too, as if anxious for an exchange of confidences. However, Pansy said nothing. She stayed with her gaze on the flowers, despising herself for having been so upset at the thought of the Sultan's demise. That morning Alice dressed her in her usual civilised attire. In spite of this, Pansy found she was still a prisoner, still within the precincts of the harem. The rose garden was hers to wander in at will. But the guards were still stationed outside one of the sandalwood doors, as they had been on the day of her arrival at the palace. However, one of the two other doors was unlocked. Pansy opened it, hoping some way of escape might lay beyond. A dim flight of stairs led downwards. She descended, only to find herself in the harem. The girls and women greeted her with an awed and servile air. To them now she was the Sultan's first wife; the most envied and most honoured woman in the province of El-Ammeh. Curious glances were cast at her attire. Leonora appeared most at her ease. For she fingered Pansy's garments with soft, slow, indolent hands. "It's quite ten years since I've seen a woman dressed as you are," she remarked. "Not since I lived in Tangier, before my uncle sold me to an Arab merchant." Pansy knew Leonora's history. It did not sound a pretty one to civilised ears. Sold at the age of fourteen, she had been handed from one desert chief to another, until finally she had appeared in the slave market of El-Ammeh and had taken the Sultan's fancy. "What an awful life you've had," Pansy said, pity in her voice. Leonora's languid eyes opened with surprise. "Me! Oh, no. I'm beautiful, and most of my masters have been kind. But none so kind and generous as the Sultan Casim. Besides, now my travels are at an end. When the Sultan tires of a slave, he does not sell her. She is given in marriage to one of his officers, with a good dowry. And she is then a woman with an established position. He is always generous to a woman who has pleased him. How lucky for you to be picked for his first wife! You'll find him almost always kind. I've been here more than a year and I know. He is never harsh without a reason. He is never hard and unjust like some of the masters I've known." As Pansy listened to this eulogy on her captor, she was surprised and ashamed of herself for having a scrap of liking left for him. All her instincts revolted at his doings, but much as she tried she could not make them revolt at the man himself. "He was hard enough last night," she remarked. "But he had a reason. Rayma would have shamed and injured you. She could not see what I saw--that the Sultan has eyes and thoughts and heart for no one but you now. She is a stupid girl, that Rayma. Because he loved her for a month or two, she thought he would love her for ever. He was her first master. He bought her but a few weeks before he last went to Paris. And he is so angry now that he will sell her again, not give her in marriage to one of his officers, making her a woman of importance." Leonora's remarks made Pansy glance sharply round the big hall, suddenly aware that Rayma was not present. Already she saw the Arab girl having to face that dreadful sea of eyes, as she, herself, had faced it. "Where is Rayma?" she asked quickly. "The guards took her away last night," Leonora answered indifferently. "She'll trouble you no more." Hastily Pansy got to her feet, and went to the big door leading out of the harem. She knew what lay beyond; a large vestibule where, day and night, half a dozen eunuchs lounged. Seeing Pansy on the threshold, brought them to their feet, barring her exit. "I must see the Sultan," she said. Although she made the request, she hardly expected to have it granted, for the Sultan came when he felt disposed. "Lady, I'll inform the Sultan of your desires," one of the guards replied. With that he left the vestibule. Pansy waited, conscious of the servility and overwhelming desire to please that oozed from these menials. Before long the messenger returned. It appeared that the girl's wish was to be granted. With a negro on either side of her Pansy was taken through an intricate maze of corridors, past closed doors, open arches and Arabesque windows, to a further door that her escort opened. Pansy found herself in a room that looked more like a sumptuous office than anything else, with a balcony that jutted over the lake. At a large desk a man was seated in a white drill suit with a black cummerbund, who rose at her entry and smiled at her, as if the last week had never been; as if he were still Raoul Le Breton and there had been no unveiling. "Well, Pansy, it's flattering to think you want to see me," he remarked. Pansy did not waste any time before stating the reason of her visit. "Is it true you're going to sell Rayma?" she asked in a horror-stricken tone. The mere mention of her name made a savage expression flit across his face. "What I'm going to do with her is my own concern." "How can you be such a brute, such a savage, so abominably cruel?" she cried, distress in her voice. "Do you know, my little slave, that you're the only person in the place who dare take me to task about my doings?" he remarked. Pansy did not know, or care; her only desire was to save him from himself. "I shall stay here until you premise not to sell her," she said tensely. "If you stay until Doomsday, it won't worry me," he replied. "You must find some other threat." Pansy could have shaken him for daring to poke fun at her, when her only desire was to keep him from slave-dealing. "How can you even contemplate such a ghastly thing," she gasped. "As what?" he asked in an unconcerned manner. "Don't you know that slave-dealing is an abomination?" "It may be in your country, but it isn't in mine." "I can't bear to think of you doing anything so dreadful," she said in a strained voice. He glanced at her, a soft, mocking light in his eyes. "Should you like me any better if I didn't sell Rayma?" "I should hate you if you did." "I couldn't run such a risk a second time," he replied. "I'll send her back to the harem, and keep her there until I can find a suitable husband, if that'll please you better." Pansy experienced a feeling of relief. The victory was easier than she had expected. There was a brief pause. Then he said: "So you're still returning good for evil, Pansy. Your power of forgiveness is astonishing. Rayma deserved punishment for her treatment of you." "If anyone deserves punishment it's you," Pansy retorted. "How do you make that out?" "For trifling with her." For a moment he was too astonished to speak. "If you call that trifling, then I must have trifled with at least a hundred women in my day," he remarked at length. "How can you stand there and say such dreadful things?" she gasped. "There's nothing dreadful about it from my point of view." Pansy said nothing. She just stared at him, as if at some fascinating horror. Under her gaze he began to find excuses and explanations for himself and his behaviour. "Don't you remember telling me in that letter of yours that you were not quite the same as other girls, putting that forward as a sufficient reason for breaking faith with me? Well, Pansy, I'm not quite the same as the other men you've known. To begin with, my religion is different. In my own small way I'm a king. I rule absolutely within a radius of more than a hundred miles round here. Then, I'm a millionaire, and my trading extends far beyond my kingdom, as far as St. Louis, in fact. And millionaires, more especially if they're men and unmarried, are fêted and welcomed everywhere. And, like kings, millionaires can do no wrong. Then I'm half-Arab, half-French, which you must agree is a wild combination. Such a mixture doesn't tend to make a man exactly virtuous. I've done exactly what I liked, practically ever since I was born. Everybody, except my mother, did their best to spoil me. She was the only one who ever tried to keep me in order in any way, but she died when I was ten years old. At fourteen I was Sultan here in my own right. And no one ever dared, or troubled, to criticise my doings until you came along. And now you're expecting me to be a better man than ever Fate or nature intended me to be." Pansy said nothing; she still looked at him, trying now to see his point of view. "_I_ call 'trifling' what you've done with me. Promising to marry me and then drawing back. I've never trifled with you. And if you can believe such a thing, and if you'll try and see it in my light, I've been faithful to you. I never had a thought for another woman since the night you came into my life, until I learnt you were Barclay's daughter. Then I tried to hate you, and went back to my old life. But when you were brought to me, dead, as I thought, I knew I didn't hate you. And since that day, Pansy, there's been no other woman but you. And you'll satisfy me for the rest of my life." Pansy listened to him, trying to see things as he saw them, knowing she ought to be disgusted with him. Instead, she was intensely sorry because there had never been anyone at hand to check or train him, except a mother who had died twenty years ago. But his speech brought her father's plight before her again. It seemed hardly feasible that the Sultan would have sent her letter to the man he desired to punish. "Did you give that note of mine to my father?" she asked. A trifle askance, he glanced at her. "No, I didn't," he confessed. Pansy was past being angry with him; she was just sorely wounded in soul and mind at his doings. This must have showed on her face, for he went on quickly: "You can send another and I promise it'll be delivered. Not only that, but that your father and friends will be well treated. Among other things, Pansy, you've taken the edge off my vengeance." He paused, leaning over her he said: "I'm granting you all these favours, but what are you going to do for me?" Pansy wanted nothing now but to get away from him, right away, beyond his reach, but not because she hated him. "Just for a moment, my little English flower, will you rest upon my heart?" he asked in a soft, caressing voice. "There's no savagery left in me when you're there of your own accord." He held out his arms, waiting to complete the bargain. But she moved away quickly. "Oh, no," she said, alarm in her voice. He laughed. "You've never been afraid of me before, why are you now, Pansy? Are you afraid you might love me?" "How could I love anyone so depraved?" she asked. But her voice was quavering, not scornful as she intended it to be. "Depraved! So that's what I am now, is it? Well, it's all point of view, I suppose. And it's one degree better than saying you hate me." He turned towards the desk, and drew out paper and envelopes. "Write your letter, my little girl," he finished. Pansy sat down. As she wrote to her father, in her heart was a wish that she had been left undisturbed in her fool's paradise, that she had married Raoul Le Breton at the end of a month, knowing nothing about him except that she loved him. Once he was her husband, if she had learnt the truth, she would not have had to fight against herself and him. There would have been only one course left open to her--to do her utmost to make a better man of him. And circumstances had shown her that in her hands the task would have been an easy one. CHAPTER XXV When Sir George Barclay returned to prison, he was a broken man. His officers were surprised to see him back alive, and anxious to hear what had occurred. But a day or two passed before he was able to talk about what had happened. And always before him was the bestial figure of the miser feather merchant, into whose hands he imagined his daughter had fallen. When he told the story of her sale a strained silence fell on his officers. A silence that Cameron broke. "The damned brute," he said in a wild, heart-broken way, "and he knew her in Grand Canary." The fact of Pansy's acquaintance with the Sultan Casim Ammeh, Barclay had learnt from Cameron in the early days of their capture. The younger man immediately had recognised the Sultan as the Raoul Le Breton, who when out of Africa posed as a French millionaire. "He's worse than a savage," one of the other officers put in, "since he knows better." Sir George had nothing to say, once the story was told. Pansy's fate was always before him; an agony that chased him into dreams, compared with which his own death would have been as nothing. One morning about ten days after the sale of slaves, one of the Arab guards brought him a letter. To his amazement, he saw his daughter's writing on the envelope. With trembling fingers he opened it, wondering how she had managed to get a message through to him, with a prayer in his heart that by some miracle she might have escaped her horrible fate. "No one knows better than I how you must have suffered on my account. I tried to get a letter through to you before, but I have just heard it never reached you, so I am sending another. I was not sold that day in the slave-market. The Sultan never intended to sell me. He only sent me there and made a pretence of selling me in order to hurt you. I am in the palace here, and no one could be better treated than I am. I asked the Sultan to let you all go back to Gambia, but he will not consent to that. But he has promised that you all will be well treated. You must not worry because of me. It is not as if the Sultan and I were strangers. I met him in Grand Canary, but I did not know who he really was then--he was passing under a French name. It is very difficult to know what to say to cheer you up. I know you will worry whatever I say. I am quite safe here, and no harm will happen to me. I cannot bear to think of you worrying, and you must try not to do so for my sake. Your loving daughter, PANSY." As George Barclay read through the letter, it seemed to him that he knew what had happened. The girl had bartered herself in exchange for his life and the lives of her friends. He tried to gather what cold comfort he could by keeping the picture of the Sultan before him as he had last seen him, big and handsome, in his khaki riding suit, looking thoroughly European. At least the man who had his daughter was a king, if a barbaric one, and civilised to a certain extent. She had not fallen into the clutches of that grimy, naked, foaming wretch, as he had imagined. And the knowledge eased his tortured spirit considerably. CHAPTER XXVI After that interview with her captor Pansy's life rapidly developed into one long struggle between inclination and upbringing. She knew she loved the Sultan, but all her standards revolted against marrying him. She could not bear to think about the wild past that was his, but she equally could not bear to think that he might fall into sin again when hers was the power to prevent him. What was more, she knew he had guessed her love for him, and was doing his best to make her succumb to his attractions. After that one interview she was not allowed out of the sensual, scented precincts of the harem. She had no occupation, no amusements, no books even. Nothing to do all day except just think about her lover and fight her battle. And he made the battle all the harder. Never a day passed but what he was there, big and handsome and fascinating. He would come upon her in the little walled garden, and linger with her among the roses. By the hour he would sit with her in the wide gallery overlooking the desert. Very often he dined with her in the gilded chamber, and stayed on afterwards in the dim light of the shaded lamps, watching her with soft, mocking eyes. And very often he would say: "Well, Pansy, have you made up your mind whether you are going to marry me or not?" It seemed to the girl that the whole world was combining to drive her into the arms of a man she ought to turn from with contempt and disgust. At the end of a fortnight he said: "Pansy, you're the first woman who has ever fought against her love for me. It's an amusing sight, but I'm beginning to wish you weren't such a determined fighter." At the end of a month some of the mockery had gone out of his eyes, giving place to a hungry gleam. For the girl had not succumbed to his fascinations, although her face was growing white and weary with close confinement and the ceaseless battle that went on within herself. And the man who acknowledged no law except his own appetites, and who, up till now, had lived for nothing else, loved the girl all the more deeply because she did not succumb to his attractions, because she had a soul above her senses, and tried to live up to her own ideals, refusing to come down to his level. At times he felt he must try and grope his way up to the heights, and unconsciously he was rising from the depths. "Water can always reach the level it rises from," Pansy had once said. Although a wild craving for his girl-prisoner often kept him wakeful, although there was none to stop him, and only a short length of passage and a locked door, to which he alone had the key, lay between him and his desire, the passage was never crossed, the door never unlocked. To escape his presence as much as possible, Pansy spent a lot of her time in the big hall of the harem with the other girls. But one by one they disappeared, to become the wives of various men of importance in the place, until only Rayma was left. A quiet, subdued Rayma who watched Pansy and the Sultan with longing, envious gaze. "How happy you must be now you are his wife, and you know that he can't thrust you from him should another woman take his fancy," the Arab girl sighed one day to her rival. Pansy was not his wife, and she had no intention of being. In her desire to escape from temptation she grew absolutely reckless. "I should be much happier if I could get right away from him," she said in response to Rayma's remark. "Don't you love him?" Rayma exclaimed. "I hate him," Pansy said, lying to her heart. "I never want to see him again," she went on in a hysterical way. "I only want to escape from him and this place, once and for ever." Astonished, Rayma gazed at her supplanter. Then a look of hope darted into her dark eyes. If only this strange girl were out of the way, the Sultan's heart might return to her. CHAPTER XXVII Outside a little French military settlement several ragged tents had been pitched. In the largest of them the miser feather merchant was sitting, cross-legged, on a pile of dirty cushions. As chance would have it, his caravan had gone to the south-west, and that night he had halted within three hundred miles of St. Louis. With him was an Arab friend, a nomad like himself, who chanced also to be encamped outside the little settlement. A year had passed since their last meeting. After the first exchange of compliments, as the two sat smoking together, the new-comer remarked to the miser: "In your hunger for gold you grow ever thinner and more haggard." A wild look came into the feather merchant's eyes. "It is not hunger for gold that has robbed my bones of their flesh," he replied. "But another hunger, far more raging." His friend puffed away in silence, and as he puffed, he had in mind an Arab proverb wherein it is said that a man can fall madly in love with the shadow of a woman's heel. "Then it's the shadow of some woman's heel," he remarked. "More than her shadow," the miser replied in a parched voice. "I saw her before me, as plainly as I see you. A houri from Paradise." His friend made no reply. Considering a woman was under discussion it was bad manners to ask questions. He waited, knowing that silence on his part would be the most likely way of hearing the story. The miser's bony hands clenched, and his tongue went round his bearded lips. "There was a girl I desired," he began presently. "A milk-white maid, more beautiful than the morning, with hair golden as the sun, and eyes deep blue as desert night. She was a slave, and with my wealth I would have bought her. She was more to me than my gold. But there was another more rich and powerful. And he took her--may his soul perish in hell." As the miser talked, an amazed look crossed his friend's face. "And where did you see her, this milk-white maid, with the hair of gold, and deep blue eyes?" he asked quickly. "In a desert city, a month's journey or more from here." "And how did she come to be there?" "She was captured by the Sultan who rules there. Allah curse him!" "So!" his friend ejaculated. Then he stayed for some moments ruminating on the matter. "Such a maid was stolen three months or more ago, from a mighty white nation whose territory lies far beyond the Senegal," he began presently. "And that white nation has made great stir and commotion with our rulers, the French. For the maid is one of great wealth and importance in her own country, possessed of undreamt-of riches, a fortune in gold pieces more numerous than the grains of sand in the Sahara. A month ago I was in the town of St. Louis, and the people there talked of nothing else. The white officers here search for her in all directions. And great will be the reward of the man who can lead them to her abductor. And great also will be the punishment of that desert ruler--even death." Tensely the feather merchant listened. Then he started up with a wild cry. "Allah be praised!" he shouted. "For my prayer has been granted. I have found those who are the enemies of the Sultan Casim Ammeh. The nation most mighty of all on this earth. And they will break him, as he has broken me." Then he darted from the tent, running like a madman in the direction of the French military quarters. CHAPTER XXVIII One day when Pansy was in the large hall of the harem, Rayma came to her, a look of feverish excitement in her eyes. "Do you still wish to escape?" she asked, watching her supplanter as if she could not believe such a desire could lie in the heart of any woman the Sultan pleased to favour. For Pansy her struggle became daily more difficult. It was an obsession now, her wish to escape from her captor. "How can I? Whichever way I turn someone is there to stop me." "There is one who will not stop you. Not if he is paid well enough," Rayma said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Who is that?" Pansy asked quickly. "One of the eunuchs who guards your room at night. He loves jewels beyond all things on earth. And surely the Sultan has given you plenty, although you never wear them." The Sultan had given Pansy none, because he knew she would not accept them. But she had jewels of her own; one that would be bribe enough for anybody--the great diamond that had aroused her lover's comments one night in the moonlit garden of Grand Canary. Pansy clutched at the mere idea of escape. Where she would escape to, she did not pause to consider. To escape she forgot his colour, his religion, his wild life, his treatment of her father, everything, except her own love for him. "How do you know he'll let himself be bribed?" she asked. "One of the women told me. He is her brother. I've spent days in trying to help you get away." "Oh, Rayma, I can never thank you enough," Pansy said, hysterically grateful. The Arab girl cast a spiteful glance at her, wondering why the other could not guess that it was her, Rayma's, one desire to get rid of her rival. "Each night after dark you must open your door," the Arab girl went on. "There will come a night when only one of the guards will be here. Then, if you bribe him enough, he will let you pass." Rayma did not imagine that Pansy would escape. She expected and hoped that she would be caught in the attempt. Judging by her desert standards, death would be the portion of any slave-girl who dared attempt to fly from her owner. After that, every night when she was alone, Pansy opened the sandalwood door leading into the long, dark passage by which she had first entered the palace. Then, one evening, she found only one of the jewelled guards there. On seeing this, she closed the door again, and going to her jewel case got out the one big diamond. From the gallery of her sumptuous prison she had gathered that beyond the rose garden lay the grounds of the Sultan's own quarters, where she had spent those three days prior to his unveiling. During that brief time she had noticed that, at night and during the heat of the day, the horses that browsed in the sun-scorched paddock were stabled in a long, low building at the far end of the scanty field. And she knew, too, that the iron gates by which she had entered the palace could not lie so very far away from the paddock. With trembling hands and almost sick with anxiety and excitement, Pansy opened the door of her prison. She said nothing to the guard there. She merely held the gem towards him. On seeing it, his eyes glittered covetously. Without a word he took the diamond. Pansy passed down the dim passage. She hardly knew how her feet took her along its ill-lit length. Every moment she expected to meet someone, or that one of the several doors leading into it would open, and her flight be brought to an abrupt end. However, unchallenged she reached the iron gates. A lamp flickering in a niche close by, showed her that one of the doors was slightly ajar. With shaking hands she pulled it further open and slipped out. Outside all was silence and whiteness. Like a sea, the desert stretched away to a milky horizon. In a luminous vault the moon hung, a great round molten mass, that filled the world with a shimmer of silver. Finding herself really beyond the palace precincts, took all strength from the girl. Hardly daring to breathe, she crept a few steps further, and leant against the city wall, to recover a little and get her bearings. Then, furtive as a shadow, she made her way towards a long, low building that showed up like a huge ebony block in the whiteness. There were others as furtive as Pansy prowling round the city walls; jackals searching for offal, snarled at her as she passed along, slinking away and showing teeth that gleamed like ivory in the moonlight. The first sound of them made her start violently, for she felt the Sultan's hand upon her, drawing her back to himself and captivity. But when she saw the prowlers were four-footed, she passed on, heedless of them, until the paddock fence was reached. To climb over was a simple task. Then she ran swiftly across the grassy space; suddenly deadly afraid, not of the loneliness, but that the stable doors might be locked and she would not be able to carry out her project. However, in El-Ammeh there were no thieves daring enough to steal the Sultan's horses, so the doors were never locked. They creaked ominously when Pansy opened them, filling the still night with harsh sounds--sounds that she felt must reach her captor's ears. Inside, the stables were vaguely light with the rays of the moon that dripped in from high little windows. Fortunately for Pansy's plan it was the hour for the palace servants' evening meal, or there might have been half a dozen men in the building. As it was, there was only a long row of horses, each in separate stalls. Pansy knew that if her protégé were there, he would answer to her call. "Sultan," she said softly. There was a whinny from a stall some twenty yards away. Guided by the sound she went in that direction. It was the work of a few moments to unfasten the animal. But to Pansy it seemed an age. Her hands trembled as she fumbled at the halter, for she heard pursuit in every sound. Then she led the animal out of the building, into the moonlight, and closed the door behind her. She was an expert bare-back rider. Leading the horse to the fence, she mounted. Then she trotted him back to the middle of the enclosure, and with voice and hand urged him towards the fence again. In his old steeplechasing days, a hurdle the height of the rails had presented no difficulties to "The Sultan." And, even now, he took the fence at an easy bound. Once over, it seemed to Pansy that the last obstacle between herself and freedom had been circumvented. She leant forward, patting her horse encouragingly. "Oh, Sultan," she said hysterically. "I don't mind where you take me, so long as I can get away from here." Left to itself, after the manner of horses, the animal picked the route it knew the best; the sandy track along which the Sultan Casim generally took it for exercise. For the first mile or so Pansy was conscious of nothing except that she had escaped--escaped from a love she could not conquer, a man she could not hate. White and billowy the world lay around her, an undulating sea of sand with only one dark patch upon it, the city of El-Ammeh. The track the horse followed wound through tufted hillocks, mounds of silver in the moonlight. Here and there a stunted shrub cast black lines on the all-prevailing whiteness. At the end of an hour Pansy discovered she was not the rider she once was. Her months of confinement had left her sadly "out of form." She was worn out with the exertion and the excitement of escape. It took all her skill to keep her seat on the horse. And the animal knew, for it slackened speed as a good horse will when conscious of a tired rider. Others, also, seemed aware that something weak and helpless was abroad, and with the strange magnetism of the wild they were drawn towards the girl. Here and there in the melting, misty distance, a dark form appeared, lopping along at a safe range, keeping pace with the old horse and its rider, every now and again glancing at the two with glaring green eyes, and calling one to another with shrieks of maniacal laughter. Pansy hardly heard the hyenas. She was too intent on keeping her seat. But the horse heard them and he snorted with rage and fear. As the miles sped by, the girl was aware of nothing except a desire to get further and further away from her lover, and to keep her seat on the horse. Then she became aware of something else. For the horse halted and she fell off, flat on the soft sand. Shaken, but not hurt, she sat up and gazed around. A little oasis had been reached, where date palms stood black against the all-prevailing silver, and a tiny spring bubbled with cheerful whisper. When the Sultan took his namesake out for exercise, this was the extreme limit of their ride--the horse had been there once already that day--and in the shade of the date palms the man and the horse would rest awhile before returning to the city. But Pansy knew none of these things. She only knew that valuable time was being lost sitting there on the ground. But it was such an effort to get up. Green eyes had seen her fall as if dead. The hyenas crept stealthily forward to feast upon what lay helpless in the sand. But when she sat up they retreated, to squat on their haunches at a safe distance, and fill the night with demoniacal laughter. The sound brought Pansy to her feet, swaying with fatigue. She had heard it before, around her father's camp in Gambia. But it was one thing to hear the hyenas when there were thirty or more people between herself and them, and another now that she was quite alone in the desert, with no one to come to her aid. The chorus of mad, mocking mirth brought fear clutching at her, a fear that the horse's wild snorts increased. She looked round sharply to find there were at least a dozen of the brutes on her trail. It was not Pansy's nature to show fear, even though she felt it. Going to the spring, she picked up several large stones, and threw them at the hyenas. A note of fear crept into their hideous voices. They beat a swift retreat, melting away into distance. There was too much life left in the girl and horse for them to attack as yet. Gathering her tired self together Pansy looked round for a rock high enough to enable her to mount by. As it happened there was none handy. Taking her horse by the mane, she led him from the oasis. Somewhat protestingly he went. Pansy had to stagger on for nearly a mile on foot, in the deep, fatiguing sand, before she could find a tussock high enough to mount by. Once on, she left the route to her horse. To the uninitiated, one portion of the desert looks very similar to another. And the girl had no idea that the horse was retracing his steps, making his way slowly and laboriously back to El-Ammeh. She had not the strength left even to look around her. The hot night, the long ride, the sickly excitement attached to escaping, the thirst that now raged within her, and the final tiring walk, after months of inactivity, had told upon her. Utterly worn out, she just managed to keep her seat, in a world that had become a place of aching weariness, through which there rang occasional wild shrieks of laughter. Then it became impossible to cling on any longer. All at once, she fell off and stayed in the sand, half stunned by her fall, conscious of nothing except that she had escaped from the Sultan Casim Ammeh. When she fell the horse stopped. He stretched a long neck and sniffed and sniffed at her. But since she did not get up, he did not leave her. He waited until she was ready to start off again, quite glad of the rest himself. However, there was not to be much rest for him. A shriek of diabolical laughter rang out at his very heels. With a snort of fear and rage, he lashed out. The laughter turned into a howl of pain, and one of the hyenas retreated on three legs, with a broken shoulder. But there were twenty or more of them now, against one old horse and a girl too utterly exhausted to know even that her life was in danger. And each of the hyenas had a strength of jaw that could break the thigh of an ox, and a cowardice of heart equalled only by their strength. For sometime they circled round, watching their prey with ravenous, glaring green eyes, and every now and again one or the other made a forward rush, only to find those iron heels between it and its meal. The horse understood being baited in this manner, by foes just beyond his reach. It had been part of the hell the girl he guarded had rescued him from. As time went on, the hyenas grew bolder. Once they rushed in a body. But they retreated. One with a broken jaw, one with a mouthful of live flesh torn from "The Sultan's" flank, and one did not retreat at all. It lay with its skull smashed in, its brains bespattering the horse's hoofs--hoofs over which now a red stream oozed, filling the hot night air with the smell of live blood. A desperate battle raged in the lonely desert under the white light of the moon. A battle that filled the night with the mad mirth of hyenas, and the wild shrieks of a frightened, hurt, infuriated horse--"The Sultan"--fighting as he had fought that day in the East End of London when Pansy had first come across him. But fighting for her life as well as his own, against the cowards that beset him. CHAPTER XXIX The sound of that desperate conflict rang through the stillness of the night, reaching the ears of a man who was riding at break-neck speed along the sandy track leading in the direction of the oasis. Those diabolical shrieks of laughter filled him with a torture of mind almost past bearing. In them he heard the voices of hyenas mangling the girl he loved. Le Breton had always known Pansy would run away if an opportunity occurred. But he had imagined that he had made escape impossible. After dinner, he went to the gilded room, to pay an evening visit to his prisoner, since business affairs had kept him from dining with her. However, she was not there. Experience had taught him that it would be no use looking for her in the moonlit, rose-scented garden. She never went there after sunset, for fear he should come across her, and the beauty and romance of it all, combined with his presence, should force the surrender he was waiting for. Not finding Pansy in her own private quarters, he went into the big hall of the harem, only to be told she had not been there since well before dinner. On learning this he set the women searching in every corner of the harem. But Pansy was nowhere to be found. Beyond a doubt, she had managed to escape. For a moment the news dazed him. He did not waste time in trying to discover how she had escaped, or who was responsible for her getting away. She had gone. That one fact glared at him. No one knew better than the Sultan himself the dangers awaiting the girl once she strayed beyond his care. Within a few minutes all his servants and soldiers were out looking for the fugitive, scouring the city, with threats of the dire fate awaiting anyone who dared either hide or injure the Sultan's wife. A hasty search brought no trace of the girl, but one of the search parties learnt that a horse was missing from the royal stables. On hearing this the Sultan went at once to the stables, looking for a clue there. The missing horse was Pansy's. The discovery sent a sudden glow of hope coursing through him. It argued that somehow or other she had managed to reach the stables and had set out into the desert. The Sultan understood horses, even better, it seemed to him now, than he understood women. Left to its own devices the old horse would go the way it knew the best; the way he generally took it. And left to itself it was almost certain to be, since its rider had no knowledge of any of the sandy tracks that lay around the city. Within a few moments he was on the swiftest of his own horses, riding with all speed towards the oasis; but not before leaving orders with his officers to scour the desert in every direction. He had ridden perhaps five miles when into the stealthy hiss of the sand another sound came. At first so far away that it was but a distant moan in the night. As he tore on rapidly it grew louder, developing into a chorus of hideous laughter, the cry of hyenas howling round their prey. Desert reared, instinctively he knew there must be at least twenty of them. When, above the mêlée he heard the terrorized screams of a horse, a deadly fear clutched him. Where the horse was, the girl was. And the sound told him the two had been attacked. Around Pansy the ghastly conflict was raging. Around her mangled corpse, perhaps. He suffered all the tortures of the damned, as with spur and crop he urged the great stallion onwards, until the animal was a lather of sweat and foam. The hyenas heard the throb of those approaching hoofs, and fear gripped their cowardly hearts. The disconcerting noise grew speedily louder. On the whiteness of the lonely desert a dark patch appeared; a patch that rapidly became bigger and headed straight towards them. It was one thing to attack a tired old horse and a half-stunned girl, but another to face a huge black stallion and the big man in the white burnoose who rode it. The hyenas did not face the combination. With a weird howl of disappointment, they turned tail suddenly and scuttled away into the desert, leaving the old horse shivering with relief and pain and exhaustion. The feeling of someone touching her made Pansy open her eyes. Into her hazy world her captor's face intruded. He was half-kneeling on the sand beside her, examining her limbs, feeling her heart, to see if she were injured in any way. For a moment Pansy could not believe her eyes. Then she put out a weak hand to push him away. But a push did not remove him. He was still there, in white cloak and hood; a desert chief who wanted to marry her. Big and solid he knelt beside her, a fact not to be escaped from. And his hand was on her bosom as if to steal the heart she would not give him. Satisfied Pansy was not hurt in any way, the Sultan got to his feet, and turned towards the horse. It needed more attention than the girl. He petted and patted the worn-out shivering animal, talking to it in a deep, caressing voice, as he bound up its gaping wounds with lengths torn from his own white garments. Then he lifted the girl on his own horse, and, mounting himself, set out on a slow walk towards his city. Pansy made a feeble struggle when she found herself in his arms, her head resting against his shoulder, held in a tight, possessive grip. "So, little flower, you would still try to escape from me," he said in a fierce, fond manner. "But I don't let love go so lightly." He ignored her struggles as he talked to and encouraged the old horse that hobbled along by their side, with stiff, painful steps. As the slow journey went on, Pansy fell asleep against the strength that held her. The Sultan was quick to note this, and he smiled at the small tired face on his shoulder. He knew the nature of the girl he held. It would be impossible for her to go to sleep in any man's arms except those of the man she loved. She was very foolish to fight against him, but fight she would until he used his strength and ended the battle. An uneven contest the last round would be, with no doubt as to who would be the victor. CHAPTER XXX On a wide ottoman in her room Pansy lay. The golden lamps were burning low, casting black shadows on the gilded walls of her cage. Through the open arches the moonlight streamed, pouring in from a misty, mystic world where trees sighed vaguely in a silvered air. Early that morning the Sultan had brought Pansy back to the palace. Since then she had seen nothing of him. She brooded on her attempt to escape, which had only ended in her being more of a prisoner than ever. The guards about the entrance of her quarters had been doubled. The door leading into the harem was locked. Alice had been removed, her place taken by an Arab woman who would not or could not understand a word Pansy said to her. Sleepless she lay among the silken cushions, brooding on the life that had once been hers; a life so remote from her present one that it might never have been. It was impossible to believe that far beyond this desert city there lay a place called London, where she had been free as air, where she could come and go as she pleased, where she had dined and danced and lunched and visited. A world of dreams, remote, unreal, lost to her for ever, where she had been Pansy Langham, fêted and courted, with society at her feet. Now she was a sultan's slave, a chattel, her very life dependent on a barbaric ruler's whim. On what punishment would be doled out to her for her attempt to get away, she next brooded. There had been such a set, determined expression on her captor's face when he brought her back to her prison. The sound of someone coming towards her apartment broke in on her dreary reverie. It was close on midnight. She had never been disturbed at that hour before. She looked up quickly. The third door of her room was opening; one that had never opened before; a door the harem girls had told her led to the Sultan's private suite. And the Sultan, himself, was entering. The Sultan attired as she had never seen him before--in silk pyjamas. Pansy started to her feet. She stood slight and white and silken-clad against the golden walls; her heart beating with a sickly force that almost choked her; her eyes wide with fear. The end had come with a suddenness she was not prepared for. He crossed to her side; tenderness and determination on his face; love and passion in his eyes. For a moment there was silence. "So, Pansy," he said at length. "You've tried to solve the problem your way. Now I'm going to solve it mine. You've fought against love quite long enough, against yourself and against me. I'm going to end the fight between us. To-night, my little slave, you sleep within my arms and learn all that love means." At his words a flood of crimson swept over her strained face. She had but a vague idea of what was before her, but instinct told her it was something she must fight against. Her gaze went to the arches, as if in search of some way of escape there. There was none. Only the white stars looked in coldly, and night breathed on her, soft and sensuous. He knew where her thoughts were, and he laughed softly. "There's no escape this time, Pansy," he said. The fear in her eyes deepened. Wildly she searched round in her head for a way of getting rid of him for the time being. And only one course presented itself. "I ... I'll marry you," she stammered. "We'll be married by all means, if you wish, as soon as I can find a man to do the job. But you've been just a little too long in making up your mind. My patience is worn out." In her determination to live up to her own standards--standards that had no value in this desert city:--Pansy saw she had tried this half-tamed man too far. He came closer, and held out his arms. "Come, my little flower," he whispered passionately. Quickly she moved further away from the arms that would have held her. "Won't you come willingly?" he asked, in soft, caressing tones. "Do you still refuse me the love I want, and which I know is mine?" "I don't want you or your love," she cried wildly, frantic at the knowledge of her own helplessness. He laughed with a touch of fierceness. "What cruel words to throw at your lover! But since you won't come, my little slave, then--I must take you." He would have taken her there and then, but with a swift movement she avoided him. Then Pansy ran, as she had run from him once before, like a white wraith in the moonlight. But this time he followed. There were no electric lights and ragtime band to run to now. Only a moonlit garden full of the scent of roses. There was no crowd of people to give her shelter, only the deep shadows of the cypresses. In the darkness she paused, out of breath, hoping he would not see her. A vain hope. His eyes had learnt to pierce the gloom. She was in his arms almost before she knew it. There was a brief, uneven struggle, as Pansy fought against a man who knew no law except his own desires. Weak and weeping she collapsed against him, on a heart that leapt to meet her. There was a stone seat near. On it the Sultan seated himself, the girl in his arms. And in the scented, sighing silence he tried to soothe the tears his methods had roused. And trembling she lay against the passion and power that held her, refusing to be comforted. "There's nothing to weep about, my darling," he whispered. "Sooner or later you have to learn that I'm your master. Just as you've taught me that all women are not ripe fruit, willing and anxious to fall into my hands. And I must have some closer tie between us since love alone won't keep you from running away from me." Pansy's tears fell all the faster. For now it seemed her own doings were responsible for this crisis. He sat on, waiting until the storm was over. The tremors of the slight form that lay against his heart, so helpless yet so anxious not to do wrong, struck through the fire and passion in the man, to what lay beneath--true love and protection. Presently he kissed the strained, tear-stained face pillowed against his shoulder. "It's like old times to be sitting in the moonlight and among the roses, with you in my arms," he said, all at once. "Do you remember, Pansy, that sweet night in Grand Canary? But you were not weeping then. Why are you now, my little slave? Because a Sultan loves you more than his life? More than anything that has been in his life. You're not very flattering. But then, you never were." He paused for a moment, watching her tenderly. "Yet you paid me the greatest compliment I ever had in my life. When you said you loved me. There could be no sweeter music that those words. And the choicest gift life has ever given me was a kiss from your lips, given willingly." He bent his head. "Won't you give me another, Pansy?" But the girl's strained face was turned away from the proud, passionate one so close to her own. "No, my little flower? Will you make a thief of your Sultan? Will you give him nothing willingly now? I know I don't deserve it. But still--I want it. And my wants have been my only law so far." Again he paused, stroking her curls with a loving hand. "Just now, as man and woman together, Pansy, I know I don't deserve you. I know I'm not worthy of you. But I want my soul, although I've only a blackened body to offer it. And the soul will have to do the best it can with the grimy accommodation. For I must have you, my darling. You've taken everything out of my life, but a desire for you." From a tangle of trees in an adjacent garden a nightingale burst into song, filling the night with liquid melody. At the sound the Sultan's arms tightened around the slender figure he held. "No man appreciates virtue so much as the one who has had his fill of vice," he continued presently. "And I was born into it, steeped and sodden in it from my earliest recollection, until I didn't realise it was vice until I met you. And then it seemed to me I had run off the lines, and pretty badly." As he sat talking and caressing her, Pansy's sobs died down. There was always magic in his touch, happiness within his arms. With throbbing heart she lay against him, watching him anxiously. He smiled into the tired, purple eyes. "No, perhaps, I won't be a thief," he said. "Perhaps I shall climb up and up with many a stumble to the clear heights where you are, my darling. What would you say if you saw me there? 'Here is a poor wretch who has climbed painfully upwards to touch the feet of his ideal,' you would say to yourself. And to me you would say, 'As a reward, will you come and have breakfast with me?' And I should come, like a shot. And I should want lunch and tea and dinner and--you. Just you, my soul, always and for ever." After this outburst, he was quiet. Passive within his arms Pansy waited for the last hopeless struggle for right against wrong. He sat on, as if at peace with himself and the world. The restless look that always lurked in his eyes had gone; in its place was one of happiness and contentment. Pansy's shivers roused him from his reverie. Not shivers of fear, but of chilliness. A heavy dew had started falling, bringing a sudden coolness into the night. "Why, Heart's Ease," he said, full of concern. "I'm keeping you out here when you ought to be indoors. But with you in my arms, I forget everything but you." Getting to his feet, he took her back to the gilded room. The lamps had burnt out. It was a place of deep shadows, and here and there the silver of the moon patched its golden richness. Once within its dimness Pansy started struggling again. He took the slim white hands into one of his own, and kissed them. "There's no need for you to fight against me with weak little hands," he whispered. "There's another fighting for you, far stronger than you are. A new Raoul Le Breton of your making, Pansy. A man strong enough to wait until we're really married." Laying his burden on a couch, he bent his head until his ear almost touched the girl's lips. "Say 'Yes,' Pansy, and I'll go, 'nicely and quietly like a good boy,' still remembering 'your reputation,'" he said in a teasing tone. Into his ear "Yes" trembled. He kissed the lips that at last had consented to his wishes. "Good night, my little girl, and if you go on at this rate you'll make a white man of me yet." Long after he had gone Pansy stayed brooding on his words. The battle between them was over at last. CHAPTER XXXI On one of the terraces of his palace the Sultan sat at breakfast. As he lingered in the sweet cool air of early morning, he pondered on the happenings of the night before. At last he had wrung a reluctant consent from his cherished prisoner. There was a flaw in his victory that he tried not to see. That "Yes" would not have come except that the girl had been absolutely cornered. The word had not come from her lips spontaneously as those three words, "I love you," had. He tried to forget this fact, as he thought out the best means of bringing about a speedy wedding. There was no minister of her faith in El-Ammeh. The nearest Christian Mission lay at least two hundred miles distant. It would be risky work bringing a white missionary to his city. The safest course would be to take her down to a mission station and marry her there. No one would know then where they had come from. And the journey back would make a delightful honeymoon. On the delights of that honeymoon he pondered. From his reverie he was rudely aroused by a sound which made marriage seem very remote, and death much more likely to be his portion. There was a sudden shriek high above the city, followed by a deafening roar, as a shell exploded over El-Ammeh--a command for its surrender. The Sultan started to his feet, his face reckless and savage. The cup was at his lips only to be dashed away. He knew what had happened. Somehow or other the French Government must have heard that he was responsible for the capture of the English Governor; and an expedition had been sent up to punish him for his marauding ways. That same death-dealing sound startled Pansy as she stood by the sunken pond in the rose garden, feeding the carp. Wondering what had happened, she looked up at the smoke that lay like a little cloud between the city and the sky. She did not wonder for very long. Present another shell came shrieking out of the distance. Then she guessed what had occurred, and her face blanched. Swiftly she went to her room; her only idea to reach the Sultan and save him from his enemies. But all the doors of her prison were locked, and neither knocks nor shouts produced any answer. She went back to the fretted gallery, to see what could be seen from there. A mile or so away, like a dark snake on the desert, she saw the relief party. As she watched, a white-robed force left El-Ammeh; an array of Arab soldiers. On recognising their leader, her soul went sick within her. He was there. Her lover. The man she ought to hate. Going out to fight the men who had come to her rescue. If the French officers heading the expeditionary force imagined the Sultan of El-Ammeh had come out to surrender, they quickly discovered their mistake. He had come out to fight; and what was more, fight well and recklessly against a force that, if inferior in numbers, was vastly superior in arms. Presently the shells no longer shrieked above El-Ammeh. They were aimed at it. From her gallery Pansy saw the two forces meet. Then she could look no longer. Men fell in the sand and rose no more. And any one of them might be her lover. She went back to her room and crouched there in terror; her father and friends all forgotten at the thought of the man who might be lying dead in the sand. As the morning wore on, the din of battle grew nearer. Every now and again a shell got home. There were screams of terrified people; the heavy fall of masonry; the moans and cries of the injured. Once Pansy thought her end had come. A shell struck the palace. The place rocked to its foundations. There was the thunder of falling masonry as if the four walls of her room were crashing down upon her. She closed her eyes and waited. A few moments later she opened them, and was surprised to find her gilded prison very little damaged. It was badly cracked, and several blocks of stone had crashed down from the ceiling, one on the sandalwood bureau near where she crouched, smashing it to splinters and scattering the contents about her feet. More than once Pansy had rummaged in its scented recesses, until she knew its contents by heart. She had found nothing but a few quills, sheets of paper yellow with age, and quaint, cut-crystal bottles in which the coloured inks had dried. She knew the desk had belonged to the Sultan's mother. Just as she knew the gilded room had been the French girl's prison. As she gazed at the debris at her feet, it seemed she could not have searched thoroughly. Among the splinters was something she had not seen before. A few sheets of paper folded flat and tied with a strand of silk, that must have been hidden behind one of the many drawers. More to get her thoughts away from the battle raging round her than anything else, Pansy picked up the tiny packet. Untying the silk, she opened the faded, scented sheets and glanced at them. After the first glance, she stayed riveted. And as she read on, she forgot everything except what the letter said. It was in French, in a woman's hand, and the date was now more than twenty years old; a statement written by Annette Le Breton before she died, proclaiming her son's real identity, and left by her in the bureau. Some servant rummaging in the desk for trinkets, after her mistress's death, must have let it slip behind one of the numerous drawers. Pansy read of Colonel Raoul Le Breton's ill-fated expedition to the north-east; how he and his little force had been murdered by the Sultan Casim Ammeh. She learnt of Annette Le Breton's fate at the hands of her savage captor. Of the son who had come nearly nine months after her husband's death--the son the Sultan Casim Ammeh imagined to be his. "Raoul is not the son of the Sultan Casim Ammeh," the faint handwriting declared. "He is the son of my murdered husband, Colonel Raoul Le Breton. I know, for every day he grows more like his dear, dead father. Yet he imagines the Sultan to be his father. And I dare not tell him the truth. For if the Sultan learnt the boy was not his, he would kill him. For Raoul's sake I must let the deception go on. For the sake of my son who is all I have to live for. And my heart breaks, for daily my boy grows more and more to love that savage chief who murdered his real father." Pansy read of Annette's dreary years in the harem of her captor. "Years that have no light in them, save my son. Years that I should not have endured except for my child, my boy, the son of my brave Raoul." It was a heart-breaking story of love and sacrifice, of a mother tortured to save her child from the fate that had befallen his father. "The Sultan will make my boy like himself," the letter went on. "For there is no one at hand to stop him. Daily my influence grows less, and his stronger. The boy admires and copies the man he deems his father. He is too young to know the Sultan for what he really is. He sees only a man, bold and picturesque. And the Sultan spoils him utterly, he encourages him to be cruel and arrogant, he fosters all that is bad in the boy. It is useless for me to try and check him, for my own son laughs at me now." The writing grew more feeble as the letter went on; the wild entreaty of a mother who had no life outside of her son, and who saw him being ruined by his own father's murderer. "Whoever finds this be kind to my boy, my Raoul, for the sake of a woman who has suffered much, for the sake of his martyred father, Colonel Raoul Le Breton. Do not judge my son by what he is, but by what he might have been. In the Sultan Casim he has a bad example, a savage teacher, a wild, profligate, cruel man, who would make the boy as barbarous as he is himself." The writing grew even more feeble, a faint scrawl on the yellow paper. "I am dying, and my son is far away. I shall not live until my boy returns. And he will be left with no influence but the Sultan's. O Fate, deal kindly with my boy, my Raoul, left alone with savages in this barbaric city. I have only endured these dreadful years for the sake of my son. In the name of pity be kind to him. He will have no chance in the hands of his present teacher. Have mercy for the sake of his tortured mother, and his father, that brave soldier who gave his life for France. ANNETTE LE BRETON." Pansy read the sheets through without once raising her eyes. She was ravenous for the contents. At that moment it seemed as if the dim, gilded room were full of tears and sorrows; the faint, sweet fragrance of the girl who had lived there long years ago, suffering and enduring for the sake of her boy. It was not in Pansy's kind heart to refuse that tragic mother pleading for her son. Then she remembered that Colonel Le Breton's son was out there fighting against his own people. If, indeed, he were still left alive to fight. Her lips moved in silent prayer. She kissed the faded, scented sheets and tucked them against her heart. She was not going to fail Annette. All she wanted now was to be at the side of the dead girl's son, to help him to build up a new character according to the best white codes and standards. Then she sat on, listening to the battle that raged around the desert city. If Raoul Le Breton were spared, there was another battle before her--a battle with two governments for his life. But she had not many qualms about the result, with Annette's letter, her own wealth, and her father on her side; as he would be, once she had explained the situation. Morning dragged on into afternoon, and the sound of the conflict died down somewhat. All at once, as if muffled by distance, she heard her lover's voice calling hoarsely: "Pansy." She started to her feet. Before she could answer, there was a sound of fighting just beyond her quarters. Then she heard her father's voice, strained and anxious: "Pansy, are you in there?" "Oh, father," she called back frantically. "Don't let them kill the Sultan." There came more muffled voices. Then the sound of masonry being shifted, as the men outside her prison started clearing away the debris that blocked the door. CHAPTER XXXII Evening shadows were settling over El-Ammeh; deep, grey shadows that, for all their gloomy darkness, were not as dark and gloomy as the thoughts of a man who was a prisoner in one of the rooms of his own palace. Against a fluted column the Sultan stood watching night settle on the lake; a night that would soon settle on him for ever. The day had gone against him. Outmatched, he had been driven back to his city walls. Even then he could have escaped with a handful of his following, and have started life afresh as a desert marauder, but there was one treasure in his palace--the greatest treasure of his life--that he wanted to take with him. In a vain effort to secure Pansy before he fled, he had been captured. With his enemies close at his heels, he had made a dash for the palace, to fetch the girl. On arriving outside of her prison, he found a fall of masonry had blocked the doorway. Before he could retrace his steps and try another entrance, his pursuers were upon him. The French were already in possession of that part of the city where the Englishmen had been imprisoned. Immediately they were released, Sir George Barclay and his officers, supplemented by a few Senegalese soldiers, had gone hot-foot to the palace, to Pansy's rescue. There they had found the Sultan. A brief struggle against overpowering odds ensued, and once more the so-called Casim Ammeh was a prisoner in the hands of George Barclay. With the shadows gathering round him, the Sultan stood, in white burnoose, a bitter expression on his arrogant face. He had nothing now, neither wealth, nor power, nor his kingdom, nor the girl he had risked all for in a vain attempt to win. To-morrow he would have even less. There was short shrift for such as he. To-morrow his life would have been taken from him. A life that had become empty as he had grown older and pleasures palled, until Pansy had come into it, filling it with freshness and innocence. The battle between them was over at last. Death would end it. His death. A European entered. A man he knew. George Barclay. The man he hated more than ever; the man responsible for his capture. Barclay ordered one of the soldiers to light the lamp. Then he dismissed his escort. There were half a dozen Senegalese soldiers mounting guard over the Sultan. The Englishman dismissed them also, leaving himself alone with the prisoner. "You're doing a bold thing, Barclay, leaving the two of us together like this," the Sultan remarked. "It will give me great pleasure to wring your neck, before I'm sent the way of my father." As if to carry out this design, he took a step towards the Governor. From his pocket, Barclay drew out a few sheets of faded, scented paper. "Read this," he said quietly, handing them to the prisoner. With some surprise, the Sultan took them. On opening the letter, he started, for he recognised his mother's writing. As he read on, his bronzed face whitened, and a dazed look came to his eyes, like a man reeling under a tremendous blow. In a critical, but not unfriendly manner, Barclay studied his companion. He knew now why the Sultan of El-Ammeh differed so in appearance from the wild people he ruled. On reaching Pansy, he had had Annette Le Breton's letter thrust into his hands. His daughter had had no greeting for him, only wild entreaties for him to save the Sultan. When Barclay read the tragic confession he was quite ready to do his best. Then Pansy had told him more. How Raoul Le Breton was the man she loved. But she did not say that Lucille Lemesurier was responsible for their parting. She led her father to believe that the discovery of the supposed black blood in her lover had been her "hole in the floor of heaven." Barclay did not trouble his daughter with many questions. It was enough that she was safe. What was more, he knew she would marry the man of her choice, no matter what obstacles were put in her way, as the first Pansy had married him--with the world against her. All he wanted now was to save the man his daughter had set her heart on; that death should not blight her life as it had blighted his. When the conflict was over, and the French and English officers met again, Barclay had shown the letter to the commander of the expeditionary force--the man who held the Sultan's life in his hand. The officer had read Annette Le Breton's statement through in silence. Considering the contents, it did not need Pansy's lovely, anxious face or her father's pleadings to make him promise them life and liberty for Colonel Le Breton's son. More he could not promise. The two governments would want an indemnity that would swallow up most of the kingdom of El-Ammeh. But his life was all Pansy wanted. His life, and to be at his side when the blow fell. For a blow it was bound to be, to a man as proud and fierce as her lover. A shock and then a relief. As Raoul Le Breton read the letter, his old world crashed in ruins about him. Now he understood his dead mother's hatred of the Sultan Casim. Her endeavours to mould him on European lines. Her pleadings and entreaties for him not to forget the white side. That poor, frail, tortured little mother who had suffered so much for his sake! His hand went across his anguished face. He had not forgotten the white side. He had done worse. He had just ignored it. Knowing good, he had preferred evil. He had gone his way as barbaric and licentious as the savage who had murdered his father. With tortured eyes he glanced at Barclay. This man whom he had hated so bitterly for sixteen years and more was his best friend, not his enemy. For Barclay had shot the savage chief who had murdered his father and outraged his mother. Like a whisper through the chaos surrounding him, Le Breton heard Barclay talking, telling him Pansy had found the letter. On account of its contents the French commander was not going to push the case against him. He would be given his life and freedom, but an indemnity would have to be paid, and the price would leave him only a shadow of his wealth. Le Breton knew that again Pansy had saved his worthless life. For worthless it seemed, judging from his new standpoint. "I owe you thanks, not hatred," he said to Barclay, his voice hoarse with suffering. "And I owe you thanks too," the governor replied. "My daughter tells me you treated her with every kindness and consideration." It seemed to Le Breton that he had been anything but kind and considerate; that no woman could forgive such dealings as his had been with her. He had taken a girl used to a free and active life and had shut her up in a scented, sensual prison, trying to make her fall a victim to himself and her own senses; until she had grown morbid and hysterical, seeking death in preference to himself and the sort of life he had forced her to lead. "I don't know that I should call myself exactly kind or considerate to your daughter," he remarked. "Not after reading this letter. Or to you either," he finished. "I wouldn't worry too much about the past, if I were you," Barclay replied. "You've plenty of time ahead of you to 'make good' in." Le Breton said nothing. He stayed brooding on the ruins around him, hating himself and the savage chief who had been his teacher. All his old world had been swept away from him. Lost and alone, he would have to start afresh, according to new lights and new ideals, and without a hand to guide him. He had nothing, neither wealth nor kingdom. Not his pride even. Unknowingly he had been a renegade, fighting against his own nation. He was utterly broken. But he did not look it--only unutterably dreary. As he pondered on his past life, he realised to the fullest what he must look like to Pansy. No wonder she had fought against her love for him! Any decent woman would. He did not hear Barclay go, leaving him alone with his thoughts and the deepening shadows. He was aware of nothing except his own wild career, and how he had run foul of all white ideals. The door opened, but he did not hear that either. He was too full of suffering and repentance. Then another whisper penetrated the whirl in which he moved. "Raoul," a girl's voice said gently. He looked at Pansy as a man dying of thirst in a desert would look at a mirage of lakes and fountains--a vision of torturing desire that he knew was not for him. No apologies could condone for his behaviour. Love he dared not mention; not with a past like his; not to this innocent, high-principled girl. Pansy came to his side. "Stoop down a bit, Raoul," she said. "I want to say something." He bent his dark head. Into his ear "I love you" was whispered shyly, as it had been that night months ago in a moonlit garden in Grand Canary. At her whispered words his face started working strangely. "I don't deserve such love, such forgiveness," he said in a broken voice. She laughed--the laughter that kept tears at bay--and slipping her arms about his neck, tip-toed, and kissed the lips that dared not touch her now. "And I want to marry you at once. I want to be with you always." At her words his arms went round her in their old possessive manner. Then he remembered that all his wealth had been swept from him; that now he had the girl, he had nothing left to give her. "I've nothing to offer you," he said, his voice bitter, "except a love that's not worth having." With soft, gentle hands Pansy stroked the lines of bitterness from the proud face that watched her with such love and longing. "You can have all that's mine. I don't want anything but you." He kissed the lips that were held up to his so willingly. "My darling, help me to grope back to your white ways," he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. "You won't have to grope. You got there last night when you 'remembered my reputation' and 'went nicely and quietly like a good boy.'" He laughed, but there was a slight catch in his laughter, and pressed the girl closer to the heart she could always ease. There were no shadows now, no ruins. For the greatest treasure of his life was left to him. THE END. Another tremendous success by the author of "DESERT LOVE" THE HAWK OF EGYPT Joan Conquest's exotic story of the love-madness with which mysterious Egypt drugs the souls of men and women. _Its realism will thrill you_ You will see: Cairo, the native quarter, the bazaars, the flaming desert, the love tryst in the temple of Ammon, Zulannah, the dancing girl--the jewelled siren of the Nile, Damaris, the beautiful English heroine, Kelham, the lion hunter and Hugh Carden Ali, the man who sold his life for One Hour of Love _Here are two pages selected at random, from_ THE HAWK OF EGYPT _a love story without asterisks_ Damaris bowed her head so that the curls danced and glistened in the light, as the torrent of his words, in the Egyptian tongue, swept about her like a flood. "Hast thou come to me in love, thou dove from the nest? Nay, what knowest thou of love? I ask it not of thee--yet--but the seed I shall plant within thee shall grow in the passing of the days and the nights and the months and the years, until it is as a grove of perfumed flowers which shall change to golden fruit ready to the plucking of my hand." He pressed her little hands back against her breast so that the light fell full upon her face, and he held her thuswise, watching the colour rise and fade. "Allah!" he whispered. "Allah! God of all, what have I done to deserve such signs of Thy great goodness? Wilt thou love me?" He laughed gently. "Canst thou look into mine eyes and shake thy golden head which shall be pillowed upon my heart--my wife--the mother of my children? Look at me! Look at me! Ah! thine eyes, which were as the pools of Lebanon at night, are as a sun-kissed sea of love. Thou know'st it not, but love is within thee--for me, thy master." And was there not truth in what he said? May there not have been love in the heart of the girl? Not, maybe, the love which stands sweet and sturdy like the stocky hyacinth, to bloom afresh, no matter how often the flowers be struck, or the leaves be bruised, from the humdrum bulb deep in the soil of quiet content. But the God-given, iridescent love of youth for youth, with its passion so swift, so sweet; a love like the rose-bud which hangs half-closed over the door in the dawn; which is wide-flung to the sun at noon; which scatters its petals at dusk. The rose! She has filled your days with the memory of her fragrance; her leaves still scent the night from out the sealed crystal vase which is your heart. But an' you would attain the priceless boon of peace, see to it that a humdrum bulb be planted in the brown flower-pot which is your home. And because of this God-given love of youth which was causing her heart to thud and the blood to race through her veins, she did not withdraw her hands when he held and kissed them and pressed his forehead upon them. "Lotus-flower," he whispered so that she could scarcely hear. "Bud of innocence! ivory tower of womanhood! temple of love! Beloved, beloved, I am at thy feet." And he knelt and kissed the little feet in the heelless little slippers; then, rising, took both her hands and led her to the door; and his eyes were filled with a great sadness, in spite of the joy which sang in his heart as he took her into the shelter of his arms. "I love thee too well," he said, as he bent and kissed the riotous curls so near his mouth. "Yes, I love thee too well to snatch thee even as a hungry dog snatches his food, though, verily, I be more near to starving than any hungry dog. What dost thou know of love, of life, in the strange countries of the East? For thy life will _They Were Alone...._ The magic of the desert night had closed about them. Cairo, friends,--civilization as she knew it--were left far behind. She, an unbeliever, was in the heart of the trackless wastes with a man whose word was more than law. And yet, he was her slave! "I shall ask nothing of you until you shall love me," he promised. "You shall draw your curtains, and until you call, you shall go undisturbed." And she believed him! Do you want to see luxury beyond your imagination to conjure,--feel the softness of silks finer than the gossamer web of the spider--hear the night voices of the throbbing desert, or sway to the jolting of the clanking caravan? Egypt, Arabia pass before your eyes. The impatient cursing of the camel men comes to your ears. Your nostrils quiver in the acrid smoke of the little fires of dung that flare in the darkness when the caravan halts. The night has shut off prying eyes. Yashmaks are lowered. White flesh gleams against burnished bands of gold. The children of Allah are at home. And the promise he had given her? ... let Joan Conquest, who knows and loves the East, tell you in DESERT LOVE _For sale wherever books are sold, or from_ The Macaulay Company PUBLISHERS 15-17 W. 38th St., New York A beautifully illustrated edition of THREE WEEKS The Famous Romantic Novel By Elinor Glyn Now ready at the same price as "Beyond the Rocks" The world has felt upon its hot lips the perfumed kisses of the beautiful heroine of "Three Weeks." The brilliant flame that was her life has blazed a path into every corner of the globe. It is a world-renowned novel of consuming emotion that has made the name of its author, Elinor Glyn, the most discussed of all writers of modern fiction. WHAT THE CRITICS HAVE SAID ABOUT IT Percival Pollard in _Town Topics_: "It is a book to make one forget that the world is gray. Be as sad, as sane as you like, for all the other days of your life, but steal one mad day, I adjure you, and read 'Three Weeks.'" _The Western Christian Advocate_: "The power and beauty of its descriptions and the pathos of its scenes are undeniable." _The Brooklyn Eagle_: "A cleverly told tale, full of dainty sentiment, of poetic dreaming and dramatic incident." _The San Francisco Argonaut_: "We feel inclined to throw at her (the heroine) neither stones nor laurels, but rather to congratulate the author upon a powerful story that lays a grip upon the mind and heart." _The Detroit Free Press_: "No wonder that 'Three Weeks' is one of the best sellers." A beautifully illustrated edition of Beyond the Rocks By Elinor Glyn Now ready at the same price as "Three Weeks" A flaming romance as only the author of "THREE WEEKS" could write it; as only Gloria Swanson, with dashing Rodolph Valentino playing the lover, could make it live in all its ardent splendor. The story of a passionate young heart bound by society's conventions, struggling and risking all for happiness. --of gay nights of revelry in the Parisian world of fashion. --of intrigue and coquetry in the gilded resorts of London high society. Never before have such dramatic love-scenes, such spectacular adventure been placed before the public. The love-drama with all the thrills and luxury of a life-time! The one book and picture you'll never forget! FAMOUS NOVELS BY VICTORIA CROSS LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW It tears the garments of conventionality from woman, presenting her as she must appear to the Divine Eye. HILDA AGAINST THE WORLD Fancy a married man, denied divorce by law, falling desperately in love with a charming maiden waiting for love. A GIRL OF THE KLONDIKE A stirring story of love, intrigue and adventure, woven about a proud, reckless heroine. SIX WOMEN A half-dozen of the most vivid love stories that ever lit up the dusk of a tired civilization. THE NIGHT OF TEMPTATION The self-sacrifice of woman in love. Regina, the heroine, gives herself to a man for his own sake. The world, however, exacts a severe price for her unconventional conduct. SIX CHAPTERS OF A MAN'S LIFE A bold, brilliant, defiant presentation of the relations of men and women who find themselves in situations never before conceived. TO-MORROW A daring innovation of great strength and almost photographic intensity, that appeals to the lovers of sensational fiction; wise, witty, yet touchingly pathetic. DAUGHTERS OF HEAVEN As life cannot be described, but must be lived, so this book cannot be revealed--it must be read. Its daring situations and tense moments will thrill you. OVER LIFE'S EDGE No one but Victoria Cross could have written this thrilling tale of a girl who left the gayeties of London to dwell in a lonely cavern until the man, who loved her with the passion of impetuous youth, found her. THE LIFE SENTENCE A beautifully written story, full of life, nature, passion and pathos. The weaknesses of a proud, cultured woman lead to a strange climax. THE MACAULAY COMPANY 15-17 West 38th Street, New York Send for Free Illustrated Catalog 
36089	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 36089-h.htm or 36089-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36089/36089-h/36089-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36089/36089-h.zip) [Illustration: Zebedee lost his balance and shot over our heads into the soft snow.--_Page 190_] BACK AT SCHOOL WITH THE TUCKER TWINS by NELL SPEED Author of "The Molly Brown Series," "The Carter Girls Series," etc. [Illustration] A. L. Burt Company Publishers New York Printed in U. S. A. Copyright, 1917, by Hurst & Company, Inc. Made in U.S.A. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE GET AWAY 5 II. THE BIRTHDAY PARTY 18 III. GRESHAM AGAIN 27 IV. RULES AND RESULTS 41 V. SOME LETTERS 52 VI. THE HALLOWE'EN PARTY 64 VII. WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST 83 VIII. INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE 97 IX. ECCLESIASTICAL POWER 110 X. VIRGINIA VERSUS CAROLINA 119 XI. THANKSGIVING DINNER 136 XII. THE BALL 148 XIII. NODS AND BECKS 159 XIV. HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 184 XV. CHRISTMAS GUESTS 199 XVI. CHRISTMAS EVE AT BRACKEN 211 XVII. SANTA CLAUS 220 XVIII. CHRISTMAS FOR SALLY WINN 237 XIX. BACK IN THE TREAD-MILL 255 XX. THE FIRE DRILL 265 XXI. THE REALITY 281 XXII. IN MOTLEY RAIMENT 300 Back at School with the Tucker Twins. CHAPTER I. THE GETAWAY. Could it be possible that only one year had passed since I started to boarding school? So much had happened in that time, I had met so many persons, made so many friends, and my horizon had broadened so that it seemed more like ten years. There I was once more on the train headed for Richmond, having arisen at the unearthly hour of five. Dear old Mammy Susan had as usual warmed up my bath water and prepared a bountiful breakfast. Father had been unable to accompany me to Richmond to put me on the Gresham train as we had planned, all because poor Sally Winn had made a desperate effort to depart this life in the night. It was all so exactly as it had been the year before, I had to pinch myself to realize it was not just a dream of what had happened. My new mail order suit was a little different cut from the last year's, as Cousin Sue Lee, in planning my wardrobe, insisted upon up-to-date style, and my suit case did not look so shiny new. That was about the only difference that I could see. The colt had had a year to settle down in, but he was quite as lively as ever. My last hug with Mammy Susan was cut short by his refusing to stand still another minute, and as I piled into the buggy with Father, the spirited horse whirled us around on one wheel and we covered the six miles to Milton in such a short time that I had half an hour to wait for my train. Sitting in the station at Richmond awaiting the arrival of my dear Tuckers and Annie Pore, I thought that if the first part of my journey had been a repetition of last year, now, at least, some variation was in order. Here I was waiting for friends I had already made, instead of wondering if I should meet any one on the train going to Gresham. Annie Pore came first, her boat, from Price's Landing, having arrived early. Could this be the same Annie? This young lady had a suit on rather too much like mine for my taste, as I simply hate to look like everybody else! But a mail order house does not profess to sell only one of a kind, and I myself had introduced Annie to the mysteries of ordering by catalogue, so I really had no kick coming; but I couldn't help wishing that our tastes and pocketbooks had not coincided so exactly. When I thought of the Annie of last September and the Annie of this, I hated myself for caring. My mind still retained the picture of the forlorn little English girl with her tear-stained face and crumpled hat, her ill-fitting clothes and bulging telescope. Now she looked like other girls, except that she was a great deal more beautiful. In place of the battered old telescope, she carried a brand new suit case; and a neat little hand bag held her ticket and trunk check, also a reservation in the parlor car. She was still timid but when she spied me a look of intense joy and relief came over her face, and in a moment we were locked in each other's arms. How school girls can hug! "Oh, Page, I'm glad to see you! I had a terrible feeling I had missed my train, but of course if you are here, I couldn't have." "Still the anxious traveler, aren't you, dear? We've at least twenty minutes." "Harvie Price was to meet me at the boat landing and bring me up here, but I was afraid to wait for him. He believes in just catching a train and it makes me extremely nervous not to be ahead of time. I am afraid he will think it very rude of me." "Maybe it will teach him a lesson and he will learn from the early bird how better to conduct himself," I comforted her. "Now the Tuckers say it is much better to have a train wait for you than wait for a train.--Speaking of angels,--here they are!" In they trooped, Mr. Tucker laden with suit cases and umbrellas, and Dum carrying gingerly in both hands a box about a foot square which contained something very precious, it was evident, as she most carefully deposited it on a bench before she gave me her accustomed bear hug. Dee had Brindle, her beloved bull dog, in her arms and she dispensed with the ceremony of putting him down before she embraced Annie and me, so we both got a good licking in the left ear from that affectionate canine. "Zebedee is mad with me for bringing him, as it means he will have to keep him in the newspaper office until luncheon time, but somehow I could not part with him before it was absolutely necessary. It hurt his feelings terribly when I went last year and did not let him see me off," and Dee wept a little Tucker tear on the wrinkled and rolling neck of her dog. To one who did not know Brindle, he seemed to be choking with emotion, but Brindle's make-up was such that every intaken breath was a sniffle and every outgoing one a snort. Mr. Tucker's handsome and speaking countenance beamed with delight as he waited his turn to give Annie and me the warm handshake that was as much a part of the Tuckers as anything else about that delightful trio. "What a place this station would be to have the Lobster Quadrille!" he exclaimed. "I am so glad to see you, little Page, and you, Miss Annie, that I feel as though I must dance, but that might get us in bad with that dignified-looking porter over there and so maybe we had better refrain--Besides, I could not dance on this day when my Tweedles are leaving me," and instead of dancing as he had threatened, this youngest of all the Tuckers, in spite of being the parent, began to show decided signs of shedding tears. "Now, Zebedee, this is ridiculous! You act worse than you did last year," admonished Dum. "Well, it is worse than it was last year," and Zebedee drew his girls to him while Brindle choked and chortled and tried to lick all three of them at once. "You see, last year we did not know just how bad it would be, and this year we know." "That's so!" tweedled the twins. "If you could only go with us to Gresham, it wouldn't be so bad." "If we had just been triplets instead of twins and a father!" said Zebedee, and then we all of us laughed. Just then Harvie Price arrived in a state of breathless excitement, having missed Annie at the pier and, aware of her timidity, fearing something dire had befallen her. Harvie had a great tenderness for his one-time playmate and usually assumed the big brother air with her, but the large box of candy he produced for the journey, and which he handed to her with very much a "Sweets to the sweet" expression, was not so very big brotherish to my way of thinking. Brothers have to be very big brothers indeed and sisters very little sisters for the former to remember that the latter might be pleased by some little attention in the way of candy on a trip. I don't mean to criticise brothers, as I'd rather have one than anything in all the world. I'd excuse him from all gallant attentions if he would only just exist. "If you had not brought Brindle, I believe I would go half way with you girls, and come back on the train we strike at the Junction," said Zebedee. "If you go, I will, too," chimed in Harvie. "Now, Virginia Tucker! Just see what you have done! You put that dog before your own flesh and blood!" exclaimed Dum. "No such thing! He is my own flesh and blood, Caroline Tucker," and Dee held the ugly bull dog close in her arms. "Tut! Tut! Don't have a row for Heaven's sake," begged their father. When Dum and Dee Tucker called one another by their Christian names, no one knew so well as their devoted parent how close they were to a breach that could only be healed by _trial de combat_. It was almost as serious a state of affairs as when they addressed him as Father or Mr. Tucker. "Do you know, I believe with a little strategy we can take Brindle, too, and not in the baggage car either. I know how he hates that." "Oh, Zebedee, how? Dum, I'm sorry I called you Caroline," and Dee gave her twin an affectionate pat. "Forget it! Forget it! Besides, I called you Virginia first." "Well, stop making up now. Sometimes you Tweedles make up with more racket than you do fighting it out. Now listen! We can dress Brindle up like a baby if you girls can dive in your grips for suitable apparel--anything white and fluffy will do. Take off that veil you've got twisted 'round your neck, Dum, and here is a cap all ready for baby," and he fashioned a wonderful little Dutch cap out of his large linen handkerchief and tied it under the unresisting and flabby chin of Brindle. We were so convulsed we could hardly contain our merriment, but contain it we were forced to do, because of the exceedingly dignified and easily shocked porter who stood at the door of the elevator like a uniformed bronze statue. "Gather 'round me, girls," begged Dee, "so we can have a suitable dressing room for Brindle. He is very modest." Brindle was so accustomed to being dressed up by Dee, who had played with him as though he were a doll ever since he had been a tiny soft puppy, that he submitted with great docility to the rôle he was forced to play. We all wanted Zebedee and Harvie to go with us to the Junction if it could be managed, but the cast-iron rules of the railroads forbade the carrying of dogs into the coaches. Brindle was there and there was nothing to do with him but take him, and take him we did. Annie had a short petticoat made of soft sheer material with lace whipped on the bottom and little hand tucks and hemstitching. This she took out of her new suitcase, proud to be the one to have the proper dress for baby. Dee tied the skirt around Brindle's neck and pulled it down over his passive legs. "Yes, my baby has never worn anything but handmade clothes," said Dee with all the airs of a young mother. Then Dum's automobile veil, the pride of her heart because of its wonderful blue colour, covered the sniffling, snuffling nose of our baby. The transformation was completed just as our train was called, and with preternaturally solemn countenances we trooped through the gate, the handmade dress of the baby hanging over Dee's arm in a most life-like manner. The man who punched the tickets at the gate looked rather earnestly at the very young girl with the rather large bunchy baby, and of course just as Dee passed him, Brindle had to let forth one of his especially loud snorts. Dee turned pale but Zebedee came to the rescue with: "My dear, I am afraid poor little Jo Jo has taken an awful cold. I have some sweet spirits of nitre in my case which I will administer as soon as we are settled in the Pullman." Dee looked gratefully at her thoughtful father and whispered: "Gather around me closely, girls." We gathered, while Harvie and Zebedee brought up the rear. We passed the solicitous Pullman porter, who even offered to take the baby, and we sank finally into our seats in a state of collapse. I had long ago found out that she who followed the Tuckers, father and daughters, would get into more or less scrapes; but she would have a mighty good time doing it and would always get out with no loss of life or honour. "Zebedee!" gasped Dee. "Why did you call Brindle, Jo Jo?" "Why, Jo Jo, the dog-faced boy! He was one of the marvels of my youth. No side show was complete without him. If the worst comes to the worst we can be a freak show traveling West, on our way to the fair in Kalamazoo." "What will you be?" I laughed. "Oh, I'll be 'Eat-'em-alive' and Miss Annie will have to be the lion tamer. They are always beautiful blondes. Dum and Dee of course will be the Siamese Twins disconnected for the convenience of travel." "And me--what will I be?" "Oh, you will have to be the little white rabbit I'm going to eat alive," and he made a horribly big mouth that I know would have made poor Jo Jo bark if he could have seen it through his thick blue veil, but the conductor appeared at this crucial moment and Zebedee had to sit up and behave. CHAPTER II. THE BIRTHDAY PARTY. "Tickets, please!" this from the Pullman conductor, a tall, soldierly looking person with a very grim mouth. He punched all of us in sober silence. Harvie and Zebedee had not had time to buy Pullman seats, as they had been so taken up with the robing of Brindle. At the last minute Harvie had rushed to the ticket window and secured their tickets but they had to pay for their seats on the train. In making the change the conductor dropped some silver, and in stooping for it he and Zebedee bumped heads. Then the official was thrown by a lurching of the train against our precious baby's feet. This was too much for the patient Brindle and he emitted a low and ominous growl. The conductor looked much startled. We sat electrified. The ever tactful Dee arose to the occasion. "Why, honey, Mother didn't tell you to go like a bow wow. I thought my precious was asleep." Turning to the mystified conductor she continued, "He has so many cunning little tricks and we never know when he is going to get them off. He can go moo like a cow, and mew like a kitty, and can grunt just like a piggy wiggy," and what should that dog, with human intelligence, do but give a most astounding lifelike grunt. The conductor's grim mouth broke into a grin and we went off into such shouts of laughter that if Brindle had not been a very well-behaved person he would certainly have barked with us. Zebedee followed the man to the end of the car and with the aid of one of his very good and ever ready cigars, and a little extra payment of fare, persuaded him to let our whole crowd move into the drawing-room, explaining that we were to lunch on the train. When we were once settled in the drawing-room with a little table ready for the spread to which all of us were prepared to contribute (remembering from the year before the meagre bill of fare the buffet on that train offered), Dum disclosed the contents of the precious big box which she carried. It was a wonderful Lady Baltimore cake. A single pink candle was tucked in the side of the box and this was stuck in the centre of the delectable confection. "Whose birthday is it? I didn't know it was anybody's," I said. "Why, this is the birthday of our friendship, yours and Annie's and the Tuckers'," tweedled the twins. "We felt like commemorating it somehow," explained Zebedee. "You see, it is one of the best things that ever happened to us." "Me, too!" chimed in Annie and I. And so it was. When, the year before, Annie and I had been sitting in the station waiting for the train to Gresham, Annie was as forlorn a specimen of little English girl as could be found in America, I am sure; and while I was not forlorn, just because I never am forlorn as my interest in people is so intense that I am always sure something exciting is going to happen in a moment, no doubt I looked almost as forlorn as Annie, alone and friendless. The Tuckers, ever charming and delightful, came bounding into our presence, and they have been doing it ever since. They always come with some scheme for fun and frolic and their ever ready wit and good humour has an effect on all with whom they come in contact. Annie was certainly made over by a year's friendship with them. Some of the teachers at Gresham thought I had worked the change in Annie, but I just know it was the twins. As for Mr. Tucker--Zebedee--he was next to my father in my regard, and so different from my father that they could go along abreast without taking from each other. There was never such a man as Mr. Tucker. Thirty-seven himself and the father of twins of sixteen, he seemed to have bathed in the fountain of eternal youth,--and yet I have seen him, when occasion demanded it, assume the dignity of a George Washington. Occasion did not demand it at that birthday party and so he "frisked and he frolicked" very like the little rabs in the Uncle Remus story. One could never tell where he would be next. I knew a great deal of his glee was assumed to keep up the spirits of his dear Tweedles as the time for the arrival at the fateful junction was slowly but surely approaching. It was very early for luncheon but have it we must before Harvie and Zebedee left us. Mammy Susan had as usual put up enough food for a regiment in my lunch box. But enough food for a regiment seems to vanish before a mere squad if it happens to be as good food as my dear old Mammy Susan was sure to provide. What fun we had! The little table groaned with good things to eat. Even the baby's blue veil was carefully removed and he was allowed a large slice of Lady Baltimore, which he gobbled up in most unseemly haste. The little pink candle burned merrily and the toasts were most sincere: that there would be many, many happy returns of the day, as many, in fact, as there were to be days. Our friendship, now only a year old, was to live as long as we did, and we determined then and there to celebrate every year that we could. September fifteenth was to be a red letter day with us wherever we might be. The Junction was imminent and it meant telling good-bye to Zebedee, Harvie and Brindle. Dum grumbled a little about the loss of her veil but Brindle had to make his return trip in the same rôle of baby, and Annie's petticoat and Dum's veil had to be sacrificed. Zebedee promised to return them in short order. The pain of parting was much lessened by the amusement caused by the appearance of man and baby. He held the infant with great and loving care and Brindle chortled and gurgled with satisfaction. The Pullman conductor said nothing as Zebedee disembarked but his eyes had an unwonted twinkle and his grim mouth was twitching at the corners. I believe he knew all the time but could not bear to break up our pleasant party by consigning Brindle to the baggage car. The train conductor was in a broad grin and the porter looked dazed. "Is you partin' from yo' baby, lady?" he said to Dee. "Yes!" wept Dee with real Tucker tears, "he has to go back with his grandfather." "Grandpaw? That there ain't no grandpaw, that young gent." "Yes, he is," sobbed Dee. "He is just as much Jo Jo's grandfather as I am his mother, and I am certainly all the mother he has, poor lamb," and the kindly coloured man looked very sorry for the grieving young mother. "Is you fo'ced by circumstantials over which you ain't got controlment to abandon yo' offspring?" he questioned. "Yes," blundered Dee, something rare with her, "I have to go to boarding school and they don't allow do----babies there." "Well, well, too bad! Too bad! It pears like a pity you couldn't a got studyin' off'n yo mind befo' you indulged in matrimonial venturesomes. When a young lady gits married, she--" "Oh, I'm not married!" The porter's eyes turned white, he rolled them up so far. Dee saw her break and hastened to her own rescue. The rest of us were petrified with suppressed merriment. "That is, I'm not to say much married; you see, my husband is dead." "Oh! Sorrow is indeed visited you early. But grieve not. One so young as you is kin git many husbands, perhaps, befo' the day of recognition arrives." We were glad when his duties called him off because the laugh in us was obliged to come out. Our train backed up to get on the other track and the last we saw of Zebedee and Harvie they were standing in dejected attitudes, Zebedee grasping a squirming Brindle firmly in his arms while Harvie, acting as train-bearer, gracefully held aloft the trailing petticoat. Brindle had espied through the blue veil a possible canine acquaintance and was struggling with all his might to get down and make either a friend or enemy as the case might prove. Dee simply had to stop crying; in fact, she had stopped long before she felt that she should. She was forced to squeeze tears out to keep up the deception she had begun. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive." "You came mighty near making yourself your own grandmother, you got so mixed up," laughed Dum. "Brindle is so pedigreed I don't believe he would thank you for the bar sinister you put on him." CHAPTER III. GRESHAM AGAIN. How strange it was to be back at school and to belong there, greeting old girls and being greeted as an old girl! We piled into the same bus, this time not getting separated as we had the first year, and who should be there saving seats for us but dear old Mary Flannagan, her head redder than ever and her good, fine face beaming with joy at our appearance. Our bus filled up with Juniors, all of us happy and gay and glad to see one another. Miss Sayre, a pupil teacher of last year and a full teacher for the present, got in with us. She was very popular with our class and not very much older than we were, so we talked before her without the least restraint. "I'm glad to see you, Page," she said, finding a place between Mary and me that Mary's bunchy skirt had successfully filled before. "You girls look so well and rosy I know you have had a good summer." "Splendid!" I exclaimed. "You know Tweedles had a house party down at Willoughby, and there was a boys' camp near us, and the fun we had with them! I never had such a good time in my life!" "Guess who came on the train with me!" broke in Mary. "Shorty Hawkins! He said----" "Well, who do you think came down to see us off and brought Annie a big box of candy and rode as far as the Junction and went back with Zebedee? Harvie Price, and he said----" But Dum interrupted Dee to inform the crowd that Stephen White, Wink, had taken them to the Lyric on his way to the University when he had come through Richmond. Before she could tell us what he said, which she was clamoring to do, Annie Pore spoke up to say that Harvie Price was going to the University to-morrow. What he said about going was cut short by Mary Flannagan who blurted out: "Shorty says that he hears that George Massie is so stuck on Annie that he is getting thin--He has waked up and has fallen off a whole pound." George Massie's nickname was Sleepy and he weighed about two hundred, so this set us off into peals of laughter. "Rags wrote me that Sleepy was drinking no water with his meals and eating no potatoes, trying to fall off," I ventured when I could get a word in edgewise. "I can't fancy Sleepy thin, but I think he is just as sweet as he can be, fat or thin." I caught a very amused look on Margaret Sayre's face. "What is it?" I asked. "Oh, nothing! I can't help wondering where the Sophomores go and the Juniors come from. You are the same girls who a year ago said you would bite out your tongues before you would spend your time talking about boys all the time, and since we got in the bus there has not been one word about anything but boys, boys, boys." "Oh, Miss Sayre, how silly you must think we are!" I whispered. "Not a bit of it! I just had to tease you a little. It is a phase girls usually go through and I knew it would hit you and your friends this year. If it doesn't hit you too hard it does not hurt you at all, just so none of you gets beau-crazy." "Well, I hope to gracious we will have too much sense for that," and I quietly determined to put a bridle on my tongue when boys were the subject of conversation. Here I was acting like a crazy Junior, that from the Sophomore standpoint of the year before I had so heartily condemned. I remembered the pranks of the class ahead of us and was amazed when a bus filled with rather sober girls came abreast of us and I recognized in them last year's Juniors, this year's Seniors. They were so much quieter and more dignified than the rollicking busload of which I made one. "Do you know Miss Peyton is ill and may have to take the whole year to get well?" asked Miss Sayre. "Oh, oh! How sorry we are!" came from the whole load of girls. Miss Peyton, the principal of Gresham, was much beloved by all the pupils. She was a person of infinite tact and charm and her understanding of the genus, girl, was little short of uncanny. "Who on earth is to take her place at Gresham?" I asked. "One of the teachers?" "There was no teacher to call on to fill the place, now that Miss Cox is married, so a principal from North Carolina has been engaged. She is a B.A., an M.A., a Ph. D., and every other combination of letters in the alphabet, from big Eastern colleges. I hope we will all pull together as we have under Miss Peyton's kindly hand. Her name is Miss Plympton. I have not met her yet," and Margaret Sayre looked very sad. She had been under Miss Peyton for many years, as a pupil first, then a pupil teacher and now she had hoped to have her first year of real teaching under the careful and understanding guidance of her beloved friend. All of us felt depressed, but it takes nothing short of an overwhelming calamity to keep down the spirits of girls of sixteen for any length of time. By the time our straining horses had pulled their load up to the top of Gresham hill we were bubbling over again, and I must say that now my attention had been called to it, there were certainly a great many "he saids" and "I told hims" to be distinguished in the hubbub. Miss Sayre and I stopped a minute before going into the building to look at the mountains. They were out in full force to greet us. Sometimes mountains behave so badly; just when you need them most they disappear and will not show their countenances for days and days. Gresham was looking very lovely, and in spite of the little empty feeling I always had about being away from Father and my beloved home, Bracken, I was glad to be there. It meant seeing my old friends and, no doubt, making many more new ones, and making friends was still the uppermost desire of my heart. "117 Carter Hall is still ours, so let's go up and shed our wraps and leave our grips and come down later to see the new principal," and Dum hooked her arm in one of mine and Dee took possession of my other side. "Annie and Mary Flannagan are to be right next to us. Isn't that great? I feel terribly larky, somehow. I reckon it's being a Junior that is getting in on me," and Dum let out a "Junior! Junior! Rah! Rah! Rah!" 117 was as bare as it had been when first we took possession of it, as all of our doo-dads had to come down when we left in June. One of the rules of the institution was that no furnishings could be left from year to year. "I wish our trunks would come so we could cover up this bareness. The nakedness of these walls is positively indecent," sighed Dee. "Wink is going to send me some pennants from the University. I just adore pennants." I could see the finish of our room. Last year there had been very little wall space showing and this year there was to be none. It was against the rules to tack things on the wall and everything had to hang from the picture railing, so the consequence was most of the rooms looked like some kind of telephone system gone crazy, wires long and short crossing and recrossing. Sometimes a tiny little kodak picture that some girl wanted to hang by her dresser would have to suspend from yards of wire. Sometimes an ingenious one would bunch many small pictures from one wire and that would remind me of country telephones and a party line where your bell rang at every one's house and every one's bell rang at yours. We stopped in 115, where Annie and Mary were to live, and found them very much pleased with their room, happy to be together and to be next to us. "Won't we have larks, though?" exclaimed Mary. "I feel terribly like I'm going to be one big demerit. I hear the new principal is awfully strict. A girl who knew a girl whose brother married a girl who went to the school Miss Plympton used to boss in North Carolina told me she heard she was a real Tartar. They say she makes you toe the mark." When I saw Miss Plympton I could well believe the girl that Mary knew, who knew a girl, whose brother married a girl who knew Miss Plympton, was quite truthful in her statement that Miss Plympton was something of a disciplinarian. She was mannish in her attire and quite soldierly in her bearing. Her tight tailored clothes fitted like the paper on the wall. She gave one the impression of having been poured into them, melted first. But above her high linen collar, her chin and neck seemed to have retained the fluid state that the rest of her must have been reduced to to get her so smoothly into her clothes. Her neck fell over her collar in soft folds and her chin--I should say chins--were as changing in form as a bank of clouds on a summer day. We never could agree how many she had, and Dum and Dee Tucker actually had to resort to their boxing gloves, something they seldom did in those days, to settle the matter. Dee declared she had never been able to count but four but Dum asserted that she had distinctly seen five, in fact that she usually had five. Be that as it may, she certainly had more than her share, and what interested me in her chins was whether or not the changing was voluntary or involuntary. I never could decide, although I made a close study of the matter. Her face was intelligent but very stern, and I had a feeling from the beginning that it was going to be difficult, perhaps impossible, to make a friend of her. "She is as hard as a bag of nails!" exclaimed Dee, when we compared impressions later on. "I'd just as soon weep on her back as her bosom," wailed Dum. "I don't believe there is one bit of difference. She's got about as much heart as Mrs. Shem, Ham, and Japheth in a Noah's ark." "She almost scared me to death," shivered poor Annie Pore. "Just think of the contrast between her and Miss Peyton." "I was real proud of you, the way you spunked up to her, Annie," broke in Mary Flannagan. "Wasn't she terrifying when she decided I was too young to be a Junior? I don't know what I should have done if you had not told her I led my class in at least one subject. I hope it is not the one she teaches or it will be up to me to hustle." "Well, girls," I said, "I see breakers ahead for all of us unless we can find a soft side to Miss Plumpton, I mean Plympton, and keep on it." A roar from the girls stopped me. "What a good name for her--Plumpton--" tweedled the twins. "Plumpton! Plumpton! Rah, rah, rah!" No great dignity was possible after that. No matter how stiff and military Miss Plympton could be, and she could out-stiffen a poker, we knew her name was Plumpton and were ahead of her. I had a feeling during our whole interview with her that she did not approve of us for some reason. I don't know what it was. It almost looked as though some one had got us in bad before we ever met her; but some of the other girls told me they had the same feeling, so no doubt it was just her unfortunate manner that made you think she looked upon you as a suspicious character. Looking back soberly and sanely on that year at school, I can understand now that the substitute principal was not quite as impossible as we thought she was, but the keynote of her character was that she lacked all sense of humour. A joke book meant no more to her than a grocery book. She was nothing but a bundle of facts. She thought in dates and eras (History being her subject) and if you could not begin at the creation and divide time up into infinitesimal bits and pigeon hole every incident, you were nothing but a numskull. Any one who had to learn a verse of poetry to remember the kings of England had softening of the brain in her eyes. She did not even think it permissible to say: "Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November." "Facts are much simpler to master than fancies," she would lecture, and my private opinion was that she could not learn poetry any more than some of us could learn dates. The calendar to her was just another month marked with black figures to be torn off. I usually resorted to some form of poetry to take the taste of her classes out of my mouth. I remember once when the lesson had been the making and remaking of the calendar by the arbitrary parties who took upon themselves that task, I got so bored and sleepy that all I could do was to keep on saying to myself: "January brings the snow, Makes our feet and fingers glow. February brings the rain, Thaws the frozen lake again. March brings breezes, loud and shrill, To stir the dancing daffodil. April brings the primrose sweet, Scatters daisies at our feet. May brings flocks of pretty lambs Skipping by their fleecy dams. June brings tulips, lilies, roses, Fills the children's hands with posies. Hot July brings cooling showers, Apricots and gillyflowers. August brings the sheaves of corn; Then the harvest home is borne. Fresh October brings the pheasant; Then to gather nuts is pleasant. Dull November brings the blast; Then the leaves are whirling fast. Chill December brings the sleet, Blazing fire and Christmas treat." CHAPTER IV. RULES AND RESULTS. The strangest thing about Miss Plympton was that she never was able to tell the Tucker Twins apart. This was an unforgivable offense in their eyes and in the eyes of their friends. They were as alike as two peas in some ways and the antipodes in others. They might mystify you from the back but once you got a good look in their eyes, the mirrors of their souls, you were pretty apt to get them straight and keep them straight. Then their colouring was so different. Dee's hair was black with blue lights and Dum's was black with red lights; Dee's eyes were grey and Dum's hazel; Dee had a dimple in her chin, while Dum's chin had an uncompromising squareness to it that gave you to understand that her character was quite as fixed as Gibraltar, and she had no more idea of changing her mind than Miss Plympton had of toying with unalterable facts, such as 1066 or 1492. From the very beginning I scented trouble between the new principal and the Tuckers. Miss Plympton called them Miss Tucker indiscriminately, and sometimes both of them answered and sometimes neither of them. Either way irritated Miss Plympton. She seemed to think they should know by instinct which one she meant. She finally grasped the fact that they had separate names but was more than apt to call Dee, Virginia, and Dum, Caroline, which was quite as unpardonable as saying Columbus discovered America in 1066 would have been to her. "The very next time she calls me Caroline, I'm going to call her Plumpton," declared Dum. "I don't mean that Dee ain't as good as I am and a heap better, but I'm me----" "Yes, and in the same vernacular Dee's her," I teased. We had a compact to correct the grammar of our roommates. "I stand corrected about ain't but I still stick to 'I'm me.' It is more forceful and means more than 'I'm I.' Of course I'm I, but in Miss Plumpton's mind there seems to be strong doubt whether I'm me. I is a kind of ladylike, sissy outside of a person, but me is the inmost, inward, soul self--I'm me--me--me!" "Well, you certainly are and there is no one quite like you. I don't see why Miss Plympton can't see it, too." "I know why! It's because she doesn't understand people. She thinks of us as being human beings of the female sex, who weigh a certain amount, are just so tall and so wide, have lived a certain time and come from such and such a city. Why, the only difference she sees between you and Mary Flannagan is that you are in 117 and Mary is in 115, and you have brown hair and Mary has red, and Mary is better on dates than you are. The real true Page Allison is a closed book to that fat head. I believe Miss Peyton knew our souls as well as she did our bodies." We missed Miss Peyton every hour of the day. Her reign had been wise and gentle and always just. We never forgot her kindness to us the time Dee kept the kitten in her room all night. She won us over for life then and there. Miss Plympton had retained all of Miss Peyton's rules and added to them. She fenced us around with so many rules that the honour system was abolished. Study hall was a very different place from what it had been in Miss Peyton's time. Then order had ruled because we were on our honour not to communicate with one another by word or sign. Of course some girls do not regard honour as a very precious thing and they broke their word, but most girls, I am glad to say, have as keen a sense of honour as the best of men. Miss Plympton's attitude toward us was one of doubt and suspicion and, the honour system being abolished, we naturally felt that the most serious fault we could commit would be breaking the eleventh commandment: "Thou shalt not be found out." We developed astonishing agility in evading the authorities and getting out of scrapes. From having been five law-abiding citizens, we turned into extremely slick outlaws. Even Annie Pore would sometimes suggest escapades that no one would dream could find harbour behind that calm, sweet brow. The same unrest pervaded the whole school. A day never passed that some group of girls was not called to the office to have a serious reprimand. We got so hardened that it meant no more to us than the ordinary routine of the day, while the year before to be called to the office to have Miss Peyton censure you about something was a calamity that every one earnestly prayed to avoid. Miss Peyton never talked to you like a Dutch Uncle unless you needed it, while Miss Plympton never talked to you any other way. "She makes me feel like an inmate of a detention home or some place where the criminally insane are sent," stormed Dee. "She makes out I have done things I never even thought of doing and has not got sense enough to know I never lie." "What was it this time?" I asked. "She said I changed the record on the Victrola Sunday night from 'Lead, Kindly Light,' sung by Louise Homer, to 'A-Roaming in the Gloaming,' by Harry Lauder. You see all that bunch of preachers was here, and, of course, only sacred music was permissible under the circumstances." "Why, I did that!" exclaimed Dum, "and didn't the preachers like it, though! Well, I reckon it is up to me to go 'fess up." "Not a bit of it!" declared Dee. "She never asked who did it--that's not her way. She works with a spy system, so let her work that way. I bet we can outwit any spy she can get." It seems strange when I look back on it that this spirit of mischief had entered into our crowd to such an extent, but we were not the same girls we had been the year before, all because of this head of the school who did not understand girls. If she had trusted us, we would have been trustworthy, I am sure. There was a printed list of don'ts a yard long tacked up in every available spot, and I can safely declare that during the year we did every single thing we were told not to do. If we missed one of them it was an accident. They were such silly don'ts. "No food must be kept in the rooms." Now, what school girl is going to keep such a rule as that? "No talking in the halls or corridors." That would be impossible except in a deaf and dumb institution. "No washing of clothes of any sort in the rooms or bath rooms." Then what is the use of having little crêpe de chine handkerchiefs and waists if they must be sent in the laundry and come back starched and all the nice crinkle ironed out of them? Who would put her best silk stockings in wash to have them come back minus a foot? "No ink to be taken to rooms." We would just as soon have written with pencils except that the rule made us long to break it. Of course, break it we did. "No talking after lights are out." Now what nonsense was that? When lights are out is the very time to talk to your roommate. I verily believe that there was not one single rule on that list that was necessary. There were lots more of them and all of them equally silly. The worst one of all was: "Absolutely no visiting in rooms." That meant no social life at all. We had looked forward to having Annie and Mary next to us, but if there was to be no visiting it would not do us much good. Annie thought up a scheme that surprised and delighted us. "Let's have telephonic communication. Our closets adjoin." "Good! So they do," tweedled the Tuckers. "We'll get Zebedee to send us the things to make it." Of course Zebedee sent them the required things as he always aided and abetted us in every scheme to have a good time. He bought one of the toy telephones that has a tiny battery attached and is really excellent as a house telephone. We installed it quite easily with the aid of an auger that Zebedee had the forethought to send with the toy. The things came disguised as shoes. That telephone was a great source of pleasure to us and at times proved to be a real friend. It was concealed behind Dum's Sunday dress and it would have been a clever detective who could have discovered it. "Let's not tell a soul about it," said Mary, "because you know how things spread. You know," holding up one finger, "and I know," holding up another, "and that makes eleven." We kept our secret faithfully and often mystified the other girls by communicating things to our neighbours when they knew we had not been to their room and had not spoken to them in the halls. Of course we did not have a bell as that would have been a dangerous method of attracting attention, but three knocks on the wall was a signal that you were wanted at the phone. Annie was the originator of another scheme that saved us many a demerit. Every one of us had a dummy that could be made in a few moments, and these we always carefully put in our beds when we went off on the spreads or what not that took us out of our rooms when we were supposed to be in them. "How on earth did you ever think of such a thing, Annie?" asked the admiring Mary. "I am ashamed to say the Katzenjammer Kids in the comic supplement put it in my head," blushed Annie. "I know it is not very refined but I always read it." It was rather incongruous to think of Annie Pore, the timid, shy, very ladylike English girl, who a little more than a year ago looked as though she had not a friend in the world and had never read anything more recent than Tennyson's "Maud," not only reading the funny paper but learning mischief from it and imparting the same to the Tucker Twins, past masters in the art of getting into scrapes. These dummies were topped by boudoir caps with combings carefully saved and stitched in the edge of the caps, giving a most life like look when stuffed out with anything that came to hand. A sofa cushion dressed up in a night gown, tucked carefully under the cover with the boudoir cap reposing on the pillow, would fool any teacher who came creeping into our room after lights out to see if we were in any mischief. Mary's hair, being that strong healthy kind of red hair, never came out, so she had no combings, never had had any. We ravelled out Dum's old red sweater sleeve and made a wonderful wig, some redder than Mary's, but in the subdued light in which it was to be viewed it did very well. "Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care," Mary would quote as she tucked her counterfeit self up in her warm bed preparatory to some midnight escapade. CHAPTER V. SOME LETTERS. From Virginia Tucker to Mr. Jeffry Tucker. Gresham, Oct. 15, 19-- Dearest Zebedee: It gets worse and worse--We've had a whole month of it now and my demerits are much more numerous than my merits. I see no way of getting out of the hole I am in. Everything I do or don't do means just another black mark for me. Now who can help sneezing when a sneeze is crying out to be sneezed? And who can help making a face when a sneeze is imminent? Not a Tucker! You know yourself what a terrific noise you make when you sneeze and how you jump up and crack your heels together just as you explode. If you were in church and a sneeze came you could not contain yourself within yourself without the risk of breaking yourself up into infinitesimal bits. I inherit my sneeze as directly from my paternal parent as I do my chin and my so-called stubbornness (we call it character, don't we, Zebedeedlums?). I do think it is hard to be kept in bounds a week for an inherited weakness--or shall we say strength? Our Tucker sneeze certainly should not be put down as a weakness. Another thing about this new principal is that she can't tell me from Dee or Dee from me. She seems to think both of us are me, lately, although at first she thought both of us were Dee. I kicked over the first condition, but Heaven knows the last is much more trying, as I get all of Dee's demerits; not that Dee does not behave like a perfect gentleman and insist on her share of blame and even more than her share. There is no use in arguing with Miss Plympton. She won't believe you if you say you didn't do a thing, and she won't believe you when you say you did. She just sits there and marks in her book and has the expression of: "The Moving Finger writes; and having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line Nor all your tears wash out a Word of it." The other day I sneezed, in fact I out-sneezed all the dead and gone Tuckers. I couldn't help it. I don't like to sew on hooks any more than Miss Plympton herself would and that sneeze popped off two. She looked up from the chronological page of dates she had been hammering into us and said sternly: "Caro-ginia Tucker, that unseemly noise must stop." "Yessum!" I gasped, holding my nose about as Dee does Brindle when he tries to get away from her to eat some little dog up. I held on with all my might, but every one knows that sneezes never come singly. The other one is as sure to come out as murder. When the next one came, it was worse than the first because of my efforts to hold it in, just as it makes more noise to shoot down a well than to shoot up in the air. (Don't you think my language sounds rather Homeric? I do.) Well, when the second report sounded, Miss Plympton put down her pencil and sat looking at me. She said nothing, but kept on making chins. As fast as she made one, another one disappeared, but nothing daunted, she just made another. I kept thinking: "I wish every time she made a chin something would go bang! and then maybe she would sympathize with me. I certainly can't help making sneezes any more than she can making chins." What do you think happened at this psychological moment? Why, Dee sneezed! As a rule, Dee is not quite so eruptive as you and I are; in fact, sometimes she irritates me by giving cat sneezes, but this time, whew! The Great Sneezeeks himself would have envied her. And do you know what that old stick-in-the-mud did? She looked square at me and said: "Viroline, ten demerits, a page of dictionary and two hymns." That isn't as bad as it sounds, as I know so many hymns I can get one up in no time, and I got even with her by saying the page of the dictionary beginning with chin. It goes Chin, China, Chinaman, Chincapin, Chinch, Chinchilla, Chin-cough, Chine, Chinese, Chink, etc. I took especial pains to accent the first syllable too. Of course Dee stood up and clamored to be heard and to claim the sneeze. It was certainly one to be proud of. Miss Plympton changed her expression from the Moving Finger to "That inverted Bowl they call the Sky, Whereunder crawling cooped we live and die, Lift not your hands to _It_ for help--for It As impotently moves as you or I." You know yourself, Zebedee, how hard it is to keep in the straight and narrow path when you are blamed whether you are there or not. I feel that I might as well be "killed for an old sheep as a lamb," so I do get into lots of scrapes. The school is not the same with Miss Peyton ill and Miss Cox married. Dee and Page and I are real blue sometimes, but not all the time. We do have lots of fun breaking rules and keeping the eleventh commandment. Now don't get preachy! You would stand Miss Plympton just about one minute and then you would pack your doll rags and go home. We like the new teacher in English a lot. She is much more interesting than last year's and seems to have some outlook. Miss Ball is her name. Zebedee, since Miss Plympton seems to have such a feeling against me, don't you think it would be well for me to stop history and take up china painting? I don't think much of the art course here, but it would be real fun to do china painting and I could paint you a cup and saucer to drink your coffee out of when we get to housekeeping. I am crazy to do some modelling and think another year you better let me go to New York and study at the art school. Dee and Page think so, too, and they want to specialize in something. We are nearly dead to see you. What say you to coming up here for Thanksgiving? You would miss the football game in Richmond, but we are certainly honing for you, honey. Dee will write soon. Page is just the same. She cheers us up a lot. She is awfully game--there is no prank going that she stays out of, but she kind of holds us down if our idea of a good time is too wild. Thanks for the little 'phone. It works splendidly. Good by, Your own DUMDEEDLEDUMS. From Page Allison to Dr. James Allison. Gresham, October 15, 19-- My dearest Father: We are having the most interesting course in English and I feel that I am really going to learn a whole lot about writing. I am glad I have read all my life, but I find that I have not half taken in what I have read. Miss Ball is teaching me to analyze the things I like best. She reads beautifully and gets meaning out of poetry without ruining the metre. She doesn't elocute (I hate that) but she has a full rich voice and her reading is just like music. She has us write a daily theme, any kind of snap-shot that suits us to write about--something we have seen or might have seen. It is awful funny what different things we choose. Dum always has descriptions of sunsets and moonrises and figures against the sky--how things look, in fact. Dee is great on animal stories, sick kittens and kindly beasts and abused horses and lame ducks. Mary usually gets a comic twist to her stories and has people falling off ladders and upsetting the ink and sitting down in the glue, etc. Annie is rather sentimental and wishy-washy in her compositions, willowy maidens in the moonlight with garlands of flowers. She is fond of using such expressions as: "Hark! From out the stillness," and "A dark and lonesome tarn." She is rather Laura Jean Libbyish I think. As for me, I always want to write about people, no difference what kind of people, old or young, black or white, rich or poor,--just so they are people. I made a real good little sketch of Christmas morning at Bracken. I described our going out with the colt and leaving Christmas cheer at the cabins, making an especial feature of Aunt Keziah, the "Tender." Miss Ball liked that a lot and wants me to do some more of our neighbours. I am dying to do Sally Winn, but somehow I am afraid she might know about it some day and it would hurt her feelings so. I think her character would be a very interesting one to write about. I may use her and put her in such a different environment that she would not know herself in broad day-light. Miss Ball is very complimentary about my efforts and I feel so encouraged. She is not a bit of a purist and thinks more of a good thought forcefully put than of a slip in the way of a split infinitive. We are having a right strenuous time getting out of scrapes. I have never been so unruly in my life, but somehow our new principal makes you want to break rules. I believe it is because she doesn't trust girls, and the consequence is we all of us feel like giving her something to cry about since she is going to raise a rumpus whether we do or don't. She is a mighty poor judge of human nature if she thinks any of our quintette could lie; but she doesn't believe us on oath. We argue that if she thinks we do things when we don't, we might just as well do them, since they are, after all, not really wicked things. There is nothing very bad about creeping out of your warm bed at midnight and flying down a cold hall to a class room, where you will meet other girls just out of their warm beds and when there you will, through smothered giggles, eat burnt fudge made on a fire surreptitiously kindled behind the barn, when you were supposed to be piously engaged in darning stockings in the mending class. I don't know just what the fun is, but it certainly is fun. The best fun is scaring the night watchman, who is an Irishman and horribly superstitious. He is afraid of ghosts and when he spies a flitting white figure down the end of a long corridor while he is making his rounds, he jumps to the conclusion it is a "hant" and not a naughty pupil. He never reports it to the principal, but adds it to his already interminable list of ghost stories. He makes his rounds as noisily as possible, so if anything is there it will hear him and depart. He is a little fat man with a military carriage, just as pompous in the back as the front. He has been told he looks like Napoleon, so he always wears very tight trousers and a long cape which he throws over one shoulder. One night I peeped out the window and saw him marching up and down in front of the building in the bright moonlight. The heavy cane he always carries he was holding like a musket and the poor little conceited thing actually had his hat on sideways, which gave him very much the look of the Emperor keeping guard for the sleeping sentry. I gave three taps on the wall, although it was the middle of the night, and got Mary Flannagan to the 'phone and told her to poke her head out of the window and go like a screech owl. You remember I told you how fine Mary was as an impersonator. Of course, Mary did as she was bid and poor Napoleon ran like a rabbit. It was kind of mean of me, but it was awfully funny. We are planning a party for Hallowe'en. Tell Mammy Susan to try to get me a box of goodies here in time for it. Don't send it to the school, but wait until I tell you where you can send it. They open everything and dig out all the contraband, and since everything is contraband but crackers and simple candy, they usually dig out everything of importance. I miss you and Mammy Susan mighty bad. Please give the dogs an extra pat for me and tell them not to forget me. Your devoted daughter, PAGE. CHAPTER VI. THE HALLOWE'EN PARTY. "Girls! Miss Plympton has actually given her consent to a Hallowe'en party in the Gym. We have to start at eight and stop at ten, though," called Mary through the concealed 'phone. "Pshaw!" exclaimed Dee, who had the receiver at her ear, although Dum and I were both crowding into the closet to get the news that Mary was giving so loudly that you could really hear it through the walls without the aid of the toy telephone. "That's no good. Witches don't walk so early in the night." "Well, it's better than nothing," answered Mary. "It can be a masquerade. We are thinking of having a sheet and pillow case party. The Seniors want all of our quintette to serve on the committee of entertainment. You see, the Seniors are really getting this up. That's why old Lady Plumpton will let us do it. She lets the Seniors do lots of things, but she certainly has got it in for the poor Juniors." Then there was a confused sound of Annie's trying to talk through the 'phone with Mary, and Dum decided Dee had had a long enough turn. Some mixup ensued in the two closets with the result that Dum's best dress, that served as a portiere for the batteries, had to be sent to the presser, and I got possession of our end of the line and found Annie on the other. "Page, Harvie Price writes me from the University that he is going to be at Hill Top, visiting Shorty Hawkins for a day or so soon, and he wants to come see me. Do you think Miss Plympton will permit it?" "Can't you work the cousin racket on her?" "No, she knows I have no relatives in the States." "Well, then, he may be allowed to sit in the same church with you if he should happen to be here over Sunday and his voice can mingle with yours in praise and thanksgiving," I teased. "You know how Miss Plympton sat on Jean Rice when her third cousin once removed from Georgia came to call. She refused positively to let her see him until his kinship was proved and then she only let him call fifteen minutes. If he had been a plain third cousin she would have permitted half an hour; second once removed an hour; plain second two hours; first once removed four hours; plain first eight hours----" "Page! This is not a problem in arithmetical progression. Please tell me how he can manage." "Bless you if I know--unless he can come to the sheet and pillow case party. You might let him know one is in prospect." A giggle from Annie answered me and a shout of joy from Mary as her roommate imparted this suggestion to her. "Of course it would never do," Annie said to me later on in the day when no wall divided us, "but wouldn't it be a joke on Miss Plympton and the faculty if some of the boys would come?" "Yes, quite like Tennyson's Princess, but if we got mixed up in it, it would be a serious misdemeanor." I was willing to go pretty far in fun, but I had no intention of being imprudent and giving Miss Plympton any real cause for the suspicion she seemed to entertain for our crowd. "I tell you, Annie, if I were you I'd go and ask Miss Plympton if Harvie can call and if she will not consent, just write and tell him so." Miss Plympton refused to grant permission for the call unless Harvie could obtain a request from Annie's father, and as that was seemingly impossible the matter had to be dropped. Annie wrote to the youth and told him the state of affairs and that was all she had to do with it. The Gresham girls and the Hill Top boys usually met at football games at Hill Top, and basketball games at Gresham; they sat across the church from each other on Sunday and prayer meeting night. As is the way with boys and girls and has been the way since the world began, I fancy, there were a few inevitable flirtations going on. Some of them, under the cloak of great piety, kept up a lively conversation with their eyes during the longest prayers, or sang hymns at each other with the greatest fervor. One ingenious boy actually wrote a love letter (at least that is what we loved to designate it) and sent it to his inamorata on the collection plate. With meaning glances he placed it on the plate together with his mite. The deacon, all unconscious of the important mission with which he was intrusted, proceeded with slow dignity to pass the plate to pew after pew of boys and then up the aisle on the girls' side. Every boy and girl in that church knew what was going on, but there was not a flicker of an eyelash as the exceedingly pretty and rosy Junior, for whom the note was intended, put out her daintily gloved hand, dropped in her nickel and quickly closed her fingers over the billet-doux and slipped it into her muff. There was a noiseless noise of a sigh, a sigh of extreme relief, that went over all the expectant pupils, boys and girls. Then with what vim and spirit did we rise and sing the appointed hymn: "A charge to keep I have"! The old gentleman who took up the collection was ever after known to us as "Deacon Cupid." Hallowe'en arrived. It was a splendid crisp, cold day, which put us in high spirits. Even Miss Plympton was in a frisky humour and actually cracked a joke, at least she almost did. She stopped herself in time and made another chin instead, but by almost cracking it she had shown herself to be almost human, which was in itself encouraging. Our quintette was out of bounds. We had worked off all of our demerits and were in good standing with the faculty. "Now if we can just stay good a while!" wailed Mary. "I, for one, am tired of getting into scrapes and mean to be a little tin angel for at least a week. I wouldn't think of putting a greater task on my sub-conscious self." I wasn't so sure of myself, as that minute I had under my mattress a box from Mammy Susan, filled to the brim with contraband food that would put me in durance vile for at least a month if I should be caught with the goods. The committee on arrangements for the sheet and pillow case party had determined that ice cream and cake should be the refreshments for the evening. The ice cream was usually cut in very slim slices and the cake was served in mere sample sizes, so I thought when the big ball was over I could gather a few chosen spirits and we could dispose of Mammy Susan's box in short order. I had not divulged to the others that this box had arrived, knowing it would be such a delightful surprise for them. Mammy Susan had sent it in care of a coloured laundress who did up our best shirt waists and collars, things we did not dare trust to the catch-as-catch-can method of the school laundry. Shades of my honourable ancestors! She had brought the box to the school concealed beneath the folds of fine linen. "Ef Miss Perlimpton ketch me she won't 'low me to set foot in this here place agin, but you young ladies is been so kin' an' ginerous to me that I's willin' to risk sompen fer yo' pleasure," the old woman had said as she lifted out the carefully ironed shirt waists and then the large flat box that had come by parcels post from Bracken. I had warned Mammy Susan to send things in flat boxes as they were so much easier to conceal than square ones. This one fitted nicely under my mattress. It gave the bed a rather hiked up look in the middle, but making beds was not the long suit of the Greshamites, so I hoped it would pass inspection, knowing that other beds that were innocent were much lumpier than mine. If you have never been to a sheet and pillow case party, go your first chance, and if no one else gets up one, get it up yourself. Drape a sheet about you in folds as Greek as you can manage, pinning the folds at the shoulders, and then put on a pillow case like a hood. If the case is old, cut holes in it for eyes. If you don't possess an old one, make a cotton mask to tie around your face and pull the hood well over your forehead. The effect is gruesome, indeed, and that night we looked like a veritable Ku Klux Klan. We wanted to mark ourselves in some way so that we could be told by one another, so we put on each back in black chalk a mystic V, standing for five, our quintette. Dum and Dee and Annie and I were almost of the same height. I was a little shorter, but not enough to make much difference, but Mary was a perfect chunk of a girl and when we got her draped she looked like a snow ball. The gymnasium, our ball room, was hung with paper pumpkin lanterns and papier-mâché skulls. "And in those holes where eyes did once inhabit" there shone forth lights giving a very weird effect indeed. The light was dim and the ghostly figures moving around would have frightened Mr. Ryan, the old night watchman, to death, I am sure. But he, good man, did not have to keep watch until eleven o'clock. The girls came in singly and in groups, all bent on disguise. Some of them sat against the wall, afraid that their walks would give them away, and all were silent for the most part except for a few ghostly groans or wails. Some one was at the piano playing the "Goblins will git yer ef yer don't mind out." In a little while couples took the floor and began whirling around. "Who is that tall girl dancing with the little chunky one?" whispered Dee to me. "I thought for a minute the chunky one was Mary, but I see she has no V on her back." "I can't think who is that tall here in school. There are two or three pretty tall Seniors, and then you know there is a new Sophomore from Texas who is a perfect bean pole, but she doesn't dance." "Well, this one dances all right and that little square girl she is dancing with seems lively enough. I believe I'll break in on them. You take the big one and I'll take the chunky one," and so we did. Dee started off leading, but I noticed they soon changed, as the short girl seemed to prefer guiding. I always let any one guide me who will, so my partner, who was the taller, naturally took the man's part. She was singularly silent, although I did some occasional whispering in what I considered a disguised voice. Annie and Dum were dancing together and I saw Mary's square figure leading out a rather heavy-looking girl who had up to that time been seated against the wall. As part of the committee, we considered it our duty to dig up the wall flowers. This one was not much of a dancer and in a moment my partner and I came a cropper almost on top of them. We picked ourselves up and Mary, recognizing me by my V, whispered: "Page, this girl can't dance a little bit. I tried to lead her and she has stepped all over me. For the love of Mike, see what you can do with her." So we changed partners and Mary went gaily off with my very good partner, who certainly danced better than any one I had before tried at Gresham, and I tripped off with the heavy-looking cast-off. It wasn't so bad. I let her guide and while she was not so very good, she was not so very bad. "Are you accustomed to guiding?" I said, forgetting and using my natural voice. "Ummm um!" came in a kind of grunt from my partner, and then in a high squeak, "Page!" The music stopped. My partner pressed my hand so affectionately that I wondered who she could be. I thought I could spot any of my intimates. "Now you know me, I think you ought to tell me who you are," I pleaded, "and not wait for the unmasking." "Unmasking!" she said in a strangely hoarse tone. "When?" "Why, at nine! Didn't you hear Miss Plympton this morning at chapel?" "Oh--Ah--Yes!" she muttered, and drew me to a seat in the corner. I chatted away gaily. Since my partner had discovered my identity, I might just as well make myself agreeable and I hoped to discover hers before nine. I ran over in my mind all the big heavy girls in school, and even the teachers. Miss Ball was rather large and Miss Plympton--could it be Miss Plympton? I peered eagerly through the holes at the eyes gazing into mine. Whose eyes were they? They certainly looked very familiar. The music started again, one of the new tunes, and I jumped up to find a partner or even take the one I still had who was not so terribly bad, but she drew me down again in my seat, hoarsely whispering: "Please sit it out with me." I seemed to be in a kind of dream. They say that one proof of transmigration of the soul is that we sometimes have a realization of doing the same thing we have done before perhaps æons and æons ago. I certainly held in my consciousness that once before some one with eyes, brown just like the ones I could see through the slits (cut, by the way, in a perfectly new pillow case), had begged me in much the same tone if not so hoarse to "sit it out." I looked at the dancers. Dum and Dee were dancing together; Mary was tearing around with the little chunky person, who seemed to be a mate for her. I looked for the other distinctive black V and saw that Annie was gliding around in the arms of the tall girl with whom I had danced, who had proven such an excellent partner. Annie's cowl had slipped back and above her mask her pretty hair, the colour of ripe wheat, showed plainly, making no doubt of her identity. I looked back at the mysterious eyes and an almost uncontrollable desire to go off into hysterics seized me. I suddenly remembered the hop at Willoughby and how I had sat out a dance with Wink White the night he proposed. The mystery was solved. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Stephen White!" I gasped. "I know you now and I know that that good dancer floating around with Annie Pore is Harvie Price, and that that little square figure with Mary Flannagan is no other than Shorty Hawkins. Don't you know that if Miss Plympton finds out about this that every last one of our crowd will get shipped without a character to stand on?" I know Wink wanted to giggle when I talked about a character to stand on, but he was too much in awe of my anger to giggle or do anything but plead with me to forgive him. "You see, dear Page----" "I am not 'dear Page' and I don't see!" I ejaculated. "But it was this way. I came over from the University with Harvie Price to see you, and when I got here, found out the old rules were so strict and ridiculous that I could not get near you in any other way----" "Well, getting near me was not necessary," I stormed. "You had better calm yourself or you will give the whole game away," admonished Wink; so I did try to compose myself and speak in a whisper. "Well, you had better get a move on you and depart as rapidly as possible." "Page, please don't be mad with me. I thought it would just be a lark and you, of all persons, would think it was a good joke," and the eyes through the holes looked very sad and pleading. "Well, you don't know me. I like a joke as well as any one in the world, but to get in a mixup at boarding school because of a lot of boys is not in my line. It would be harder on Annie Pore than any of us because her father is so severe. He would never forgive her if she should get in a real scrape." "But it isn't your fault. You were none of you aware of our intention of coming." "That makes not a whit of difference to Miss Plympton. She never believes us, no matter what we say. It is twenty-three minutes to nine and you had better grab Harvie and Shorty and beat it. At nine sharp if you don't take your mask off some one will pull it off." "Well, I don't care if they do; I am going to get a dance with the Tucker twins if I have to be thrown out. Which is Miss Dee?" As I had a secret desire to turn Stephen White's supposed affection for me into the proper channel, namely, in the direction of Dee, who was much more suited to him than I was, I could not resist the temptation of telling him, although in doing so I certainly placed myself in a position precarious, to say the least. I was aiding and abetting him in this attempt to hood-wink the school of Gresham. I was also getting the twins into the scrape with me by pointing them out to this terrible person, a male in a girl's school. I did not think of this until I had told Wink that all of our quintette had big black V's on our backs and he had made for the twirling twins and broken in on them. He got Dee, just by luck, and Dum sank on the bench by me. "Dum, do you know who that is that just got Dee?" I asked. "No, I have been wondering who she is and who that tall girl is with Annie Pore." "Well, get ready to hear something, but don't faint or scream," and I whispered to her the names of the venturesome boys. She only gasped and then went off into convulsions of laughter. "It is all very funny," I continued, "but tell me, what are we going to do if Miss Plympton finds it out?" "But she mustn't. We must get them out of here before we unmask. Don't you think Annie knows by this time that that is Harvie she is dancing with, and do you think for an instant that Mary and Dee are not on?" The music stopped just then and our quintette with the partners collected in our corner. Annie was trembling with fright, but was evidently having a pretty good time in spite of her fears, and Mary was in a gale only equalled to Tom Hawkins's. "Don't stop for adieux," I admonished. "Remember if you are caught all the blame will fall on us, and while I like all of you well enough, I have no desire to be expelled for the sake of having danced with you." This was rather sobering to their gaiety, and after whispered directions of how best to get out of the building, the three ghostly figures glided off. I was awfully afraid that some one had overheard, but no one seemed to be especially interested in us just then and I could but pray that we had been unobserved. As Wink had pressed my hand in farewell, he had begged for forgiveness and had said he intended to see us again by hook or crook. He was to be at Hill Top until Sunday night. "It will be in church, then," I had declared, because I was determined that I was not going to get into any more of a scrape than I was already in. I was very much relieved that the boys were gone, and my anger cooled down, although I was certainly disgusted that they had so little considered us in this mad escapade. I don't see why the pastors and masters of the young make it such a crime for boys and girls to have a good time together if they are off at boarding school. How much better it would have been if Miss Plympton had just invited the boys of Hill Top to come to the party and let us dance all we wanted to. There is certainly no harm in it in the summer, and why should there be harm in it then? At nine the masks were off and then we had the slight refreshments (very slight), followed by rather tame dancing until the ten o'clock gong warned us that in a few minutes lights would be out. CHAPTER VII. WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST. "Gee, but I'm hungry!" exclaimed Dum, as we trailed our sheeted forms up the stairs. "Did you ever see such slim eats in all your life? Why, my cake was cut so thin and my ice cream was so scant, they could not have passed muster even at a church fair!" "Shh! Don't say a word, but I've got a box under my mattress. You let Annie and Mary know, while I see Jean Rice and Nancy Blair. We'll meet in the Gym at eleven. I believe we will be safe from old Mr. Ryan. He is sure to keep away from there as he knows that the skull lanterns are still up. We had better not try to have the spread in our room as we are so close to teachers. Tell Mary and Annie to get their dummies ready and tell Dee to start on ours. I'll be up just as soon as I put Jean and Nancy on." Jean Rice and Nancy Blair were two girls we had been seeing a good deal of. They were full of fun and while they were rather a frivolous pair, they were nice and good tempered and always ready for a lark. You could count on them to join in on any hazardous expedition. When eleven o'clock struck we were ready to repair to the Gym for our secret repast. We kept on our sheets and masks as part of the fun. We had made our dummies ready and tucked them in their little downies before we ventured forth. The corridors were dark and silent. The Gym was at the far end of the building from us, down two flights of stairs. We judged it prudent to separate and go one by one a few seconds apart as, if we should by chance run against any one in authority, it was easier for one to escape than five. I went first, the box of fried chicken clasped in my arms: Dum followed me with the beaten biscuit; then came Mary with ham sandwiches; and Annie close behind her, carefully hugging the caramel cake, too timid to let the space be too great between her and her friend. Dee valiantly brought up the rear with stuffed eggs and pickles. We found three girls instead of two waiting in the gymnasium. I thought Jean and Nancy had brought a friend and went up to make her welcome. They had lighted some of the pumpkin and skull lanterns and were standing with an air of expectancy. "Hello, girls!" I whispered, "you beat us to it, didn't you? Which of you is which?" "You tell us who you are first," demanded one of the figures, "and then we will tell you." "I am Page Allison. I bet you are Nancy Blair." There was a giggle from the masks. It was another bunch of Juniors on pleasure bent. They were waiting for five more girls and were going to have a spread and a ghost dance. It turned out that what one might call the cream of the Junior class was gathered there. If we got caught, it meant the whole class in disgrace, as it would be a well-known fact that the members of the class who were missing were so only because they were not asked to be present. It gave us a great feeling of security to be fifteen strong. We were seven and these eight more girls brought the number of law breakers up to fifteen. There were only twenty-five Juniors in the school and that left ten girls who were either too goody-goody to be included or not sufficiently attractive, which is not in itself a crime but is certainly unfortunate. The spread was wonderful. The little dabs of ice cream and cake we had been served at the party had only whetted our appetites and in no way diminished them. We ate in silence broken by whispers and giggles. We hoped the teachers and Miss Plympton were safe in their downies and we trusted in Mr. Ryan's superstitious nature to keep him out of the Gym. The ghost dance began later and was kept up buoyantly, without music except a weird rhythmic whistling that the dancers themselves furnished. This whistling is done by sucking in and never blowing out and the effect is most uncanny. It is very hard on your wind to whistle this way, but when your breath gives out, your partner picks up the tune where you leave off and keeps the ball rolling. The last candle burned down to its socket and guttered out, and then the spectres flitted back to their rooms. It was pitch black in the corridors and Annie was afraid to go alone, so we formed a cordon by catching hold of hands and crept along, keeping close to the walls. I was in front and once when we were quite near our rooms I came bang against a human hand groping along the wall towards me. I stopped dead still! It was all I could do to keep from squealing right out, but a sound of scurrying down the hall reassured me. It was just a student as afraid of being caught as I was. "Who goes there?" I demanded in stern and grown-up tones. No answer but more scurrying and in a moment the sound of a door cautiously closed. "Some poor girl scared to death," I thought. We found our rooms in the dark and with the help of an electric search light, the pride of Dee's heart, we snatched our poor dummies out of their warm beds and were soon snuggled down in their places. "How do you reckon it happened there were no lights in the halls?" whispered Dum. "Nancy Blair told me she had turned them out on purpose," said Dee. "She said she knew we would get caught if there was any light." "Good for Nance!" I murmured, and knew no more until morning. I can't believe we had done anything so very wrong or we could not have slept so soundly. The rising gong found us dead to the world and only the telephone call, three knocks on the wall, aroused us. "Trouble ahead!" whispered Mary Flannagan, "there was some one snooping around last night after we were all in bed." "Well, we can prove an alibi. Who was it?" I chattered through the 'phone. I had jumped out of bed and was huddled in the closet behind Dum's dress. The window was still up and the heat turned off. "You sound scared! Do you think they will catch us?" "Scared! Not a bit of it! I am just cold. Of course, they won't catch us,--thanks to having abolished the honour system," and I hung up the receiver and commenced the Herculean task of getting Tweedles out of bed. "Get up!" I urged, pulling the cover off of first one then the other. "I don't see what you would have done without a roommate. I'd like to know who would wake you up." Dee put her head under the pillow like an ostrich trying to evade pursuit and Dum curled up in a little ball like a big caterpillar when you tickle him with a piece of grass. "Girls! Get up! I tell you Mary says there is some mischief brewing. We had better get up and be down to breakfast in time with smiling morning faces or Miss Plympton will know who was up late feasting. Me for a cold bath!" "Me, too!" tweedled the twins, coming to life very rapidly. A cold plunge and vigorous rubbing took off all traces of the night's dissipations, and as a finishing touch we all of us let our hair hang down our backs in plaits. Since the summer we had with one accord turned up our hair. We felt that it added dignity to our years; but now was no time for dignity but for great simplicity and innocence. As the breakfast gong sounded, I am sure in all Virginia there could not be found five more demure maidens than tripped punctually into the dining room. Miss Plympton looked sharply up as we came in, but we felt we had disarmed her with the very sweet bows we gave her and the gentle "good mornings." There was an air of repressed excitement running through the school. We were dying to ask what it was but felt that silence on our part was the only course for us to pursue. Certainly there were fifteen very shiny-eyed Juniors and ten very smug-looking ones. I whispered to Nancy Blair as I passed her table on the way out: "What's up?" "I am not sure, but I do not believe they are on to our frolic." "There is something else," declared Jean Rice, who sat next to her chum, Nancy. "The servants are in a great state of excitement over something. I have had an oatmeal spoon and a butter knife spilled down my neck already and I see Miss Plympton's private cream pitcher has found its way to our table." "Well, we will find out what is the matter in Chapel," I sighed, as I hurried up to my room to put it to some kind of rights. I wanted to get our dummies pulled to pieces, leaving no semblance of human beings. We had twenty minutes between breakfast and Chapel to make our beds and do what cleaning to our rooms we considered necessary to pass inspection. I tell you we cleaned that room with what Mammy Susan called "a lick and a promise." Our dummies we pulled to pieces and scattered their members to the four winds, like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, when the winged monkeys got him. The telephone we concealed even more carefully than usual, draping a sweater over it and smoothing out Dum's dress so no suspicious wrinkle remained. "We weren't in our beds very long, so let's spread 'em," said Dee, suiting the action to the word and pulling up her sheets in the most approved unhygienic manner. We swept the dirt under the rugs and with a few slaps of a dust rag on bureau, chairs and tables, and a careful lowering of the shade so the light came in sufficiently softened not to show the dust, we betook ourselves to Chapel as the gong sounded, quaking inwardly but with that "butter won't melt in my mouth" expression we considered suitable for the occasion. Miss Plympton was on the platform waiting for the teachers and pupils to assemble. She had on a stiff, new, dark gray suit that fitted her like the paper on the wall and she was making chins so fast there was no keeping up with them. "Looks like tin armor and I tell you she is ready for a joust, too!" exclaimed Dum. Without any warning at all, Miss Plympton opened the Bible at the tenth chapter of Nehemiah and began to read: "'Now those that sealed were Nehemiah, the Tirshatha, the son of Hachaliah, and Zidkijah, Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah, Pashur, Amariah, Malchijah, Hattush, Shebaniah, Malluch, Harim, Meremoth, Obadiah, Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch, Meshullam, Abijah, Mijamin, Maaziah, Bilgai, Shemaiah: these were the priests.'" I heard a sharply intaken breath from Dee. I also noticed the shoulders of a girl a few seats ahead of me shaking ominously. Miss Plympton proceeded: "'And the Levites: both Jeshua, the son of Azaniah, Binnui of the sons of Henadad, Kadmiel; And their brethren Shebaniah, Hodijah, Kelita, Pelaiah, Hanan, Micha, Rehob, Hashabiah, Zaccur, Sherebiah, Shebaniah, Hodijah, Bani, Beninu,'----" Other shoulders were shaking and Dee buried her face in her hands. There was an unmistakable snort from a dignified Senior. One of the tiny little girls giggled outright and suddenly without any one knowing how it started, the whole school was in a roar. Now it is not so difficult to come down on a few offenders, but when a whole school goes to pieces what is the one in command to do? It wasn't that there was anything so very humorous in the tenth chapter of Nehemiah, but the way Miss Plympton read it; the way she rattled off those impossible names with as much ease as she would have shown in calling the roll, the way she looked in her tight new suit,--just the way the whole school felt, anyhow--a kind of tense feeling that something was going to happen, made our risibles get the better of us. Everything in the room rocked with laughter except Miss Plympton. She just made chins. The teachers on the platform were as bad as the students. Miss Ball was completely overcome and the very dried-up instructor in mathematics had to be led off the platform in the last stages of hysterics. Margaret Sayre told me afterwards that she was very glad to do the leading as she herself was at the bursting point. Miss Plympton looked at the giggling and roaring mass of girls and quietly went on reading in her hard even tones, her voice slightly raised, however: "'The chief of the people: Parosh, Pahath-moab, Elam, Zatthu, Bani, Bunni; Azgad, Bebai, Adonijah, Bigvai, Adin, Ater'----" The laughter of some of the girls changed to weeping and about half the school had hysterics. Miss Plympton did not understand girls at all, but she understood them well enough to know that when once hysterics gets started in a crowd of girls there is no more stopping it than a stampede of wild cattle. I hate sacrilege, but for the life of me I can't see why any one should think that any human being could get any good or spiritual strength for the day from listening to the tenth chapter of Nehemiah. I never heard of a school breaking out into hysterics over the twenty-third Psalm or the Sermon on the Mount. Why should not a suitable thing be chosen to read to young people? Miss Plympton was furious, but whatever she said to the pupils, she would have to say to the teachers, so she held her peace and after making some hundred or so chins she had prayers and then a mild hymn. The storm had subsided except for an occasional sniff. Some of the most hysterically inclined had been forced to leave the assembly room and these came sneaking back during the singing of the hymn. The Math teacher had to go to bed and we all with one accord blessed Sheribiah, Shebiniah, Hodijah, Bani, and Beninu. CHAPTER VIII. INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE. "Keep your seats, young--ladies, I suppose I must call you. I have something to say to you." We thought it was coming and were glad to have it over with. "Something has occurred, very grave in its nature." "Pshaw!" I thought. "Having a feast in the Gym is not so terribly grave." I had for the moment forgot entirely about the boys' escapade. "Last night, Mr. Ryan, our night watchman, who faithfully keeps watch over the building while you are sleeping, was coming to his duties from the village where he lives when he was startled by an apparition. Three figures, garbed in white, came suddenly upon him out of the darkness. This was just outside the school grounds and about five minutes after nine o'clock--immediately after your unmasking, I take it. Mr. Ryan was very startled, so much so that he turned and ran all the way back to the village and he declares that these figures ran after him. He says that he was able to note that two of them were tall and one quite short. The poor old man is very superstitious and thinks they were ghosts, but we are too enlightened to believe such a thing. In fact, we have reason to believe we know the girls who perpetrated what, no doubt, they consider a joke, but to our minds it is nothing more than a cruel prank that none but unlady-like, ill-bred hoydens could be capable of." Here she paused and grasping firmly the last few superfluous chins that had formed above her collar, she resolutely pushed them back and resumed her discourse. "I need hardly say on whom my suspicions have fallen--the fact of its having been two tall figures and one short one can mean only Mary Flannagan and the Tucker twins." We sat electrified! Why Mary and the Tuckers any more than any other three girls in the school? Mary was certainly not the shortest girl in the school and the Tuckers were certainly not the tallest. It was so silly that I would have laughed aloud if I had not been too indignant. Tweedles sat up very straight and sniffed the air like war horses ready for battle, while Mary Flannagan looked for all the world like a little Boston bull dog straining at his leash to get at the throat of some antagonist. Now at this juncture a remarkable thing occurred when we consider Annie Pore's timidity. She stood up and with that clear wonderful voice, musical whether in speaking or singing, said: "Miss Plympton, I am exactly the height of the Tuckers and Mary Flannagan is my intimate friend and roommate! I insist upon being held in exactly the same ridiculous suspicion that you have placed my three friends." "I am a little shorter but will walk on my tip toes the rest of my life if it is necessary to prove that I was with the Tuckers and Mary Flannagan from the time of unmasking last night until we went to our room at ten!" I blurted out, springing to my feet. I was very angry with the boys for getting us into this scrape, but since we were there, I was determined to stay with my friends. Of course it was Harvie and Wink and Shorty who had met old Mr. Ryan. They had left the building just before nine, and he, poor old thing, being of a naturally superstitious turn of mind had come to the school earlier than usual, as he knew it was Hallowe'en and feared something might catch him. The boys saw he was scared and, boy-like, had given chase. "What have you to say for yourself, Miss Flannagan?" said Miss Plympton, ignoring Annie and me as though we had never existed. "Nothing but this: 'I deny the allegation and defy the alligator,'" said Mary, quoting Mrs. Malaprop with as much composure as she could muster. "And you, Miss Caro--ginia Tucker?" she demanded, looking first at Dum and then at Dee and finally striking a medium course and looking between them. "I--" tweedled the twins and then both stopped. "I--" still tweedling. "One at a time!" snapped our principal. "I don't know what you accuse us of exactly," said Dum, taking the lead. "If you accuse me of being the same height as my twin and of being much with her, I plead guilty. If you accuse us both of being much taller than our esteemed contemporary, Mary Flannagan, we both will plead guilty. As for running out in the night and scaring poor old Mr. Ryan to death,--why, that is absurd. We can prove as many alibis as necessary. Remember, though, we are merely twins and not triplets, nor yet quartettes. One alibi apiece is all we mean to furnish." "And I," said Dee, as Dum paused for breath, "I! I don't mean for one instant to furnish an alibi or anything else. I was not out of the Gym after we unmasked at nine until ten when we went to our rooms. I am accustomed to having my word believed and I do not intend to prove anything one way or the other. A criminal is innocent until he is proven guilty, anyhow, and I will leave the matter entirely in your hands." Dee sat down with a crash and opened a book. Miss Plympton looked somewhat taken aback, but she continued in her hard and even tones: "Do you mean to tell me then, Miss Vir--oline Tucker,--I mean the one who has just sat down,--do you mean to tell me you have no idea who the masked figures were who ran after Mr. Ryan?" "No, I did not mean to tell you that," said Dee, shutting her book very deliberately and rising again. "You did not ask me that question. But since you intimate that you did, rather than befoul my mouth with even the semblance of a lie, I will tell you that I have a very strong idea who the masked figures were, but that I have not the slightest idea of informing you or any one else on whom my suspicions rest." As Dee bumped down into her seat there was a murmur of admiration and wonder from the assembled school. Even Annie's bravery sank into insignificance by the side of this daring deed of Dee's. The Juniors who had been implicated in the feast of the night before were greatly astonished and somewhat relieved at the turn of affairs. They had felt that something was in the wind and certainly thought it was their feast at midnight. It seems that old Mr. Ryan had run all the way home and when he reached there was so out of breath that it took him many minutes to tell his wife what was the matter. He had refused to go to the school to keep watch on such a night, when graves give up their dead. The wife had come in the early morning to resign for her timid spouse. The tale had grown greatly in the telling and now the negro servants had it that sparks of fire flew from the eyes of the ghostly trio. No doubt that was Wink's cigarette, for he had threatened to light it before he was well out of the building. No wonder we had been able to pull off our midnight party without detection since the school had been minus a night watchman! We were all of us glad we were in trouble over something we had not done instead of something we had done. When Dee sat down with such a vicious bump, we wondered what next, but Miss Plympton soon put our minds at rest. She made about half a dozen new chins and then spoke, her voice not quite so even as before. "It is not my intention to bandy words with mere school girls, but I feel that in justice to myself, I must say that it is not merely the fact of the contrasting heights of these malefactors, but it is also evidence of a very convincing character that has been brought to light." We were all ears, waiting for the disclosure. "It is a well-known fact that the Misses Tucker use large handkerchiefs, gentlemen's handkerchiefs. This has been brought to my attention through mistakes that have occurred in the laundry,--ahem--using a similar kind myself,--" Here a smile went over the listening school. "This morning a handkerchief was picked up on exactly the spot where Mr. Ryan began his race with the supposed ghosts." Exhibit No. 1 was then produced and held up for inspection. It was a large and very shady-looking handkerchief with a great red T in the corner. We knew it in a moment for the property of Thomas Hawkins (alias Shorty). "See the initial!" pointing to the red T. We had joked Shorty the summer before about his very large and gaudy handkerchiefs. He had a varied assortment of H's and T's in all colours of the rainbow. Now Dum arose in her might. Her attitude was dignified and quiet and she held up her hand for permission to speak. "What is it, Caro--ginia?" "I wish to say, Miss Plympton, that up to this juncture I have felt that you have been making a mistake, the kind any one might make in a case of mistaken identity, that you have jumped to a conclusion, feeling as you do that my sister and I and our friends are rather wild,--but now let me say, Miss Plympton, that you have overstepped the possibility of being merely mistaken and I consider your remarks and accusations nothing short of insulting. It is bad enough to think we would go out in the night and deliberately scare a poor superstitious old man, but to think," and here Dum's voice took on that oratorical ring that I have heard Zebedee's take when he was very much in earnest about proving a point, "to think that my sister and I would own such a terribly inartistic looking handkerchief as the one you are holding, a great thick, cotton rag with a red initial on it,--and furthermore openly to accuse either one of us of carrying about our persons anything so filthy, so unspeakably dirty,--I wonder you can touch it!" This she said with such a vigorous intonation that Miss Plympton actually dropped the despised handkerchief. "And now, Miss Plympton, my sister and I will with your permission withdraw and will await an apology from you in our room, 117 Carter Hall." Before the amazed eyes of Miss Plympton and the whole school, those intrepid twins actually got up and with the greatest composure marched out of the assembly hall. Instead of having to prove their innocence, they had completely turned the tables on Miss Plympton and were demanding an apology from her about something that was entirely foreign to the matter in hand. Miss Plympton made some more chins and then quite like a good sport accepted her defeat and dismissed us to our classes, and as far as I know, to this day Mr. Ryan does not know what came so near getting him. He was persuaded to resume his duties, however. We nearly died laughing at Mary Flannagan, who got quite huffy at Dum for being so scornful of Shorty's cotton handkerchief. "It was a very appropriate, manly handkerchief and I don't think it was at all nice of Dum Tucker to say such mean things about it," fumed Mary, refusing to be comforted. "I hate a sissy boy who uses fine handkerchiefs. The kind Shorty has are good for so many things. He uses them to dust his shoes with and lots of other things." "Never mind, Mary, it was a nice handkerchief and if you want it, I'll go sneak it off the stage where old Miss Plumpton dropped it," I said, teasing our funny friend. I did get it and had it nicely laundered and put it on the school Christmas tree for Mary, much to her confusion. Tweedles told me they had hardly been in their room five minutes when Miss Ball came to see them as an emissary from Miss Plympton. She brought Miss Plympton's apology for the slur put upon them in regard to the handkerchief. It seems that their attitude in that matter had quite won over that strange woman, as she herself never used anything but the finest linen handkerchiefs and she quite appreciated their feelings. "Miss Plympton hopes you will accept her apology," continued Miss Ball; "she also hopes you will assist her in every way to find out the offenders so she can bring them to justice." "Now, Miss Ball, you know us well enough to feel that you are wasting your breath, don't you?" asked Dee. "Well, yes, but you must remember I am merely an emissary." "Well, as man to man, Miss Ball, is it up to us to tell all we suspect might possibly go on _outside_ of the school grounds?" "Oh! then it may not have been pupils from our school?" "Possibly not! But don't quote me. I merely suggest that you suggest," and Dee shut up like a clam. Miss Ball was not at all in love with her job as emissary and had no idea of trying to force a confession from Tweedles, so she left them no wiser than she came and the Tuckers resumed their classes as though nothing had occurred to interrupt the peace of the day. Miss Plympton seemed to have more respect for our crowd than she had before that scene in the assembly hall. The biggest thing that came from that experience, though, was that Dum and Dee Tucker immediately sent to Richmond for ladies' handkerchiefs. "We'll save the big ones for blowers but we must have some showers!" they tweedled. CHAPTER IX. ECCLESIASTICAL POWER. "Girls! Girls! Zebedee has gone and done it!" yelled Dee, bursting in the door of 117 and waving a lettergram wildly over her head. "Done what?" I gasped. Dee was so excited that I could not tell whether she was overcome with joy or grief. I had a terrible feeling way down in my bed-room slippers that maybe Zebedee had gone and got himself married. It was quite early in the morning, at least ten minutes before breakfast, and we were just getting into our clothes when Dee, the last one coming from the bath, had run against the maid in the hall, bringing up this mysterious message from Zebedee. "Oh, it is just like him!" "What's just like him?" and Dum snatched the telegram from her sister, and read: "'By wire-pulling, leg-pulling and visits to the Bishop and other clergy, have obtained a special dispensation for Tweedles, Page, Annie and Mary to be in Richmond for Thanksgiving game. Am wiring spondulix to Miss Plympton. Pack duds and take first train you can catch. I am treating the crowd. Zebedee.'" We performed a Lobster Quadrille then and there in honour of Zebedee and then we gave the mystic rap for Annie and Mary. Of course Annie did not think she should accept the railroad trip from Zebedee and wondered what her father would say, but we simply overrode her objections. All the time we were getting into our clothes as fast as we could, as there was an ominous sound below of breakfast on the way, and in a moment the gong boomed forth and we raced down stairs, I still in my bedroom slippers and Dum with her plait on the inside of her middy, hoping to conceal the fact that she had not combed her hair, only smoothed it over. Miss Plympton was not very gracious over our going. It was not usual for pupils to leave the school on Thanksgiving. That feast comes so close to Christmas it is quite an interruption to the education of the young; but what was she to do but comply? A special delivery letter from the Bishop, a telegram from two preachers and one from the Board of Directors of Gresham were certainly compelling, and there was nothing for her to do but consent. It was Wednesday and the next day was Thanksgiving. It seemed to me as though that day would never pass. We had to go to classes as usual and make a show of paying attention and reciting. Our train did not leave until six in the evening, at least, that was the one Miss Plympton decided we were to take, although we had hoped against hope that she would let us get off at noon. She was adamant on that score, however, and we had to be thankful that she would let us take that instead of keeping us over until the next morning, which would have meant arising at dawn and going breakfastless to a six a. m. local. Miss Plympton had been rather nicer to us since the episode in the last chapter. She had almost mastered the difference between Dum and Dee, and about once out of three times called them by their right names. She had always been rather nicer to me than to my chums and now she was, in a way, quite pleasant to me. This summons from Mr. Tucker had upset her recently acquired politeness and all day she found something to pick on our quintette. She chose as a subject of her history lecture the pernicious effect of arbitrary ecclesiastical power, which drew from me an involuntary smile. I thought she was off on a satisfying hobby and let my thoughts wander to the delights of our proposed trip to Richmond and a real blood and thunder football match between Carolina and Virginia. Suddenly I was awakened from my dream of bliss by Miss Plympton's addressing a remark to me: "Miss Allison, why were the Estates General convoked but rarely under Charles VI and VII?" "Estates General?" I gasped for time. What was the woman talking about anyhow? I thought she was off on arbitrary ecclesiastical power and here she was firing Estates General at me and raking up old scandals on Charles VI and VII. I couldn't answer on the spur of the moment, so I just giggled. "Miss Allison, I have been an instructor of history for many years and I have never yet found a pupil who could giggle her way through it. It is one subject that requires study." I took the reprimand like a lamb and tried to concentrate, but Mr. Tucker's cheerful countenance kept forcing its way in front of Estates General, and what that history lesson was about I do not know to this day. Six o'clock came at last and we piled on the train, the envy of all the girls at Gresham who had not had somebody pull wires and legs of the Bishop and other Clergy so they could go spend Thanksgiving in Richmond and see the famous game. Our train did not puff into the station at Richmond until way into the night and we were tired and very hungry. Our food since a one o'clock dinner had been nothing but stacks of chocolate and crackers and chewing gum and fruit we had purchased from the train butcher, who passed us every five minutes of the journey with a fresh supply of tempting wares. "Hello, girls!" Zebedee embraced all of us with his kind eyes, but Tweedles with his arms. "Geewhilikins! but I am glad to see you! I was afraid you were never coming. Train an hour late and I know you are starving." "Starving? Starved!" exclaimed Dum. "Well, I've had some eats sent up to the apartment and maybe you can make out until morning on what I have there." We packed ourselves two deep in the faithful Henry. We were tired and hungry but sleep was a million miles from the thought of any of us. When we arrived at the Tuckers' apartment and had satisfied the cravings of our inner men with the very substantial food that our host had provided for us, we decided that we might as well make a night of it, so we sat up to the wee small hours regaling the delighted Zebedee with tales of Gresham and Miss Plympton's chins. "I declare, you girls tell so many stirring tales of adventure I should think you would write a book about it. If it were possible for a mere man to do such a thing, I'd write a book for girls and put all of you in it." "Please don't," I begged, "because I am going to do that very thing myself just as soon as I get through with school. 'Bright, clean, juvenile fiction,' as the ads say, that's what I mean to make of it." "Are you going to put me in?" he pleaded. "Of course! Aren't you in it? How could I make a book of all of us without you?" "Well, if I am going to be in the great book of books as a hero of romance, I think I'd best go to bed and get some beauty sleep so I can make a good appearance in fiction. I've had a cot put up for myself in an empty apartment on the floor below so you young ladies can have the freedom of the flat. I'm going to let you sleep until luncheon. We have to get an early start for the ball park so we can get a good place. Speaking of romance,--did I tell you that Miss Mabel Binks is making a visit with your Cousin Park Garnett, Page?" "Heavens!" tweedled the twins. "Old Mabel Binks is always around." "She is looking very handsome, and is quite toned down. She is having a ripping time in society and Mrs. Garnett is doing a lot for her, dinner parties, teas and such." "I bet you have been to them and are being nice to her!" stormed Dum. "Well, I have been so-so nice to her but not so terribly attentive. She is not my style exactly." But Dum and Dee would not be satisfied until Zebedee promised he would not be any nicer to Mabel Binks in the future than common politeness demanded, and that they were to be the judge of what common politeness did demand. Zebedee went off laughing to seek his lowly cot in the vacant apartment and we were soon asleep, but the last thing Tweedles said was: "Horrid old Mabel Binks!" And certainly the last thing I thought before slumber held me was the same thing. CHAPTER X. VIRGINIA VERSUS CAROLINA. What a day that Thanksgiving was! Could anything be more fun than to be sixteen ('most seventeen); to have devoted friends; good health; to be allowed to sleep until mid-day; to get up to a good breakfast luncheon; and by one o'clock to be on the streets of Richmond en route for the great event of the year: the football match between Virginia and Carolina? We were in such a gale that Zebedee threatened to lock us up for the day. "I am afraid you will disgrace me before night," he declared. The best thing of all that happened was a sharp ringing of the bell while we were having the luncheon Zebedee had brought from the café and served in the apartment, and who should come in but Father? Zebedee had long-distanced him to Bracken and in spite of the sickly condition of the neighbourhood and Sally Winn's having him up in the night, he had caught the train to Richmond and was like a boy off on a holiday. Instead of the snug little Henry Ford that we had expected to go to the game in, Zebedee had rented for the day a great seven-seated car that held us all quite comfortably. It was a rusty old thing but was decorated from end to end with blue and yellow, the University of Virginia colours. Our host had ready for us a dozen huge yellow chrysanthemums, two for each girl and one for each man. We looked like a float in a parade and as we chugged out Monument Avenue, every one turned to look at the gay car. Everybody had a horn and everybody blew like Gabriel on the last day. Of course Zebedee had found out the very best place on the grounds to park the car and of course he got that place. He was a man of great resources and always seemed to know exactly where to apply for what he wanted. For instance, his getting permission for us to leave Gresham for Thanksgiving holidays was simply unprecedented. As he said, he had pulled every wire in sight, and where there wasn't a wire, he found a leg. Anyhow, there we were. "How on earth did you get such a grand place for the car?" asked Dee. A policeman seemed to be saving it for us, as the parking privileges were not very extensive at the ball grounds. "Oh, newspaper men get there somehow. We have what one might call 'press-tige'." We were wedged in between two cars, one decorated with the Virginia colours and one with the Carolina, white and light blue. Both were filled to overflowing with enthusiastic rooters for their respective states. The crowd was immense. I never saw so many people together. All of them seemed gay and happy, and good nature was the order of the day. There was much pushing and crowding, but no one seemed to mind in the least. The grandstand was creaking and groaning with people, and every inch of space within six feet of the fence that enclosed the gridiron was packed and jammed with one solid mass of enthusiasm. Zebedee seemed to know about half of the people who passed us. He had his hat off more than he had it on and usually called out some greeting to his acquaintances, who one and all addressed him as: "Jeff." Father saw many old cronies, schoolmates of by-gone years, members of his fraternity and learned doctors and surgeons, who, I noticed, greeted him with great respect and affection. Our car was the center of attraction seemingly. Young men and old stopped to speak to Father and Zebedee, were introduced to us and stayed to chat. Our old car gave several ominous squeaks as the visitors climbed on the steps or perched on the sides. It took it out in squeaking and did not go to pieces as I for a moment feared it would, but settled down into submission. "If there isn't old Judge Grayson!" shouted Dee. "I wish he would look this way." There he was, our friend of Willoughby Beach. His old pink face was beaming with enthusiasm as he wedged his way through the crowd. "Grayson! Grayson! Rah, rah, rah!" and then Zebedee blew such a blast from his beribboned horn that the crowd trembled and turned as one man, and Judge Grayson, of course, turning with them, saw us. He waved his large soft felt hat and in a moment was up in the car greeting us with his old-fashioned courtesy. "'Ah! happy years! Once more, who would not be a boy?'" Of course the dear old man had to greet us with a quotation. "Gad, Tucker, it is good to see you and your young ladies once more! Are you sure I won't crowd you, getting up in your car this way?" "Crowd us, indeed! We've got room for a dozen friends if they were as welcome as you, eh, girls?" We agreed, but the rented car gave another groan. Then the teams came trotting in, twenty-two stalwart giants. "I can't tell one from the other," I said. "There's George Massie, there, standing by himself to the left! Sleepy! Sleepy! Massie! Massie!" yelled Zebedee like a Comanche Indian. We all took it up until the object of our excitement heard his name above the roar of the crowd and looked our way. We were not so very far from him and he saw us and he said afterwards that the sun shone on Annie's hair so that he just knew who we were. "Hello, peoples!" Who but Wink White and Harvie Price should come clambering in our car from the back? Some good-natured passerby had given them a leg-up over the lowered top. The car gave another moan of agony. She was built to seat seven not to stand twenty, but stand at least twenty she had to. I was still dignified with Wink and Harvie for the position they had put us in at Gresham, but they were so contrite and so jolly that I had to cave in and be pleasant. It was too bright a day to have a grouch with any one, and besides, they had not really got us into trouble after all. Zebedee thought as I did, that they were certainly selfish and thoughtless to place us where sure expulsion would have been the outcome had the authorities discovered that boys had come to the dance, and we had been in a measure party to the crime. Harvie and Wink had not heard of how the escapade had turned out, as we had had no opportunity of informing them. We had been very careful in speaking of the matter at all and had only divulged our part in the affair to a chosen few who had sworn never to tell a soul. It was too good a story to keep indefinitely, however, and now Dum and Dee together told the whole thing while the teams were trotting around, making senseless looking passes (senseless to the uninitiated, at least). The automobile rocked with laughter at their description of Wink's tan shoes, No. 8, that were much in evidence under the drapery, and Harvie's falsetto giggle that at one time turned into a baritone guffaw. "What's the joke? What's the joke?" A strident voice broke into our gaiety. It could belong to only one person of my acquaintance. Sure enough, there stood Mabel Binks with all the glory of a grown-up society beau in her wake and all the manner a month of débutanting could give her. "Let me introduce Mr. Parker, girls. You just adore girls, don't you, Mr. Parker?" Mr. Parker, who was in a measure the Beau Brummel of Richmond, assured us he did and immediately took stock of our charms, at least that was his air, as Mabel, with many flourishes, presented us. She was quite impressive in her manner of introducing Tweedles and Annie Pore, and I heard her whisper behind her hand that Annie was a "descendant of nobilities." She almost ignored me altogether, but finally brought me in as "little Miss Allison from the country," and pretended to have entirely forgotten Mary's name. Mr. Parker was a type I had never met before. He was good looking and clever in a way, always knowing the latest joke and the last bit of gossip and retailing his knowledge to his greatest advantage, that is, never getting it off to one person but saving himself for an audience worthy of his wit. He was older than Zebedee, in his forties I should say, but his countenance was as rosy as a boy's. Dee declared she knew for a fact that he had his face massaged every day. His attire was as carefully thought out as any belle's: socks and tie to match, shoes and gloves also to match, and scarf pin and jewelled wrist watch in harmony with his general get-up. He was a man, I was told, not of the F.F.V.'s, but from his earliest youth Society with a big S had been his object and he had made good. He was invited everywhere but went only to those places that he felt would help him in his great object, that of being Dictator, as it were, to Society. He controlled the vote as to whether or not a débutante was a success. If he said she was to be the rage, she was the rage, and if her charms did not appeal to him, it was a very wonderful thing for her to get by with them. He was a man of no wealth, having held for many years the same position in a bank at a comfortable salary. It was no more than enough to enable him to belong to all clubs, to live in bachelor apartments, to support thirty pairs of trousers and a suitable number of coats and various grades of waistcoats, fancy and otherwise, and shoes and shoe-trees that mighty forests must have been denuded to obtain. Mr. Parker had smiled on the effulgent beauty of Mabel Binks, and her social fortune was made. Any girl with social ambition would rather be seen at the ball game with Hiram G. Parker than any other man in Richmond, although he was never known to have seats in the grandstand or to take a girl in an automobile. The honour of being with him was sufficient, and the prestige gained by his favour was greater than all the boxes in the grandstand could give or the delight of riding in a year-after-next model of the finest car built. Mr. Parker made no excuses, they say he never did, but just handed his lady fair up into our car and stepped in after her as though they had received written invitations. The car was already full to overflowing and so overflow it did. Father and Wink spilled out and were soon walking arm-and-arm, evidently striking up quite a friendship. Mabel made her usual set at Zebedee, who was willy-nilly engrossed by her favour. Mr. Parker eyed all of us with the air of an appraiser and Dum said afterwards she felt as a little puppy in a large litter must feel when the hard-hearted owner is trying to decide which ones must be drowned. Before he could decide which ones of us, if any, would make successful débutantes, the game was in full swing and even Mr. Parker had to let the social game give way to that of football. My, how we yelled! We yelled when Virginia came near making a point, and we yelled when she came near losing one. When we could yell no longer we blew our horns until throats were rested enough to take up the burden of yelling once more. Zebedee, standing out on the engine to make room for his many guests, invited and otherwise, behaved like a windmill in a cyclone. He waved his arms and legs and shouted encouragement to our side until they could not have had the heart to be beaten. Father's behaviour was really not much more dignified than Zebedee's. Love for his Alma Mater was as strong as ever and he rooted with as much fervor as any one on the grounds. Sleepy's playing was wonderful. I could hardly believe he was the same man we had known at Willoughby. There was nothing sleepy about him now; on the contrary, he was about as wide awake a young man as one could find. He seemed to have the faculty of being in many places at one time, and if he once got the ball in those mighty hands, it took eleven men to stop him. When he would drop, great would be the fall thereof. Sorry, indeed, did I feel for the one who was under him when he fell. He must have weighed a good two hundred pounds and over. He certainly did the best playing on the Virginia team, so we thought, and when he made a touch-down that Zebedee said should go down in history, we were very proud of being friends with the great Massie. We won! Everybody in our car was wild with delight, but I must say my pleasure was somewhat dampened when I saw the people in the car next to us, the one decorated in light blue and white, in such deep dejection. A middle-aged man was openly weeping and his nice, pleasant-looking wife was trying to console him and at the same time wiping her own eyes. Their son was on the Carolina team. It seems strange for non-combatants to take defeat so much to heart, but it is just this kind of enthusiasm that makes the annual game between Virginia and Carolina what it is: something to live for from year to year in the minds of a great many persons. If Father, with no son to root for, could have tears of joy in his eyes because Virginia won, why should not the father of the Carolina player weep copiously when his state lost? The victorious team were picked up bodaciously by the shouting crowd and borne on their shoulders to the waiting cars. The great Massie, begrimed almost beyond recognition, passed us in a broad grin. Zebedee leaped over the fence and shook the young giant's dirty hand. "Come to dinner with us! Got a table reserved at the Jefferson! Dinner at six! Dance after!" Of course Sleepy was pleased to come, having espied the sun glinting on Annie's hair. "Of all sights the rarest And surely the fairest Was the shine of her yellow hair; In the sunlight gleaming, Each gold curl seeming A thing beyond compare. Oh, were it the fashion For love to be passion, And knights still to joust for the fair, There'd be tender glances And couching of lances At the shine of her golden hair." I know Sleepy felt like a knight of old, way down in his shy heart, as he grabbed that football and turned over all his doughty opponents making for the goal. In his heart he wore Annie's colours and in his mind he kissed her little hand. Annie had been receiving Harvie's devotion with much politeness, but now that Sleepy was the hero of the hour, she turned from her more dapper admirer and waved her hand to the delighted and blushing George. Girls all love a football player. They are simply made that way. I think perhaps it is some old medieval spirit stirring within us, and we, too, fancy ourselves to be the ladyes faire and idealize the tumbling, rolling, sweating, swearing boys into our own true knights. After the Virginia team, borne by in triumph, came the poor Carolina men. They had put up a splendid fight and there had been moments when their success seemed possible. They took their defeat like the gentlemen they were, but I saw their mouths were trembling and one enormous blond with a shock of hair resembling our big yellow chrysanthemums, had his great hands up before his mud-caked face and his mighty shoulders were shaking with sobs, sobs that came from a real broken heart. I hope a hot bath and a cold shower and a good Thanksgiving dinner helped to mend that heart, but it was certainly broken for the time being if ever heart was. Now we all of us yelled for Carolina, yelled even harder than we had for our own team, and they gave us a sickly smile of gratitude. During the game Mr. Parker had been very busy in his polite attentions to all of us, and from his generally agreeable manner it looked as though he thought we were all worth saving and none of the litter was to be drowned. Mabel had renewed her attack on Zebedee and had crawled out on the engine by him, where she stood clutching his arm for support and generally behaving as though he were her own private property. "She makes me sick!" declared Dum. "And Zebedee acting just as though he liked it!" "Well, what must he do? Let her fall off?" I asked. "Yes, let her fall off and stay off!" All was over at last and the automobiles were busy backing out of their places. Mr. Parker gathered in the pushing Mabel, who had done everything in her power to be asked to dinner with us at the Jefferson, but Zebedee had had so many quiet digs from Tweedles that even had he considered her an addition to the party, he would have been afraid to include her. Our car was the last one out of the grounds because Mabel took so long to make up her mind to get off the engine and accept an invitation from some acquaintances who passed and asked her to let them take her home. "See you to-night!" she called affectionately to Tweedles as she finally took advantage of the offer. "Not if we see you first!" they tweedled, in an aside. CHAPTER XI. THANKSGIVING DINNER. "Just an hour for you girls to rest up and beautify yourselves and it will be time to break our fast at the Jefferson!" exclaimed Mr. Tucker as we swung up in our rocking old car to the door of the apartment house. "We will be eleven strong, counting White, Price and Massie. The Judge is to join us in the lobby of the hotel. I'll see if I can find some one to make it twelve." "All right, but not Mabel Binks!" warned Dee. "Why not? She isn't so bad. I find her quite agreeable," teased Zebedee. "I think she would be quite an addition to the party--" "Well, you just get her if you want to, but I'll let you know I will smear cranberry sauce on her if she sits near me," stormed Dum. I thought Tweedles made a great mistake in nagging so about Mabel. I had known very few men in my life, not near as many as the twins, but I had learned with the few I did know that a bad way to manage them was to let them know you were trying to. I, myself, felt rather blue about the way Mabel was monopolizing Zebedee, but I would have bitten out my tongue by the roots before I would have let him know it. Of course fathers are different from just friends. I don't know what I should have done if some flashy, designing person had made a dead set at Father. There weren't any flashy, designing females in our part of the county, and if there had been, I fancy they would not have aspired to the quiet, simple life that being the wife of a country doctor insured. For my part I should have liked a stepmother since I could not have my own mother. I often thought how nice it would have been if Father could have had a sweet wife to be with him while I was off at school. I trusted Father's good taste and judgment enough to know he would choose the right kind of woman if he chose at all. He never chose at all, however, although the many relatives who visited us during the summer made many matches for him in their minds. I hoped if he did make up his mind to go "a-courting" that the stepmother would wear my size shoes and gloves, and maybe her hats would be becoming to me. Even Mammy Susan tried to play Cupid and get Docallison to marry; but he used to say: "No, no! Matrimony is too much of a lottery and the chances are against a man's drawing two prizes in one lifetime." Tweedles fought the idea of a stepmother with all their might and main. I think one reason that it was ever uppermost in their minds was that so many well meaning friends were constantly suggesting to them the possibility and suitability of Zebedee's taking unto himself another wife. "Well, we'll make it hot for her all right, whoever she may be," they would declare. I never had a doubt that they would, too. I felt it was really an insult to Mr. Tucker to think he could become infatuated with such a person as Mabel Binks, but then, on the other hand, I knew how easy it is to flatter men; and while Zebedee did not like to be run after, Mabel's evident admiration and appreciation of him would, as a matter of course, soften his heart. Mabel was, however, not asked to make the twelfth at that Thanksgiving feast. Whether it was the dread of the battle royal that Dum was prepared to fight with cranberry sauce or just simply that Zebedee did not want her himself I did not know, but I was certainly relieved to find that our host had decided to leave the seat vacant. "We can let Mr. Manners sit in it," he said, squaring his chin at Dum. The Tuckers had played a game, when they were younger, called "Mr. Manners." That fictitious gentleman was always invited in when any rudeness was in evidence. Dum certainly had been rude about the cranberry sauce. "Yes, do!" snapped Dum, "and let him sit next to you--you started it--" "All right, honey, we'll put him between us and both of us will try to learn from him." So peace was restored. We had entered the Jefferson Hotel while Dum and her father were having the little sparring match, and as we came into the enclosure where the fountain plays and the baby alligators and turtles splash among the ferns and the beautiful statue of Thomas Jefferson stands in all its quiet peace and dignity, it seemed to me that quarreling was entirely unnecessary and I said as much. "You are right, Page," said Mr. Tucker. "There is always something singularly soothing and peaceful about this spot and it seems kind of an insult to Thomas Jefferson to be anything but well-bred in his presence." Our table was laid in the large dining-room and we were hungry enough to go right in to dinner, but the lobby was so full of excited and boisterous people rushing back and forth and greeting each other, hunting lost friends, finding old acquaintances, etc., that we hung over the balcony looking at the gay throng and forgetting that we were short one meal for the day, having crowded breakfast and luncheon into one. "Service is mighty slow on a crowded day like this, so you had better come eat," and Zebedee led the way to our table, where Stephen White, Harvie Price and George Massie immediately joined us. We had picked up Judge Grayson in the lobby. Of course George, alias Sleepy, was the toast of the occasion, and he blushed so furiously that he looked as though Dum had carried out her threat against Mabel and smeared poor, inoffensive and modest Sleepy with cranberry juice. We asked him so many questions and paid him so much attention that Zebedee finally interfered and made us let him alone. "You won't let the boy eat and I know he is starving," and so he was,--and so were all of us. We ate right through a long table d'hôte dinner, ordering every thing in sight from blue points to café noir. Wherever there was a choice of dainties we took both, much to the amusement of the very swell waiter, whose black face shone with delight in anticipation of the handsome tip he knew by experience was forthcoming when Jeffry Tucker gave his girls a party. "Pink ice cream for me!" exclaimed Father, when the question of dessert arose. "And me! And me!" from Mary and Annie and me. "Don't stop with that," begged Dee. "Dum and I always get everything on the menu for dessert except pumpkin pie. We can't go that." "Now pumpkin pie is all I want," put in the dear old Judge. "I feel sure you do not know the delights of pumpkin pie or you would not speak so slightingly of it. Do you happen to know this piece of poetry? "'Ah! on Thanksgiving Day When from East and from West, From North and from South Come the pilgrim and guest; When the care-wearied man Seeks his mother once more; And the worn matron smiles Where the girl smiled before: What moistens the lip, And what brightens the eye, What brings back the past Like the rich pumpkin pie?'" "Brava! Brava! Bring me some pumpkin pie along with the pink ice cream," cried Father. "And me!" "And me!" "And me!" The cry echoed from first one and then the other, all down the line. The waiter came in bearing great stacks of quarters of pies, since every one of the eleven guests had demanded it. "Th'ain't no mo'!" he said solemnly, as he put down the last slice in front of Zebedee. And that sent us off into such a gale of merriment that all the dining-room turned to see what was the matter. But the Richmond public seemed to think that what Jeffry Tucker and his twins did was all right, and if they chose to have a party and laugh so loud that one could not hear the band play, it was a privilege they were entitled to and no one must mind. I know we sat at that table two hours, as the service was slow with so many guests in the hotel. The food was good and we had plenty of time and when our ravenous appetites were somewhat appeased by the first courses, we cared not how long it took. We were having a jolly time with a congenial crowd, and a table in the big dining-room at the Jefferson was just as good a place to have it as any. The ball was not to begin until ten, so when we had devoured the last crumb of the bountiful repast we adjourned to a motion picture show to fill in the time. Wink White seemed rather anxious to have a talk with me, evidently desirous of making peace in regard to the masquerade on Allhalloween, but just as he was with some formality offering me his escort to the movies, Zebedee came up and without further ado or "by your leave," tucked my arm in his and led off the procession with me. "I haven't seen a thing of you, little friend, on this mad trip and I want to talk to you," and talk to me he did, about everything under the sun, but principally about whether I thought Gresham was helping Tweedles and bringing out the best that was in them. "They seem to me to be slangier than ever," which amused me very much as Mr. Tucker himself was the slangiest grown-up person I had ever known, and why he should have expected anything else of his girls I could not see. "All of us are slangy, but I can't see that it is taught to us at Gresham. In fact, I believe that Tweedles introduce all the newest slang and we sit at their feet to learn. I don't know where they get it, but every now and then they come out with a choice bit that is immediately gobbled up and incorporated into our lexicon of slang." "I'm afraid they get it from me," and Zebedee looked so solemn and sad that I could not help laughing. I knew they got it from him, and while I thought Gresham was not the place it had been under Miss Peyton's management, I did not think it should be blamed for the things that it was not responsible for. "Sometimes I think it would have been better for them if I had married again. Some real good settled stepmother would have taught them how to behave but, somehow, I have never had a leaning myself towards real good settled persons who might have been good for Tweedles. When the possibility of marrying again has ever come into my head, and I must confess that sometimes it does when I am lonesome, I can only think of some bright young girl as the one for me, some one near the age of Tweedles; and then I know that Tweedles would raise Cain. And no matter how fond they might have been of the girl beforehand, the moment they should get a suspicion that I am interested in her they would--well, they might smear her with cranberry sauce." "But Tweedles never did like Mabel Binks!" "Of course not! I was not thinking about Mabel Binks," and Zebedee went off into a roar of laughter. "I just meant that that form of revenge might be handed out to any luckless lady who met with my approval. I think Miss Binks could do as much damage with cranberry sauce as the twins combined. She seems to me a person singularly fitted to look out for Number One." "I think she is, but in a battle royal I bet on Tweedles," and so I did. I was greatly relieved to hear Zebedee say that he was not talking about Mabel in connection with a nice settled stepmother for his girls, but I wondered who it could be. Maybe she would be at the ball that night and I could have an opportunity of judging whether or not she might get on with my dear friends. I felt sorry for them, terribly sorry, and I felt sorry for Zebedee's little Virginia, the poor little wife who had lived such a very short time. How did she feel about having a successor? "How faithless men are!" I thought, forgetting entirely that I had rather wanted my own father to marry again. Anyhow, it was not Mabel Binks! CHAPTER XII. THE BALL. I can't fancy that the time will ever come when I shall be too jaded to be thrilled at the mere mention of a ball. On that Thanksgiving evening it seems to me I had every thrill that can come to a girl. I had been to but few dances--the one at the Country Club the winter before and the hop at Willoughby were the only real ones, and this grown-up ball with the lights and music and the handsomely gowned women and dapper men made me right dizzy with excitement. The twins took a ball as rather a matter of course, having been dancing around with their young father ever since they could toddle, but Annie's eyes were sparkling with joy and Mary Flannagan, who was very bunchy in "starch paper blue" taffeta, the very stiff kind with many gathers around her waist, was jumping up and down, keeping time to the music. Mary, with all her bunchiness, was an excellent dancer and as light on her feet as a gas balloon, (if a gas balloon could have feet). Sometimes her voluminous skirts had quite the appearance of a balloon and seemed to buoy her up. Mary was so frank and honest and gay that every one had to like her, and, strange to say, boys, who as a rule are quite snobbish about appearances and insist on a certain amount of beauty or style in the girls they go with, all liked Mary and she never lacked for a partner at a dance. She was so amusing and witty that they lost sight of her freckled face and scrambled red hair. Mary had good hard common sense, too, and such a level head that we were very apt to ask her advice on every subject in spite of the fact that she was many months younger than any of us. A cross-eyed cow would have had a good time at that Thanksgiving ball. There were so many stags and all of them seemed so eager to dance that the girls were really overworked. Wink and Harvie introduced many University of Virginia men to us and we had the honour of dancing with every member of the football team who was able to hobble. George Massie, poor Sleepy, who had been so wide awake on the gridiron and so unconscious of himself, in the ball room was overcome with shyness. He was a very good dancer if he did break through a crowd with somewhat the manner of a centre rush. He danced with Annie Pore wherever he could get to her and when some eager swain tried to break in he would seize her in his mighty grasp and bear her away with about the same ease he would a football. If opponents went down under and before him, why then next time they would know better than get in his way. Annie looked very lovely. The faithful white crêpe de chine had been cleaned and was still doing its duty. I heard many persons ask who she was and especially eager did the public seem to establish her identity when the great and only Hiram G. Parker singled her out for his attentions. "Does she belong in Richmond?" "She is sure to be a next year's belle with this start she is getting with Hiram G." "I can't see what he sees in her. She has no style to speak of and that dress is plainly last year's model," this from a lady whose daughter was what put in my mind the remark I just made about cross-eyed cows. You felt she was led out to dance only because of the superfluity of males. "Now that Miss Binks from Newport News," continued the mystified lady, "that girl has some style and you can see why Hiram G. took a fancy to her. Of course those Binkses are common as pig tracks but the mother is well connected and they do say that old Binks has made money hand over fist. Mrs. Garnett met her at Willoughby and asked her up to visit her. You may be sure she is rich because we know she has no claim to being an aristocrat. Park Garnett demands either blood or money." All of this I overheard between dances. I was standing on the edge of the crowd with Wink White with whom I had been laboriously dancing. I never could dance with Wink; we never seemed to be able to get in step. I knew it was his fault and he thought it was mine. He would persist, however, in asking me to dance. The conversation of the chaperones was rather embarrassing to both of us as Mabel was Wink's cousin, his family being the good connection that Mrs. Binks could boast of, and Mrs. Garnett was my cousin. We were forced, though, to hear more as we were wedged in near them for a few moments. "They do say that Jeffry Tucker is paying Miss Binks a lot of attention. I saw her in his car at the game to-day and my daughter tells me that the girl is begigged about him. She actually broke a partial engagement with Hiram G. Parker to go somewhere with Mr. Tucker last week." "Well, well! She looks fit to cope with those Heavenly Twins!" "Oh! They aren't so bad now. They do say they are toned down a lot. School has been good for them." "They never were to say bad--just wild and harum-scarum. I'd hate to think Jeffry Tucker would give his girls such a young stepmother. They need some middle-aged person." "Yes, but poor Jeffry! Can't you see him tied to some middle-aged person? He is too young a man to marry for his children's sake." "Well, he's too old a man to marry a girl right out of school and expect his daughters to respect her." I was certainly glad to start dancing again even with the four-footed Wink. It is a strange thing what makes a good dancer. Some of the most awkward-looking persons dance beautifully and, vice versa, some very graceful ones are as stiff as pokers on the ballroom floor. Now Wink was a very well set up young man, tall, broad shouldered, with an erect carriage, almost soldierly in his bearing. It is all right to walk like a soldier but to dance the way a soldier walks is not so exemplary. Wink always had a kind of "Present arms! March!" manner and a girl does not like to be held and carried around like a musket. Dee declared she thought Wink was a good dancer and she could make out finely with him, and thank goodness, Wink had found this out and broke in on Dee more than he did on me. I liked to talk to him; he was a very bright, agreeable young man with original ideas and lots of ambition. If only his ambition had not directed his attentions to me! I could not get over a certain embarrassment with him occasioned by the ridiculous proposal he had made me while we were at Willoughby. He had said to me then that he did not know how much he loved me until he saw me with my hair done up like a grown-up, and I had joked and told him that I could not judge of my feelings for him until he grew a moustache. He had immediately left off shaving his upper lip and now, to my confusion, every time I looked at him there bristled a very formidable moustache. Wink was very good looking, with nice blue eyes and a straight nose. I don't know why it seemed such a huge jest for him to be trying to make love to me. Lots of girls my age had devoted lovers, at least according to their accounts they did. I was almost seventeen and it would be rather fun, I thought, to encourage him and even have a ring to put very conspicuously on my left hand on the engagement finger, but when I thought of his "lollapalussing" ways that night on the piazza at Willoughby I just knew I could not stand it. "Lollapalussing" was a Tweedles word and meant sentimental spooning and a hand-holding tendency. We used that word at Gresham to describe the girls who have a leaning, clinging-vine way of flopping on you. Our quintette was very much opposed to lollapalussers, male or female. I fancy when you are very much in love that lollapalussing is not so bad, but then I wasn't at all in love, certainly not with Wink. Father had taken a great fancy to Wink and the attraction seemed mutual. They talked together a great deal, and even at the ball when the young man was not dancing with either Dee or me, he would seek out Father, who was looking on at the dancing with great interest, and the two evidently found much to converse about. "Page," said Father, coming up to me as I was standing for a moment with Mr. Tucker, after a most glorious dance in which not once had we missed step or bumped into any one, "I have asked Mr. White down to Bracken for a visit during the Christmas holidays. I want him to see the country," putting his hand affectionately on Wink's shoulder. "He is thinking of settling in the country after he gets his M.D., and has some hospital practice, and I am looking out for some one to throw my mantle on, as it were." "Oh--ye--that would be fine," I stammered, and I hate myself yet for blushing like a fool rose. Zebedee saw it and he looked so sad, just exactly as he had the winter before when Mr. Reginald Kent asked Dum for a lock of her hair. I did wish I could make him understand that it made not a whip stitch of difference to me where Wink White settled. That I was nothing but a little girl and did not care a bit for beaux, except, of course, for dancing partners, and maybe a candy beau or two. Every girl wants that kind. But as for serious, young, would-be doctors growing moustaches and coming to settle in our end of the county--it made me tired. I did not know how to let my kind friend know it did, though, and as just then the chrysanthemum-headed giant from Carolina, the one I had seen weeping on the field after the game, came up to claim a dance, I had to leave. A moment afterwards I had the doubtful pleasure of seeing Zebedee engaged in the gyrations of some new fangled dance with the beaming Mabel Binks in his arms. Mabel was certainly looking handsome. "I'll give it to her," as Mammy Susan says when she admits something pleasant about any one for whom she has no regard. She was dressed in a flame-coloured chiffon that set off her fiery beauty which was accentuated by the many diamonds, rather too many for a young girl, but I think it is usually the tendency of those who have no diamonds to wear to think that the ones who do have them wear too many. Needless to say that I have no diamonds to wear. "Isn't she the limit?" hissed Dum, as we stopped dancing near each other and Zebedee and his partner kept on for a moment after the music had stopped. "I call it lollapalussy to dance after the band quits." "She is looking mighty handsome, don't you think?" "Handsome! She looks oochy koochy to me! Too like the Midway to suit my taste." Well, we had certainly had a wonderful time and I was not going to let anything ruin it for me. Stephen White could grow a moustache as big as a hedge and come and settle all over the county if he wanted to, and Mr. Jeffry Tucker could dance with a loud-mouthed girl in flame-coloured chiffon until he scorched himself if he wanted to. I had been to a ball and been something of a belle and now I was tired and sleepy and wanted to get to bed and talk over things with the girls,--I did wish though that I had not blushed like a fool rose just at the wrong time and that Zebedee had not seen me. CHAPTER XIII. NODS AND BECKS. "'Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest and youthful jollity, Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, Nods and Becks, and Wreathèd Smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek.'" quoted Mary Flannagan. "There is a name for our magazine, right there in sober-sided old Milton." "Why, that's as hackneyed as can be," objected Dum. "It seems to me that every school magazine I ever read was called 'Quips and Cranks.' Let's get something real original and different and try to make the mag the same way." "Of course I didn't mean 'Quips and Cranks.' I mean 'Nods and Becks.' I think that would be a bully name." And so did all of us, and "Nods and Becks" was unanimously elected as the name for the school paper that we were striving to get out before Christmas. I was chosen editor-in-chief, much to my astonishment. It seemed to me that one of the Tuckers should have had that job, with their father a real live editor. They must have inherited some of his ability; but the Lit. Society would have me and I had to turn in and do the best I could. I didn't mind the writing end of it so much as the part I had in turning down some of the effusions that were handed in by members of the society. Our object in the publishing of this magazine was to make it as light and gay as possible. We had chosen Christmas as our season for publication and that meant getting very busy after our Thanksgiving jaunt. We really had intended to use the little holiday we were to have at that time to get our magazine in shape. We called it a magazine for dignity, but it was really more of a newspaper. I am going to publish the whole thing just to show what girls can do at school. Every one thought it was very creditable. We had lots of ads from the tradespeople at Gresham and a few from Richmond firms, enough to pay for the printing. CHRISTMAS NUMBER OF _NODS AND BECKS_. GRESHAM, VA. SONNET TO SANTA CLAUS. BY PAGE ALLISON. Pan may be dead, but Santa Claus remains, And once a year he riseth in his might. Oft have I heard, in silences of night, Tinkling of bells and clink of reindeer chains As o'er the roof he sped through his domains, When youthful eyes had given up the fight To glimpse for once the rotund, jolly wight, Who in a trusting world unchallenged reigns. Last and the greatest of all Gods is he, Who suffereth little children and is kind; And when I've rounded out my earthly span And face at last the Ancient Mystery, I hope somewhere in Heaven I shall find Rest on the bosom of that good old man. BEAUTY HINTS AND ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. BY MARY FLANNAGAN. Dear Editor: I have cut two sleeves for the wrong arm in trying to make my new velour coat out of half a yard less goods than the pattern called for. I can't match the goods now. What must I do? (signed) AGITATED KATE. Dear Kate: Put one sleeve in hind part before and then get a Teddy Bear or a plush monkey matching your coat as near as possible or in pleasing contrast to it if you can't get it to match, and tack it under your arm. It will hide the discrepancy and at the same time give a chic, stylish punch to your costume. It would be better to sew it as you would find it something of a strain on bargain days to have to hold it and you might forget. (signed) EDITOR OF BEAUTY HINTS. Dear Editor: I am losing my good figure. What can I do to keep it? (signed) SYLVIA. Dear Sylvia: Pin it on tighter. Try black safety pins, they seem to be stronger than white. (signed) EDITOR OF BEAUTY HINTS. FACTS ABOUT FATIMA. It is the style to be tall and slender. Assume a virtue if you have it not and you who are short and fat, don't grow any shorter and fatter. The following obesity rules will prove very helpful to my correspondent who signs herself, Miss Rosy Round: Stand up for twenty minutes after meals (if you must have meals). Eat no potatoes. Eat no bread. Avoid all starchy food. Avoid meats of all kinds. Fish is fattening. Never touch sweets or pastry. Eat no fruit for fear of uric acid. Never drink water with your meals, but between meals do nothing but drink water, all the time that you can spare from the gymnastics that must be kept up to keep down the disfiguring fat. Always leave the table hungry, but take a pickle with you, a large dill pickle is the best for your purpose. Eat a great deal of pickle; it may ruin your complexion but a good complexion is only skin deep while fatness goes straight through. Sleep in your stays if you can, but if you can't just don't sleep. Sleep is a fattening habit at best. Keep a pickle under your pillow and take a bite when you think of it. Lose your temper on all occasions, as nothing is more conducive to stoutness than placidity. Stop speaking of yourself as a Fatty, and begin to speak of yourself as slender. Remember the power of Mind over Matter. Lead a lean life and think thin thoughts; dress in diaphanous gauze; make hair-splitting distinctions; talk and think much of your slender purse; walk the narrow way and have ever in your mind the eye of the needle through which you shall finally have to pass.--Before you know it you will lose pounds and pounds of flesh. RECIPES TRIED IN MY OWN KITCHEN (NIT). BY CAROLINE TUCKER. A GRESHAM CLUB SANDWICH. Take two tender new pupils (Freshmen preferred, Juniors out of the question), stick them together in a corner, with a thin slice of reserve between them, season to taste with some spicy gossip and a little lollapalusser. After a year in a cool place they will be fit to eat. * * * * * BROWN BETTY À LA FACULTY. Take two crusty members of the faculty and let them grate against each other until both are reduced to crumbs. Place in baking dish a layer of crumbs and a layer of tart apples of discord well chopped. Sweeten well with high-toned politeness, veiled with sarcasm. Serve piping hot with the same kind of sauce you give to the gander. * * * * * FRENCH DRESSING AS SERVED AT GRESHAM. Let the ingredients stay in bed until ten minutes before breakfast, then in a wild scramble cover with a thin layer of clothes without the formality of bathing or even taking off nightgown when breakfasting _en famille_. Do hair with a lick and a promise and beat all the other girls to the table. * * * * * FASHION NOTES. BY VIRGINIA TUCKER. The newest fad among the women who know and know they know, is to have their perfume harmonize with their costumes. An up-to-date society woman would no more wear a blue dress and smell of lavender sachet than she would wear a lavender hat with said blue dress. Vera Violet must go with a purple dress; Attar of Roses with a pink; New Mown Hay with green,--and so on. One very smart grande dame at a fine function, given lately at Gresham, gowned in a biscuit-coloured broadcloth, had a faint, delicious odour of hot rolls. * * * * * Hats are still worn hind part before and veils are put on to stay with no visible opening. One wonders sometimes "how the apple got in the dumpling." Some of the newest veils have a sliding dot, to be worn over or near the mouth. This can be opened by one knowing the combination and then a small aperture is discovered that will admit of a straw. The soft drink drugstore man need not despair. * * * * * It is not considered good taste to wear more than three shades of false hair at one time, and a similarity in the texture of the material used should be aimed at. The puffs must be of one shade and material although it would be too much to expect of a woman to have them match absolutely with the switch, rat, pompadour and bun. Rats are no longer in vogue but traps are now considered the sanitary and proper things. This steel construction lowers the fire rates, which is much in its favour. If we keep on with this false hair craze what will we come to? Perhaps to the fate of: "This old man with a very long beard, Who said: ''Tis just as I feared, A lark and a wren, Two owls and a hen Have builded a nest in my beard.'" If you have not hair enough of your own to cover the springs, there are plenty of kinds, colours and materials resembling human hair to be bought for a song. Goat hair is used a great deal as it is very durable and strong,--too strong in one sense, as:-- "You may break, you may shatter The vase as you will, But the scent of the roses Will cling 'round it still." * * * * * JOKES AND NEAR JOKES. NANCY BLAIR, EDITOR. The son of an eminent preacher was greatly interested in the story of Adam and Eve. One night the child seemed very restless, tossing and turning in his crib. The father leaned over him, asking: "My child, what is the matter? Why don't you go to sleep?" "Oh, Father, I can't! I've got such a pain in my ribs. I'm awful 'fraid God is sending me a wife." * * * * * Little Anne, aged five, was asked what she was fasting on during Lent. She answered, "Washing my hands." * * * * * A little girl who had never been to a wedding was greatly excited when one was going on across the street. She was especially interested in the little flower girls as they tripped out of the carriage in their dainty white frocks. "Mother!" she exclaimed. "If Daddy dies, will you marry again?" "No, my dear! Never! Why do you ask?" "'Cause, Mother, I do so hope you will and let me be your little flower girl." * * * * * Customer--That was the driest, flattest sandwich I ever tried to chew into! Waiter--Why, here is your sandwich! You ate your check. * * * * * One of the Sophomores wants to take Psychology because she says she understands that a course in it teaches you to do your hair up in a lovely Psyche knot--A Psychic Phenomenon! * * * * * Jean Rice has burst into poetry, viz.: "Come to my arms, You bundle of charms! With the greatest enthusiasm I will clasp you to my bosiasm." Lines written to Miss Polly Kent: There was a young lady named Kent, Who declared she had not a cent, She remembered a quarter She had hid in her garter, But on looking found that, too, had went. * * * * * A touching poem addressed to Miss Grace Greer, of Chicago, Ill. Miss Greer is the champion gum-chewer of Gresham. There was a young maid from the West, Who chewed gum with such marvelous zest, That they named a committee, Both tactful and witty Who suggested she let her jaws rest. * * * * * THE CORRESPONDENCE CURE. BY PAGE ALLISON. CHAPTER I. "That's just what I'll do for you, Hal. I'll write to this Uncle Sam person and get him to give you one of his letter treatments," said Mr. Allen, Hal's daddy. Jo Allen was so young that his incorrigible young son called him by his first name and regarded him as "one of the fellers" instead of a father; consequently he thought his own judgment as reliable as his Dad's and paid as much heed to his orders and requests as he would to one of the "fellers." "Thunder! I ain't sick. What I gotter have a treatment for?" "I didn't mean anything like paregoric, or milk and eggs and a teaspoonful of this in half a glass of water after meals. It seems to be something like this: an old man, calling himself 'Uncle Sam,' advertises in the _Times_ that he will write fatherly letters to difficult boys for $50.00 a course." "Aw, Jo! I swear, I bet it's a lot of stuff about 'do unto others.'" Hal always objected to other people's suggestions. "Well, we'll take a chance on it. You don't like my methods, if you can call 'em that. You are my first and only offspring and I don't seem to have much maternal instinct and no judgment where you are concerned. Son, it is as hard for you not to have your mother as it is for me not to have my wife." "It's all right, Jo, you know more 'bout being a father than I do 'bout being a son. But bring on your Uncle Sam and we can see what will happen. I don't have to read the letters if he writes a lot of rot." "Nine o'clock! I ought to be at the office and and you ought to be at school. Don't play hookey again to-day," Jo Allen said as he reached for his hat. Jo was a corporation lawyer and when he told the other members of his firm about his latest plans for bringing up his son, they all laughed. "What next, Jo? 'Sons put on the right path by mail.' It's a joke all right and so are you and Hal. You can't do a thing with that kid! When he stole the preacher's white horse and painted 'Hell' on it you just laughed. Why don't you beat him up a little?" inquired Jones good-naturedly. "But he is not downright bad, he is just mischievous and full of life. I can't do anything to him because it is all just what I used to do when I was a kid,--behold the monument!" "He looks so much like you that I always think something has happened to the clock and it is twenty years ago whenever I see him. He's got your snappy grey eyes and black hair and Sally's Greek instead of our honored partner's 'Roaming.'" Jo was always pleased when it was said that his son looked like him, for he knew that they were both of them extremely goodlooking. And, too, he was secretly proud of his slightly Roman nose, which did add a certain air of distinction to such a young man. He dictated a letter to Uncle Sam and two days later Hal got the first installment. "Dear Hal: "When I was a boy of twelve, just your age, I had just about the reputation you have. But my father had a family of seven children, of which I was the youngest, so when I cut up he knew just what to do with me. He realized that I had a great deal of surplus energy and having no good way of working it off, I always got into mischief and sometimes into rather serious trouble. "Your Dad told me about your stealing the minister's horse and putting a large red 'Hell' on one of his sides. When I was a boy I remember that I made a bomb out of a little powder and an old sock and put it under the porch of a Negro church (Hal, as man to man, I trust you not to try this stunt). Of course I stayed to watch the fun. I thought the fuse was longer than it was and came closer to adjust it--Bang! and I was left with no eyebrows. I was too scared to run and the darkeys began to pour out, threatening darkly as to the future welfare of my soul. They caught me and took me to the county lockup. That evening my brother came and bailed me out. My father asked me where my eyebrows were, and I said, 'I reckon part of them are by the Nigger church.' Of course he gradually got the details and a very thick silence followed. Then he told me just what I am going to tell you. But first,--Hal, don't you think it's funny what a passion all boys have to torment the parsons of both the white and black race? I do. "Dad said that I needed to be kept busy and with something that gave me pleasure. He was never strong on punishment and he suggested something that pleased me mightily. He said that if I would build a canoe and a pair of paddles by the last of May he would give me and three of my friends a camp for two weeks by the river. I was glad my eyebrows were gone, for who doesn't like to camp? "Now, Son, you ask your dad if he won't make this same agreement. You have a month to do it in and I reckon you can have a dandy canoe made by that time. "Let me know what Mr. Allen says. "Sincerely, "UNCLE SAM." Hal looked over the letter at his daddy and thought a minute. Then he said: "Jo, this here Uncle Sam ain't so worse. Here's a pretty decent thought that rattled out of his head." Mr. Allen took the letter and read it and then he, too, thought a minute. "I'm on, Son," he said, "and you can have your friends to help you." "All right! Then shall I write and tell our darling Unkil that it's a go?" And this was the letter Uncle Sam got from the "wayward youth he was trying to straighten out": "Mr. Uncle Sam, ---- Building, New York. "Dear Uncle S.: "Yours of the inst. rec'd., first. Jo--that's my dad and He's a peach too let me tell you--says your idea suits him fine and anyway he always goes to New York the first two weeks in June on business and then I have to stay with Aunt Maria at Sunny Glen and I hate it because she is so clean. I hate to milk too and she is so afraid I'll get drowned when I swim in the icepond. She is a terrible nut because I can swim fine. I've got a monogram for my sweater for swimming at the Y. M. C. A. pool and that's bigger and deeper than old spit-in-the-fire Aunt Maria's dinky little icepond. Daddy took me in the roadster over to the next town to order the stuff for the canoe. What do you think would be a good name for her after we finish it? We've put up part of the skeleton already. Sometimes on a straight road Jo lets me run the roadster--it's a Mercer. Do you like Mercers? I like them the best and so does Jo. I can't change gear very good yet and I am too young to get a license but I am strong enough to crank it. I've got right much muscle. Did you like to fight when you were a boy? I love my black eyes on other people. Jo says it is tough to fight, so he boxes with me. He can box fine, too. He can beat me swimming and diving all to pieces, too. I've got to stop now because Pete is whistling for me to come catch with him. "Rept. HAL ALLEN." CHAPTER II. "Jo, I wish you would bring me a Remington rifle from New York. I'm old enough to have a good one now, and tell my reformer I named the canoe 'Uncle Sam'. I like that old man so much I wish he'd come down here to live." "So long, Son! I hope you will have a peach of a time at your camp. Oh, yes! Aunt Maria told me to be sure and tell you not to go swimming but once a day, but I always lived in my bathing suit--at least we will say I had a bathing suit--and you can do the same." It was only an hour's trip to New York and Jo was busy thinking about the change in Hal and wondering if Uncle Sam would consider it strange for him to invite him to go home on a visit. He decided he would go by Uncle Sam's office and speak to him and make an engagement for the theatre that night. Jo Allen stopped a minute in front of Uncle Sam's office door to get out a card and then he rang the bell. A very handsome, auburn-haired, green-eyed girl answered his ring and he gave her his card with a rather bewildered smile, for he wondered why such an old man as Uncle Sam kept such a darned good-looking female to tickle the keys. "May I see Uncle Sam?" he asked. "Why, certainly!" she said. "Please come in." Her "Certainly" sounded Southern to Jo. He might have thought some more but he was interrupted by the girl. "You will sit down, won't you?" she smiled at him from her swivel chair. "Thank you! Will Uncle Sam be along soon do you think?" he queried. "Oh! I thought you understood. Why, Mr. Allen, I am Uncle Sam." "Ohgoodlord!" Jo said it very loud and as though it were all one word. Then after a minute, "What the devil will Hal say when he finds his Uncle Sam is a woman?" "I see no reason why he should know." Uncle Sam was very calm and unconcerned. "But you see I swore I'd bring Uncle Sam back on a visit. I had it all planned out that Uncle Sam and I would take in a show to-night...." "I don't reckon Uncle Sam would mind going to the theatre, Mr. Allen. You might ask him," said the girl very frankly. "Good for you, Uncle Sam,--you are a peach, after all. Hal may be disappointed, but, believe me, I am not. I wish you would tell me your name." Jo was looking much happier now. He had forgotten what Hal would say when he got home Uncle Samless,--but really her hair and eyes were enough to make him forget and her voice was very musical with its Southern accent. "Page Carter," she told him, "and I suppose you want to know the whys and wherefores of Uncle Sam's business. Well, you can probably tell from my name that I am a Virginian and from my occupation that I am poor, and if you could see my brain at work or my poor attempts at sewing, you would see why I had to choose this way of making a living. Yes, I had to do it. You see, my mother and father are dead and I could not accept my friends' kind invitations to come and be their barnacles." "Miss Carter, you need not worry about the workings of your brain. That was a dandy bluff you put up. I could see you with white hair, seated at a desk, writing Hal about your boyhood scrapes. Let's make it a supper before the theatre. Are you game?" "Sure," she said. Jo noticed she did not have to look in a mirror to make her hat becoming. "Mr. Allen, your son has written me so much about you that I feel as though I knew you. That is very bromidic, but it is so." Jo never knew what they had for dinner and Page Carter did not get many of the lines of the play. She had always been strong for black hair and grey eyes. She knew, too, that he was successful from his clothes and Hal's remarks about the Mercer, and he surely was an amusing companion. Hal interested her. New York wasn't much when you were in it by yourself and it was very evident that Jo liked her and his grey eyes were beginning to look.... The play was over; and she had promised to meet him for lunch and afterwards to pick out a rifle for Hal. A week later Hal jumped out of the canoe and rushed up to the boys in camp and waved a yellow slip of paper before them. "Listen," he yelled, "'Be home to-morrow. Got rifle. Uncle Sam with me. Dad.'" CHAPTER XIV. HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS. _Nods and Becks_ met with great favour and we felt after our labours that we had earned the good times we meant to have during the holidays. The Tuckers had decided to come to Bracken for Christmas, so we were in the seventh heaven of bliss. Annie and Mary could not accept the invitation that Father had told me to give them as they had to go to their respective homes, Annie to be with her dignified paternal relative, and Mary with what she assured us was a far from dignified maternal one. We had never met any of Mary's people but hoped to some day, as all she told us of them sounded pretty nice. She had no father but was unique among us as she actually could boast a mother. She had one little tiny sister and a big brother who was a mining engineer. The Flannagans lived in the valley of Virginia. They were of rugged Scotch-Irish stock, very different from the softer, aristocratic types to be seen in the tide-water section. Their home was in Harrisonburg and we knew afterwards that they were well off but no word from Mary ever gave us to understand it. She always was quick to pay her share and more than her share in any jaunt we went on together, but I believe I never heard Mary mention money. Tweedles and I used to wonder if they were not fabulously wealthy because of all the material that was wasted in Mary's voluminous skirts. It seems that Mary's mother always wore full skirts and she just had Mary's made the same way. The last night before the holidays we broke about all the rules we could remember. Some may have escaped us, but I doubt it. We cooked in our rooms; visited in other girls' rooms; laughed and made a racket in the halls; slid down the bannisters; and were generally obstreperous,--so much so that Miss Plympton said we would have to work off our demerits when we got back from the holidays. This pleasing bit of news she imparted to us at the very early breakfast we had on the morning of our departure. But we were going home, and threatened demerits after the holidays had no more effect on our spirits than a sermon on hell fire would have had on the ardour of a new-born babe. On the way to the station we passed our dear old friend, Captain Pat Leahy, who was faithfully keeping the gate at the railroad crossing. He stumped out on his peg leg to give us the "top o' the morning." "An' phwat do ye hear of that poorrr sick angel, Miss Peyton? Bless her heart!" "We believe she is recovering, Captain Leahy. We miss her terribly." "Miss her! I should say ye would, with her winnin' ways and the kind smile of her. And phwat does the managemint mene by hoistin' a lady on ye poorr lambs with the manners of a Tammany boss? Whin I saw her schtriding off of the trrain last Siptimber in her men's clothes, all but the pants, and a voice like a trrain butcherr, I said to meself: 'Pat Leahy, ther'll be trooble oop at Gresham this sission!' I knew it more than iver whin she pushed me cats away with her oombrella that she carried like a shillalah. A lady, whin she has no use for cats, is either a very timid lady and surely no fit person to look arfter a girls' school, or ilse she is that hard-hearted that she ought to have the job of dhriving a team of mules to a rock waggon." "How are the cats, Captain?" asked Dee. "Foine, missy, foine! And here is Oliverr, grown to sich a great schize ye woud scarcely know him. He got over his runtiness jist as soon as you young ladies took oop with him." Oliver came running out of the little gate house at sound of his name. He had indeed grown to be a handsome cat. Dee, of course, had to stop and take him in her arms for a moment. Oliver was the kitten, grown into a great cat, that Dee had taken to her room the winter before. We would never forget the night he spent with us nor our efforts to feed him milk, heated over a candle. "I wonder what Miss Plympton would have said if we had gone to her and confessed about the kitten, as we did to Miss Peyton," said Dum. "Said!" exclaimed Captain Leahy. "Why, phwat she would have said would not be fit to print!" and he gave a great laugh which rang pleasantly in our ears as we ran to catch the train that was coming around the curve. The train was full of girls going home for the holidays and a very gay crowd we were in spite of its being so very early in the morning. We had come off with so little breakfast that it was not worthy of the name. Crackers and jam and weak coffee, heated over from last night's brewing, but not much heated over, just warmed up to the tepid temperature of a baby's bath, is not very satisfying to the growing girl. I can't see why the food at boarding school for both boys and girls seems to be the last thing considered. Their minds and morals are looked after with great care but their inner men are simply ignored. All the catalogues say: "Food wholesome and plentiful," but to my mind that at Gresham was neither. When it was poor it was plentiful and when it was plentiful it was poor, but if something was served very good and palatable, it usually gave out. Under Miss Plympton's régime it was much worse than when Miss Peyton wielded the scepter. Miss Peyton insisted on a certain balance of diet at least and had many a talk with the dull old housekeeper, who, I am sure, was the only person in the world who preferred Miss Plympton to Miss Peyton. Miss Plympton did not at all object to three kinds of beans being served at one meal, or sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes with no touch of green food. On the other hand when the housekeeper chose to have turnip salad and cabbage on the same day, so that we felt like Nebuchadnezzar when he ate grass like an ox, our principal said nothing. Girls' insides must be disciplined, too. If skim milk was served with their cereal that was more than they deserved. During that first half of my second term at Gresham I had to remember very often what Margaret Sayre had said to me about looking at the mountains when things did not go just exactly to suit me. I looked at them a great deal that first half. I had a good appetite as a rule but had been spoiled by Mammy Susan, whose one idea seemed to be to give me what I wanted, and the consequence was that unless food was well cooked and seasoned, I simply did not eat. Tweedles ate anyhow, but long stretches of cafés or boarding houses had inured them to cooking that I simply could not stomach. "You are a regular princess, Page," said Dee to me on that morning when we were leaving for the holidays. "Of course the food is bum but it is better than going empty." "Maybe it is, but I can't swallow bad coffee." "But you are looking as pale as a little ghost and you are so thin you can't keep on your skirts." This I could not deny as at that minute I had my skirt lapped over two inches and pinned with a large safety pin to keep it from dropping off altogether. "I'll buck up when I get home. Two weeks of feeding will fill out my belt again," I laughed. I left the Tuckers at Richmond and went on that day to Milton where Father met me and drove me over to Bracken. My, it was good to be home! Mammy Susan almost ate me up for joy, and the dogs actually threw me down in their efforts to get first lick. "Why, honey, chile, you is sho thin and peaked lookin'," declared my dear old friend. "You ain't no bigger'n a minute. What all them teacher's been a doin' to you?" "She is thin, Mammy Susan," broke in Father, "and I am going to put her on an iron tonic right away. She tells me she has no appetite." "Well, now, that's too bad! I done made a mess er chicken gumbo fer dinner and some er them lil bits er thin biscuit. I done knocked up a blackberry roll, too, with hard sauce that is as soft and fluffy as a cloud in Spring. It's too bad my baby ain't got no appletite." It was too bad surely, but if I had had one I don't know what I would have done, as without one I ate like a field hand. "Looks lak she is able to worry down somethin'," said Mammy Susan with a sly twinkle in her eye as she brought in another plate of hot biscuit. "Don't forgit, honey chile, to save a little spot on you innards fer the blackberry roll. It sho do smell toothsome. I is moughty glad them twinses is comin' down fer Christmas an' they paw, too. Did Docallison tell you that Blanche is goin' to be here enduring of the holidays?" Blanche was Mammy Susan's relative who had cooked for the Tuckers during the memorable house-party at Willoughby. The Tuckers were to come to Bracken on Christmas Eve. We were expecting Stephen White, also, and Mammy Susan said Blanche was to arrive on that day, too. I busied myself helping Mammy Susan prepare for the guests. There was much to be done in the way of fresh curtains in the bed rooms, rubbing silver and furniture, and dusting books. Mammy Susan had plum pudding, fruit cake and pies to make, and I helped with all of them. The kitchen at Bracken was a wonderful place. I believe I loved it more than any spot on earth. It was not under the same roof as the house but connected with it by a covered porch, enclosed in glass. This passage way had been my nursery as a child. Mammy Susan always had it filled with flowers in winter, gay geraniums in old tomato cans, begonias, heliotrope, ferns and a citronella, that furnished slips for half the county. The more slips that were taken from it, the more vigorous it would become. "That there limon verbeny 'minds me of Docallison," said Mammy. "The mo' it do give er itself, the mo' it do seem to have ter give. It looks lak as soon as yo' paw done finished wearing hisself out fer somebody, another pusson is a callin' on him; an' jes lak the limon verbeny, he branches out mo' the mo' he does." "He is thinking of having some one to help him, Mammy Susan. Don't you think it would be a good plan?" "Well, 'twill an' 'twon't! Ef'n he gits a man young enough ter take the bossin' that a helper's boun' ter git, he'll be too young ter suit the dead an' dyin'. Whin folks is sick they don't want no chilluns a feelin' of they pulps." "But he has in mind a young man who might take the bossing and make a good impression on the patients, too. He is coming on Christmas Eve for a visit and you must tell me what you think of him." "Is he yo' beau, honey?" "Why, Mammy Susan, how absurd!" "'Tain't so terruble absurd. Beaux is lak measles an' mumps. If you don't have 'em young, you mought go through life 'thout ever havin' 'em, but you is always kinder spectin' tew catch 'em. Ef you take 'em young, you don't take 'em quite so hard." Mammy Susan's philosophy always delighted me and I encouraged her to go on. I was sitting in the doorway of the kitchen where I could smell the heliotrope and citronella while I chopped apples and meat for the mince pies. Mammy was seeding raisins. She never would let the seeded raisins come in the house, scorning them as some kind of new-fangled invention that would ruin her pies and puddings. "Them unseedless raisins make lazy folks pies 'thout no virtue or suption in 'em." The kitchen was a low ceilinged room about twenty feet square. A range and great wood box occupied one side, with a copper sink and a pump. There was no plumbing in Bracken and this primitive pump connected with the well was all we could boast in the way of conveniences. In the broad window sills were more tomato cans of geraniums and various slips that Mammy was starting for neighbours. Skillets and pots and pans of various sizes were inverted on the many shelves, which were covered with newspapers with fancy scalloped borders and beautiful open-work patterns that it had always been my duty and pleasure as a child to cut out for Mammy Susan. Festooned from the rafters were long strings of bright red peppers, dried okra, onions and bunches of thyme and bay. Pots of parsley and chives occupied one of the sunny windows. Mammy Susan held that: "Seasonin' is the maindest thing in cookin', that an' 'lowin' victuals to simper and not bile too hard." "Mammy, is this going to be enough mince meat?" "Sho, chile! That's the quantity fer six full pies, none of yo' skimpy kin' wif the top pastry sticking to the bottom, lookin' lak some folks what don't boast no insides ter speak of,--but the full fleshed kind--them's what I call pies. I'm goin' ter make that there Blanche stir up a Lady Balmoral cake soon's she gits here. The Twinses and they paw kin git on the ou'side of a passel er victuals, and the saftest thing is ter have a plenty of them cooked up fer 'mergencies. Kin this new beau, Mr. White, eat as much as Mr. Tucker?" "Why, I don't know. I never noticed." "Well, then you ain't considerin' of him very serious lak. Whin a gal is studyin' 'bout a man, the very fust thing she takes notice on is his appletite. She'll know that whin she ain't quite sho what colour his eyes is, an' she'll want ter dish up his fav'rite victuals ev'y chanct she gits." I laughed and went on chopping apples. How peaceful and happy everything was at Bracken! The wind was blowing up cold and it looked like snow but the kitchen was warm, so warm that it easily spared heat for the glass porch and all the growing plants. The delicious smell of Mammy's fruit cake, baking in the range, mingled with the citronella and the wine sap apples I was chopping. Mammy reached up and broke off a pod of red pepper to drop in the bean soup that was bubbling in a great iron pot. "Put a little bay in, too, Mammy, I love it." Instead of needing iron tonic as Father had thought, I really needed a restraining hand. I felt as though I could never get enough to eat. Bean soup, so despised at Gresham, was being made at my request,--but then, there is bean soup and bean soup. "Please, Mammy Susan, have batter bread at least twice a day while Mr. Tucker is here. He is just crazy about it." "All right, honey chile!" I wondered what made Mammy Susan look at me so long and searchingly. "Is there anything more I can do for you, Mammy?" "No, chile, the cookery is about 'complished. All I've got ter do now is straighten up my shelbs with clean papers." "Oh, please let me cut the papers!" "'Deed you kin!" exclaimed the old woman delightedly. "I was afeerd you done got so growd-up with beaux an' things that you done los' yo' tase fer makin' pretty patterns fer the shelbs." So she got out some big shears and a pile of newspapers and I outdid myself in wonderful lacy patterns and scallops that made the old kitchen beautiful for Christmas. CHAPTER XV. CHRISTMAS GUESTS. It began to snow before dawn on Christmas Eve and kept it up steadily all morning. It was a fine dry snow that gave promise of good sleighing, and Father and I were delighted. He loved snow like a boy, provided it was the kind of snow that meant good sleighing. The colt was hitched to a little red cutter and they whizzed off to the sick folks with such a merry ringing of the bells that just the sound of them must have made the sufferers feel better. The Tuckers were to arrive on the three train, also Stephen White and perhaps Blanche. The roads were in a bad fix between Milton and Richmond and we feared to trust Henry Ford, so our friends were forced to travel by rail. The big wood sled was put into commission, with an old wagon bed screwed on top of it, and when this was filled with hay, I am sure no limousine in the world could offer more luxurious transportation. It had stopped snowing and the sun was trying to shine when I clambered into my equipage with Peg and one of the younger plow horses hitched to it. I stood up to drive, knee-deep in hay. Peg and the plow horse acted like two-year-olds and did the six miles to Milton almost as easily as Father and the colt. When the train came puffing up, they actually had the impertinence to shy and prance, much to the delight of our guests who came tumbling out of the last coach so laden with bundles that you could not tell which was which. Such excitement on the little station of Milton, usually so quiet and sedate! First came Dee carrying Brindle, wrapped in a plaid shawl, looking, as Zebedee said, like an emigrant baby, then Zebedee and Wink, with suit cases and great boxes and paper parcels; then Dum with more valises and more boxes and parcels. I was astonished to see Mr. Reginald Kent bringing up the rear. He, too, was almost completely concealed with baggage and bundles, but I could see his smiling, ruddy countenance above his load. "Why, Mr. Kent, I saw Jo yesterday and he did not tell me you were coming!" I exclaimed as he dropped some of his packages so he could shake my hand. "I did not let him know. I find when Cousin Sally expects me she makes herself sick cooking for me, so I thought I would surprise them." I certainly liked his spirit of unselfishness. Not many young men would have thought of sparing a middle-aged, complaining cousin whose one attraction was her cooking. Just then Jo Winn came gliding up in his little cutter, ostensibly for the mail but in reality to catch a glimpse of Dee who was the one female I have ever seen the shy man at his ease with. Of course he was at his ease with me, having known me since I was a baby, but I somehow never think of myself as a female to make the males tremble. Our hilarious greetings were under way and the train had begun to move when an agonizing screech came from the coloured coach, the one nearest the engine. There was a great ringing of the bell and then there emerged the portly form of "poor dear Blanche," as Zebedee always called the girl who had cooked for us at Willoughby the summer before,--not to her face, of course. Her great black-plumed hat was all awry, and from the huge basket, that she always carried in lieu of a valise, there dragged long green stockings and some much belaced lingerie. She was greatly excited, having come within an ace of passing the station. "I was in the embrace of Morphine, as it were, Miss Page, and had no recognizance of having derived at our predestination, whin I was sudden like brought to my sensibleness by hearing the dulsom tones of Miss Dum a greeting you. I jumped up and called loud and long for the inductor to come to my resistance. The train had begun to prognosticate! I was in respiration whin a dark complected gentleman in the seat opposing mine, very kindly impeded the bell by reducing the rope." "What did the conductor say?" I knew that it was a terrible offense for a non-official to pull the bell rope. "Say! Why, Miss Page, 'twould bring the blush of remortifycation to my maiden meditations to repetition that white man's langige." It was cheering indeed to hear Blanche's inimitable conversation once more. Thank goodness, there were enough other things to laugh at for her not to know we were overcome by her remarks. We bundled her into the far back corner of the sled, where she sat like a Zulu queen on a throne. Good-byes were called to Jo Winn and his cousin, who said they would come over to Bracken after supper to help decorate the house. I had promised Tweedles not to decorate until they came, but I had had some great boughs of holly cut ready for the rite. I had gathered quantities of running cedar myself and, at the risk of my foolish neck, had climbed up a great walnut tree and sawed off a stumpy branch literally loaded with mistletoe. "I bid to drive," cried Zebedee as soon as the crowd was packed in the sled. "Do you stand up to it?" "Yes, you always stand in a wood sled." I should have said: "Be careful!" as the art of driving standing is not one acquired in a moment, but I was so accustomed to Mr. Tucker's doing things well that I never even thought of it. "Gee up!" he called, cracking the whip. The plow horse and Peg geed all right and Zebedee, accustomed to running a small automobile or driving a light buggy, had no idea of the skill necessary to stand up on a large wood sled and safely turn it around without turning over. We twisted around on one runner and nothing but the fact that Blanche's great weight was on the upper side saved us from a very neat turnover. Zebedee lost his balance and, still clutching wildly at the reins, shot over our heads into the soft and comfortable snow. Pegasus and the plow horse fortunately took it all as a matter of course in their day's work, and although Zebedee's flying leap jerked them back on their haunches in a very rude and unmannerly way, they never budged, but waited for their crestfallen Jehu to pick himself up out of the snow bank and climb back into place. "Why didn't you tell me?" he reproached me as we roared with laughter. "Tell you what?" "Tell me to use the knowledge I have obtained as a strap hanger on trolley cars to keep my balance in a wood sled!" "This is the way to stand: put your feet far apart, so," said I, suiting the action to the word; and taking the reins in my hands, clucked to my team and we started gaily off, the sleigh bells jingling merrily. Everybody had to have a turn at driving standing up, and in the six miles we had to go to reach Bracken, they had more or less mastered the art. I love Bracken and am always proud of it, but there are times when it seems more beautiful and lovable than at others, and on that Christmas Eve it never had been more attractive. Fires glowed in every grate. Indeed, Bill, the yard boy, whose duty it was to keep the wood chopped and the fires going, said he had "done got lop-sided a totin' wood." The house shone with cleanliness and smelt of all kinds of delicious things: Christmas greens, mince pies, spiced beef, and dried lavender. Lavender was always kept between the sheets in the linen press and when many beds had just been freshly made the whole place would smell of it. My Mammy Susan was a rather unique specimen of her race. As a rule, darkeys need a boss to be kept up to a certain standard. They are far from orderly, and wastefulness is their watchword. Now Mammy did to a letter everything that my mother, with all the enthusiasm of a young housekeeper, had thought necessary and that, combined with the solid training she had received at the hands of my paternal grandmother, to whose family she had belonged before the war, meant a very well kept house. Father and I were so accustomed to her wonderful management that we would not have known how wonderful it was if it had not been for the many summer visiting cousins who sang Mammy's praises while telling of their own vicissitudes with domestics. Mammy's one fault was that she could not abide having an assistant in the house, and the consequence was we were in daily and hourly dread of her giving out and being ill. She had tried girl after girl, but they had always been found wanting. She preferred having a boy to help her, so the yard boy was called on whenever she needed him. She bossed Bill and Bill "sassed" her, but they were on the whole very fond of each other. Bill was about twenty, very black and bow-legged, and so good-natured that it was impossible to anger him. Bill was fitted out with white coats and Mammy and I had been endeavouring to train him to wait on the table, with most ludicrous results. He had once been on a steamboat and so aped the airs of the steamboat waiters. He would balance a tray on his five fingers and, holding it above his head, would actually cake walk into the dining room. "This here ain't no side show Docallison is a runnin'," Mammy would say. "What the reason you feel lak you got ter walk lak a champinzee? All you needs is a monkey tail stickin' out from that ere new coat ter make you look jis' lak a keriller I done seed onct at a succus. Come on here, nigger, and take in dese victuals I done dished up befo' dey is stone cold." And Bill would grin and reply, "You come on and put dis ice I done dug out de ice house in de frigidrater befo' it gits hot;" and so waged the merry war between the old woman and the boy. Blanche was quite a favourite of Mammy's and she looked forward to her visit with enthusiasm. The girl, being on the footing of a guest, did not come in for her share of abuse that the old woman usually felt bound to administer to the young coloured girls who came her way. She came out to the driveway to meet us on that Christmas Eve, her dear old head bound up in the gayest of bandannas and her purple calico starched to a stiffness that would easily have permitted it to stand alone. The Tuckers greeted her with the greatest affection. I introduced Stephen White, who showed himself to be the gentleman I knew he was by his very kind and cordial manner in speaking to the old woman. Nothing is a greater test of breeding than a person's manner on such an occasion. The old woman looked at him keenly and kindly. Wink was very good looking with his clear brown eyes and the rather stubborn mouth that the carefully tended moustache was doing its best to hide. Wink's moustache was really getting huge and it gave him very much the air of a boy masquerading as a man with a false moustache. Every time I looked at it I had an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh. If he would only trim it down a little! "My little miss is done named you to me befo'," said Mammy with great cordiality. "Oh, has she really? That certainly was kind of her." "Well, it warn't much trouble fer her to do it," explained Mammy, fearful that she might be giving the young man too much encouragement. "What she done said was that she ain't never noticed whether you is much of a hand fer victuals or not." "Well, I can tell you he is," laughed Dee. "He is almost as good a hand as the Tuckers." CHAPTER XVI. CHRISTMAS EVE AT BRACKEN. "Do all of you want to go to-morrow morning with Page and me to play Santa Claus to our poor neighbours?" asked Father at supper. "Yes! Yes!" they chorused. "I feel bad about all these little nigs who know I bring them the things and so they don't believe in Santa Claus at all. I always think that belief in Santa Claus is one of the perquisites of childhood. Sometimes I have been tempted to dress up and play Santy for them, but I believe they would know me. Docallison is seen too often to have any mystery about him." "I have it! I have it!" and Dum clapped her hands in glee at the idea that had come to her. "Let's dress Zebedee up and let him go and give the kiddies their things." "Good!" exclaimed Father. "Will you do it, Tucker?" "Sure I will, if Page will do something I ask her." "What?" "I want you to recite your sonnet that Tweedles tell me you published in _Nods and Becks_. They have not been able to find their copies in the maelstrom of their trunks. I think from what they say of it, it might inspire me to act Santa Claus with great spirit." "Sonnet! What sonnet?" asked Father. "You don't mean you have not shown it to your father!" tweedled the twins. "Well, Father is so particular about poetry--somehow--I--I--" "Why, daughter!" "You know you are! You can't abide mediocre verse." "Well, that's so," he confessed, "but you might let me be the judge." And so I recited my sonnet, which I will repeat to save the reader the trouble of turning back so many pages to refresh her memory. "Pan may be dead, but Santa Claus remains, And once a year, he riseth in his might. Oft have I heard, in silences of night, Tinkling of bells and clink of reindeer chains As o'er the roofs he sped through his domains, When youthful eyes had given up the fight To glimpse for once the rotund, jolly wight, Who in a trusting world unchallenged reigns. Last and the greatest of all Gods is he, Who suffereth little children and is kind; And when I've rounded out my earthly span And face at last the Ancient Mystery, I hope somewhere in Heaven I shall find Rest on the bosom of that good old man." When I finished, Father sat so still that I just knew he thought it was trash. I could hardly raise my eyes to see, I was so afraid he was laughing at me. Father, while being the kindest and most lenient man in the world, was very strict about literature and demanded the best. I finally did get my eyes to behave and look up at him and to my amazement I found his were full of tears. He held out his arms to me and I flew to them, thereby upsetting a plate of Sally Lunn muffins that bow-legged Bill was just bringing into the dining room. Zebedee caught them, however, before they touched the ground, so no harm was done. "Page! You monkey!" was all Father could say, but I knew he liked my sonnet and I was very happy. He told me afterwards when we were alone that he liked it a lot and how I must work to do more and more verse. If I felt like writing, to write, no matter what was to pay. "I have got so lazy about it myself," he sighed. "When I was a boy I wanted to write all the time and did 'lisp in numbers' to some extent, but I got more and more out of it, did not put my thoughts down, and now I can only think poetry and don't believe I could write a line. Don't let it slip from you, honey." I had done my part, and now Zebedee was to be diked out as Santa Claus and give the little darkeys a treat that they would remember all their lives. Some of the bulky bundles the guests had brought from Richmond contained presents for our coloured neighbours. I had told Dum and Dee of the way Father and I always spent Christmas morning, and they had remembered when they did their Christmas shopping. They had gone to the five and ten cent store and, with what they declared was a very small outlay, had bought enough toys to gladden the hearts of all the nigs in the county. "Wouldn't it be more realistic if Mr. Tucker should go to-night?" suggested Wink. "No, no! 'Twould never do at all!" objected Father violently. "If Tucker goes to-night, I won't have a minute's peace all day to-morrow--What's more, young man," shaking his finger at Wink, "neither will you--I'll force you into service. Why, those little pickaninnies will stuff candy and nuts all night and lick the paint off the jumping-jacks and Noah's arks, and by morning they will be having forty million stomachaches. No, indeed, wait until morning. Let them eat the trash standing and they have a better chance to digest it." So wait we did. Jo Winn and his cousin, Reginald Kent, came to call after supper, and we all of us turned in to beautify Bracken. The great bunch of mistletoe we hung from the chandelier in the library, and holly and cedar was banked on bookcases and mantel. Dum deftly fashioned wreaths of running cedar and swamp berries, and Mr. Reginald Kent seemed to think he had to assist her to tie every knot. Bunches of holly and swamp berries were in every available vase, and Mammy Susan proudly bore in some blooming narcissus that she had set to sprout just six weeks before so that they would bloom on Christmas day. She had kept them hid from me so I could be surprised. I wondered how Father would take this interruption of his "ancient and solitary reign," and if he would regret the peaceful, orderly Christmas Eves he and I had always spent together. His quiet library was now pandemonium, and if it was turned up on the day before Christmas, what would it be on Christmas Day? He was sitting by the fire very contentedly, smoking his pipe and talking to Mr. Tucker, who had refused to help us decorate, and as was his way when he, Zebedee, did not want to enter into any of our frolics, he called us: "You young people" and pretended to be quite middle-aged. "Look at Zebedee!" said Dee to Wink. "Look at him Mr. Tuckering and trying to make out he's grown-up!" Wink, who looked upon Mr. Tucker as quite grown-up, even middle-aged, was rather mystified. I was very glad to see Wink and Dee renewing the friendship that had started between them at Willoughby. They were much more congenial than Wink and I were. If Wink would only stop looking at me like a dying calf and realize that Dee was a thousand times nicer and brighter and prettier than I was! It seemed to me that if it had been nothing more than a matter of noses, he was a goose not to prefer Dee. All the Tuckers had such good noses, straight and aristocratic with lots of character, and my little freckled _nez retroussé_ was so very ordinary. My nose has always been a source of great annoyance to me, but I felt then that I would be glad to bear my burden if Wink would just see the difference between Dee's nose and mine. I remember what Gwendolen's mother, in "Daniel Deronda," said to her when Gwendolen said what a pretty nose her mother had and how she envied her: "Oh, my dear, any nose will do to be miserable with in this world!" Well, I did not feel that way exactly, but I did feel that any nose would do to be happy with in this world if Wink would just stop "pestering" me. I was always afraid somebody would know he was whispering the silly things to me that he seemed to think I was very cruel not to respond to. I almost knew Zebedee understood, but I had kept very dark about it to all the girls. What irritated me was that I knew all the time what a very intelligent, nice fellow Wink was, and would have liked so much to have the good talks with him that our friendship had begun with at Willoughby; but now sane conversation was out of the question. Tender nothings were the order of the day whenever I found myself alone with Mr. Stephen White. The outcome was that I saw to it that I was alone with him as little as possible. Tender nothings are all right, I fancy, when it is a two-sided affair, but when it is all on one side--deliver me! Jo Winn followed Dee around with the "faithful dog Tray" expression in his eyes and was pleased as Punch when Dee gave him some difficult task to perform, such as festooning running cedar on the family portraits, hung high against the ceiling as was the way of hanging pictures in antebellum days. Father and I were determined to change their hanging just as soon as we could afford to have the walls done over, but they had to stay where they were until that time as they had hung so long in the same spots that the paper all around them was several shades lighter than behind them. The decorations finished, we drew up around the fire to tell tales and pop corn and chestnuts until a late hour, when Jo Winn and Reginald Kent made a reluctant departure with assurances that they would see us again the next morning. They had asked to be allowed to make themselves useful in the Santa Claus scheme we had on foot, and we readily agreed to their company. CHAPTER XVII. SANTA CLAUS. "Well, what on earth are you schemers going to dress me in?" demanded Zebedee at breakfast the next morning. "I have no idea of playing Santa Claus unless I am properly attired." "Oh, we stayed awake half the night planning a costume for you. You are going to be beautiful, you vain, conceited piece!" exclaimed Dee. "Dr. Allison has a red dressing gown--" "I knew I would be the goat," said Father ruefully. "My red dressing gown is only ten years old, Tucker, so do be easy on it." "Oh, we won't hurt it, Doctor," insisted Dum. "We are going to sew imitation ermine all around the bottom and front and sleeves,--and his whiskers--" "Yes, do tell me about my whiskers! That is the most important factor in a Santa Claus costume." "They are to be the flap off of an old white muff I had when I was a kid. Mammy Susan is digging it out of the old chest in the attic now." "And your embonpoint is to be a down cushion out of the library," put in Dee. "And your hat--my red silk toboggan cap with some of Page's tippet, that matches the muff, sewed in for hair!" from Dum. "Your boots--Father's duck-hunting rubber ones!" "Well, among you I reckon I'll be dressed in great shape. I fancy I had better get ready." "Just as soon as we sew on the ermine." We got to work, all hands at once, and sewed on the imitation ermine, made of bands of canton flannel with artistically arranged smuts at irregular intervals spotted around it, giving it very much the appearance of ermine. We adjourned to the library so Mammy Susan could begin on the dining room for Christmas dinner, which was the one great function of the year with Mammy. The table must be set with great precision with all the silver and cut glass that Bracken boasted, which was not any great amount. The best table cloth made its appearance on this occasion, a wonderful heavy damask that had been sent to my mother from England, with napkins to match that would easily have served for table cloths on ordinary occasions. Mammy always kept this linen wrapped in blue tissue paper, and after almost twenty years of use on grand occasions, it was still as beautiful as the day my mother received it as a bridal present. The library had been one great swirl of tissue paper and red ribbon and Christmas seals, something new for Bracken, as Father and I never thought of doing up our presents to each other at all. But the Tuckers spent almost as much on the things to wrap up the presents with, as they did on the presents, so Zebedee said. With the help of Blanche, who carefully saved every inch of ribbon or string, every piece of paper, no matter how rumpled or torn, and all the Christmas seals, I got the place cleared out enough for us to get to work on Santa Claus' costume. Father was oblivious to everything as he could not get his nose out of the wonderful book Mr. Tucker and the twins had given him. It was about 4,000 pages of poetry, every well known poem that ever was written almost, with every form of index. He was feverishly looking for half remembered poems of long ago and would hail with delight every now and then something entirely forgotten. "Listen to this, Tucker! By Jove, I haven't seen this since I used to recite it at school: "'I am dying, Egypt, dying! Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast And the dark Plutonian shadows Gather on the evening blast; Let thine arms, O Queen, enfold me, Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear, Listen to the great heart-secrets Thou, and thou alone, must hear. * * * * * "'And for thee, star-eyed Egyptian-- Glorious sorceress of the Nile!-- Light the path to Stygian horrors, With the splendor of thy smile; Give the Cæsar crowns and arches, Let his brow the laurel twine: I can scorn the Senate's triumphs, Triumphing in love like thine. "'I am dying, Egypt, dying! Hark! the insulting foeman's cry; They are coming--quick, my falchion! Let me front them ere I die. Ah, no more amid the battle Shall my heart exulting swell; Isis and Osiris guard thee Cleopatra--Rome--Farewell!'" Father had arisen from his chaise longue and was declaiming like a school boy. We applauded him violently. I loved to see him so happy and so carefree. He usually had so many sick and poor people to bother him, but on this day, thanks in part to his foresight in saving up the Santa Claus act for Christmas morning, he had not been sent for, and he hoped the day would pass in idleness. It took two down cushions to give Zebedee's embonpoint the proper "bowl full of jelly" contour. The red dressing gown was snugly belted in around it, and, having been considerably turned up before we sewed on the imitation ermine, it reached in graceful folds to the top of the hunting boots. The beard was a masterpiece and was kept in place by a bit of elastic fastened in the back. We made a moustache out of the little tails on the old tippet and he was forced to submit to surgeon's plaster to hold that on. "But s'pose I give a Tucker sneeze! This contraption certainly does tickle my nose;" and forthwith Santa Claus did explode into a regular Tucker sneeze, thereby bursting his belt and unpinning his tum-tum so that much of the work had to be done over. "Now, Zebedee, stop!" commanded Dum. "You know perfectly well you do not have to sneeze so loud." "All right, Miss Plympton," teased the offender, and gave another sneeze. "We might just as well wait until he gets through," sighed Dee. "It always takes at least three to satisfy a Tucker." So we waited until the third and last explosion shook the house and then pinned on the down pillows again and put his belt back in place. The toboggan cap with the tippet sewed in for hair gave the proper finishing touch, and Zebedee stood forth as lovable and charming a Santy as one could find. "Well, we can 'glimpse for once the rotund, jolly wight,'" quoted Wink. "I almost wish I were a little nig so I could experience the sensations they will have when they see you driving up to the cabin, Mr. Tucker." "Now for the 'bundle of toys he had flung on his back'," and Dum hung over his shoulder a laundry bag stuffed full of lumpy, bumpy stockings. Putting the things in a stocking was a plan Zebedee had suggested,--one they use in the cities for Christmas. A mate to the stocking must be put in the toe and that means that each child gets a pair of stockings as well as its share of candy, nuts, toys, etc. "I bet Aunt Keziah will be pleased with this thing of bringing stockings, too. It will save the old woman lots of darning," said Father, who looked up from his poetry book to admire our handiwork. Dum was putting the finishing touches to Zebedee's countenance. I did not think he needed paint as his cheeks were rosy enough, but Dum loved to fix up people's faces and black their eyebrows, and Zebedee liked nothing better than being fixed up. "It gives you the feeling that you can make as big a monkey of yourself as you want to, if you just are disguised a little," and our Santa Claus bristled his great white moustache and patted his down pillows approvingly. Mammy Susan and Blanche and bow-legged Bill were called in to see old Santy, and great was their delight and joy. "Lord!" said Bill. "If'n he don' look jis' lak a picture er Santy I seed one time whin I was on de steamboat on de Mississip." "Aw, you allus got ter tell 'bout dat time you went a trabblin' on a boat. I low you wa'nt nothin' but a low lived roustabout at best," said Mammy Susan, anxious to keep Bill in his place, which, in her estimation, was way in the back. "You is sho mo' natural than life, Mr. Tucker. The infantry of the area of this vicinity should elevate theyselves and denounce you as blessed. 'As much as you have done the least of my little ones you have kep' my remandments.'" Mammy accepted the effusions of Blanche with perfect composure. Bill looked at her with admiration in his rolling stewed-prune eyes. I would have been glad of Santa Claus' beard to laugh behind. Zebedee took advantage of it, but the rest of us had to keep straight faces until the coloured contingent took their departure. "Hitch Peg to the cutter!" called Father to Bill. "I am afraid there will be too much hilarity for the colt, Tucker, otherwise I'd give you the pleasure of driving him this brisk morning." "Drive! Do you think I could drive anything around this protuberance?" he laughed, patting his make-up. "Why, I can't reach the buttons on my own waistcoat. Page will have to drive me." "But then they'll all of them know you are not Santa Claus if they see me." "Nonsense, daughter! They'll think he is Santa Claus if you are along. The only Christmas they have ever had has come through us, and they will just think we have invited Santy here to amuse them. I think we can trust Mr. Tucker to act the part. I am going to beg off and stay home with my book," and the dear man sank back in his chaise longue and buried his nose once more in his four thousand pages of poetry. So I drove Zebedee, and the girls and Wink went with Jo Winn and the New York cousin in a great old double sleigh that must have been in the Winn family as long as our family coach had been in ours. Father put down his beloved book long enough to see us off, and then with a great sigh of content, mixed with relief, sank back on his cushions and resumed his search for old favourites. What a merry crowd we were! Zebedee cracked his whip and "Whistled and shouted and called them by name. On, Dasher and Dancer! On, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet and Cupid! On, Dunder and Blitzen!" Old Peg did not know exactly what to make of all her new names, but like the intelligent beast she was, she divined that it meant to go as fast as she could, so she snow-dusted Jo Winn's team until they had to drop back a few yards. If it had not been for me, I think Zebedee's turn out would have fooled any one inclined to believe in St. Nick. Of course Peg did not look much like eight tiny reindeer, but then, he might have left his reindeer team in the Antarctic Circle and picked up a mere horse for the rest of the journey, which would have been a most thoughtful thing for our beloved Saint to have done. The little pickaninnies were on the lookout for Docallison, and as we neared Aunt Keziah's cabin a shout went up from the bushes where some of the little boys were hiding, watching the bend in the road. The window was black with expectant faces and Zebedee said he thought their smiles were more beautiful than any Christmas wreaths he had ever seen. You remember that Aunt Keziah was the neighbourhood "Tender," that is, she looked after all the children whose mothers were away in service. She was quite an institution and Father said did much to lower the death rate of her race. She raised a healthy crowd of children and as a rule they turned out to be a mannerly lot as well. "Perliteness is cheap an' a smile don' cos' no mo'n a frown," she would say, "an' you kin sho' buy mo' wif it if you is a tradin' wif white fo'ks." Certainly there were smiles to spare that Christmas morning and politeness to burn. The children, fourteen in all, came tumbling out of the cabin when the boys in the bushes gave warning of our approach. They thought it was Docallison until we were upon them, and then such a shouting and scrambling as was never seen. One of the strangest things that ever happened was that Aunt Keziah herself believed in Santa Claus and no power on earth could shake her faith in him. "'Cose I b'lieves in him! If'n I ain't nebber seed him befo' what dat got to do wif it? I ain't nebber yit laid eyes on Gawd an' de blessed Sabior but I b'lieves; an' now I done seed Santy Claus wif my own eyes. What's mo', he done brung me gif's wif his own han'. De preacher ub a Sunday done said dat Gawd would gib me honey an' de honey com', an' I will git gold, yea, fin' gold,--but I ain't nebber foun' none yit, an' all de honey dis here ole nigger done tas'ed fer yars an' yars is some bum'le bee honey what de chillun foun' in de woods. Cose I ain't a blamin' uf de Almighty,--I reckon he'll do fer me someday whin he gits to it, but so fer I done ebby thing fer myse'.--But Santy here he done foun' me and is a doin' fer me now," and the old woman munched her chocolate marshmallows, that seemed designed especially for her toothless state, and pulled around her lean old shoulders the nice warm shawl that Santa Claus had drawn from his bursting pack. The cabin, boasting only two rooms and a low attic where the male "boders" slept, was full to overflowing when all of us piled in, but we were anxious to see how the little darkeys took Santa Claus and if they really believed in him. They did, every last one of them. There was not a doubting Thomas among them. With no incredulity to overcome, Zebedee's task was a simple one. He told his cheerful and kindly lies with much gusto, to the delight of all his listeners, black and white. "Well, children, I thought I would never get here! I had so many places to go. I was coming last night down your chimney, which is the proper way to come after you are all asleep at night, but my reindeer got so tired I had to put them in a stable way up at Richmond and get down here just the best I could, and then borrow a horse from Docallison and get Miss Page to drive me over here. By the way, Docallison sent his kindest regards to all of you,--" Here some of the little nigs made bobbing curtseys and the ones who did not got soundly smacked by Aunt Keziah. "He couldn't come this morning but he thought you wouldn't mind since I was coming." At that, Little Minnie, who was one of the charity orphans Aunt Keziah was raising, began to blubber: "I ain't gwine take no castor ile from Santy. Docallison done tell me he gwine gib me a pinny if I tak castor ile." "Why, if I didn't almost forget!" exclaimed the ever-ready Zebedee. "I have a whole dime here for a little girl who was to take castor oil," and he began a frantic search for his pockets but the down pillows and dressing gown were too much for him and Wink came to his relief with the necessary coin. "Now you must promise to take your medicine right away." "But I ain't sick now!" wailed the little girl, clutching her dime. "I means whin I do git sick." "Now listen to that there lil' orphant Minnie!" exclaimed Aunt Keziah. "What cause she got to worrit about ile whin she ain't got ache or pain?" "But I'se thinkin' 'bout what I'se gonter git whin I done gits through a stuffin'," wailed Minnie. "I lows thin I gotter take ile." "Well, you've got your dime now and if you get sick you must take the oil," laughed Zebedee. "But Docallison gibs me a pinny. I ain't got no use fer a dime. Aunt Keziah won't let chilluns spen' nothin' but pinnies!" So Wink had to go through his pockets for the desired penny before little Orphan Minnie would be comforted. Aunt Keziah stood by with a tolerant smile on her wrinkled old face. It was a well known fact that the old woman spoiled all the little charity children, the ones she took for nothing, while she made the "bo'ders" toe the line and walk chalk. The twins she was raising, Milly Jourdan's twins, whom she had so euphoniously named Postle Peter and Pistle Paul, emboldened by the success of Minnie, now set up a whine for pennies, too, but Aunt Keziah knocked their heads together without ceremony. "You Postle Peter! You Pistle Paul! I'll learn you some manners, you lim's er Satan. Ain't you got sinse ernuf to know Santy Claus didn't come way down here from North 'Merica jis' ter listen ter yo' gabble? As fer gittin' pinnies fer a takin' castor ile,--you know jis' as well as I do that you lick de spoon ev'y chanct you git, you is dat fon' of ile. De ve'y las' time Docallison was here he done sayed you mak him sick to his stomach a guzzlin' ile de way you done." The old woman's tirade caused a general laugh, and Tweedles and I were really uneasy for fear Santy would shake off his bowl full of jelly he roared so loud. Wink found some more pennies which he surreptitiously handed to the crestfallen twins. "Here, Pistle Peter and Postle Paul! Here's some pennies for you, to make up for your names," he whispered to the grinning little nigs. CHAPTER XVIII. CHRISTMAS FOR SALLY WINN. There were other cabins to visit and we had to tear ourselves away from Aunt Keziah's. Mr. Kent took many photographs of Santa Claus with the little darkeys crowding around him. "This will be a gold mine to me," he averred. "I can see myself filling pages of advertising matter with illustrations from this morning." Everywhere we went, Santa Claus was hailed with delight. We left many packages at many cabins and finally ended up at Sally Winn's. This was at Dee's instigation. Indeed it was a kindly thought that took us there. Poor Sally had been exercising unwonted self-control in not sending for Father at midnight on Christmas Eve. Jo said she had felt all kinds of flutterations but had submitted to a dose of the "pink medicine," and that, with the comfort she had derived from a hot water bottle, had tided her through the night. Then she had felt it incumbent upon her to get up and make waffles for breakfast because of the guest from New York. We had some gifts for Sally tied up in the Tucker's best style, with sheets on sheets of tissue paper, yards and yards of red and green ribbon, and dozens and dozens of Christmas seals. Mammy Susan had been growing a citronella slip for her and it had reached quite a pretentious size and begun to branch out like the parent plant. Sally's delight was really pathetic to see. She, poor woman, had very little of interest in her life, so little that she had to make a real pleasure and excitement over her "spells." A visit from Santa Claus was almost as much fun to her as a visit from the Angel Gabriel would have been, and the sleigh bells were only next in cheer to the last trump. Sally, you will remember, was our neighbour at Milton who spent her life trying to die. Our coming was a great surprise to her. Any pleasure that happened to come her way always took her unawares. She was certainly one of the Mrs. Gummidges of this world and was "a poor lone lorn critter" if I ever saw one. She was a grateful soul and was profuse in her thanks for the gifts. I had never seen her more enthusiastic although Father and I had never missed a Christmas in giving her some nice present. I verily believe it was the festive wrappings that appealed to her. Of course Mr. Tucker took her by storm. He acted Santa Claus just as he had at Aunt Keziah's and Sally, I know, regretted that her education kept her from joining ranks with the believers. "Did you ever see anybody look so like himself? I have never seen a Santa Claus before that did not have on an ugly false face--hideous painted things that wouldn't fool a chicken," Sally began with her accustomed volubility. "I can't quite make up my mind that you are not Santy--" "Well, don't make up your mind to any such treason. I am Santy!" "Well, Santy or not, I am mighty glad to see all of you. Now you must try some of my eggnog and fruit cake. Dr. Allison says my fruit cake is the best he ever tasted and that it is so well mixed that it is as digestible as sponge cake. My eggnog, too, can't be beat,--made of pure cream and eggs that are so fresh they were warm when I broke them. I waited for those finest Dominickers to get off their nests before I made it. 'Tain't strong of liquor and won't hurt a baby. Jo, bring my best Bohemian glasses. You'll find them on the tray in the dining room all set out on the sideboard. Here's my cake and I am proud to cut it for such company. "Dr. Allison says he likes the looks of my cake. He says it looks like chewing tobacco, it is so nice and black and fruity, and that it tastes better than it looks. You can't trust all cooks with their fruit cake because it is so dark-like that dirt don't show in it and sometimes things that don't belong there get in it. I remember one time over at Mrs. Purdy's (of course I don't mean to be gossiping about her now that she is dead and gone)--but she cut a cake with all the airs and graces of a good cake-maker, which she never was, and what should I find in my piece--just one piece, mind you--but a shoe button and a bent pin. I just thought to myself: 'Well, if that's what I found, God in Heaven knows what I didn't find.' Now there ain't a thing in my cake but the best ingredients, and I'll wager nobody will ever find anything in my cooking foreign to the human digestion." We were certain of it, but Sally did not give us time to express our confidence. She plunged into a stream of eloquence concerning her Dominickers and their superior brand of eggs, as she ladled out the eggnog as smooth as a baby's cheek and as fluffy as a summer cloud. "There are some that hold that a white Leghorn's eggs are more delicate than any other kind, but I say there is a richness about an old-fashioned Dominicker's eggs that nothing can come up to. What do you want with an egg being too delicate, anyhow? Of course, for Angel's Food they might be best, but I have never seen anything that an egg laid by a Leghorn will do that a Dominicker's won't do just as well. Of course nobody wants a duck egg or a goose egg for anything short of ginger bread,--they are coarse! Now a hard boiled guinea egg is my favourite of all eggs. I think a nice hot guinea egg, boiled until it is mealy--it takes a good half hour--and then mashed up with good batter bread made of the fresh meal, ground over at Macy's mill, provided the batter bread is made the right way,--none of your batter bread raised with baking powders, but my kind, raised with eggs and plenty of them, well beaten and baked quickly,--I do say that there is no breakfast better." The strangest thing about Sally Winn was that she longed for company, not for the good she might get out of it but just so she could pour forth her soul in conversation. We might just as well have been dumb for all she got from us, but all the time we were eating her truly wonderful cake and drinking her eggnog that even she could not praise according to its deserts, she regaled us with a stream of conversation that made our heads swim. "I understand poor Jo better now," whispered Dee to me. "How can he ever talk? No wonder! He gets out of the habit at home and can't get in it when he goes away." "Tell Mammy Susan I have got a good starting of rose geranium for her. I would have sent it over by Jo this morning but I was so afraid it might be too cold for it. It looks like Mammy Susan has all the luck with citronella and I have luck with rose geranium. My bush is so big it looks like I'll have to get Jo's watering tub from the barn to plant it in. It has long out-grown its pot. I certainly do like to have plenty of healthy rose geranium on hand when I make apple jelly. Nothing gives it the flavour that a leaf of rose geranium will,--just pour the boiling jelly over a leaf--one to each glass." "That sounds fine!" exclaimed Santa Claus. "I don't think I ever tasted it." "Wait a minute! I am going to fix one up for you to take back to Richmond and next summer when I make my jelly, I'll make some for you. It comes in mighty handy for sudden company." Sally bustled off and came back bearing a tumbler of jelly that would have taken a prize at any fair in the world, I feel sure. "Here it is!" she panted. "Jo is that fond of it that I sometimes hate to think of leaving him because I don't know who will ever make it to suit him." "But are you thinking of leaving him?" questioned Mr. Tucker. "Dying! I mean dying!" "Oh, but you look so well!" "I think so, too, Sally," I ventured. "You are getting to be right fat." "Ah, my dear, that has nothing to do with health. The fatter I get the more of me there is to feel bad. I won't be long for this world, I am thankful to say. Fat! Why, I have seen many a fat corpse--more fat ones than lean ones." We could not gainsay such gruesome statistics, but I told her that Father had sent her a prescription that she must take immediately without fail. "And give up the pink medicine?" "He says you won't need that for to-day, that is, if you take the other. Father says you are to bundle up and come over to Bracken for dinner. Jo and Mr. Kent are to come, too, of course, and that will mean that you will have no household cares. He says you must come. It is the doctor's orders." "Well, if I must, I must!" she sighed. "I have great faith in Dr. Allison and am sure he would not prescribe something that would hurt me," and so Sally, with many layers of wraps enveloping her already portly person, and, clasping in her arms the rose geranium for Mammy Susan, was bundled into Jo's already overflowing sleigh and we merrily started off for Bracken. A very funny thing happened on the way, at least it turned out to be funny although it might have been very serious. Dee, who was on the front seat between Wink and Jo, insisted upon driving. Sally, on the back seat with Dum and Mr. Kent, was so wrapped up that she was oblivious to the speed that the two spirited horses were making. Of course Peg was ready for a race and so were all of us and race we did for most of the trip home. Jo's horses were young and good trotters and Dee, with blazing eyes and glowing cheeks, let them go as fast as they wanted to. My old Peg had seen better days as a racer but had the advantage of a cutter and a small load and so made the best of it. I hugged the road and kept it, while Zebedee hurled defiance at our pursuers. About an eighth of a mile before the public road turned into the avenue at Bracken, Dee saw a chance to catch up with us and pass us. There was a smooth, unbroken stretch of snow that she thought was part of the road and she swerved her team to cut through it and get in the lead--but snow, like Charity, covers a multitude of sins. This pure mantle covered a great gully. The snow had drifted to that side of the road and the gully was filled and then neatly smoothed over. There was nothing to warn a person unacquainted with the road. Jo was evidently so taken up with Dee's glowing countenance that he was paying no attention to where she was taking them, when over they went as quietly and peacefully as turning over in bed. The horses were wonderful. They stopped stock-still. The near one was dragged over by the weight of the sleigh but he lay quite still. Peg behaved like the almost thoroughbred she is and not only stood quietly but gave a ringing neigh of encouragement to the other horses. Zebedee and I were out in a jiffy and running to the assistance of the turnover. I deemed it wiser for me to attend to the horses. If they had struggled, it might have been quite serious. I loosened the traces on the one who had been able to keep his feet, and then the fallen one, and as soon as I had accomplished that, I caught hold of the bridle and got him up in no time. He was not hurt at all. Zebedee was digging out the crowd, who had, one and all, taken headers. A waving sea of legs presented itself to our astonished gaze. One by one they scrambled out, all looking more or less sheepish but all rosy and ready to laugh if they could just be reassured that no one was hurt. "Jo! Jo! Pull me out! The grey legs are mine!" came in muffled tones from the deepest part of the drift where two fat legs encased in homemade grey woolen stockings were wildly beating the air. "Sally!" we cried, and in a moment we had her out. "Oh, Lord!" I groaned. "Poor Father and more pink medicine!" but not a bit of it! Sally was as game as the rest of them, and came up smiling and happy when she, too, found no one was hurt. The snow was as dry as powder and shook off them like so much flour. The sleigh was righted in short order and they all clambered back. Dee penitently handed the reins to Jo. "I am not to be trusted. You had better drive." "Not at all! No one could have told that was not perfectly good road. I should have been looking at the road instead of--ahem--ahem--instead of--instead--of--that buzzard, sailing down there," pointing to one of the denizens of the air who had made his appearance in the sky almost as though he had expected some pickings from our turnover. "Humph! Buzzard, indeed!" grunted Sally. "If I was Miss Dee I shouldn't thank you to be a calling me a buzzard." Which went to show that Sally was not so much wrapped up that she could not see what was right in front of her. What a dinner we did have! Tweedles and I often spoke of it when we were back at school, especially on the veal pot-pie days. The table was resplendent with its fine old damask and silver and with its load of good things. "That there gobbler," said Mammy Susan, pointing with pride at the king of the feast sitting on his parsley throne, "don't weigh a ounce less 'n twenty pounds. He was the greediest one of the whole flock an' now see what he done come to! He was always the struttinest fowl and looks lak he is still some pompous with his bosom chuck full of chestnuts." Blanche and Bill were to wait on the table, but Mammy Susan had to come into the dining room to see that everything went off in proper style. She stood back like a head waiter in some fine restaurant and directed her minions with the airs of a despot. "Pass that ther macaroni to Miss Dum!" would come in a sibilant whisper. And then as Bill would prance by the old woman with all of the style he had learned on the Mississippi steamboat, she would say in stern undertones: "Don't wait fer folks to lick they plates befo' you gib um a sicond help." "Blanche, gib Miss Sally Winn some 'scalloped oyschters, and there is Mr. Tucker 'thout a livin' thing on his plate." Eating was not the only thing we did at that feast. We talked and laughed and cracked jokes until poor Sally Winn forgot all about dying and I think realized there was something in life, after all. What we had for that Christmas dinner was no doubt what every family in the United States who could have it was having, but it seemed to us to be better, and I believe it was. Mammy Susan had a witch's wand to stir things with and whatever she touched was perfect. Her cranberry sauce always jelled; her candied sweet potatoes were only equalled by marrons glacé, so Zebedee said. The cheese on her macaroni always browned just right; and her mashed potatoes always looked like banks of snowy clouds. She seemed to have the power of glorifying egg plant and salsify so that persons often asked what the delicious thing was they were eating. "Whew!" ejaculated Zebedee, "I am certainly glad I did not have to eat in my embonpoint. I would have touched the table long ago and would have had to stop. As it is, I can still eat about three inches without having a collision." Our day passed in feasting and merry making. The walls of Bracken rang with merriment. Even Father came out of his book and got quite gay. Sally Winn forgot to hold her heart and laughed like a girl at the jests. "It will be fatal to sit down after such a dinner," declared Dee. "We had better go out and coast and jolt it down." There was only one small sled, left from my childhood, but the attic was full of broken chairs, and in a few minutes the eager males had fashioned make-shift coasters out of old rockers and chair backs. "They are not very elegant but they will slide down the hill, which is the main thing," said Wink, as he lay flat on his stomach and whizzed down the long hill to the spring. We had a chair back apiece and so did not have to wait turns nor did we have to go double. I must say I like to coast by myself and guide my own sled. The impromptu sleds were not so very strong and it was much safer not to overload. We coasted until the long hill was as slick as glass and, with the exception of an occasional turnover, there were no casualties. Father and Sally Winn watched us from the library window but after a while they came out, Sally bundled up to within an inch of her life, and what should they do but mount some chair backs and get in the game. Jo Winn fell off his sled when he saw his invalid sister, who only the night before had been on the point of shuffling off this mortal coil, actually straddling a chair back and taking the hill like a native of Switzerland. "This is a new prescription I have given Sally," whispered Father to Jo. "She is to coast every day as long as the snow lasts, and after it melts we are to think of some other form of exercise for her." "How about horse-back riding?" I suggested. "Jo's old Bess is just like a comfortable rocker." "The very thing!" exclaimed Father. "Let her ride around the yard for a few days until she gains confidence, and then she can go on a regular ride. Go to Milton for the mail and even come over here after a little." "Must we still keep up the pink medicine?" asked Jo. "Oh, well! Give it to her in emergencies, but not too freely." Jo had a twinkle in his eye. He knew that the pink medicine was made of perfectly good pump water with a little colouring matter and enough bromide to quiet the nerves of an oyster. "This Christmas has done something for Sally if for no one else," said Father. "It has taught her that she can go heels over head in the snow without affecting her heart; that she can eat as good a dinner as the next without feeling bad; and that she can coast down a hill without turning a hair." I looked at Sally settling herself on a chair back that Wink had kindly pulled up the hill for her. Sticking out her fat, woolly, grey legs on each side, she took the hill in great shape. I hoped she was cured of her imaginary ailments and would let my dear Father get many a good night's rest by not sending for him every time she felt her heart beat. CHAPTER XIX. BACK IN THE TREAD-MILL. That is the way we looked on going back to school. It was not really a tread-mill, nothing nearly so dreadful, but we considered ourselves very much put upon that the holidays could not last forever, that books had to be studied, and rules either obeyed or punishments meted out if they were broken. We had gone home knowing that demerits were going to have to be worked off after the holidays, but as I have said before, it had had no more effect on our spirits than a threat of hell fire would have on a new-born babe. But babies must grow up and time will pass and holidays come to an end, and here we were paying up for our foolishness on our last night at school before Christmas. Almost all the Junior class was in bad, and misery loves company, so we lightened our labours all we could with sly jests and notes written to each other instead of the pages of dictionary we were supposed to be copying. Of all punishments, copying dictionary seems to me to be the most futile. It was disagreeable enough, but of course punishments should be that, but it was not only disagreeable but such a terrible waste of time. I did not mind learning hymns, especially if I already knew them, but the pages of dictionary almost persuaded me to behave myself,--not quite, though. "When we get out of this, let's be either very good or very careful," said Dum, as we finished up our first day in durance vile while the rest of the school, all the good girls, had gone for a nice walk in the woods. "I am liable to do something desperate if I get in bad again." "I am going to try," declared Mary, very penitent after having to memorize a very long and very lugubrious hymn. "It may not pay to be good, but you've certainly got to pay to be bad." All of us tried to be good. We studied like Trojans (not that Trojans ever did study as far as I know). I learned my history by heart and actually won a smile of approval from Miss Plympton. I knuckled down to geometry and if the figure was drawn exactly as it was in the book and the same letters were used to designate the angles, I got on swimmingly. A slight change of letter upset me considerably, however. I never could understand as I had under Miss Cox's reign. I was doing algebra as well, although the Juniors were supposed to be through with that delectable study; but I had started out so far behind that I had to keep on with it if I ever hoped to get my degree. English under Miss Ball continued to be delightful and all of us did good work with her. She had a power of making knowledge desirable by making it interesting, and she made literature delightful because she loved it herself and was never bored. The parallel reading she gave us to do was well chosen and broadening. One thing that especially pleased me about Miss Ball was her cheerful outlook. She did not believe that all good writing was through with,--that literature had died with Tennyson and Thackeray. She read modern poets with as much pleasure as Father himself and actually gave some of the modern novels for parallel reading. Nor did she scorn the five cent magazines. She encouraged us to do original work. It was a great relief to have a teacher say: "Write what suits you," rather than to give out one of the time-honoured hackneyed themes,--such as: My Afternoon Walk, or A Quiet Sunday Morning, or Thoughts on a Sunset. My head was so full of plots I could hardly concentrate on one. The trouble was I so often found my plot not to be so very original after all. Miss Ball would say a story was very good but point out its similarity to noted productions, and I would realize that I had been unconsciously influenced. She endeavoured to make us be ourselves at no matter what cost. "A poor thing but mine own" was to be our motto. "If you want to be successful be modern at least," she would say. "If you must imitate any one, imitate O. Henry or Ferber, even Montagu Glass. Don't try to write like Edgar Allan Poe. If you are going to write like him, you will do it, anyhow, and a poor imitation of him is terrible. If any of you want to make a living with writing find out what the public likes and what the magazine editors want and do that just as well as you can do it. You need not feel that you are hitching Pegasus to a plough and even if you do, ploughing is a very worthy occupation and there is poetry in it if taken properly." Then she read us some from Masefield's "Everlasting Mercy": "The past was faded like a dream, There came the jingling of a team, A ploughman's voice, a clink of chain, Slow hoofs, and harness under strain. Up the slow slope a team came bowing, Old Callow at his autumn ploughing, Old Callow, stooped above the hales, Ploughing the stubble into wales. His grave eyes looking straight ahead, Shearing a long straight furrow red; His plough-foot high to give it earth To bring new food for men to birth. O wet red swathe of earth laid bare, O truth, O strength, O gleaming share, O patient eyes that watch the goal, O ploughman of the sinner's soul. O Jesus, drive the coulter deep To plough my living man from sleep." "If you can hitch your Pegasus to a plough and 'bring new food for men to birth' you have done a better deed than if you had soared in the skies all the time in the wake of some great men. I consider O. Henry an unconscious philanthropist. He has opened our eyes to the charm of the usual." Such lessons as these gave us strength to bear with the extreme boresomeness of other classes. We worked off the demerits against us, and by being both good and careful we got no more to sadden our days. Our dummies were neatly folded up and seldom brought out. Just to show that we were still human beings, we did have an occasional spread, and once Miss Plympton let Tweedles and me go under the chaperonage of Miss Ball down to tea with dear old Captain Pat Leahy, the one-legged gate keeper at the crossing. He was so glad to see us he almost wept. He had sent us a formal invitation but doubted Miss Plympton's giving her consent. "An' the poosies have been a lickin' uv their furrr all morning to get rready for the coompany an' I got me neighbourr, Mrs. Rooney, to bake me a poond cake for tay." "Why, Captain, we did not dream you would go to any trouble for us. But we certainly do adore pound cake, and isn't that a beauty?" enthused Dee. The little table was set ready for tea. You remember how the Captain's gate house looked. It was very tiny, so tiny that you did not see how any one could live in it, but he declared he had more room than he needed. The lower berth from a wrecked Pullman served him as seat by day and bed by night. A doll-baby-sized cooking stove, very shiny and black, was at one side, while a shelf over it was covered with all the china and cooking utensils he needed. A little table, just like the one on sleepers, was hooked in between the seats and a very dainty repast was spread thereon. There were at least a dozen cats but all of them were handsome and healthy and very polite. There had been eight the winter before, counting Oliver, the one we took back to Captain Leahy. "They will mooltiply an' I have a harrd time findin' good homes for thim. Bett here behind the stove, has presinted Oliverr wid some schtip brothers and sisters. The good Lorrd knows what I am to do wid 'em." "Please, please let me hold some of them!" and Dee was down on her knees in the corner near Bett's bed. "Look! Look! Their eyes are open! Four of them! Oh, I do want all of them so bad." Bett seemed perfectly willing to trust Dee with an armful of kittens, indeed I think she was rather relieved to be rid of the care of them for a while, as she sidled out of the door and went trotting up the road, her large handsome tail waving joyously. "Now she's gone to the cloob or maybe to a suffragette meetin'. Poor Bett has a schtoopid life, confined as she is to rraisin' sooch larrge families," and the old man gave one of his rich vibrant laughs that warmed the cockles of your heart. We talked of Miss Peyton and how much we liked her, but since Miss Ball was a member of the faculty, we refrained from our criticisms of Miss Plympton, although we knew that Captain Leahy was dying to hear all about our latest scrapes and how we got out of them and what we had to say of our stern principal. She really was not nearly so stern as we gave her credit for, but we were nothing but girls and young people are always extreme in their opinions. Everybody is either perfectly lovely or perfectly horrid in their eyes. When I look back on my days at Gresham I realize that Miss Plympton's chief fault was that she had no humour, and surely lacking that God-given attribute was not her fault. We enjoyed that tea greatly. Captain Leahy certainly had his share and more of humour and his keen comments were a never failing source of delight. Miss Ball was young and full of spirits and good stories, and the little gate house actually rocked with laughter. We devoured every crumb of Mrs. Rooney's pound cake and the host had to fill his little blue tea pot three times before our thirst was quenched. Of course Dee had to save a little milk for the kittens and Captain Leahy seemed to think it was perfectly _au fait_ for her to let them lap from her saucer, although Dum and I are of one mind about eating at the table with cats. Now I don't mind a dog at the table at all, provided it is a polite dog who does not help himself until he is told to; but cats! Ugh! They are entirely too promiscuous, as Mammy Susan says. CHAPTER XX. THE FIRE DRILL. "Young ladies," said Miss Plympton one morning in March, "I fear that in a measure I have been lax in certain duties imposed upon the pupils of Gresham." A groan from somewhere in chapel, no one knew just where, was the eloquent response to this statement. We had actually passed January and February and plunged into the middle of March without getting into any very bad messes. The philosophical among us could look forward to the first of June and release from the stringent rules that bound us. I, for one, was not philosophical at all but had a feeling that I was to spend the rest of my life doing things by the clock and knowing a year ahead just what I was to have to eat for every meal. I know I do a lot of talking about food but it seems to me that something you have to contemplate three times a day is a rather important factor in life. I used to feel if they would only get mixed up and give us on Tuesday what they usually gave on Wednesday that I could bear it better. "The duty of which I speak," continued Miss Plympton, ignoring the groan, "is the fire drill that should be regularly practiced and, I regret to say, has not been. The building is as nearly as possible a fire-proof one. Nevertheless, I deem it prudent that we engage in this drill." "What a bore!" growled some of the girls. Others welcomed the news with pleasure, "Anything for a change!" "The fire alarm, as all of you perhaps know, is six short taps of the gong--a pause--and six more. When the alarm rings, which of course it will do without warning, I expect every pupil in the school to get out of the building with as little noise and confusion as possible. Indeed I demand no noise at all and no confusion. No one is to go to her room for any purpose whatsoever if the fire alarm should ring while she is in class or otherwise employed. If she should be in her room, she is to leave it as expeditiously as possible and not return to it until permission is given." "And let my deer skin and pictures burn up?" exclaimed Dum under her breath. "Nit!" "'Tain't a real fire, goosey!" said Dee. "Yes, but it might be." "Silence!" tapped Miss Plympton. "Now I have warned you of an alarm in the near future and I want to see who is to show the most presence of mind. I want to see who will be out of the building first but with no noise or confusion." "You notice she didn't say how she required us to get out of the building, by what route, I mean, and you watch me! I am going to get out my own way," Dum whispered to me as we were dismissed to our class rooms. "Well, I'm game. I'll go any way you do." "Good! I bet you will, and of course Dee will, too." We feverishly awaited the threatened alarm and the fire drill that was to follow. Gresham was a big building and the 125 girls in it should be able to get out without any great confusion. "If they only ring it while we are in our rooms we can work our scheme and beat all the girls to the open," said Dum. We had decided not to let Mary and Annie in on our plan as Annie was trying very hard not to get any demerits. Mr. Pore treated bad marks on a report very seriously, while our dear fathers did not look upon a bad mark as something that could not be lived down. "DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG!" a pause and then six more dongs. It was a few minutes before supper, so close to it, in fact, that for a moment we thought it was the gong for that frugal repast. We were just trying to doll up a bit after a very strenuous game of tennis, the first of the season as the courts had not been fit to use because of the many rains we had been deluged with. We had had some sheets tied together for days, ever since Miss Plympton had given warning about the fire drill. We had determined to astonish and delight her by the quiet and orderly way we would get out of the building. Dum began rapidly taking down pictures and wrapping them up in her beloved deer skin, the one she had shot and Zebedee had tanned and made into a rug for her. Dee tied the sheets tightly to the radiator while I gathered up the bits of jewelry and knotted them in a handkerchief. This we had rehearsed and knew how to do it in a moment. When Dee got the sheets tied, we were ready for the descent. Dum was to go first, as it was her scheme. With her bundle flung over her back by a strap, she grasped the improvised life line and slid safely to the ground. I followed, giggling so I came very near losing my grip. When I got to the end of the last sheet, I must say I hated to let go. I looked down and the ground seemed miles away. It was really only about six feet. Dee had taken up more in the knot she had tied around the radiator than we had allowed for in our calculations. "Drop," came hoarsely from Dum. So drop I did, wrenching my ankle painfully in the fall. Dee came down like a movie actress and then we scurried around the house in time to beat all the whole school out on the lawn. My ankle hurt like fury but I grinned and bore it. While Miss Plympton had not designated the manner of our exit from the building, we well knew that if she got on to our mode of egress we would hear from her and that not in endearing terms. She was standing near the great front door on the gallery, but it was dusk and we were able to sidle close to the wall and have all the appearance of coming out of the building. "Why, young ladies, you are very prompt," she said approvingly. "Are the inmates on your floor out of their rooms?" "We--we--we don't know." "We reckon they are." "We did not stop to see." The girls by this time came trooping out, some of them half dressed, getting ready for supper as they were when the gong sounded. They were very gay until they saw Miss Plympton; then they sobered down. Several of the more excitable ones were weeping, certain it was a real fire. Mary and Annie were the very last to appear. They, it seemed, had lost much time trying to find us. They were sure we would not have gone without warning them and so would not desert us. "We looked everywhere for you!" cried Mary when she spied us. "Where on earth have you been?" "Shhh! We'll tell you later!" I whispered. Annie was much flushed and excited and looked as though she, too, had feared it was a real fire. "I hated to leave my box," she said to me in a low tone. "You see, those are all the clothes I have and all I'll be likely to have for many a day. I was afraid it was a real fire and was very much frightened about you, my friends." The poor little thing burst out crying and we all turned in and comforted her till she began to laugh. All this time my ankle was killing me. I stood on one foot but the throbbing was intense, and then I knew the time was coming when Miss Plympton would order us back into the building, and how I was to walk I did not see. It had been all I could do to get from around the corner of the school after my fatal drop, and now that the excitement that had buoyed me up had subsided and I knew I was going to have to walk on cold facts, I did not see how it could be done. I was game, game enough for anything. What I dreaded most of all was giving Tweedles away. Miss Plympton had seen us arrive together and if I had a sprained ankle, whatever I had done to get it they must have done, too. "As soon as Lady Plympton gives the command, fly up to 117 and pull in the sheets," I whispered to Dum. "I've hurt my ankle and shall have to take things easy. Dee will help me get in, and please whisper to Mary Flannagan to get on my other side." I thought it better to have Dee stay behind where some sort of ready finesse might be needed. They got me in--I don't know just how. I have never imagined greater agony than I went through. I never uttered a single groan, however, although I felt like shrieking. Before we made our painful way to the stairs, Miss Plympton disappeared into the office, and then Mary and Dee picked me up bodaciously, making a chair with their hands, and they got me up to 117 in short order. The girls who were on our corridor just thought it was part of our monkey shines and did not question the reason. When I got to 117, of course I fainted. That was what I had been expecting to do all the time. It was a mercy I had not done it before. I had felt the cold sweat breaking out on my upper lip, which is a sure forerunner of a faint. I had never really fainted before. I had been knocked silly several times, once on the ice when Mabel Binks had bumped into me and knocked me down, but this faint was one that was simply the outcome of pain. It was a blessed relief from the agony I had been in and I did not thank whoever it was that put household ammonia under my nose and doused my head with cold water. I felt as though I should like to stay faint forever. "Did you get the sheets in out of the window?" I stammered when I struggled back to life. "Yes! Yes!" and a relieved giggle from Dum. Dee was busy turning over the leaves in her "First Aid to the Injured." "Let her lie down, put a pillow under her heart! There! Now which foot is it?" "Never mind which foot it is now! There goes the supper gong! Annie, you and Mary had better skidoo out of this room or you'll get so many demerits you won't be out of bounds to go home in June. Dee, you just unlace my left shoe and let me keep it upon the bed. Dum, please get out my nightie for me and then all of you go down to supper and tell the powers that be that poor little Page Allison was so excited over the fire drill that she had hysterics and had to go to bed without her supper." The long speech was too much for me and I came near going off again. "Go on! If you don't, we'll all get found out and then what?" Tweedles said they had never sat through such an interminable meal as that one. "Nothing but soda biscuit and stewed prunes and corn beef hash! But you would have thought it was the finest course dinner it took so long!" gasped Dee. "Let me see your poor foot. Gee, it's swollen!" "Isn't it a blessing it's Saturday night and no study hour? Now Dee and I can wait on you and get you comfy." "But, Dum, I don't want to keep you from dancing in the Gym. It is lots of fun and you know it." "Fun much! How could I enjoy myself when I know you are up here suffering?" "Well!" said Dee, consulting her book again, "the first thing is to soak it in very hot water, as hot as you can stand it. Go on, Dum, and fill our pitcher before the once-a-weekers get started on their tub night orgy." We always called the girls who took baths only on Saturday night the "once-a-weekers." My injured member was put to soak in such hot water that I trembled for my toe nails. Dee stood by with a pitcher ready to pour more in and "hot" it up as soon as it got to the bearing point. After a good half hour of soaking, Dee poured cold water over it and then put on as neat a bandage as any surgeon could have done I feel sure. It seemed too tight to me, but Dee insisted that it would loosen up and I must bear it tight. "You know if a doctor had hold of you he would put it in plaster. I am afraid maybe we ought to 'fess up and call in a doctor. It might be a very serious thing to neglect it." "Nonsense! I trust your bandaging more than I would old Dr. Stick-in-the-mud's, here at Gresham. You know he would not do anything quite so modern as put it in plaster." Dee carried the bandage well up on my leg to keep it from puffing out over the top and then I was put tenderly to bed. "I can't see that because I've got a sore foot it is any reason I should have to go hungry," I whined. "I am so empty I could easily eat up my bandage." "Don't you dare!" "Oh, honey, I am so sorry! I don't know why we did not think to sneak you something. You looked so pale and wan when we left you to go to supper that somehow I never connected you with the thought of food. To think of your being hungry!" and Dum's hazel eyes got moist. "But then's then and now's now! I reckon I can hold out 'til morning, however." One of the peculiarities of boarding school is that if you are sick at all you are supposed to be too sick to eat. If you are really very bad off, so far gone you have to be put in the hospital, then you are fed up. If a girl skips a meal from indisposition, nothing is done about her food by the housekeeper, but if her roommate chooses to sneak some of her own supply up to the sufferer, although it is supposed to be against the rules to take any food from the table, at a time like that the infringement is winked at. The girls were afraid to get out the alcohol lamp and make me a cup of instantaneous chocolate as we were almost sure one of the teachers would come to see how I was before they turned in for the night. As it was, they had hardly got the bowl of hot water out of the way and the room to rights before Miss Ball knocked on the door. She had a dainty tray of food for me. "I didn't think hysterics would last so long you would not want something to eat, Page," she said archly, laying a little stress on hysterics. "I cooked this for you on my chafing dish." The teachers, of course, used alcohol lamps all they chose. It was a nice cup of chocolate, with a marshmallow on top in lieu of whipped cream, two shirred eggs and a stack of buttered crackers. "Oh, Miss Ball, you are so good!" We felt sneaky indeed not to tell Miss Ball the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth concerning our escapade, but we knew it would be her duty to report us and the chances were she would do her duty. So we kept mum while I devoured the very good supper. I was pretty certain that Miss Ball did not give very much credence to the hysterics dodge. She knew me too well. I was not the hysterical type. She was too much of a lady, however, to question me and understood girls well enough to know when to let them alone. "Isn't she a peach, though?" was Dee's comment after the kind young teacher had gone off bearing the empty tray. I had devoured the last crumb, feeling much better in consequence. "Page," whispered Dum, after lights were out, "do you think you will be able to bear your foot to the ground by to-morrow?" "I can't tell. I am feeling lots better now and there is no telling what a night's rest will do for me. We shall just have to take no thought of to-morrow. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.'" "Yes, just let to-morrow look after itself," yawned Dee. "We got out of the window and beat all the girls out of the building, and if one of us got a sprained ankle in consequence, we still have the glory of being out first and the thrill is still with me of sliding down that sheet. I'd like to do it again. That reminds me, I have not had time to untie the sheets. I'll do it in the morning to destroy all traces. Good ni--" But all of us were asleep before she got out the ght. CHAPTER XXI. THE REALITY. We all slept heavily. It had been an exciting evening and weariness was the result. I dreamed a terrible dream: that I was trying to get out of a fire and one leg was tied to the bed. In my struggles to pull myself loose, I awakened and found the matter was that my whole leg had gone to sleep by reason of the very tight bandage. I rubbed it back to consciousness and then determined to see if I could bear my weight on that foot. All of our machinations would be as naught if I should be laid up indefinitely, as investigations would be sure to follow. It was one of those hot, windy March nights. The wind had been blowing so that the ground had dried up until it was dusty. My throat felt parched and uncomfortable. I simply had to have a drink of water. Should I call one of the girls? I knew they would be angry with me for not doing it, but they were both sleeping so peacefully. I have always hated to arouse any one from sleep. It seems such a shame to break up the beatific state you are usually in when asleep. It fell to my lot to awaken Tweedles every morning at school until I should think they would have hated me. I put my bandaged foot to the floor and found I could stand it. I reached for my bed-room slippers but they were, of course, not in their accustomed place as I had not used them the night before, so I slipped on my shoes. It was difficult to get the left one on, by reason of the bandage plus the swelling, but I squeezed into it and laced it up for support. Donning my kimono, I made a rather painful way to the bath rooms. I wondered if I could walk without limping. Certainly not to church. I began to plan a headache for next day that would excuse me from everything. It seemed to me as I wandered down the dark hall that I did have a little headache, a kind of heaviness that I might call a headache without telling a very big fib. The water tasted mighty good and I drank and drank. What was that strange odour? It was burnt varnish! There was a faint light in the bath room and another far off down the hall. By that light I was sure I saw thin waves of smoke. I forgot my lame ankle and ran to the top of the steps. I could smell the burnt varnish more plainly. What should I do? Ring the fire alarm of course! I slid down the bannisters, not only to expedite matters but to save my ankle that had begun to remind me of its existence. The gong was just outside the dining-room door. "DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG!----DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG!" I rang it loud and clear; and then I thought maybe I had better repeat it, so I did. From a perfectly still house a moment before, now pandemonium reigned. The smoke was getting thicker. The smell of burnt varnish was making a tightening in my throat. The wind had increased and was blowing a perfect hurricane, as though it were in partnership with the fire. I ran upstairs thankful for the laced-up shoe. Our corridor was alive with excited girls who seemed to have no idea what to do. "Is it another fire drill?" asked one dazed freshman. "Oh, yes! It's a fire drill with realistic smoke to make you hurry," I called. "Get on your shoes and kimonos and coats just as fast as you can and go out of the building!" My words of command rather quieted the girls and some of them ran to do what I had said, but some of them just went on squealing. I found Tweedles sleeping sweetly. They were so in the habit of trusting me to awaken them when the gong sounded in the morning that its ringing in the middle of the night meant nothing to them. "Fire! Fire!" I shouted as I tore the covers off of them. "Get up and help! The hall is full of girls who need some one to lead them! The whole school is full of smoke!" They were awake in a moment and out of bed. There was no drowsy yawning or stretching with Tweedles. They were either fast asleep or wide awake. "Here, put on your shoes and wraps, something warm. You might as well be burnt up as die of pneumonia." Dum's pack with her pictures and deer skin had never been unrolled, so she strapped it on her back. "Don't stop for clothes, I am afraid there isn't time. We can come back for them if things are not as bad as I think." Dee had begun to empty bureau drawers into a sheet and to take things out of the wardrobe. "Well, I might as well throw this out the window for luck," she said, tying the sheet up into what looked like a tramp's great bundle. The hall was emptying as the girls raced down stairs, but an agonizing shriek arose from the lower hall, which was now dense with smoke. The front door could not be opened. It had been locked for the night and, according to a rule Miss Plympton had made, the key had been hung in her office. Of course no one knew this. There were many ways to get out of Gresham, so many that it was perfectly silly not to be able to get out, but that pack of silly, frightened girls came racing upstairs again. The lower hall was now too full of smoke to venture down in it again, and a lurid light was appearing, giving a decidedly sinister aspect to things. Tweedles and I, with Mary and Annie, met the panic-stricken girls at the top of the steps. "Why didn't you go out through the dining room?" I asked sternly. I found that some one would have to be stern. "Flames were there!" sobbed a great tall girl, the one from Texas. Teachers in a fire are no more good than school girls. There were two on our corridor in Carter Hall, but I saw one of them go frantically back into her room and throw the bowl and pitcher out of her window and come out carefully holding a down cushion. Dee was quite collected and cool. "Come into our room, 117," she commanded all the screaming crowd. "There is no smoke there. You can get out of our window." She immediately began tying the still-knotted sheets to our radiator and with a sly look at me she pulled another sheet off of her bed, muttering as she attached it to the others, "So it will be sure to reach the ground." "I can't go down there! I can't! I can't!" screamed the girl from Texas. "Nonsense! Then let some one else go first! You go, Page!" "I think I had better see if all the girls are out of their rooms first. But I am not a bit afraid. See, twist the sheet around your arm this way and then catch hold with the other hand and there you go!" and I sent a spunky little freshman spinning to terra firma. Dum and Dee got all the girls out in a few minutes, while I limped through all the rooms to see that no one was left. The rooms were in the greatest confusion imaginable as the inmates had endeavoured to save their clothes and had tied them up in bundles and thrown them out of the windows. I wondered if the other parts of the building had been emptied, but felt that I had better get out myself as the smoke was so thick you could cut it. Fortunately the moon was shining brightly for the electric light fuses were burnt out, and but for the moon and a few flash lights we would have been in total darkness. All the girls were out but Tweedles and me. "You next, Page! Be careful about your ankle, honey," and Dee tenderly assisted me out the window. I slid down, and thanks to the extra sheet, did not have to drop the six feet that had been my undoing the evening before. When I got to the ground I stood waiting for Tweedles to come down, but they had disappeared from the window; and though I shouted and called them they did not appear for several minutes. And then when they did come, what did they let down from the window but Annie's precious trunk! It gave me quite a shock. I was looking up, straining my eyes to see one of my precious friends begin the descent, when the end of the trunk appeared in the window and was gradually lowered by trunk straps they had fastened together. The glowing faces of the girls looked down on me. They were evidently having the time of their lives. "Drag the trunk away from the building!" shouted Dum above the noise made by 125 squealing, screaming girls and a raft of distracted servants, together with the rather tardy arrival of the village fire engine. The building was now doomed. Nothing ever burns so brightly as a fireproof building when once it starts. It is like the fury of a patient man. "Is every one out of the building?" called Dee. "Where is Miss Plympton?" quavered the teacher who had thrown her bowl and pitcher out of the window and was still hugging her down cushion. Where? Where indeed? The thing had happened so quickly and everything was in such an uproar that no one had thought of the principal. Could she have slept through the gong and the subsequent noise? "Miss Plympton! Where is Miss Plympton?" went up in a shout from the crowd. Her room was in a wing of the building that had not yet been touched by flames, although the blinding smoke was everywhere. I went through an agony of suspense that I hope never to have to experience again when my dear Tuckers disappeared from the window of 117, evidently to go in search of Miss Plympton. They found her in her room sleeping sweetly. Fortunately her door was not locked and they were able to get in. Dee told me she was lying on her back sawing gourds to beat the band. Of course, any one accustomed to sleeping in a noise such as she was making, could sleep through a bombardment. "Fire!" called Dum in her ear. "Get up or you'll be burnt up!" roared Dee. She turned over on her side and began that soft purring whistle that snorers give when their tune is interrupted. They had finally to drag her up and then they said she assumed some dignity, evidently thinking it was one of those Tucker jokes that she never could see through. When she realized the importance of hurry, she hurried so fast that she neglected the formalities of a kimono. The smoke was very dense in the hall as Tweedles half carried, half dragged her to their room, thinking it was best to trust to the old reliable sheets to get them out of the window rather than to attempt to descend from Miss Plympton's with the delay that would be necessary to knot more sheets. When they appeared at the window, a deafening shout went up from the expectant crowd. This shout of praise was turned into hysterical laughter when the figure of Miss Plympton was distinguished on the window sill. She was clad and clad only in pink pajamas and red Romeo slippers. Dum showed her how to twist the sheet around her right arm and clasp it below tightly with her left and let herself down. She came down like a game sport. If I had had a movie camera, I should have been assured of a fortune right there. I have seen many a film, but never one that equalled that scene of Miss Plympton coming down the sheets in her pink pajamas and red Romeo slippers. She was in a dazed state but quickly got her nerve. I gave her my coat as I had on a warm kimono, and I felt that the dignity of my sex demanded that Miss Plympton's pajamas should be quickly covered up. She thanked me, evidently grateful for the attention, and then she arose to the occasion and took command. Tweedles came down next in a great sister act. They were still enjoying themselves to the utmost. The firemen had got their engine going and were painfully pumping a thin stream of water on the building. Miss Plympton suggested that they put up their hook and ladders and try to go into the part of the building where the flames had not reached and save some of the girls' clothes if possible. This they did, and bundles similar to the one we had hurled out of our window began to be pitched from the rooms. Now began the fight with sneak thieves who had come up from the village. I saw one big negro woman making off with a bundle as big as she was. My ankle put me out of the running, but I put Mary Flannagan on to it and she darted after the thief. With her powers of a ventriloquist that so often she had used for our amusement, she threw her voice so that it seemed to come from the inside of the great bundle. "Who's carrying off my bones?" she cried in a deep sepulchral tone, and the scared darkey dropped her loot and ran like a rabbit. We formed a police squad among the Juniors and many a thief was made to bring back some prize he hoped to make away with. The building burned merrily on. It could not have been more than an hour before it was completely gutted, in spite of the gallant fight the village firemen put up with their rather pitiful excuse for an engine. The wind was high and blew every spark into flame. It got so hot we were forced to take a stand far from the school. The girls did their best to identify their bundles, and when once identified, they sat on them to make sure of them. Miss Plympton ordered us to form into classes out on the campus, and then she carefully went through each class to see that we were all there and all right. Then she put us in charge of teachers. This was very amusing, as I am sure the teachers had done little to deserve the honour of commissioned officers. I believe Margaret Sayre and Miss Ball were the only ones who had shown any presence of mind at all. No one seemed to know how the fire had started. All we knew was it was in the cellar. Mr. Ryan finally reported that he had not perceived it until after I had rung the alarm. He insisted he had made all the rounds, but I could not help having my doubts in the matter as I had covered a good deal of the building in my wild flights and had not once seen a gleam of his lantern. I told Miss Plympton how I had been forced to get up for a drink of water and how I had smelt burning varnish and how full the lower hall was of smoke. "Why didn't you call me?" "I thought the fire alarm would call everybody." "Ahem! Quite right," she said rather sheepishly. "The fact is I heard the gong in my sleep but was dreaming of the fire drill." "That seems to have been the case with almost every one. I fancy if I had not been thirsty all of us might still be sweetly dreaming." "I want to thank you for your behaviour and congratulate you on your presence of mind." This from Miss Plympton. "I wish you would tell the Misses Tucker to come to me. I have not yet thanked them for saving my life." I was amused at this, but did not think it at all funny that I was sent on an errand, as my foot felt like coals of fire and hot ploughshares and all kinds of terrible ordeals. I limped off but the first groan of the night slipped from me. "Why, child! What is the matter?" Her voice was actually soft and sympathetic. "Nothing!" I stammered, thinking to myself that I was in for an investigation now. "I ricked my ankle." "How?" "Getting out the window." I was a little sullen in tone now, but I was in so much pain by this time that nothing made very much difference to me. "Why, you poor little heroine! I am going to have you sent over to the hotel immediately and have a doctor look at it." Maybe you think I didn't feel foolish and sneaky! Miss Plympton thought I meant I had just sprained it that night instead of the evening before in the fire drill. I was not accustomed to subterfuge and my face burned with the effort to keep the secret. I was not at liberty to involve Tweedles in my confession, and it was impossible to make one without doing it. Just at this juncture old Captain Leahy came stumping up. "Well, phat is all this? The beautiful schcool all burnt oop! I am grievin' at phwat our sweet lady will say; boot praise be, she was not herre to go down wid the ship!" "Oh, Captain, I am glad to see you. I have sprained my ankle and I have just got to get somewhere and lie down." I had visions of keeling over again in a faint and thought it the better part of valour to save my friends that anxiety. "Ye poorr lamb! I'll fetch a wheelbarrow and get ye over to my mansion in a jiffy." Tweedles came just then and highly approved of the plan. "I tell you what, Captain Leahy, if you won't mind, let us stay in your house until the early train and then we can get to Richmond in time for lunch." "Moind! It would make me that prood! And the poosies would be overjyed." So Tweedles hustled around and found Annie and Mary and they all scratched in the débris for their belongings and mine, and soon we started off in a procession to Captain Leahy's. I was perched in a wheelbarrow that the good old man had found in a tool house by the garden and each girl had a sheet full of clothes slung over her back. When we got to the crossing, the Captain asked us to wait outside a moment while he put his house to rights. All he had to do was to convert his berth into seats again, and in a jiffy he was out to usher us into a ship-shape apartment. He was a singularly orderly old man to be so charming. I do not think as a rule that very orderly persons are apt to be charming. "Dum and I have to go to the station a minute," said Dee, just as though it were not three o'clock in the morning. "The station! What on earth for?" I demanded in amazement. "Well, you see the train dispatcher is there and we can get Zebedee on the 'phone." "What on earth is the use in waking him up this time of night and scaring him to death? I think to-morrow will do just as well." "To-morrow, indeed! By to-morrow 'twill be no scoop. Don't you know that if we get this to Zebedee now he will scoop all the papers in Richmond?" And so he did. Tweedles had not been brought up in a newspaper family for nothing. The ruling passion for news scoops was strong in death. CHAPTER XXII. IN MOTLEY RAIMENT. That was a strange trip we took to Richmond, catching that early train. No one had had any sleep, but we meant to have some naps on the train. Dear old Captain Leahy was as good as gold to us. He left us to keep house for him, as he put it, while he went back to the school with the wheelbarrow to get Annie's trunk. Annie was the only one who had a trunk now and grateful indeed she was to the Tuckers for saving it for her. She kept her clothes in her trunk as a rule, all of the best ones, at least, so she really had suffered almost no loss from the fire. The rest of us had to do some twisting and turning to get sufficiently clothed to travel. There were no hats at all in the company. Annie had a summer hat packed in her trunk, but no hat at all was better than a summer hat the middle of March. At that date the style of wearing your summer hat in winter and beginning on your winter hat in early fall had not yet penetrated to Gresham. Mary had fared worse than any of us and all her voluminous skirts had perished in the flames. At least, we thought they had at the time but we heard later that some of the Gresham darkeys were seen dressed in them. Thomas Hawkins reported this to us. He said he knew Mary's clothes and could not be mistaken. Mary's home lay in a different direction from Richmond and Mary thought she must leave us and go immediately to her mother, but we persuaded her to call up her mother on long distance and put it up to her that since she was burnt out and had no clothes she had better go to Richmond with us and purchase more. Mrs. Flannagan thought so, too, and was not a bit grouchy over being called up at five o'clock in the morning to decide. She even said she might come to Richmond herself and superintend the purchasing. We wanted to meet Mary's mother, but we were itching to have charge of the selection of Mary's clothes, certain, in the arrogance of youth, that we could do much better than Mrs. Flannagan. I am pretty sure that that was the first time school girls had ever left Gresham on that early train with a proper breakfast. Captain Leahy hustled and bustled, and with the assistance of the girls had a delightful little repast cooked on his doll baby stove. The coffee was not of the finest grade, but it was of the finest make. The toast was piping hot and the fried eggs were beyond reproach. The girls who had been taken to the hotel did not fare so well as we. Before train time Miss Plympton came to bid us good-bye. She was looking terribly harassed, having so many girls to attend to. I was glad to see she had changed her pink pajamas for a more suitable attire, also glad that she had remembered to bring my coat back to me. I had had a little talk with Tweedles while Mary and Annie were 'phoning Mrs. Flannagan, and we had come to the conclusion that we would 'fess up to Miss Plympton about how I got the sprained ankle. "I'll write to her, if you girls don't mind," I said. "I never felt sneakier in my life than when she bit so easily. I would have told her then but I did not want to get you into a scrape, too." "Oh, forget it! Forget it!" they tweedled. We had not expected the honour of a visit from her, as we had got her permission to take the first train home and thought that would be the last of it. She would not sit down at first, but stood a few minutes in the tiny house, looking curiously around at the Captain's arrangements. We had finished breakfast and Dum and Annie were clearing off the table preparatory to washing the dishes, although the host insisted on their leaving them. "We've half an hour to train time and might just as well put it in usefully," insisted Dum. "You look that tirred, lady," said the Captain, "if ye will excuse an ould man, I think if ye take a coop of coffee 'twill be the savin' of ye." She did take one and very grateful she was. I began to feel that Miss Plympton was much more human than I had ever deemed her. It wasn't easy to begin my confession, however, as there were so many present and Miss Plympton tired and broken was still Miss Plympton. "I have something to tell you," I faltered, after she had inquired almost tenderly after my ankle. "I--I--sprained my ankle in the fire drill, not in the fire. Tweedles--I mean Caroline and Virginia--and I, you remember, beat all the girls out of the building. We did not come out the regular way, but slid down the sheets out of our window. There were not enough sheets in our rope then to touch the ground and I had to jump about six feet--and my ankle turned. I did not mean to let you think it was in the fire I had hurt it, but you just took it for granted." I waited in great anxiety to see how this confession would strike our august principal. She looked at me curiously and then choked on her coffee and laughed and laughed until the little kittens in Bett's basket came out to see what was the matter. No one had ever seen Miss Plympton really laugh before. Finally she was able to speak. "After all, I did not say in my instructions to the school what route they were to take to get out of the building when the alarm rang, and if you chose to come by the window perhaps it was none of my business. At any rate, I don't see what is to be done about it now. Certainly demerits would be a farce." "Well, I never thought of that!" exclaimed Dum. "Somehow I've been having a feeling that demerits could never be a farce." "They are a farce now. There is something I want to say to you girls--all five of you. I might as well get it over with. I have not understood you and feel that there have been times when I have been unjust. I want you to accept my apology." Miss Plympton stood up and held out her hand like a perfect gentleman. We were so amazed we could hardly muster sense enough to shake it. Had the fire gone to her head? "When I realize that but for your bravery I might have lost my life--" "Why, not at all, Miss Plympton," put in Dee, "there was really plenty of time, as it turned out. The firemen could have got you out just as well. There was no hurry, but of course we thought there was or we would not have hustled you so." "If you don't mind, I like to think you saved my life. I must tell all of you good-bye now as I have a great many things to attend to and telegrams to send to the parents of the pupils. I am sending all home that I can to-day," and the poor woman gave another hand shake all around and even stooped down and gave Bett a pat, much to the astonishment of the Captain who thought our principal scorned cats. She thanked our host for his kindness, and started out the door and then came back and kissed me. Her face was crimson. Evidently she was not an adept in osculatory exercises. "I hope your ankle will be all right, my dear," she whispered. "Be sure and see a surgeon as soon as you get to Richmond." "Well, I'll be ding swittled!" gasped Dum, as the door closed on our one time _bête noir_. She expressed the sentiments of all of us. "The firre has milted herr icy hearrt. And did ye see herr pat poorr Bett?" "I am glad she is melted, but I must say I am also glad she didn't slush on me but that Page got it," said naughty Dee. "I can't believe that Miss Plympton has actually taken to lollapalussing." A motley crowd we were on that train to Richmond. Some girls had saved jackets and no skirts and some skirts and no jackets. Some of them had on bedroom slippers, and one girl, who was too fat to borrow, went home in her gymnasium suit and a long coat. Hats were a rarity and gloves unheard of. I am certain more clothes were saved than the girls ever saw, as the ghouls were very busy. We looked like a tacky party as almost every one had on something borrowed or incongruous. The excitement had kept up our spirits and, while we were one and all sorry about Gresham, we were one and all glad to be going home. I say all were glad, but that is not quite accurate. Annie Pore was not glad. Home was not a very entrancing place for her, poor girl. A country store in a small settlement on the river bank is not such a very cheerful place for a beautiful young girl with a voice she hopes to make something of. Annie's voice was deepening in tone and becoming very round and full. She really should be having it cultivated by a good master, but Mr. Pore was so parsimonious there was no telling whether or not he would let her have the necessary advantages. We talked of many things on that trip to Richmond. Sleep was out of the question, although we had planned naps to make up for the many hours we had been awake. Dee re-bandaged my ankle and I was much more comfortable. "I, for one, mean to go to New York to study Art," said Dum. "Well, if you go, I'm going, too," declared Dee. "I don't know just what I'll study, but I'm going to be either a trained nurse or a veterinary surgeon." "I mean to take a course in journalism at Columbia," I put in. "I do want to study singing in good, hard earnest," sighed Annie. "I mean to be a movie actress," said funny Mary Flannagan. "You needn't laugh. There is great demand for character work in the movies. Everybody can't be beautifully formed. I bet you John Bunny draws a bigger crowd than Annette Kellermann." "Well, I'll pay my dime to see you on the screen every day in the week!" I exclaimed. "I am really seriously considering the stage for a profession," declared Mary. "I could do vaudeville stunts in between my movie engagements." "Of course you could!" tweedled the twins. "I believe you could make a big hit in vaudeville. I never yet have seen or heard of a female ventriloquist on the stage," continued Dum. "Whatever we are going to do next winter," said Annie, "we are at least going to be together some this summer. Harvie Price has written me that his grandfather, General Price, has told him he can have a house party on his beautiful old plantation at Price's Landing any time this summer that suits him, and he is to have all of us." "Oh, what fun! Zebedee says Riverlands is one of the show places of Virginia and I know it will be just splendid to visit there," said Dee. "But speaking of visiting places," I exclaimed, "wouldn't I love to spend this unexpected spring holiday in travel!--not to far away places, you know,--" "I know," interrupted Dee eagerly, "just short trips--at a moment's notice--anywhere." "The kind Zebedee takes," added Dum. Oh, how I wished we might--but I knew we couldn't. And yet we did! I'll tell you some day what fun it was "Tripping with the Tucker Twins." THE END. The Girl Scouts Series [Illustration] BY EDITH LAVELL A new copyright series of Girl Scouts stories by an author of wide experience in Scouts' craft, as Director of Girl Scouts of Philadelphia. Clothbound, with Attractive Color Designs. PRICE, 65 CENTS EACH. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT MISS ALLEN'S SCHOOL THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP THE GIRL SCOUTS' GOOD TURN THE GIRL SCOUTS' CANOE TRIP THE GIRL SCOUTS' RIVALS THE GIRL SCOUTS ON THE RANCH THE GIRL SCOUTS' VACATION ADVENTURES THE GIRL SCOUTS' MOTOR TRIP For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the Publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK Marjorie Dean College Series [Illustration] BY PAULINE LESTER. Author of the Famous Marjorie Dean High School Series. Those who have read the Marjorie Dean High School Series will be eager to read this new series, as Marjorie Dean continues to be the heroine in these stories. All Clothbound. Copyright Titles. PRICE, 65 CENTS EACH. 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THE BOY SCOUTS THROUGH THE BIG TIMBER; or, The Search for the Lost Tenderfoot. THE BOY SCOUTS IN THE ROCKIES; or, The Secret of the Hidden Silver Mine. THE BOY SCOUTS ON STURGEON ISLAND; or, Marooned Among the Game-Fish Poachers. THE BOY SCOUTS DOWN IN DIXIE; or, The Strange Secret of Alligator Swamp. THE BOY SCOUTS AT THE BATTLE OF SARATOGA; A story of Burgoyne's Defeat in 1777. THE BOY SCOUTS ALONG THE SUSQUEHANNA; or, The Silver Fox Patrol Caught in a Flood. THE BOY SCOUTS ON WAR TRAILS IN BELGIUM; or, Caught Between Hostile Armies. THE BOY SCOUTS AFOOT IN FRANCE; or, With The Red Cross Corps at the Marne. For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the Publishers A. L. BURT COMPANY 114-120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK * * * * * Transcriber's note: Obvious punctuation errors were corrected. Varied hyphenation was retained. This includes words such as bed-room and bedroom; fire-proof and fireproof. Page 93, "Plymptom" changed to "Plympton" (at all, Miss Plympton) Page 184, chapter title was changed to all capital letters to match rest of chapter titles. Original print was in small capitals. Page 311, "ALLENS" changed to "ALLEN'S" (AT MISS ALLEN'S SCHOOL) 
10549	----	A ROMANCE OF THE REPUBLIC BY L. MARIA CHILD 1867 TO THE FATHER AND MOTHER OF COL. R.G. SHAW, THE EARLY AND EVER-FAITHFUL FRIENDS OF FREEDOM AND EQUAL RIGHTS, THIS VOLUME IS MOST RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. PART FIRST. CHAPTER I. "What are you going to do with yourself this evening, Alfred?" said Mr. Royal to his companion, as they issued from his counting-house in New Orleans. "Perhaps I ought to apologize for not calling you Mr. King, considering the shortness of our acquaintance; but your father and I were like brothers in our youth, and you resemble him so much, I can hardly realize that you are not he himself, and I still a young man. It used to be a joke with us that we must be cousins, since he was a King and I was of the Royal family. So excuse me if I say to you, as I used to say to him. What are you going to do with yourself, Cousin Alfred?" "I thank you for the friendly familiarity," rejoined the young man. "It is pleasant to know that I remind you so strongly of my good father. My most earnest wish is to resemble him in character as much as I am said to resemble him in person. I have formed no plans for the evening. I was just about to ask you what there was best worth seeing or hearing in the Crescent City." "If I should tell you I thought there was nothing better worth seeing than my daughters, you would perhaps excuse a father's partiality," rejoined Mr. Royal. "Your daughters!" exclaimed his companion, in a tone of surprise. "I never heard that you were married." A shadow of embarrassment passed over the merchant's face, as he replied, "Their mother was a Spanish lady,--a stranger here,--and she formed no acquaintance. She was a woman of a great heart and of rare beauty. Nothing can ever make up her loss to me; but all the joy that remains in life is centred in the daughters she has left me. I should like to introduce them to you; and that is a compliment I never before paid to any young man. My home is in the outskirts of the city; and when we have dined at the hotel, according to my daily habit, I will send off a few letters, and then, if you like to go there with me, I will call a carriage." "Thank you," replied the young man; "unless it is your own custom to ride, I should prefer to walk. I like the exercise, and it will give a better opportunity to observe the city, which is so different from our Northern towns that it has for me the attractions of a foreign land." In compliance with this wish, Mr. Royal took him through the principal streets, pointing out the public buildings, and now and then stopping to smile at some placard or sign which presented an odd jumble of French and English. When they came to the suburbs of the city, the aspect of things became charmingly rural. Houses were scattered here and there among trees and gardens. Mr. Royal pointed out one of them, nestled in flowers and half encircled by an orange-grove, and said, "That is my home. When I first came here, the place where it stands was a field of sugar-canes; but the city is fast stretching itself into the suburbs." They approached the dwelling; and in answer to the bell, the door was opened by a comely young negress, with a turban of bright colors on her head and golden hoops in her ears. Before the gentlemen had disposed of their hats and canes, a light little figure bounded from one of the rooms, clapping her hands, and exclaiming, "Ah, Papasito!" Then, seeing a stranger with him, she suddenly stood still, with a pretty look of blushing surprise. "Never mind, Mignonne," said her father, fondly patting her head. "This is Alfred Royal King, from Boston; my namesake, and the son of a dear old friend of mine. I have invited him to see you dance. Mr. King, this is my Floracita." The fairy dotted a courtesy, quickly and gracefully as a butterfly touching a flower, and then darted back into the room she had left. There they were met by a taller young lady, who was introduced as "My daughter Rosabella." Her beauty was superlative and peculiar. Her complexion was like a glowing reflection upon ivory from gold in the sunshine. Her large brown eyes were deeply fringed, and lambent with interior light. Lustrous dark brown hair shaded her forehead in little waves, slight as the rippling of water touched by an insect's wing. It was arranged at the back of her head in circling braids, over which fell clusters of ringlets, with moss-rose-buds nestling among them. Her full, red lips were beautifully shaped, and wore a mingled expression of dignity and sweetness. The line from ear to chin was that perfect oval which artists love, and the carriage of her head was like one born to a kingdom. Floracita, though strikingly handsome, was of a model less superb than her elder sister. She was a charming little brunette, with laughter always lurking in ambush within her sparkling black eyes, a mouth like "Cupid's bow carved in coral," and dimples in her cheeks, that well deserved their French name, _berceaux d'amour_. These radiant visions of beauty took Alfred King so much by surprise, that he was for a moment confused. But he soon recovered self-possession, and, after the usual salutations, took a seat offered him near a window overlooking the garden. While the commonplaces of conversation were interchanged, he could not but notice the floral appearance of the room. The ample white lace curtains were surmounted by festoons of artificial roses, caught up by a bird of paradise. On the ceiling was an exquisitely painted garland, from the centre of which hung a tasteful basket of natural flowers, with delicate vine-tresses drooping over its edge. The walls were papered with bright arabesques of flowers, interspersed with birds and butterflies. In one corner a statuette of Flora looked down upon a geranium covered with a profusion of rich blossoms. In the opposite corner, ivy was trained to form a dark background for Canova's "Dancer in Repose," over whose arm was thrown a wreath of interwoven vines and orange-blossoms. On brackets and tables were a variety of natural flowers in vases of Sevres china, whereon the best artists of France had painted flowers in all manner of graceful combinations. The ottomans were embroidered with flowers. Rosabella's white muslin dress was trailed all over with delicately tinted roses, and the lace around the corsage was fastened in front with a mosaic basket of flowers. Floracita's black curls fell over her shoulders mixed with crimson fuchsias, and on each of her little slippers was embroidered a bouquet. "This is the Temple of Flora," said Alfred, turning to his host. "Flowers everywhere! Natural flowers, artificial flowers, painted flowers, embroidered flowers, and human flowers excelling them all,"--glancing at the young ladies as he spoke. Mr. Royal sighed, and in an absent sort of way answered, "Yes, yes." Then, starting up, he said abruptly, "Excuse me a moment; I wish to give the servants some directions." Floracita, who was cutting leaves from the geranium, observed his quick movement, and, as he left the room, she turned toward their visitor and said, in a childlike, confidential sort of way: "Our dear Mamita used to call this room the Temple of Flora. She had a great passion for flowers. She chose the paper, she made the garlands for the curtains, she embroidered the ottomans, and painted that table so prettily. Papasito likes to have things remain as she arranged them, but sometimes they make him sad; for the angels took Mamita away from us two years ago." "Even the names she gave you are flowery," said Alfred, with an expression of mingled sympathy and admiration. "Yes; and we had a great many flowery pet-names beside," replied she. "My name is Flora, but when she was very loving with me she called me her Floracita, her little flower; and Papasito always calls me so now. Sometimes Mamita called me _Pensée Vivace_." "In English we call that bright little flower Jump-up-and-kiss-me," rejoined Alfred, smiling as he looked down upon the lively little fairy. She returned the smile with an arch glance, that seemed to say, "I sha'n't do it, though." And away she skipped to meet her father, whose returning steps were heard. "You see I spoil her," said he, as she led him into the room with a half-dancing step. "But how can I help it?" Before there was time to respond to this question, the negress with the bright turban announced that tea was ready. "Yes, Tulipa? we will come," said Floracita. "Is _she_ a flower too?" asked Alfred. "Yes, she's a flower, too," answered Floracita, with a merry little laugh. "We named her so because she always wears a red and yellow turban; but we call her Tulee, for short." While they were partaking of refreshments, she and her father were perpetually exchanging badinage, which, childish as it was, served to enliven the repast. But when she began to throw oranges for him to catch, a reproving glance from her dignified sister reminded her of the presence of company. "Let her do as she likes, Rosa dear," said her father. "She is used to being my little plaything, and I can't spare her to be a woman yet." "I consider it a compliment to forget that I am a stranger," said Mr. King. "For my own part, I forgot it entirely before I had been in the house ten minutes." Rosabella thanked him with a quiet smile and a slight inclination of her head. Floracita, notwithstanding this encouragement, paused in her merriment; and Mr. Royal began to talk over reminiscences connected with Alfred's father. When they rose from table, he said, "Come here, Mignonne! We won't be afraid of the Boston gentleman, will we?" Floracita sprang to his side. He passed his arm fondly round her, and, waiting for his guest and his elder daughter to precede them, they returned to the room they had left. They had scarcely entered it, when Floracita darted to the window, and, peering forth into the twilight, she looked back roguishly at her sister, and began to sing:-- "Un petit blanc, que j'aime, En ces lieux est venu. Oui! oui! c'est lui même! C'est lui! je l'ai vue! Petit blanc! mon bon frère! Ha! ha! petit blanc si doux!" The progress of her song was checked by the entrance of a gentleman, who was introduced to Alfred as Mr. Fitzgerald from Savannah. His handsome person reminded one of an Italian tenor singer, and his manner was a graceful mixture of _hauteur_ and insinuating courtesy. After a brief interchange of salutations, he said to Floracita, "I heard some notes of a lively little French tune, that went so trippingly I should be delighted to hear more of it." Floracita had accidentally overheard some half-whispered words which Mr. Fitzgerald had addressed to her sister, during his last visit, and, thinking she had discovered an important secret, she was disposed to use her power mischievously. Without waiting for a repetition of his request, she sang:-- "Petit blanc, mon bon frère! Ha! ha! petit blanc si doux! Il n'y a rien sur la terre De si joli que vous." While she was singing, she darted roguish glances at her sister, whose cheeks glowed like the sun-ripened side of a golden apricot. Her father touched her shoulder, and said in a tone of annoyance, "Don't sing that foolish song, Mignonne!" She turned to him quickly with a look of surprise; for she was accustomed only to endearments from him. In answer to her look, he added, in a gentler tone, "You know I told you I wanted my friend to see you dance. Select one of your prettiest, _ma petite_, and Rosabella will play it for you." Mr. Fitzgerald assiduously placed the music-stool, and bent over the portfolio while Miss Royal searched for the music. A servant lighted the candelabra and drew the curtains. Alfred, glancing at Mr. Royal, saw he was watching the pair who were busy at the portfolio, and that the expression of his countenance was troubled. His eyes, however, soon had pleasanter occupation; for as soon as Rosa touched the piano, Floracita began to float round the room in a succession of graceful whirls, as if the music had taken her up and was waltzing her along. As she passed the marble Dancing Girl, she seized the wreath that was thrown over its arm, and as she went circling round, it seemed as if the tune had become a visible spirit, and that the garland was a floating accompaniment to its graceful motions. Sometimes it was held aloft by the right hand, sometimes by the left; sometimes it was a whirling semicircle behind her; and sometimes it rested on her shoulders, mingling its white orange buds and blossoms with her shower of black curls and crimson fuchsias. Now it was twined round her head in a flowery crown, and then it gracefully unwound itself, as if it were a thing alive. Ever and anon the little dancer poised herself for an instant on the point of one fairy foot, her cheeks glowing with exercise and dimpling with smiles, as she met her father's delighted gaze. Every attitude seemed spontaneous in its prettiness, as if the music had made it without her choice. At last she danced toward her father, and sank, with a wave-like motion, on the ottoman at his feet. He patted the glossy head that nestled lovingly on his knee, and drawing a long breath, as if oppressed with happiness, he murmured, "Ah, Mignonne!" The floating fairy vision had given such exquisite pleasure, that all had been absorbed in watching its variations. Now they looked at each other and smiled. "You would make Taglioni jealous," said Mr. Fitzgerald, addressing the little dancer; and Mr. King silently thanked her with a very expressive glance. As Rosabella retired from the piano, she busied herself with rearranging a bouquet she had taken from one of the vases. When Mr. Fitzgerald stationed himself at her side, she lowered her eyes with a perceptibly deepening color. On her peculiar complexion a blush showed like a roseate cloud in a golden atmosphere. As Alfred gazed on the long, dark, silky fringes resting on those warmly tinted cheeks, he thought he had never seen any human creature so superbly handsome. "Nothing but music can satisfy us after such dancing," said Mr. Fitzgerald. She looked up to him with a smile; and Alfred thought the rising of those dark eyelashes surpassed their downcast expression, as the glory of morning sunshine excels the veiled beauty of starlight. "Shall I accompany you while you sing, 'How brightly breaks the morning'?" asked she. "That always sings itself into my heart, whenever you raise your eyes to mine," replied he, in a low tone, as he handed her to the piano. Together they sang that popular melody, bright and joyful as sunrise on a world of blossoms. Then came a Tyrolese song, with a double voice, sounding like echoes from the mountains. This was followed by some tender, complaining Russian melodies, novelties which Mr. Fitzgerald had brought on a preceding visit. Feeling they were too much engrossed with each other, she said politely, "Mr. King has not yet chosen any music." "The moon becomes visible through the curtains," replied he. "Perhaps you will salute her with 'Casta Diva.'" "That is a favorite with us," she replied. "Either Flora or I sing it almost every moonlight night." She sang it in very pure Italian. Then turning round on the music-stool she looked at her father, and said, "Now, _Papasito querido_, what shall I sing for you?" "You know, dear, what I always love to hear," answered he. With gentle touch, she drew from the keys a plaintive prelude, which soon modulated itself into "The Light of other Days." She played and sang it with so much feeling, that it seemed the voice of memory floating with softened sadness over the far-off waters of the past. The tune was familiar to Alfred, but it had never sung itself into his heart, as now. "I felt as I did in Italy, listening to a vesper-bell sounding from a distance in the stillness of twilight," said he, turning toward his host. "All who hear Rosabella sing notice a bell in her voice," rejoined her father. "Undoubtedly it is the voice of a belle," said Mr. Fitzgerald. Her father, without appearing to notice the commonplace pun, went on to say, "You don't know, Mr. King, what tricks she can play with her voice. I call her a musical ventriloquist. If you want to hear the bell to perfection, ask her to sing 'Toll the bell for lovely Nell.'" "Do give me that pleasure," said Alfred, persuasively. She sang the pathetic melody, and with voice and piano imitated to perfection the slow tolling of a silver-toned bell. After a short pause, during which she trifled with the keys, while some general remarks were passing, she turned to Mr. Fitzgerald, who was leaning on the piano, and said, "What shall I sing for _you_?" It was a simple question, but it pierced the heart of Alfred King with a strange new pain. What would he not have given for such a soft expression in those glorious eyes when she looked at _him_! "Since you are in a ventriloqual mood," answered Mr. Fitzgerald, "I should like to hear again what you played the last time I was here,--Agatha's Moonlight Prayer, from _Der Freyschütz_." She smiled, and with voice and instrument produced the indescribably dreamy effect of the two flutes. It was the very moonlight of sound. "This is perfectly magical," murmured Alfred. He spoke in a low, almost reverential tone; for the spell of moonlight was on him, and the clear, soft voice of the singer, the novelty of her peculiar beauty, and the surpassing gracefulness of her motions, as she swayed gently to the music of the tones she produced, inspired him with a feeling of poetic deference. Through the partially open window came the lulling sound of a little trickling fountain in the garden, and the air was redolent of jasmine and orange-blossoms. On the pier-table was a little sleeping Cupid, from whose torch rose the fragrant incense of a nearly extinguished _pastille_. The pervasive spirit of beauty in the room, manifested in forms, colors, tones, and motions, affected the soul as perfume did the senses. The visitors felt they had stayed too long, and yet they lingered. Alfred examined the reclining Cupid, and praised the gracefulness of its outline. "Cupid could never sleep here, nor would the flame of his torch ever go out," said Mr. Fitzgerald; "but it is time _we_ were going out." The young gentlemen exchanged parting salutations with their host and his daughters, and moved toward the door. But Mr. Fitzgerald paused on the threshold to say, "Please play us out with Mozart's 'Good Night.'" "As organists play worshippers out of the church," added Mr. King. Rosabella bowed compliance, and, as they crossed the outer threshold, they heard the most musical of voices singing Mozart's beautiful little melody, "Buona Notte, amato bene." The young men lingered near the piazza till the last sounds floated away, and then they walked forth in the moonlight,--Fitzgerald repeating the air in a subdued whistle. His first exclamation was, "Isn't that girl a Rose Royal?" "She is, indeed," replied Mr. King; "and the younger sister is also extremely fascinating." "Yes, I thought you seemed to think so," rejoined his companion. "Which do you prefer?" Shy of revealing his thoughts to a stranger, Mr. King replied that each of the sisters was so perfect in her way, the other would be wronged by preference. "Yes, they are both rare gems of beauty," rejoined Fitzgerald. "If I were the Grand Bashaw, I would have them both in my harem." The levity of the remark jarred on the feelings of his companion, who answered, in a grave, and somewhat cold tone, "I saw nothing in the manners of the young ladies to suggest such a disposition of them." "Excuse me," said Fitzgerald, laughing. "I forgot you were from the land of Puritans. I meant no indignity to the young ladies, I assure you. But when one amuses himself with imagining the impossible, it is not worth while to be scrupulous about details. I am _not_ the Grand Bashaw; and when I pronounced them fit for his harem, I merely meant a compliment to their superlative beauty. That Floracita is a mischievous little sprite. Did you ever see anything more roguish than her expression while she was singing 'Petit blanc, mon bon frère'?" "That mercurial little song excited my curiosity," replied Alfred. "Pray what is its origin?" "I think it likely it came from the French West Indies," said Fitzgerald. "It seems to be the love-song of a young negress, addressed to a white lover. Floracita may have learned it from her mother, who was half French, half Spanish. You doubtless observed the foreign sprinkling in their talk. They told me they never spoke English with their mother. Those who have seen her describe her as a wonderful creature, who danced like Taglioni and sang like Malibran, and was more beautiful than her daughter Rosabella. But the last part of the story is incredible. If she were half as handsome, no wonder Mr. Royal idolized her, as they say he did." "Did he marry her in the French Islands?" inquired Alfred. "They were not married," answered Fitzgerald. "Of course not, for she was a quadroon. But here are my lodgings, and I must bid you good night." These careless parting words produced great disturbance in the spirit of Alfred King. He had heard of those quadroon connections, as one hears of foreign customs, without any realizing sense of their consequences. That his father's friend should be a partner in such an alliance, and that these two graceful and accomplished girls should by that circumstance be excluded from the society they would so greatly ornament, surprised and bewildered him. He recalled that tinge in Rosa's complexion, not golden, but like a faint, luminous reflection of gold, and that slight waviness in the glossy hair, which seemed to him so becoming. He could not make these peculiarities seem less beautiful to his imagination, now that he knew them as signs of her connection with a proscribed race. And that bewitching little Floracita, emerging into womanhood, with the auroral light of childhood still floating round her, she seemed like a beautiful Italian child, whose proper place was among fountains and statues and pictured forms of art. The skill of no Parisian _coiffeur_ could produce a result so pleasing as the profusion of raven hair, that _would_ roll itself into ringlets. Octoroons! He repeated the word to himself, but it did not disenchant him. It was merely something foreign and new to his experience, like Spanish or Italian beauty. Yet he felt painfully the false position in which they were placed by the unreasoning prejudice of society. Though he had had a fatiguing day, when he entered his chamber he felt no inclination to sleep. As he slowly paced up and down the room, he thought to himself, "My good mother shares the prejudice. How could I introduce them to _her_?" Then, as if impatient with himself, he murmured, in a vexed tone, "Why should I _think_ of introducing them to my mother? A few hours ago I didn't know of their existence." He threw himself on the bed and tried to sleep; but memory was too busy with the scene of enchantment he had recently left. A catalpa-tree threw its shadow on the moon-lighted curtain. He began to count the wavering leaves, in hopes the monotonous occupation would induce slumber. After a while he forgot to count; and as his spirit hovered between the inner and the outer world, Floracita seemed to be dancing on the leaf shadows in manifold graceful evolutions. Then he was watching a little trickling fountain, and the falling drops were tones of "The Light of other Days." Anon he was wandering among flowers in the moonlight, and from afar some one was heard singing "Casta Diva." The memory of that voice, "While slept the limbs and senses all, Made everything seem musical." Again and again the panorama of the preceding evening revolved through the halls of memory with every variety of fantastic change. A light laugh broke in upon the scenes of enchantment, with the words, "Of course not, for she was a quadroon." Then the plaintive melody of "Toll the bell" resounded in his ears; not afar off, but loud and clear, as if the singer were in the room. He woke with a start, and heard the vibrations of a cathedral bell subsiding into silence. It had struck but twice, but in his spiritual ear the sounds had been modulated through many tones. "Even thus strangely," thought he, "has that rich, sonorous voice struck into the dream of my life," Again he saw those large, lustrous eyes lowering their long-fringed veils under the ardent gaze of Gerald Fitzgerald. Again he thought of his mother, and sighed. At last a dreamless sleep stole over him, and both pleasure and pain were buried in deep oblivion. CHAPTER II. The sun was up before he woke. He rose hastily and ordered breakfast and a horse; for he had resolved the day before upon an early ride. A restless, undefined feeling led him in the same direction he had taken the preceding evening. He passed the house that would forevermore be a prominent feature in the landscape of his life. Vines were gently waving in the morning air between the pillars of the piazza, where he had lingered entranced to hear the tones of "Buena Notte." The bright turban of Tulipa was glancing about, as she dusted the blinds. A peacock on the balustrade, in the sunshine, spread out his tail into a great Oriental fan, and slowly lowered it, making a prismatic shower of topaz, sapphires, and emeralds as it fell. It was the first of March; but as he rode on, thinking of the dreary landscape and boisterous winds of New England at that season, the air was filled with the fragrance of flowers, and mocking-birds and thrushes saluted him with their songs. In many places the ground was thickly strewn with oranges, and the orange-groves were beautiful with golden fruit and silver flowers gleaming among the dark glossy green foliage. Here and there was the mansion of a wealthy planter, surrounded by whitewashed slave-cabins. The negroes at their work, and their black picaninnies rolling about on the ground, seemed an appropriate part of the landscape, so tropical in its beauty of dark colors and luxuriant growth. He rode several miles, persuading himself that he was enticed solely by the healthy exercise and the novelty of the scene. But more alluring than the pleasant landscape and the fragrant air was the hope that, if he returned late, the young ladies might be on the piazza, or visible at the windows. He was destined to be disappointed. As he passed, a curtain was slowly withdrawn from one of the windows and revealed a vase of flowers. He rode slowly, in hopes of seeing a face bend over the flowers; but the person who drew the curtain remained invisible. On the piazza nothing was in motion, except the peacock strutting along, stately as a court beauty, and drawing after him his long train of jewelled plumage. A voice, joyous as a bobolink's, sounded apparently from the garden. He could not hear the words, but the lively tones at once suggested, "Petit blanc, mon bon frère." He recalled the words so carelessly uttered, "Of course not, for she was a quadroon," and they seemed to make harsh discord with the refrain of the song. He remembered the vivid flush that passed over Rosa's face while her playful sister teased her with that tuneful badinage. It seemed to him that Mr. Fitzgerald was well aware of his power, for he had not attempted to conceal his consciousness of the singer's mischievous intent. This train of thought was arrested by the inward question, "What is it to _me_ whether he marries her or not?" Impatiently he touched his horse with the whip, as if he wanted to rush from the answer to his own query. He had engaged to meet Mr. Royal at his counting-house, and he was careful to keep the appointment. He was received with parental kindness slightly tinged with embarrassment. After some conversation about business, Mr. Royal said: "From your silence concerning your visit to my house last evening, I infer that Mr. Fitzgerald has given you some information relating to my daughters' history. I trust, my young friend, that you have not suspected me of any intention to deceive or entrap you. I intended to have told you myself; but I had a desire to know first how my daughters would impress you, if judged by their own merits. Having been forestalled in my purpose, I am afraid frankness on your part will now be difficult." "A feeling of embarrassment did indeed prevent me from alluding to my visit as soon as I met you this morning," replied Alfred; "but no circumstances could alter my estimate of your daughters. Their beauty and gracefulness exceed anything I have seen." "And they are as innocent and good as they are beautiful," rejoined the father. "But you can easily imagine that my pride and delight in them is much disturbed by anxiety concerning their future. Latterly, I have thought a good deal about closing business and taking them to France to reside. But when men get to be so old as I am, the process of being transplanted to a foreign soil seems onerous. If it were as well for _them_, I should greatly prefer returning to my native New England." "They are tropical flowers," observed Alfred. "There is nothing Northern in their natures." "Yes, they are tropical flowers," rejoined the father, "and my wish is to place them in perpetual sunshine. I doubt whether they could ever feel quite at home far away from jasmines and orange-groves. But climate is the least of the impediments in the way of taking them to New England. Their connection with the enslaved race is so very slight, that it might easily be concealed; but the consciousness of practising concealment is always unpleasant. Your father was more free from prejudices of all sorts than any man I ever knew. If he were living, I would confide all to him, and be guided implicitly by his advice. You resemble him so strongly, that I have been involuntarily drawn to open my heart to you, as I never thought to do to so young a man. Yet I find the fulness of my confidence checked by the fear of lowering myself in the estimation of the son of my dearest friend. But perhaps, if you knew all the circumstances, and had had my experience, you would find some extenuation of my fault. I was very unhappy when I first came to New Orleans. I was devotedly attached to a young lady, and I was rudely repelled by her proud and worldly family. I was seized with a vehement desire to prove to them that I could become richer than they were. I rushed madly into the pursuit of wealth, and I was successful; but meanwhile they had married her to another, and I found that wealth alone could not bring happiness. In vain the profits of my business doubled and quadrupled. I was unsatisfied, lonely, and sad. Commercial transactions brought me into intimate relations with Señor Gonsalez, a Spanish gentleman in St. Augustine. He had formed an alliance with a beautiful slave, whom he had bought in the French West Indies. I never saw her, for she died before my acquaintance with him; but their daughter, then a girl of sixteen, was the most charming creature I ever beheld. The irresistible attraction I felt toward her the first moment I saw her was doubtless the mere fascination of the senses; but when I came to know her more, I found her so gentle, so tender, so modest, and so true, that I loved her with a strong and deep affection. I admired her, too, for other reasons than her beauty; for she had many elegant accomplishments, procured by her father's fond indulgence during two years' residence in Paris. He was wealthy at that time; but he afterward became entangled in pecuniary difficulties, and his health declined. He took a liking to me, and proposed that I should purchase Eulalia, and thus enable him to cancel a debt due to a troublesome creditor whom he suspected of having an eye upon his daughter. I gave him a large sum for her, and brought her with me to New Orleans. Do not despise me for it, my young friend. If it had been told to me a few years before, in my New England home, that I could ever become a party in such a transaction, I should have rejected the idea with indignation. But my disappointed and lonely condition rendered me an easy prey to temptation, and I was where public opinion sanctioned such connections. Besides, there were kindly motives mixed up with selfish ones. I pitied the unfortunate father, and I feared his handsome daughter might fall into hands that would not protect her so carefully as I resolved to do. I knew the freedom of her choice was not interfered with, for she confessed she loved me. "Señor Gonsalez, who was more attached to her than to anything else in the world, soon afterward gathered up the fragments of his broken fortune, and came to reside near us. I know it was a great satisfaction to his dying hours that he left Eulalia in my care, and the dear girl was entirely happy with me. If I had manumitted her, carried her abroad, and legally married her, I should have no remorse mingled with my sorrow for her loss. Loving her faithfully, as I did to the latest moment of her life, I now find it difficult to explain to myself how I came to neglect such an obvious duty. I was always thinking that I would do it at some future time. But marriage with a quadroon would have been void, according to the laws of Louisiana; and, being immersed in business, I never seemed to find time to take her abroad. When one has taken the first wrong step, it becomes dangerously easy to go on in the same path. A man's standing here is not injured by such irregular connections; and my faithful, loving Eulalia meekly accepted her situation as a portion of her inherited destiny. Mine was the fault, not hers; for I was free to do as I pleased, and she never had been. I acted in opposition to moral principles, which the education of false circumstances had given her no opportunity to form. I had remorseful thoughts at times, but I am quite sure she was never troubled in that way. She loved and trusted me entirely. She knew that the marriage of a white man with one of her race was illegal; and she quietly accepted the fact, as human beings do accept what they are powerless to overcome. Her daughters attributed her olive complexion to a Spanish origin; and their only idea was, and is, that she was my honored wife, as indeed she was in the inmost recesses of my heart. I gradually withdrew from the few acquaintances I had formed in New Orleans; partly because I was satisfied with the company of Eulalia and our children, and partly because I could not take her with me into society. She had no acquaintances here, and we acquired the habit of living in a little world by ourselves,--a world which, as you have seen, was transformed into a sort of fairy-land by her love of beautiful things. After I lost her, it was my intention to send the children immediately to France to be educated. But procrastination is my besetting sin; and the idea of parting with them was so painful, that I have deferred and deferred it. The suffering I experience on their account is a just punishment for the wrong I did their mother. When I think how beautiful, how talented, how affectionate, and how pure they are, and in what a cruel position I have placed them, I have terrible writhings of the heart. I do not think I am destined to long life; and who will protect them when I am gone?" A consciousness of last night's wishes and dreams made Alfred blush as he said, "It occurred to me that your eldest daughter might be betrothed to Mr. Fitzgerald." "I hope not," quickly rejoined Mr. Royal. "He is not the sort of man with whom I would like to intrust her happiness. I think, if it were so, Rosabella would have told me, for my children always confide in me." "I took it for granted that you liked him," replied Alfred; "for you said an introduction to your home was a favor you rarely bestowed." "I never conferred it on any young man but yourself," answered Mr. Royal, "and you owed it partly to my memory of your honest father, and partly to the expression of your face, which so much resembles his." The young man smiled and bowed, and his friend continued: "When I invited you, I was not aware Mr. Fitzgerald was in the city. I am but slightly acquainted with him, but I conjecture him to be what is called a high-blood. His manners, though elegant, seem to me flippant and audacious. He introduced himself into my domestic sanctum; and, as I partook of his father's hospitality years ago, I find it difficult to eject him. He came here a few months since, to transact some business connected with the settlement of his father's estate, and, unfortunately, he heard Rosabella singing as he rode past my house. He made inquiries concerning the occupants; and, from what I have heard, I conjecture that he has learned more of my private history than I wished to have him know. He called without asking my permission, and told my girls that his father was my friend, and that he had consequently taken the liberty to call with some new music, which he was very desirous of hearing them sing. When I was informed of this, on my return home, I was exceedingly annoyed; and I have ever since been thinking of closing business as soon as possible, and taking my daughters to France. He called twice again during his stay in the city, but my daughters made it a point to see him only when I was at home. Now he has come again, to increase the difficulties of my position by his unwelcome assiduities." "Unwelcome to _you_" rejoined Alfred; "but, handsome and fascinating as he is, they are not likely to be unwelcome to your daughters. Your purpose of conveying them to France is a wise one." "Would I had done it sooner!" exclaimed Mr. Royal. "How weak I have been in allowing circumstances to drift me along!" He walked up and down the room with agitated steps; then, pausing before Alfred, he laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder, as he said, with solemn earnestness, "My young friend, I am glad your father did not accept my proposal to receive you into partnership. Let me advise you to live in New England. The institutions around us have an effect on character which it is difficult to escape entirely. Bad customs often lead well-meaning men into wrong paths." "That was my father's reason for being unwilling I should reside in New Orleans," replied Alfred. "He said it was impossible to exaggerate the importance of social institutions. He often used to speak of having met a number of Turkish women when he was in the environs of Constantinople. They were wrapped up like bales of cloth, with two small openings for their eyes, mounted on camels, and escorted by the overseer of the harem. The animal sound of their chatter and giggling, as they passed him, affected him painfully; for it forced upon him the idea what different beings those women would have been if they had been brought up amid the free churches and free schools of New England. He always expounded history to me in the light of that conviction; and he mourned that temporary difficulties should prevent lawgivers from checking the growth of evils that must have a blighting influence on the souls of many generations. He considered slavery a cumulative poison in the veins of this Republic, and predicted that it would some day act all at once with deadly power." "Your father was a wise man," replied Mr. Royal, "and I agree with him. But it would be unsafe to announce it here; for slavery is a tabooed subject, except to talk in favor of it." "I am well aware of that," rejoined Alfred. "And now I must bid you good morning. You know my mother is an invalid, and I may find letters at the post-office that will render immediate return necessary. But I will see you again; and hereafter our acquaintance may perhaps be renewed in France." "That is a delightful hope," rejoined the merchant, cordially returning the friendly pressure of his hand. As he looked after the young man, he thought how pleasant it would be to have such a son; and he sighed deeply over the vision of a union that might have been, under other circumstances, between his family and that of his old friend. Alfred, as he walked away, was conscious of that latent, unspoken wish. Again the query began to revolve through his mind whether the impediments were really insurmountable. There floated before him a vision of that enchanting room, where the whole of life seemed to be composed of beauty and gracefulness, music and flowers. But a shadow of Fitzgerald fell across it, and the recollection of Boston relatives rose up like an iceberg between him and fairy-land. A letter informing him of his mother's increasing illness excited a feeling of remorse that new acquaintances had temporarily nearly driven her from his thoughts. He resolved to depart that evening; but the desire to see Rosabella again could not be suppressed. Failing to find Mr. Royal at his counting-room or his hotel, he proceeded to his suburban residence. When Tulipa informed him that "massa" had not returned from the city, he inquired for the young ladies, and was again shown into that parlor every feature of which was so indelibly impressed upon his memory. Portions of the music of _Cenerentola_ lay open on the piano, and the leaves fluttered softly in a gentle breeze laden with perfumes from the garden. Near by was swinging the beaded tassel of a book-mark between the pages of a half-opened volume. He looked at the title and saw that it was Lalla Rookh. He smiled, as he glanced round the room on the flowery festoons, the graceful tangle of bright arabesques on the walls, the Dancing Girl, and the Sleeping Cupid. "All is in harmony with Canova, and Moore, and Rossini," thought he. "The Lady in Milton's Comus _has_ been the ideal of my imagination; and now here I am so strangely taken captive by--" Rosabella entered at that moment, and almost startled him with the contrast to his ideal. Her glowing Oriental beauty and stately grace impressed him more than ever. Floracita's fairy form and airy motions were scarcely less fascinating. Their talk was very girlish. Floracita had just been reading in a French paper about the performance of _La Bayadere_, and she longed to see the ballet brought out in Paris. Rosabella thought nothing could be quite so romantic as to float on the canals of Venice by moonlight and listen to the nightingales; and she should _so_ like to cross the Bridge of Sighs! Then they went into raptures over the gracefulness of Rossini's music, and the brilliancy of Auber's. Very few and very slender thoughts were conveyed in their words, but to the young man's ear they had the charm of music; for Floracita's talk went as trippingly as a lively dance, and the sweet modulations of Rosabella's voice so softened English to Italian sound, that her words seemed floating on a liquid element, like goldfish in the water. Indeed, her whole nature seemed to partake the fluid character of music. Beauty born of harmonious sound "had passed into her face," and her motions reminded one of a water-lily undulating on its native element. The necessity of returning immediately to Boston was Alfred's apology for a brief call. Repressed feeling imparted great earnestness to the message he left for his father's friend. While he was uttering it, the conversation he had recently had with Mr. Royal came back to him with painful distinctness. After parting compliments were exchanged, he turned to say, "Excuse me, young ladies, if, in memory of our fathers' friendship, I beg of you to command my services, as if I were a brother, should it ever be in my power to serve you." Rosabella thanked him with a slight inclination of her graceful head; and Floracita, dimpling a quick little courtesy, said sportively, "If some cruel Blue-Beard should shut us up in his castle, we will send for you." "How funny!" exclaimed the volatile child, as the door closed after him. "He spoke as solemn as a minister; but I suppose that's the way with Yankees. I think _cher papa_ likes to preach sometimes." Rosabella, happening to glance at the window, saw that Alfred King paused in the street and looked back. How their emotions would have deepened could they have foreseen the future! CHAPTER III. A year passed away, and the early Southern spring had again returned with flowers and fragrance. After a day in music and embroidery, with sundry games at Battledoor and The Graces with her sister, Floracita heard the approaching footsteps of her father, and, as usual, bounded forth to meet him. Any one who had not seen him since he parted from the son of his early New England friend would have observed that he looked older and more careworn; but his daughters, accustomed to see him daily, had not noticed the gradual change. "You have kept us waiting a little, Papasito," said Rosabella, turning round on the music-stool, and greeting him with a smile. "Yes, my darling," rejoined he, placing his hand fondly on her head. "Getting ready to go to Europe makes a deal of work." "If we were sons, we could help you," said Rosabella. "I wish you _were_ sons!" answered he, with serious emphasis and a deep sigh. Floracita nestled close to him, and, looking up archly in his face, said, "And pray what would you do, papa, without your nightingale and your fairy, as you call us?" "Sure enough, what _should_ I do, my little flower?" said he, as with a loving smile he stooped to kiss her. They led him to the tea-table; and when the repast was ended, they began to talk over their preparations for leaving home. "_Cher papa_, how long before we shall go to Paris?" inquired Floracita. "In two or three weeks, I hope," was the reply. "Won't it be delightful!" exclaimed she. "You will take us to see ballets and everything." "When I am playing and singing fragments of operas," said Rosabella, "I often think to myself how wonderfully beautiful they would sound, if all the parts were brought out by such musicians as they have in Europe. I should greatly enjoy hearing operas in Paris; but I often think, Papasito, that we can never be so happy anywhere as we have been in this dear home. It makes me feel sad to leave all these pretty things,--so many of them--" She hesitated, and glanced at her father. "So intimately associated with your dear mother, you were about to say," replied he. "That thought is often present with me, and the idea of parting with them pains me to the heart. But I do not intend they shall ever be handled by strangers. We will pack them carefully and leave them with Madame Guirlande; and when we get settled abroad, in some nice little cottage, we will send for them. But when you have been in Paris, when you have seen the world and the world has seen you, perhaps you won't be contented to live in a cottage with your old Papasito. Perhaps your heads will become so turned with flattery, that you will want to be at balls and operas all the time." "No flattery will be so sweet as yours, _cher papa_," said Floracita. "No indeed!" exclaimed Rosa. But, looking up, she met his eye, and blushed crimson. She was conscious of having already listened to flattery that was at least more intoxicating than his. Her father noticed the rosy confusion, and felt a renewal of pain that unexpected entanglements had prevented his going to Europe months ago. He tenderly pressed her hand, that lay upon his knee, and looked at her with troubled earnestness, as he said, "Now that you are going to make acquaintance with the world, my daughters, and without a mother to guide you, I want you to promise me that you will never believe any gentleman sincere in professions of love, unless he proposes marriage, and asks my consent." Rosabella was obviously agitated, but she readily replied, "Do you suppose, Papasito, that we would accept a lover without asking you about it? When _Mamita querida_ died, she charged us to tell you everything; and we always do." "I do not doubt you, my children," he replied; "but the world is full of snares; and sometimes they are so covered with flowers, that the inexperienced slip into them unawares. I shall try to shield you from harm, as I always have done; but when I am gone--" "O, don't say that!" exclaimed Floracita, with a quick, nervous movement. And Rosabella looked at him with swimming eyes, as she repeated, "Don't say that, _Papasito querido_!" He laid a hand on the head of each. His heart was very full. With solemn tenderness he tried to warn them of the perils of life. But there was much that he was obliged to refrain from saying, from reverence for their inexperienced purity. And had he attempted to describe the manners of a corrupt world, they could have had no realizing sense of his meaning; for it is impossible for youth to comprehend the dangers of the road it is to travel. The long talk at last subsided into serious silence. After remaining very still a few moments, Rosabella said softy, "Wouldn't you like to hear some music before you go to bed, _Papasito mio_?" He nodded assent, and she moved to the piano. Their conversation had produced an unusually tender and subdued state of feeling, and she sang quietly many plaintive melodies that her mother loved. The fountain trickling in the garden kept up a low liquid accompaniment, and the perfume of the orange-groves seemed like the fragrant breath of the tones. It was late when they parted for the night. "_Bon soir, cher papa_" said Floracita, kissing her father's hand. "_Buenas noches, Papasito querido_" said Rosabella, as she touched his cheek with her beautiful lips. There was moisture in his eyes as he folded them to his heart and said, "God bless you! God protect you, my dear ones!" Those melodies of past times had brought their mother before him in all her loving trustfulness, and his soul was full of sorrow for the irreparable wrong he had done her children. The pensive mood, that had enveloped them all in a little cloud the preceding evening, was gone in the morning. There was the usual bantering during breakfast, and after they rose from table they discussed in a lively manner various plans concerning their residence in France. Rosabella evidently felt much less pleasure in the prospect than did her younger sister; and her father, conjecturing the reason, was the more anxious to expedite their departure. "I must not linger here talking," said he. "I must go and attend to business; for there are many things to be arranged before we can set out on our travels," "_Hasta luego, Papasito mio_" said Rosabella, with an affectionate smile. "_Au revoir, cher papa_" said Floracita, as she handed him his hat. He patted her head playfully as he said, "What a polyglot family we are! Your grandfather's Spanish, your grandmother's French, and your father's English, all mixed up in an _olla podrida_. Good morning, my darlings." Floracita skipped out on the piazza, calling after him, "Papa, what _is_ polyglot?" He turned and shook his finger laughingly at her, as he exclaimed, "O, you little ignoramus!" The sisters lingered on the piazza, watching him till he was out of sight. When they re-entered the house, Floracita occupied herself with various articles of her wardrobe; consulting with Rosa whether any alterations would be necessary before they were packed for France. It evidently cost Rosa some effort to attend to her innumerable questions, for the incessant chattering disturbed her revery. At every interval she glanced round the room with a sort of farewell tenderness. It was more to her than the home of a happy childhood; for nearly all the familiar objects had become associated with glances and tones, the memory of which excited restless longings in her heart. As she stood gazing on the blooming garden and the little fountain, whose sparkling rills crossed each other in the sunshine like a silvery network strung with diamonds, she exclaimed, "O Floracita, we shall never be so happy anywhere else as we have been here." "How do you know that, _sistita mia_?" rejoined the lively little chatterer. "Only think, we have never been to a ball! And when we get to France, Papasito will go everywhere with us. He says he will." "I should like to hear operas and see ballets in Paris," said Rosabella; "but I wish we could come back _here_ before long." Floracita's laughing eyes assumed the arch expression which rendered them peculiarly bewitching, and she began to sing,-- "Petit blanc, mon bon frère! Ha! ha! petit blanc si doux! Il n'y a rien sur la terre De si joli que vous. "Un petit blanc que j'aime--" A quick flush mantled her sister's face, and she put her hand over the mischievous mouth, exclaiming, "Don't, Flora! don't!" The roguish little creature went laughing and capering out of the room, and her voice was still heard singing,-- "Un petit blanc que j'aime." The arrival of Signor Papanti soon summoned her to rehearse a music lesson. She glanced roguishly at her sister when she began; and as she went on, Rosa could not help smiling at her musical antics. The old teacher bore it patiently for a while, then he stopped trying to accompany her, and, shaking his finger at her, said, "_Diavolessa_!" "Did I make a false note?" asked she, demurely. "No, you little witch, you _can't_ make a false note. But how do you suppose I can keep hold of the tail of the Air, if you send me chasing after it through so many capricious variations? Now begin again, _da capo_" The lesson was recommenced, but soon ran riot again. The Signor became red in the face, shut the music-book with a slam, and poured forth a volley of wrath in Italian, When she saw that he was really angry, she apologized, and promised to do better. The third time of trying, she acquitted herself so well that her teacher praised her; and when she bade him good morning, with a comic little courtesy, he smiled good-naturedly, as he said, "_Ah, Malizietta_!" "I knew I should make Signor Pimentero sprinkle some pepper," exclaimed she, laughing, as she saw him walk away. "You are too fond of sobriquets," said Rosa. "If you are not careful, you will call him Signor Pimentero to his face, some day." "What did you tell me _that_ for?" asked the little rogue. "It will just make me do it. Now I am going to pester Madame's parrot." She caught up her large straw hat, with flying ribbons, and ran to the house of their next neighbor, Madame Guirlande. She was a French lady, who had given the girls lessons in embroidery, the manufacture of artificial flowers, and other fancy-work. Before long, Floracita returned through the garden, skipping over a jumping-rope. "This is a day of compliments," said she, as she entered the parlor, "Signor Pimentero called me _Diavolessa_; Madame Guirlande called me _Joli petit diable_; and the parrot took it up, and screamed it after me, as I came away." "I don't wonder at it," replied Rosa. "I think I never saw even you so full of mischief." Her frolicsome mood remained through the day. One moment she assumed the dignified manner of Rosabella, and, stretching herself to the utmost, she stood very erect, giving sage advice. The next, she was impersonating a negro preacher, one of Tulipa's friends. Hearing a mocking-bird in the garden, she went to the window and taxed his powers to the utmost, by running up and down difficult _roulades_, interspersed with the talk of parrots, the shrill fanfare of trumpets, and the deep growl of a contra-fagotto. The bird produced a grotesque fantasia in his efforts to imitate her. The peacock, as he strutted up and down the piazza, trailing his gorgeous plumage in the sunshine, ever and anon turned his glossy neck, and held up his ear to listen, occasionally performing his part in the _charivari_ by uttering a harsh scream. The mirthfulness of the little madcap was contagious, and not unfrequently the giggle of Tulipa and the low musical laugh of Rosabella mingled with the concert. Thus the day passed merrily away, till the gilded Flora that leaned against the timepiece pointed her wand toward the hour when their father was accustomed to return. CHAPTER IV. Floracita was still in the full career of fun, when footsteps were heard approaching; and, as usual, she bounded forth to welcome her father. Several men, bearing a palanquin on their shoulders, were slowly ascending the piazza. She gave one glance at their burden, and uttered a shrill scream. Rosabella hastened to her in great alarm. Tulipa followed, and quickly comprehending that something terrible had happened, she hurried away to summon Madame Guirlande. Rosabella, pale and trembling, gasped out, "What has happened to my father?" Franz Blumenthal, a favorite clerk of Mr. Royal's, replied, in a low, sympathizing tone, "He was writing letters in the counting-room this afternoon, and when I went in to speak to him, I found him on the floor senseless. We called a doctor immediately, but he failed to restore him." "O, call another doctor!" said Rosa, imploringly; and Floracita almost shrieked, "Tell me where to _go_ for a doctor." "We have already summoned one on the way," said young Blumenthal, "but I will go to hasten him";--and, half blinded by his tears, he hurried into the street. The doctor came in two minutes, and yet it seemed an age. Meanwhile the wretched girls were chafing their father's cold hands, and holding sal-volatile to his nose, while Madame Guirlande and Tulipa were preparing hot water and hot cloths. When the physician arrived, they watched his countenance anxiously, while he felt the pulse and laid his hand upon the heart. After a while he shook his head and said, "Nothing can be done. He is dead." Rosabella fell forward, fainting, on the body. Floracita uttered shriek upon shriek, while Madame Guirlande and Tulipa vainly tried to pacify her. The doctor at last persuaded her to swallow some valerian, and Tulipa carried her in her arms and laid her on the bed. Madame Guirlande led Rosa away, and the two sisters lay beside each other, on the same pillows where they had dreamed such happy dreams the night before. Floracita, stunned by the blow that had fallen on her so suddenly, and rendered drowsy by the anodyne she had taken, soon fell into an uneasy slumber, broken by occasional starts and stifled sobs. Rosabella wept silently, but now and then a shudder passed over her, that showed how hard she was struggling with grief. After a short time, Flora woke up bewildered. A lamp was burning in the farther part of the room, and Madame Guirlande, who sat there in spectacles and ruffled cap, made a grotesque black shadow on the wall. Floracita started up, screaming, "What is that?" Madame Guirlande went to her, and she and Rosa spoke soothingly, and soon she remembered all. "O, let me go home with _you_" she said to Madame "I am afraid to stay here." "Yes, my children," replied the good Frenchwoman. "You had better both go home and stay with me to-night." "I cannot go away and leave _him_ alone," murmured Rosa, in tones almost inaudible. "Franz Blumenthal is going to remain here," replied Madame Guirlande," and Tulipa has offered to sit up all night. It is much better for you to go with me than to stay here, my children." Thus exhorted, they rose and began to make preparations for departure. But all at once the tender good-night of the preceding evening rushed on Rosa's memory, and she sank down in a paroxysm of grief. After weeping bitterly for some minutes, she sobbed out, "O, this is worse than it was when Mamita died. Papasito was so tender with us then; and now we are _all_ alone." "Not all alone," responded Madame. "Jesus and the Blessed Virgin are with you." "O, I don't know where _they_ are!" exclaimed Flora, in tones of wild agony. "I want my Papasito! I want to die and go to my Papasito." Rosabella folded her in her arms, and they mingled their tears together, as she whispered: "Let us try to be tranquil, Sistita. We must not be troublesome to our kind friend. I did wrong to say we were all alone. We have always a Father in heaven, and he still spares us to love each other. Perhaps, too, our dear Papasito is watching over us. You know he used to tell us Mamita had become our guardian angel." Floracita kissed her, and pressed her hand in silence. Then they made preparations to go with their friendly neighbor; all stepping very softly, as if afraid of waking the beloved sleeper. The sisters had lived in such extreme seclusion, that when sorrow came upon them, like the sudden swoop and swift destruction of a tropical storm, they had no earthly friend to rely upon but Madame Guirlande. Only the day before, they had been so rich in love, that, had she passed away from the earth, it would have made no distressing change in their existence. They would have said, "Poor Madame Guirlande! She was a good soul. How patient she used to be with us!" and after a day or two, they would have danced and sung the same as ever. But one day had so beggared them in affection, that they leaned upon her as their only earthly support. After an almost untasted breakfast, they all went back to the desolated home. The flowery parlor seemed awfully lonesome. The piano was closed, the curtains drawn, and their father's chair was placed against the wall. The murmur of the fountain sounded as solemn as a dirge, and memories filled the room like a troop of ghosts. Hand in hand, the bereaved ones went to kiss the lips that would speak to them no more in this world. They knelt long beside the bed, and poured forth their breaking hearts in prayer. They rose up soothed and strengthened, with the feeling that their dear father and mother were still near them. They found a sad consolation in weaving garlands and flowery crosses, which they laid on the coffin with tender reverence. When the day of the funeral came, Madame Guirlande kept them very near her, holding a hand of each. She had provided them with long veils, which she requested them not to remove; for she remembered how anxiously their father had screened their beauty from the public gaze. A number of merchants, who had known and respected Mr. Royal, followed his remains to the grave. Most of them had heard of his quadroon connection, and some supposed that the veiled mourners might be his daughters; but such things were too common to excite remark, or to awaken much interest. The girls passed almost unnoticed; having, out of respect to the wishes of their friend, stifled their sobs till they were alone in the carriage with her and their old music-teacher. The conviction that he was not destined to long life, which Mr. Royal had expressed to Alfred King, was founded on the opinion of physicians that his heart was diseased. This furnished an additional motive for closing his business as soon as possible, and taking his children to France. But the failure of several houses with which he was connected brought unexpected entanglements. Month by month, these became more complicated, and necessarily delayed the intended emigration. His anxiety concerning his daughters increased to an oppressive degree, and aggravated the symptoms of his disease. With his habitual desire to screen them from everything unpleasant, he unwisely concealed from them both his illness and his pecuniary difficulties. He knew he could no longer be a rich man; but he still had hope of saving enough of his fortune to live in a moderate way in some cheap district of France. But on the day when he bade his daughters good morning so cheerfully, he received a letter informing him of another extensive failure, which involved him deeply. He was alone in his counting-room when he read it; and there Franz Blumenthal found him dead, with the letter in his hand. His sudden exit of course aroused the vigilance of creditors, and their examination into the state of his affairs proved anything but satisfactory. The sisters, unconscious of all this, were undisturbed by any anxiety concerning future support. The necessity of living without their father's love and counsel weighed heavily on their spirits; but concerning his money they took no thought. Hitherto they had lived as the birds do, and it did not occur to them that it could ever be otherwise. The garden and the flowery parlor, which their mother had created and their father had so dearly loved, seemed almost as much a portion of themselves as their own persons. It had been hard to think of leaving them, even for the attractions of Paris; and now _that_ dream was over, it seemed a necessity of their existence to live on in the atmosphere of beauty to which they had always been accustomed. But now that the sunshine of love had vanished from it, they felt lonely and unprotected there. They invited Madame Guirlande to come and live with them on what terms she chose; and when she said there ought to be some elderly man in the house, they at once suggested inviting their music-teacher. Madame, aware of the confidence Mr. Royal had always placed in him, thought it was the best arrangement that could be made, at least for the present. While preparations were being made to effect this change, her proceedings were suddenly arrested by tidings that the house and furniture were to be sold at auction, to satisfy the demands of creditors. She kept back the unwelcome news from the girls, while she held long consultations with Signor Papanti. He declared his opinion that Rosabella could make a fortune by her voice, and Floracita by dancing. "But then they are so young," urged Madame,--"one only sixteen, the other only fourteen." "Youth is a disadvantage one soon outgrows," replied the Signor. "They can't make fortunes immediately, of course; but they can earn a living by giving lessons. I will try to open a way for them, and the sooner you prepare them for it the better." Madame dreaded the task of disclosing their poverty, but she found it less painful than she had feared. They had no realizing sense of what it meant, and rather thought that giving lessons would be a pleasant mode of making time pass less heavily. Madame, who fully understood the condition of things, kept a watchful lookout for their interests. Before an inventory was taken, she gathered up and hid away many trifling articles which would be useful to them, though of little or no value to the creditors. Portfolios of music, patterns for drawings, boxes of paint and crayons, baskets of chenille for embroidery, and a variety of other things, were safely packed away out of sight, without the girls' taking any notice of her proceedings. During her father's lifetime, Floracita was so continually whirling round in fragmentary dances, that he often told her she rested on her feet less than a humming-bird. But after he was gone, she remained very still from morning till night. When Madame spoke to her of the necessity of giving dancing-lessons, it suggested the idea of practising. But she felt that she could not dance where she had been accustomed to dance before _him_; and she had not the heart to ask Rosa to play for her. She thought she would try, in the solitude of her chamber, how it would seem to give dancing-lessons. But without music, and without a spectator, it seemed so like the ghost of dancing that after a few steps the poor child threw herself on the bed and sobbed. Rosa did not open the piano for several days after the funeral; but one morning, feeling as if it would be a relief to pour forth the sadness that oppressed her, she began to play languidly. Only requiems and prayers came. Half afraid of summoning an invisible spirit, she softly touched the keys to "The Light of other Days." But remembering it was the very last tune she ever played to her father, she leaned her head forward on the instrument, and wept bitterly. While she sat thus the door-bell rang, and she soon became conscious of steps approaching the parlor. Her heart gave a sudden leap; for her first thought was of Gerald Fitzgerald. She raised her head, wiped away her tears, and rose to receive the visitor. Three strangers entered. She bowed to them, and they, with a little look of surprise, bowed to her. "What do you wish for, gentlemen?" she asked. "We are here concerning the settlement of Mr. Royal's estate," replied one of them. "We have been appointed to take an inventory of the furniture." While he spoke, one of his companions was inspecting the piano, to see who was the maker, and another was examining the timepiece. It was too painful; and Rosa, without trusting herself to speak another word, walked quietly out of the room, the gathering moisture in her eyes making it difficult for her to guide her steps. "Is that one of the daughters we have heard spoken of?" inquired one of the gentlemen. "I judge so," rejoined his companion. "What a royal beauty she is! Good for three thousand, I should say." "More likely five thousand," added the third. "Such a fancy article as that don't appear in the market once in fifty years." "Look here!" said the first speaker. "Do you see that pretty little creature crossing the garden? I reckon that's the other daughter." "They'll bring high prices," continued the third speaker. "They're the best property Royal has left. We may count them eight or ten thousand, at least. Some of our rich fanciers would jump at the chance of obtaining _one_ of them for that price." As he spoke, he looked significantly at the first speaker, who refrained from expressing any opinion concerning their pecuniary value. All unconscious of the remarks she had elicited, Rosa retired to her chamber, where she sat at the window plunged in mournful revery. She was thinking of various articles her mother had painted and embroidered, and how her father had said he could not bear the thought of their being handled by strangers. Presently Floracita came running in, saying, in a flurried way, "Who are those men down stairs, Rosa?" "I don't know who they are," replied her sister. "They said they came to take an inventory of the furniture. I don't know what right they have to do it. I wish Madame would come." "I will run and call her," said Floracita. "No, you had better stay with me," replied Rosa. "I was just going to look for you when you came in." "I ran into the parlor first, thinking you were there," rejoined Floracita. "I saw one of those men turning over Mamita's embroidered ottoman, and chalking something on it. How dear papa would have felt if he had seen it! One of them looked at me in such a strange way! I don't know what he meant; but it made me want to run away in a minute. Hark! I do believe they have come up stairs, and are in papa's room. They won't come here, will they?" "Bolt the door!" exclaimed Rosa; and it was quickly done. They sat folded in each other's arms, very much afraid, though they knew not wherefore. "Ah!" said Rosa, with a sigh of relief, "there is Madame coming." She leaned out of the window, and beckoned to her impatiently. Her friend hastened her steps; and when she heard of the strangers who were in the house, she said, "You had better go home with me, and stay there till they are gone." "What are they going to do?" inquired Floracita. "I will tell you presently," replied Madame, as she led them noiselessly out of the house by a back way. When they entered her own little parlor, the parrot called out, "_Joli petit diable_!" and after waiting for the old familiar response, "_Bon jour, jolie Manon_!" she began to call herself "_Jolie Manon_!" and to sing, "_Ha! ha! petit blanc, mon bon frère_!" The poor girls had no heart for play; and Madame considerately silenced the noisy bird by hanging a cloth over the cage. "My dear children," said she, "I would gladly avoid telling you anything calculated to make you more unhappy. But you _must_ know the state of things sooner or later, and it is better that a friend should tell you. Your father owed money to those men, and they are seeing what they can find to sell in order to get their pay." "Will they sell the table and boxes Mamita painted, and the ottomans she embroidered?" inquired Rosa, anxiously. "Will they sell the piano that papa gave to Rosa for a birthday present?" asked Flora. "I am afraid they will," rejoined Madame. The girls covered their faces and groaned. "Don't be so distressed, my poor children," said their sympathizing friend. "I have been trying to save a little something for you. See here!" And she brought forth some of the hidden portfolios and boxes, saying, "These will be of great use to you, my darlings, in helping you to earn your living, and they would bring almost nothing at auction." They thanked their careful friend for her foresight. But when she brought forward their mother's gold watch and diamond ring, Rosa said, "I would rather not keep such expensive things, dear friend. You know our dear father was the soul of honor. It would have troubled him greatly not to pay what he owed. I would rather have the ring and the watch sold to pay his debts." "I will tell the creditors what you say," answered Madame, "and they will be brutes if they don't let you keep your mother's things. Your father owed Signor Papanti a little bill, and he says he will try to get the table and boxes, and some other things, in payment, and then you shall have them all. You will earn enough to buy another piano by and by, and you can use mine, you know; so don't be discouraged, my poor children." "God has been very good to us to raise us up such friends as you and the Signor," replied Rosa. "You don't know how it comforts me to have you call us your children, for without you we should be all alone in the world." CHAPTER V. Such sudden reverses, such overwhelming sorrows, mature characters with wonderful rapidity. Rosa, though formed by nature and habit to cling to others, soon began to form plans for future support. Her inexperienced mind foresaw few of the difficulties involved in the career her friends had suggested. She merely expected to study and work hard; but that seemed a trifle, if she could avoid for herself and her sister the publicity which their father had so much dreaded. Floracita, too, seemed like a tamed bird. She was sprightly as ever in her motions, and quick in her gestures; but she would sit patiently at her task of embroidery, hour after hour, without even looking up to answer the noisy challenges of the parrot. Sometimes the sisters, while they worked, sang together the hymns they had been accustomed to sing with their father on Sundays; and memory of the missing voice imparted to their tones a pathos that no mere skill could imitate. One day, when they were thus occupied, the door-bell rang, and they heard a voice, which they thought they recognized, talking with Madame. It was Franz Blumenthal. "I have come to bring some small articles for the young ladies," said he. "A week before my best friend died, a Frenchwoman came to the store, and wished to sell some fancy-baskets. She said she was a poor widow; and Mr. Royal, who was always kind and generous, commissioned her to make two of her handsomest baskets, and embroider the names of his daughters on them. She has placed them in my hands to-day, and I have brought them myself in order to explain the circumstances." "Are they paid for?" inquired Madame. "I have paid for them," replied the young man, blushing deeply; "but please not to inform the young ladies of that circumstance. And, Madame, I have a favor to ask of you. Here are fifty dollars. I want you to use them for the young ladies without their knowledge; and I should like to remit to you half my wages every month for the same purpose. When Mr. Royal was closing business, he wrote several letters of recommendation for me, and addressed them to well-established merchants. I feel quite sure of getting a situation where I can earn more than I need for myself." "_Bon garçon_!" exclaimed Madame, patting him on the shoulder. "I will borrow the fifty dollars; but I trust we shall be able to pay you before many months." "It will wound my feelings if you ever offer to repay me," replied the young man. "My only regret is, that I cannot just now do any more for the daughters of my best friend and benefactor, who did so much for me when I was a poor, destitute boy. But would it be asking too great a favor, Madame, to be allowed to see the young ladies, and place in their hands these presents from their father?" Madame Guirlande smiled as she thought to herself, "What is he but a boy now? He grows tall though." When she told her _protégées_ that Franz Blumenthal had a message he wished to deliver to them personally, Rosa said, "Please go and receive it, Sistita. I had rather not leave my work." Floracita glanced at the mirror, smoothed her hair a little, arranged her collar, and went out. The young clerk was awaiting her appearance with a good deal of trepidation. He had planned a very nice little speech to make; but before he had stammered out all the story about the baskets, he saw an expression in Flora's face which made him feel that it was indelicate to intrude upon her emotion; and he hurried away, scarcely hearing her choked voice as she said, "I thank you." Very reverently the orphans opened the box which contained the posthumous gifts of their beloved father. The baskets were manufactured with exquisite taste. They were lined with quilled apple-green satin. Around the outside of one was the name of Rosabella embroidered in flowers, and an embroidered garland of roses formed the handle. The other bore the name of Floracita in minute flowers, and the handle was formed of _Pensées vivaces_. They turned them round slowly, unable to distinguish the colors through their swimming tears. "How like Papasito, to be so kind to the poor woman, and so thoughtful to please us," said Rosabella. "But he was always so." "And he must have told her what flowers to put on the baskets," said Floracita. "You know Mamita often called me _Pensée vivace_. O, there never _was_ such a Papasito!" Notwithstanding the sadness that invested tokens coming as it were from the dead, they inspired a consoling consciousness of his presence; and their work seemed pleasanter all the day for having their little baskets by them. The next morning witnessed a private conference between Madame and the Signor. If any one had seen them without hearing their conversation, he would certainly have thought they were rehearsing some very passionate scene in a tragedy. The fiery Italian rushed up and down the room, plucking his hair; while the Frenchwoman ever and anon threw up her hands, exclaiming, "_Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu_!" When the violence of their emotions had somewhat abated, Madame said, "Signor, there must be some mistake about this. It cannot be true. Mr. Royal would never have left things in such a way." "At your request," replied the Signor, "I went to one of the creditors, to ask whether Mr. Royal's family could not be allowed to keep their mother's watch and jewels. He replied that Mr. Royal left no family; that his daughters were slaves, and, being property themselves, they could legally hold no property. I was so sure my friend Royal would not have left things in such a state, that I told him he lied, and threatened to knock him down. He out with his pistol; but when I told him I had left mine at home, he said I must settle with him some other time, unless I chose to make an apology. I told him I would do so whenever I was convinced that his statement was true. I was never more surprised than when he told me that Madame Royal was a slave. I knew she was a quadroon, and I supposed she was a _placés_, as so many of the quadroons are. But now it seems that Mr. Royal bought her of her father; and he, good, easy man, neglected to manumit her. He of course knew that by law 'the child follows the condition of the mother,' but I suppose it did not occur to him that the daughters of so rich a man as he was could ever be slaves. At all events, he neglected to have manumission papers drawn till it was too late; for his property had become so much involved that he no longer had a legal right to convey any of it away from creditors." Madame swung back and forth in the vehemence of her agitation, exclaiming, "What _is_ to be done? What _is_ to be done?" The Italian strode up and down the room, clenching his fist, and talking rapidly. "To think of that Rosabella!" exclaimed he,--"a girl that would grace any throne in Europe! To think of _her_ on the auction-stand, with a crowd of low-bred rascals staring at her, and rich libertines, like that Mr. Bruteman--Pah! I can't endure to think of it. How like a satyr he looked while he was talking to me about their being slaves. It seems he got sight of them when they took an inventory of the furniture. And that handsome little witch, Floracita, whom her father loved so tenderly, to think of her being bid off to some such filthy wretch! But they sha'n't have 'em! They sha'n't have 'em! I swear I'll shoot any man that comes to take 'em." He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and rushed round like a tiger in a cage. "My friend," replied Madame, "they have the law on their side; and if you try to resist, you will get yourself into trouble without doing the girls any good. I'll tell you what we must do. We must disguise them, and send them to the North." "Send them to the North!" exclaimed the Italian. "Why, they'd no more know how to get there than a couple of kittens." "Then I must go with them," replied Madame; "and they must be got out of this house before another day; for now that we know of it, we shall be watched." The impetuous Italian shook her hand cordially. "You have a brave heart, Madame," said he. "I should rather march up to the cannon's mouth than tell them such news as this." The bewildered Frenchwoman felt the same dread of the task before her; but she bravely said, "What _must_ be done, _can_ be done." After some further talk with the Signor concerning ways and means, she bade him good morning, and sat still for a moment to collect her thoughts. She then proceeded to the apartment assigned to the orphans. They were occupied with a piece of embroidery she had promised to sell for them. She looked at the work, praised the exactness of the stitches and the tasteful shading of the flowers; but while she pointed out the beauties of the pattern, her hand and voice trembled. Rosabella noticed it, and, looking up, said, "What troubles you, dear friend?" "O, this is a world of trouble," replied Madame, "and you have had such a storm beating on your young heads, that I wonder you keep your senses." "I don't know as we could," said Rosa, "if the good God had not given us such a friend as you." "If any _new_ trouble should come, I trust you will try to keep up brave hearts, my children," rejoined Madame. "I don't know of any new trouble that _can_ come to us now," said Rosa, "unless you should be taken from us, as our father was. It seems as if everything else had happened that _could_ happen." "O, there are worse things than having _me_ die," replied Madame. Floracita had paused with her thread half drawn through her work, and was looking earnestly at the troubled countenance of their friend. "Madame," exclaimed she, "something has happened. What is it?" "I will tell you," said Madame, "if you will promise not to scream or faint, and will try to keep your wits collected, so as to help me think what is best to be done." They promised; and, watching her countenance with an expression of wonder and anxiety, they waited to hear what she had to communicate. "My dear children," said she, "I have heard something that will distress you very much. Something neither you nor I ever suspected. Your mother was a slave." "_Our_ mother a slave!" exclaimed Rosa, coloring vehemently. "_Whose_ slave could she be, when she was Papasito's wife, and he loved her so? It is impossible, Madame." "Your father bought her when she was very young, my dear; but I know very well that no wife was ever loved better than she was." "But she always lived with her own father till she married papa," said Floracita. "How then _could_ she be his slave?" "Her father got into trouble about money, my dear; and he sold her." "Our Grandpapa Gonsalez sold his daughter!" exclaimed Rosa. "How incredible! Dear friend, I wonder you can believe such things." "The world is full of strange things, my child,--stranger than anything you ever read in story-books." "If she was only Papasito's slave," said Flora, "I don't think Mamita found _that_ any great hardship." "She did not, my dear. I don't suppose she ever thought of it; but a great misfortune has grown out of it." "What is it?" they both asked at once. Their friend hesitated. "Remember, you have promised to be calm," said she. "I presume you don't know that, by the laws of Louisiana, 'the child follows the condition of the mother.' The consequence is, that _you_ are slaves, and your father's creditors claim a right to sell you." Rosabella turned very pale, and the hand with which she clutched a chair trembled violently. But she held her head erect, and her look and tone were very proud, as she exclaimed, "_We_ become slaves! I will die rather." Floracita, unable to comprehend this new misfortune, looked from one to the other in a bewildered way. Nature had written mirthfulness in the shape of her beautiful eyes, which now contrasted strangely with their startled and sad expression. The kind-hearted Frenchwoman bustled about the room, moving chairs, and passing her handkerchief over boxes, while she tried hard to swallow the emotions that choked her utterance. Having conquered in the struggle, she turned toward them, and said, almost cheerfully: "There's no need of dying, my children. Perhaps your old friend can help you out of this trouble. We must disguise ourselves as gentlemen, and start for the North this very evening." Floracita looked at her sister, and said, hesitatingly: "Couldn't you write to Mr. Fitzgerald, and ask _him_ to come here? Perhaps he could help us." Rosa's cheeks glowed, as she answered proudly: "Do you think I would _ask_ him to come? I wouldn't do such a thing if we were as rich and happy as we were a little while ago; and certainly I wouldn't do it now." "There spoke Grandpa Gonsalez!" said Madame. "How grand the old gentleman used to look, walking about so erect, with his gold-headed cane! But we must go to work in a hurry, my children. Signor Papanti has promised to send the disguises, and we must select and pack such things as it is absolutely necessary we should carry. I am sorry now that Tulee is let out in the city, for we need her help. "She must go with us," said Flora. "I can't leave Tulee." "We must do as we can," replied Madame. "In this emergency we can't do as we would. _We_ are all white, and if we can get a few miles from here, we shall have no further trouble. But if we had a negro with us, it would lead to questions, perhaps. Besides, we haven't time to disguise her and instruct her how to perform her part. The Signor will be a good friend to her; and as soon as we can earn some money, we will send and buy her." "But where can we go when we get to the North?" asked Rosa. "I will tell you," said Floracita. "Don't you remember that Mr. King from Boston, who came to see us a year ago? His father was papa's best friend, you know; and when he went away, he told us if ever we were in trouble, to apply to him, as if he were our brother." "Did he?" said Madame. "That lets in a gleam of light. I heard your father say he was a very good young man, and rich." "But Papasito said, some months ago, that Mr. King had gone to Europe with his mother, on account of her health," replied Rosa. "Besides, if he were at home, it would be very disagreeable to go to a young gentleman as beggars and runaways, when he was introduced to us as ladies." "You must put your pride in your pocket for the present, Señorita Gonsalez," said Madame, playfully touching her under the chin. "If this Mr. King is absent, I will write to him. They say there is a man in Boston, named William Lloyd Garrison, who takes great interest in slaves. We will tell him our story, and ask him about Mr. King. I did think of stopping awhile with relatives in New York. But it would be inconvenient for them, and they might not like it. This plan pleases me better. To Boston we will go. The Signor has gone to ask my cousin, Mr. Duroy, to come here and see to the house. When I have placed you safely, I will come back slyly to my cousin's house, a few miles from here, and with his help I will settle up my affairs. Then I will return to you, and we will all go to some secure place and live together. I never starved yet, and I don't believe I ever shall." The orphans clung to her, and kissed her hands, as they said: "How kind you are to us, dear friend! What shall we ever do to repay you?" "Your father and mother were generous friends to me," replied Madame; "and now their children are in trouble, I will not forsake them." As the good lady was to leave her apartments for an indefinite time, there was much to be done and thought of, beside the necessary packing for the journey. The girls tried their best to help her, but they were continually proposing to carry something because it was a keepsake from Mamita or Papasito. "This is no time for sentiment, my children," said Madame. "We must not take anything we can possibly do without. Bless my soul, there goes the bell! What if it should be one of those dreadful creditors come here to peep and pry? Run to your room, my children, and bolt the door." A moment afterward, she appeared before them smiling, and said: "There was no occasion for being so frightened, but I am getting nervous with all this flurry. Come back again, dears. It is only Franz Blumenthal." "What, come again?" asked Rosa. "Please go, Floracita, and I will come directly, as soon as I have gathered up these things that we must carry." The young German blushed like a girl as he offered two bouquets, one of heaths and orange-buds, the other of orange-blossoms and fragrant geraniums; saying as he did so, "I have taken the liberty to bring some flowers, Miss Floracita." "My name is Miss Royal, sir," she replied, trying to increase her stature to the utmost. It was an unusual caprice in one whose nature was so childlike and playful; but the recent knowledge that she was a slave had made her, for the first time, jealous of her dignity. She took it into her head that he knew the humiliating fact, and presumed upon it. But the good lad was as yet unconscious of this new trouble, and the unexpected rebuke greatly surprised him. Though her slight figure and juvenile face made her attempt at majesty somewhat comic, it was quite sufficient to intimidate the bashful youth; and he answered, very meekly: "Pardon me, Miss Royal. Floracita is such a very pretty name, and I have always liked it so much, that I spoke it before I thought." The compliment disarmed her at once; and with one of her winning smiles, and a quick little courtesy, she said: "Do you think it's a pretty name? You _may_ call me Floracita, if you like it so much." "I think it is the prettiest name in the world," replied he. "I used to like to hear your mother say it. She said everything so sweetly! Do you remember she used to call me Florimond when I was a little boy, because, she said, my face was so florid? Now I always write my name Franz Florimond Blumenthal, in memory of her." "I will always call you Florimond, just as Mamita did," said she. Their very juvenile _tête-à-tête_ was interrupted by the entrance of Madame with Rosa, who thanked him graciously for her portion of the flowers, and told him her father was so much attached to him that she should always think of him as a brother. He blushed crimson as he thanked her, and went away with a very warm feeling at his heart, thinking Floracita a prettier name than ever, and happily unconscious that he was parting from her. He had not been gone long when the bell rang again, and the girls again hastened to hide themselves. Half an hour elapsed without their seeing or hearing anything of Madame; and they began to be extremely anxious lest something unpleasant was detaining her. But she came at last, and said, "My children, the Signor wants to speak to you." They immediately descended to the sitting-room, where they found the Signor looking down and slowly striking the ivory head of his cane against his chin, as he was wont to do when buried in profound thought. He rose as they entered, and Rosa said, with one of her sweetest smiles, "What is it you wish, dear friend?" He dropped a thin cloak from his shoulders and removed his hat, which brought away a grizzled wig with it, and Mr. Fitzgerald stood smiling before them. The glad surprise excited by this sudden realization of a latent hope put maidenly reserve to flight, and Rosa dropped on her knees before him, exclaiming, "O Gerald, save us!" He raised her tenderly, and, imprinting a kiss on her forehead, said: "Save you, my precious Rose? To be sure I will. That's what I came for." "And me too," said Flora, clinging to him, and hiding her face under his arm. "Yes, and you too, mischievous fairy," replied he, giving her a less ceremonious kiss than he had bestowed on her sister. "But we must talk fast, for there is a great deal to be done in a short time. I was unfortunately absent from home, and did not receive the letter informing me of your good father's death so soon as I should otherwise have done. I arrived in the city this morning, but have been too busy making arrangements for your escape to come here any earlier. The Signor and I have done the work of six during the last few hours. The creditors are not aware of my acquaintance with you, and I have assumed this disguise to prevent them from discovering it. The Signor has had a talk with Tulee, and told her to keep very quiet, and not tell any mortal that she ever saw me at your father's house. A passage for you and Madame is engaged on board a vessel bound to Nassau, which will sail at midnight. Soon, after I leave this house, Madame's cousin, Mr. Duroy, will come with two boys. You and Madame will assume their dresses, and they will put on some clothes the Signor has already sent, in such boxes as Madame is accustomed to receive, full of materials for her flowers. All, excepting ourselves, will suppose you have gone North, according to the original plan, in order that they may swear to that effect if they are brought to trial. When I go by the front of the house whistling _Ça ira_, you will pass through the garden to the street in the rear, where you will find my servant with a carriage, which will convey you three miles, to the house of one of my friends. I will come there in season to accompany you on board the ship." "O, how thoughtful and how kind you are!" exclaimed Rosa. "But can't we contrive some way to take poor Tulee with us?" "It would be imprudent," he replied. "The creditors must be allowed to sell her. She knows it, but she has my assurance that I will take good care of her. No harm shall come to Tulee, I promise you. I cannot go with you to Nassau; because, if I do, the creditors may suspect my participation in the plot. I shall stay in New Orleans a week or ten days, then return to Savannah, and take an early opportunity to sail for Nassau, by the way of New York. Meanwhile, I will try to manage matters so that Madame can safely return to her house. Then we will decide where to make a happy home for ourselves." The color forsook Rosa's cheeks, and her whole frame quivered, as she said, "I thank you, Gerald, for all this thoughtful care; but I cannot go to Nassau,--indeed I cannot!" "Cannot go!" exclaimed he. "Where _will_ you go, then?" "Before you came, Madame had made ready to take us to Boston, you know. We will go there with her." "Rosa, do you distrust me?" said he reproachfully. "Do you doubt my love?" "I do not distrust you," she replied; "but"--she looked down, and blushed deeply as she added--"but I promised my father that I would never leave home with any gentleman unless I was married to him." "But, Rosa dear, your father did not foresee such a state of things as this. Everything is arranged, and there is no time to lose. If you knew all that I know, you would see the necessity of leaving this city before to-morrow." "I cannot go with you," she repeated in tones of the deepest distress,--"I _cannot_ go with you, for I promised my dear father the night before he died." He looked at her for an instant, and then, drawing her close to him, he said: "It shall be just as you wish, darling. I will bring a clergyman to the house of my friend, and we will be married before you sail." Rosa, without venturing to look up, said, in a faltering tone: "I cannot bear to bring degradation upon you, Gerald. It seems wrong to take advantage of your generous forgetfulness of yourself. When you first told me you loved me, you did not know I was an octoroon, and a--slave." "I knew your mother was a quadroon," he replied; "and as for the rest, no circumstance can degrade _you_, my Rose Royal." "But if your plan should not succeed, how ashamed you would feel to have us seized!" said she. "It _will_ succeed, dearest. But even if it should not, you shall never be the property of any man but myself." "_Property_!"! she exclaimed in the proud Gonsalez tone, striving to withdraw herself from his embrace. He hastened to say: "Forgive me, Rosabella. I am so intoxicated with happiness that I cannot be careful of my words. I merely meant to express the joyful feeling that you would be surely mine, wholly mine." While they were talking thus, Floracita had glided out of the room to carry the tidings to Madame. The pressure of misfortune had been so heavy upon her, that, now it was lifted a little, her elastic spirit rebounded with a sudden spring, and she felt happier than she had ever thought of being since her father died. In the lightness of her heart she began to sing, "_Petit blanc, mon bon frère_!" but she stopped at the first line, for she recollected how her father had checked her in the midst of that frisky little song; and now that she knew they were octoroons, she partly comprehended why it had been disagreeable to him. But the gayety that died out of her voice passed into her steps. She went hopping and jumping up to Madame, exclaiming: "What do you think is going to happen now? Rosabella is going to be married right off. What a pity she can't be dressed like a bride! She would look so handsome in white satin and pearls, and a great lace veil! But here are the flowers Florimond brought so opportunely. I will put the orange-buds in her hair, and she shall have a bouquet in her hand." "She will look handsome in anything," rejoined Madame. "But tell me about it, little one." After receiving Flora's answers to a few brief questions, she stationed herself within sight of the outer door, that she might ask Fitzgerald for more minute directions concerning what they were to do. He very soon made his appearance, again disguised as the Signor. After a hurried consultation, Madame said: "I do hope nothing will happen to prevent our getting off safely. Rosabella has so much Spanish pride, I verily believe she would stab herself rather than go on the auction-stand." "Heavens and earth! don't speak of that!" exclaimed he, impetuously. "Do you suppose I would allow my beautiful rose to be trampled by swine. If we fail, I will buy them if it costs half my fortune. But we shall _not_ fail. Don't let the girls go out of the door till you hear the signal." "No danger of that," she replied. "Their father always kept them like wax flowers under a glass cover. They are as timid as hares." Before she finished the words, he was gone. Rosabella remained where he had left her, with her head bowed on the table. Floracita was nestling by her side, pouring forth her girlish congratulations. Madame came in, saying, in her cheerly way: "So you are going to be married to night! Bless my soul, how the world whirls round!" "Isn't God _very_ good to us?" asked Rosa, looking up. "How noble and kind Mr. Fitzgerald is, to wish to marry me now that everything is so changed!" "_You_ are not changed, darling," she replied; "except that I think you are a little better, and that seemed unnecessary. But you must be thinking, my children, whether everything is in readiness." "He told us we were not to go till evening, and it isn't dark yet," said Floracita. "Couldn't we go into Papasito's garden one little minute, and take one sip from the fountain, and just one little walk round the orange-grove?" "It wouldn't be safe, my dear. There's no telling who may be lurking about. Mr. Fitzgerald charged me not to let you go out of doors. But you can go to my chamber, and take a last look of the house and garden." They went up stairs, and stood, with their arms around each other, gazing at their once happy home. "How many times we have walked in that little grove, hand in hand with Mamita and Papasito! and now they are both gone," sighed Rosa. "Ah, yes," said Flora; "and now we are afraid to go there for a minute. How strangely everything has changed! We don't hear Mamita's Spanish and papa's English any more. We have nobody to talk _olla podrida_ to now. It's all French with Madame, and all Italian with the Signor." "But what kind souls they are, to do so much for us!" responded Rosa. "If such good friends hadn't been raised up for us in these dreadful days, what _should_ we have done?" Here Madame came hurrying in to say, "Mr. Duroy and the boys have come. We must change dresses before the whistler goes by." The disguises were quickly assumed; and the metamorphosis made Rosa both blush and smile, while her volatile sister laughed outright. But she checked herself immediately, saying: "I am a wicked little wretch to laugh, for you and your friends may get into trouble by doing all this for us. What shall you tell them about us when you get back from Nassau?" "I don't intend to tell them much of anything," replied Madame. "I may, perhaps, give them a hint that one of your father's old friends invited you to come to the North, and that I did not consider it my business to hinder you." "O fie, Madame!" said Floracita; "what a talent you have for arranging the truth with variations!" Madame tried to return a small volley of French pleasantry; but the effort was obviously a forced one. The pulses of her heart were throbbing with anxiety and fear; and they all began to feel suspense increasing to agony, when at last the whistled tones of _Ça ira_ were heard. "Now don't act as if you were afraid," whispered Madame, as she put her hand on the latch of the door. "Go out naturally. Remember I am my cousin, and you are the boys." They passed through the garden into the street, feeling as if some rough hand might at any instant seize them. But all was still, save the sound of voices in the distance. When they came in sight of the carriage, the driver began to bum carelessly to himself, "Who goes there? Stranger, quickly tell!" "A friend. Good night,"--sang the disguised Madame, in the same well-known tune of challenge and reply. The carriage door was instantly opened, they entered, and the horses started at a brisk pace. At the house where the driver stopped, they were received as expected guests. Their disguises were quickly exchanged for dresses from their carpet-bags, which had been conveyed out in Madame's boxes, and smuggled into the carriage by their invisible protector. Flora, who was intent upon having things seem a little like a wedding, made a garland of orange-buds for her sister's hair, and threw over her braids a white gauze scarf. The marriage ceremony was performed at half past ten; and at midnight Madame was alone with _her protégées_ in the cabin of the ship Victoria, dashing through the dark waves under a star-bright sky. CHAPTER VI. Mr. Fitzgerald lingered on the wharf till the vessel containing his treasure was no longer visible. Then he returned to the carriage, and was driven to his hotel. Notwithstanding a day of very unusual excitement and fatigue, when he retired to rest he felt no inclination to sleep. Rosabella floated before him as he had first seen her, a radiant vision of beauty surrounded by flowers. He recalled the shy pride and maidenly modesty with which she had met his ardent glances and impassioned words. He thought of the meek and saddened expression of her face, as he had seen it in these last hurried interviews, and it seemed to him she had never appeared so lovely. He remembered with a shudder what Madame Guirlande had said about the auction-stand. He was familiar with such scenes, for he had seen women offered for sale, and had himself bid for them in competition with rude, indecent crowds. It was revolting to his soul to associate the image of Rosa with such base surroundings; but it seemed as if some fiend persisted in holding the painful picture before him. He seemed to see her graceful figure gazed at by a brutal crowd, while the auctioneer assured them that she was warranted to be an entirely new and perfectly sound article,--a moss rosebud from a private royal garden,--a diamond fit for a king's crown. And men, whose upturned faces were like greedy satyrs, were calling upon her to open her ruby lips and show her pearls. He turned restlessly on his pillow with a muttered oath. Then he smiled as he thought to himself that, by saving her from such degradation, he had acquired complete control of her destiny. From the first moment he heard of her reverses, he had felt that her misfortunes were his triumph. Madly in love as he had been for more than a year, his own pride, and still more the dreaded scorn of proud relatives, had prevented him from offering marriage; while the watchful guardianship of her father, and her dutiful respect to his wishes, rendered any less honorable alliance hopeless. But now he was her sole protector; and though he had satisfied her scruples by marriage, he could hide her away and keep his own secret; while she, in the fulness of her grateful love, would doubtless be satisfied with any arrangement he chose to make. But there still remained some difficulties in his way. He was unwilling to leave his own luxurious home and exile himself in the British West Indies; and if he should bring the girls to Georgia, he foresaw that disastrous consequences might ensue, if his participation in their elopement should ever be discovered, or even suspected. "It would have been far more convenient to have bought them outright, even at a high price," thought he; "but after the Signor repeated to me that disgusting talk of Bruteman's, there could be no mistake that he had _his_ eye fixed upon them; and it would have been ruinous to enter into competition with such a wealthy _roué_ as he is. He values money no more than pebble-stones, when he is in pursuit of such game. But though I have removed them from his grasp for the present, I can feel no security if I bring them back to this country. I must obtain a legal ownership of them; but how shall I manage it?" Revolving many plans in his mind, he at last fell asleep. His first waking thought was to attend a meeting of the creditors at noon, and hear what they had to say. He found ten or twelve persons present, some of gentlemanly appearance, others hard-looking characters. Among them, and in singular contrast with their world-stamped faces, was the ingenuous countenance of Florimond Blumenthal. Three hundred dollars of his salary were due to him, and he hoped to secure some portion of the debt for the benefit of the orphans. A few individuals, who knew Mr. Fitzgerald, said, "What, are you among the creditors?" "I am not a creditor," he replied, "but I am here to represent the claims of Mr. Whitwell of Savannah, who, being unable to be present in person, requested me to lay his accounts before you." He sat listening to the tedious details of Mr. Royal's liabilities, and the appraisement of his property, with an expression of listless indifference; often moving his fingers to a tune, or making the motion of whistling, without the rudeness of emitting a sound. Young Blumenthal, on the contrary, manifested the absorbed attention of one who loved his benefactor, and was familiar with the details of his affairs. No notice was taken of him, however, for his claim was small, and he was too young to be a power in the commercial world. He modestly refrained from making any remarks; and having given in his account, he rose to take his hat, when his attention was arrested by hearing Mr. Bruteman say: "We have not yet mentioned the most valuable property Mr. Royal left. I allude to his daughters." Blumenthal sank into his chair again, and every vestige of color left his usually blooming countenance; but though Fitzgerald was on tenter-hooks to know whether the escape was discovered, he betrayed no sign of interest. Mr. Bruteman went on to say, "We appraised them at six thousand dollars." "Much less than they would bring at auction," observed Mr. Chandler," as you would all agree, gentlemen, if you had seen them; for they are fancy articles, A No. 1." "Is it certain the young ladies are slaves?" inquired Blumenthal, with a degree of agitation that attracted attention toward him. "It _is_ certain," replied Mr. Bruteman. "Their mother was a slave, and was never manumitted." "Couldn't a subscription be raised, or an appeal be made to some court in their behalf?" asked the young man, with constrained calmness in his tones, while the expression of his face betrayed his inward suffering. "They are elegant, accomplished young ladies, and their good father brought them up with the greatest indulgence." "Perhaps you are in love with one or both of them," rejoined Mr. Bruteman. "If so, you must buy them at auction, if you can. The law is inexorable. It requires that all the property of an insolvent debtor should be disposed of at public sale." "I am very slightly acquainted with the young ladies," said the agitated youth; "but their father was my benefactor when I was a poor destitute orphan, and I would sacrifice my life to save _his_ orphans from such a dreadful calamity. I know little about the requirements of the law, gentlemen, but I implore you to tell me if there isn't _some_ way to prevent this. If it can be done by money, I will serve any gentleman gratuitously any number of years he requires, if he will advance the necessary sum." "We are not here to talk sentiment, my lad," rejoined Mr. Bruteman. "We are here to transact business." "I respect this youth for the feeling he has manifested toward his benefactor's children," said a gentleman named Ammidon. "If we _could_ enter into some mutual agreement to relinquish this portion of the property, I for one should be extremely glad. I should be willing to lose much more than my share, for the sake of bringing about such an arrangement. And, really, the sale of such girls as these are said to be is not very creditable to the country. If any foreign travellers happen to be looking on, they will make great capital out of such a story. At all events, the Abolitionists will be sure to get it into their papers, and all Europe will be ringing changes upon it." "Let 'em ring!" fiercely exclaimed Mr. Chandler. "I don't care a damn about the Abolitionists, nor Europe neither. I reckon we can manage our own affairs in this free country." "I should judge by your remarks that you were an Abolitionist yourself, Mr. Ammidon," said Mr. Bruteman. "I am surprised to hear a Southerner speak as if the opinions of rascally abolition- amalgamationists were of the slightest consequence. I consider such sentiments unworthy any Southern _gentleman_, sir." Mr. Ammidon flushed, and answered quickly, "I allow no man to call in question my being a gentleman, sir." "If you consider yourself insulted, you know your remedy," rejoined Mr. Bruteman. "I give you your choice of place and weapons." Mr. Fitzgerald consulted his watch, and two or three others followed his example. "I see," said Mr. Ammidon, "that gentlemen are desirous to adjourn." "It is time that we did so," rejoined Mr. Bruteman. "Officers have been sent for these slaves of Mr. Royal, and they are probably now lodged in jail. At our next meeting we will decide upon the time of sale." Young Blumenthal rose and attempted to go out; but a blindness came over him, and he staggered against the wall. "I reckon that youngster's an Abolitionist," muttered Mr. Chandler. "At any rate, he seems to think there's a difference in niggers,--and all such ought to have notice to quit." Mr. Ammidon called for water, with which he sprinkled the young man's face, and two or three others assisted to help him into a carriage. Another meeting was held the next day, which Mr. Fitzgerald did not attend, foreseeing that it would be a stormy one. The result of it was shown in the arrest and imprisonment of Signor Papanti, and a vigilant search for Madame Guirlande. Her cousin, Mr. Duroy, declared that he had been requested to take care of her apartments for a few weeks, as she was obliged to go to New York on business; that she took her young lady boarders with her, and that was all he knew. Despatches were sent in hot haste to the New York and Boston police, describing the fugitives, declaring them to be thieves, and demanding that they should be sent forthwith to New Orleans for trial. The policeman who had been employed to watch Madame's house, and who had been induced to turn his back for a while by some mysterious process best known to Mr. Fitzgerald, was severely cross-examined and liberally pelted with oaths. In the course of the investigations, it came out that Florimond Blumenthal had visited the house on the day of the elopement, and that toward dusk he had been seen lingering about the premises, watching the windows. The story got abroad that he had been an accomplice in helping off two valuable slaves. The consequence was that he received a written intimation that, if he valued his neck, he had better quit New Orleans within twenty-four hours, signed Judge Lynch. Mr. Fitzgerald appeared to take no share in the excitement. When he met any of the creditors, he would sometimes ask, carelessly, "Any news yet about those slaves of Royal's?" He took occasion to remark to two or three of them, that, Signor Papanti being an old friend of his, he had been to the prison to see him; that he was convinced he had no idea where those girls had gone; he was only their music-teacher, and such an impetuous, peppery man, that they never would have thought of trusting him with any important secret. Having thus paved the way, he came out with a distinct proposition at the next meeting. "I feel a great deal of sympathy for Signor Papanti," said he. "I have been acquainted with him a good while, and have taken lessons of him, both in music and Italian; and I like the old gentleman. He is getting ill in prison, and he can never tell you any more than he has told you. Doubtless he knew that Madame intended to convey those girls to the North if she possibly could; but I confess I should have despised him if he had turned informer against the daughters of his friend, who had been his own favorite pupils. If you will gratify me by releasing him, I will make you an offer for those girls, and take my chance of ever finding them." "What sum do you propose to offer?" inquired the creditors. "I will pay one thousand dollars if you accede to my terms." "Say two thousand, and we will take the subject under consideration," they replied. "In that case I must increase my demands," said he. "I have reason to suspect that my friend the Signor would like to make a match with Madame Guirlande. If you will allow her to come back to her business and remain undisturbed, and will make me a sale of these girls, I don't care if I do say two thousand." "He has told you where they are!" exclaimed Mr. Bruteman, abruptly; "and let me tell you, if you know where they are, you are not acting the part of a gentleman." "He has not told me, I assure you, nor has he given me the slightest intimation. It is my firm belief that he does not know. But I am rather fond of gambling, and this is such a desperate throw, that it will be all the more exciting. I never tried my luck at buying slaves running, and I have rather a fancy for experimenting in that game of chance. And I confess my curiosity has been so excited by the wonderful accounts I have heard of those nonpareil girls, that I should find the pursuit of them a stimulating occupation. If I should not succeed, I should at least have the satisfaction of having done a good turn to my old Italian friend." They asked more time to reflect upon it, and to hear from New York and Boston. With inward maledictions on their slowness, he departed, resolving in his own mind that nothing should keep him much longer from Nassau, come what would. As he went out, Mr. Chandler remarked: "It's very much like him. He's always ready to gamble in anything." "After all, I have my suspicion that he's got a clew to the mystery somehow, and that he expects to find those handsome wenches," said Mr. Bruteman. "I'd give a good deal to baffle him." "It seems pretty certain that _we_ cannot obtain any clew," rejoined Mr. Ammidon, "and we have already expended considerable in the effort. If he can be induced to offer two thousand five hundred, I think we had better accept it." After a week's absence in Savannah and its vicinity, making various arrangements for the reception of the sisters, Mr. Fitzgerald returned to New Orleans, and took an early opportunity to inform the creditors that he should remain a very short time. He made no allusion to his proposed bargain, and when they alluded to it he affected great indifference. "I should be willing to give you five hundred dollars to release my musical friend," said he. "But as for those daughters of Mr. Royal, it seems to me, upon reflection, to be rather a quixotic undertaking to go in pursuit of them. You know it's a difficult job to catch a slave after he gets to the North, if he's as black as the ace of spades; and all Yankeedom would be up in arms at any attempt to seize such white ladies. Of course, I could obtain them in no other way than by courting them and gaining their goodwill." Mr. Bruteman and Mr. Chandler made some remarks unfit for repetition, but which were greeted with shouts of laughter. After much dodging and doubling on the financial question, Fitzgerald agreed to pay two thousand five hundred dollars, if all his demands were complied with. The papers were drawn and signed with all due formality. He clasped them in his pocket-book, and walked off with an elastic step, saying, "Now for Nassau!" CHAPTER VII. The scenery of the South was in the full glory of June, when Mr. Fitzgerald, Rosa, and Floracita were floating up the Savannah River in a boat manned by negroes, who ever and anon waked the stillness of the woods with snatches of wild melody. They landed on a sequestered island which ocean and river held in their arms. Leaving the servants to take care of the luggage, they strolled along over a carpet of wild-flowers, through winding bridle-paths, where glances of bright water here and there gleamed through the dark pines that were singing their sleepy chorus, with its lulling sound of the sea, and filling the air with their aromatic breath. Before long, they saw a gay-colored turban moving among the green foliage, and the sisters at once exclaimed, "Tulipa!" "Dear Gerald, you didn't tell us Tulee was here," said Rosa. "I wanted to give you a pleasant surprise," he replied. She thanked him with a glance more expressive than words. Tulipa, meanwhile, was waving a white towel with joyful energy, and when she came up to them, she half smothered them with hugs and kisses, exclaiming: "The Lord bless ye, Missy Rosy! The Lord bless ye, Missy Flory! It does Tulee's eyes good to see ye agin." She eagerly led the way through flowering thickets to a small lawn, in the midst of which was a pretty white cottage. It was evident at a glance that she, as well as the master of the establishment, had done her utmost to make the interior of the dwelling resemble their old home as much as possible. Rosa's piano was there, and on it were a number of books which their father had given them. As Floracita pointed to the ottomans their mother had embroidered, and the boxes and table she had painted, she said: "Our good friend the Signor sent those. He promised to buy them." "He could not buy them, poor man!" answered Fitzgerald, "for he was in prison at the time of the auction; but he did not forget to enjoin it upon me to buy them." A pleasant hour was spent in joyful surprises over pretty novelties and cherished souvenirs. Rosa was full of quiet happiness, and Floracita expressed her satisfaction in lively little gambols. The sun was going down when they refreshed themselves with the repast Tulipa had provided. Unwilling to invite the merciless mosquitoes, they sat, while the gloaming settled into darkness, playing and singing melodies associated with other times. Floracita felt sorry when the hour of separation for the night came. Everything seemed so fearfully still, except the monotonous wash of the waves on the sea-shore! And as far as she could see the landscape by the light of a bright little moon-sickle, there was nothing but a thick screen of trees and shrubbery. She groped her way to her sleeping-apartment, expecting to find Tulee there. She had been there, and had left a little glimmering taper behind a screen, which threw a fantastic shadow on the ceiling, like a face with a monstrous nose. It affected the excitable child like some kind of supernatural presence. She crept to the window, and through the veil of the mosquito-bar she dimly saw the same thick wall of greenery. Presently she espied a strange-looking long face peering out from its recesses. On their voyage home from Nassau, Gerald had sometimes read aloud to them from "The Midsummer Night's Dream." Could it be that there were such creatures in the woods as Shakespeare described? A closet adjoining her room had been assigned to Tulee. She opened the door and said, "Tulee, are you there? Why don't you come?" There was no answer. Again she gave a timid look at the window. The long face moved, and a most unearthly sound was heard. Thoroughly frightened, she ran out, calling, "Tulee! Tulee! In the darkness, she ran against her faithful attendant, and the sudden contact terrified her still more. "It's only Tulee. What is the matter with my little one?" said the negress. As she spoke, the fearful sound was heard again. "O Tulee, what is that?" she exclaimed, all of a tremble. "That is only Jack," she replied. "Who's Jack?" quickly asked the nervous little maiden. "Why, the jackass, my puppet," answered Tulee. "Massa Gerald bought him for you and Missy Rosy to ride. In hot weather there's so many snakes about in the woods, he don't want ye to walk." "What does he make that horrid noise for?" asked Flora, somewhat pacified. "Because he was born with music in him, like the rest of ye," answered Tulee, laughing. She assisted her darling to undress, arranged her pillows, and kissed her cheek just as she had kissed it ever since the rosy little mouth had learned to speak her name. Then she sat by the bedside talking over things that had happened since they parted. "So you were put up at auction and sold!" exclaimed Flora. "Poor Tulee! how dreadfully I should have felt to see you there! But Gerald bought you; and I suppose you like to belong to _him_." "Ise nothin' to complain of Massa Gerald," she answered; "but I'd like better to belong to myself." "So you'd like to be free, would you?" asked Flora. "To be sure I would," said Tulee. "Yo like it yerself, don't ye, little missy?" Then, suddenly recollecting what a narrow escape her young lady had had from the auction-stand, she hastened with intuitive delicacy to change the subject. But the same thought had occurred to Flora; and she fell asleep, thinking how Tulee's wishes could be gratified. When morning floated upward out of the arms of night, in robe of brightest saffron, the aspect of everything was changed. Floracita sprang out of bed early, eager to explore the surroundings of their new abode. The little lawn looked very beautiful, sprinkled all over with a variety of wild-flowers, in whose small cups dewdrops glistened, prismatic as opals. The shrubbery was no longer a dismal mass of darkness, but showed all manner of shadings of glossy green leaves, which the moisture of the night had ornamented with shimmering edges of crystal beads. She found the phantom of the night before browsing among flowers behind the cottage, and very kindly disposed to make her acquaintance. As he had a thistle blossom sticking out of his mouth, she forthwith named him Thistle. She soon returned to the house with her apron full of vines, and blossoms, and prettily tinted leaves. "See, Tulee," said she, "what a many flowers! I'm going to make haste and dress the table, before Gerald and Rosa come to breakfast." They took graceful shape under her nimble fingers, and, feeling happy in her work, she began to hum, "How brightly breaks the morning!" "Whisper low!" sang Gerald, stealing up behind her, and making her start by singing into her very ear; while Rosa exclaimed, "What a fairy-land you have made here, with all these flowers,_pichoncita mia_" The day passed pleasantly enough, with some ambling along the bridle-paths on Thistle's back, some reading and sleeping, and a good deal of music. The next day, black Tom came with a barouche, and they took a drive round the lovely island. The cotton-fields were all abloom on Gerald's plantation, and his stuccoed villa, with spacious veranda and high porch, gleamed out in whiteness among a magnificent growth of trees, and a garden gorgeous with efflorescence. The only drawback to the pleasure was, that Gerald charged them to wear thick veils, and never to raise them when any person was in sight. They made no complaint, because he told them that he should be deeply involved in trouble if his participation in their escape should be discovered; but, happy as Rosa was in reciprocated love, this necessity of concealment was a skeleton ever sitting at her feast; and Floracita, who had no romantic compensation for it, chafed under the restraint. It was dusk when they returned to the cottage, and the thickets were alive with fire-flies, as if Queen Mab and all her train were out dancing in spangles. A few days after was Rosa's birthday, and Floracita busied herself in adorning the rooms with flowery festoons. After breakfast, Gerald placed a small parcel in the hand of each of the sisters. Rosa's contained her mother's diamond ring, and Flora's was her mother's gold watch, in the back of which was set a small locket-miniature of her father. Their gratitude took the form of tears, and the pleasure-loving young man, who had more taste for gayety than sentiment, sought to dispel it by lively music. When he saw the smiles coming again, he bowed playfully, and said: "This day is yours, dear Rosa. Whatsoever you wish for, you shall have, if it is attainable." "I do wish for one thing," she replied promptly. "Floracita has found out that Tulee would like to be free. I want you to gratify her wish." "Tulee is yours," rejoined he. "I bought her to attend upon you." "She will attend upon me all the same after she is free," responded Rosa; "and we should all be happier." "I will do it," he replied. "But I hope you won't propose to make _me_ free, for I am happier to be your slave." The papers were brought a few days after, and Tulee felt a great deal richer, though there was no outward change in her condition. As the heat increased, mosquitoes in the woods and sand-flies on the beach rendered the shelter of the house desirable most of the time. But though Fitzgerald had usually spent the summer months in travelling, he seemed perfectly contented to sing and doze and trifle away his time by Rosa's side, week after week. Floracita did not find it entertaining to be a third person with a couple of lovers. She had been used to being a person of consequence in her little world; and though they were very kind to her, they often forgot that she was present, and never seemed to miss her when she was away. She had led a very secluded life from her earliest childhood, but she had never before been so entirely out of sight of houses and people. During the few weeks she had passed in Nassau, she had learned to do shell-work with a class of young girls; and it being the first time she had enjoyed such companionship, she found it peculiarly agreeable. She longed to hear their small talk again; she longed to have Rosa to herself, as in the old times; she longed for her father's caresses, for Madame Guirlande's brave cheerfulness, for the Signor's peppery outbursts, which she found very amusing; and sometimes she thought how pleasant it would be to hear Florimond say that her name was the prettiest in the world. She often took out a pressed geranium blossom, under which was written "Souvenir de Florimond "; and she thought _his_ name was very pretty too. She sang Moore's Melodies a great deal; and when she warbled, "Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest In thy bosom of shade, with the friend I love best!" she sighed, and thought to herself, "Ah! if I only _had_ a friend to love best!" She almost learned "Lalla Rookh" by heart; and she pictured herself as the Persian princess listening to a minstrel in Oriental costume, but with a very German face. It was not that the child was in love, but her heart was untenanted; and as memories walked through it, it sounded empty. Tulee, who was very observing where her affections were concerned, suspected that she was comparing her own situation with that of Rosa. One day, when she found her in dreamy revery, she patted her silky curls, and said: "Does she feel as if she was laid by, like a fifth wheel to a coach? Never mind! My little one will have a husband herself one of these days." Without looking up, she answered, very pensively: "Do you think I ever shall, Tulee? I don't see how I can, for I never see anybody." Tulipa took the little head between her black hands, and, raising the pretty face toward her, replied: "Yes, sure, little missy. Do ye s'pose ye had them handsome eyes for nothin' but to look at the moon? But come, now, with me, and feed Thistle. I'm going to give him a pailful of water. Thistle knows us as well as if he was a Christian." Jack Thistle was a great resource for Tulee in her isolation, and scarcely less so for Flora. She often fed him from her hand, decorated him with garlands, talked to him, and ambled about with him in the woods and on the sea-shore. The visits of black Tom also introduced a little variety into their life. He went back and forth from Savannah to procure such articles as were needed at the cottage, and he always had a budget of gossip for Tulee. Tom's Chloe was an expert ironer; and as Mr. Fitzgerald was not so well pleased with Tulee's performances of that kind, baskets of clothes were often sent to Chloe, who was ingenious in finding excuses for bringing them back herself. She was a great singer of Methodist hymns and negro songs, and had wonderful religious experiences to tell. To listen to her and Tom was the greatest treat Tulee had; but as she particularly prided herself on speaking like white people, she often remarked that she couldn't understand half their "lingo." Floracita soon learned it to perfection, and excited many a laugh by her imitations. Tulee once obtained Rosa's permission to ride back with Tom, and spend a couple of hours at his cabin near "the Grat Hus," as he called his master's villa. But when Mr. Fitzgerald heard of it, he interdicted such visits in the future. He wished to have as little communication as possible between the plantation and the lonely cottage; and if he had overheard some of the confidences between Chloe and Tulee, he probably would have been confirmed in the wisdom of such a prohibition. But Tom was a factotum that could not be dispensed with. They relied upon him for provisions, letters, and newspapers. Three or four weeks after their arrival he brought a box containing a long letter from Madame Guirlande, and the various articles she had saved for the orphans from the wreck of their early home. Not long afterward another letter came, announcing the marriage of Madame and the Signor. Answering these letters and preparing bridal presents for their old friends gave them busy days. Gerald sometimes ordered new music and new novels from New York, and their arrival caused great excitement. Floracita's natural taste for drawing had been cultivated by private lessons from a French lady, and she now used the pretty accomplishment to make likenesses of Thistle with and without garlands, of Tulee in her bright turban, and of Madame Guirlande's parrot, inscribed, "_Bon jour, jolie Manon_!" One day Rosa said: "As soon as the heat abates, so that we can use our needles without rusting, we will do a good deal of embroidery, and give it to Madame. She sells such articles, you know; and we can make beautiful things of those flosses and chenilles the good soul saved for us." "I like that idea," replied Flora. "I've been wanting to do something to show our gratitude." There was wisdom as well as kindness in the plan, though they never thought of the wisdom. Hours were whiled away by the occupation, which not only kept their needles from rusting, but also their affections and artistic faculties. As the tide of time flowed on, varied only by these little eddies and ripples, Gerald, though always very loving with Rosa, became somewhat less exclusive. His attentions were more equally divided between the sisters. He often occupied himself with Floracita's work, and would pick out the shades of silk for her, as well as for Rosa. He more frequently called upon her to sing a solo, as well as to join in duets and trios. When the weather became cooler, it was a favorite recreation with him to lounge at his ease, while Rosa played, and Floracita's fairy figure floated through the evolutions of some graceful dance. Sometimes he would laugh, and say: "Am I not a lucky dog? I don't envy the Grand Bashaw his Circassian beauties. He'd give his biggest diamond for such a dancer as Floracita; and what is his Flower of the World compared to my Rosamunda?" Floracita, whose warm heart always met affection as swiftly as one drop of quicksilver runs to another, became almost as much attached to him as she was to Rosa. "How kind Gerald is to me!" she would say to Tulee. "Papa used to wish we had a brother; but I didn't care for one then, because he was just as good for a playmate. But now it _is_ pleasant to have a brother." To Rosa, also, it was gratifying to have his love for her overflow upon what was dearest to her; and she would give him one of her sweetest smiles when he called her sister "Mignonne" or "Querida." To both of them the lonely island came to seem like a happy home. Floracita was not so wildly frolicsome as she was before those stunning blows fell upon her young life; but the natural buoyancy of her spirits began to return. She was always amusing them with "quips and cranks." If she was out of doors, her return to the house would be signalized by imitations of all sorts of birds or musical instruments; and often, when Gerald invited her to "trip it on the light, fantastic toe," she would entertain him with one of the negroes' clumsy, shuffling dances. Her sentimental songs fell into disuse, and were replaced by livelier tunes. Instead of longing to rest in the "sweet vale of Avoca," she was heard musically chasing "Figaro here! Figaro there! Figaro everywhere!" Seven months passed without other material changes than the changing seasons. When the flowers faded, and the leafless cypress-trees were hung with their pretty pendulous seed-vessels, Gerald began to make longer visits to Savannah. He was, however, rarely gone more than a week; and, though Rosa's songs grew plaintive in his absence, her spirits rose at once when he came to tell how homesick he had been. As for Floracita, she felt compensated for the increased stillness by the privilege of having Rosa all to herself. One day in January, when he had been gone from home several days, she invited Rosa to a walk, and, finding her desirous to finish a letter to Madame Guirlande, she threw on her straw hat, and went out half dancing, as she was wont to do. The fresh air was exhilarating, the birds were singing, and the woods were already beautified with every shade of glossy green, enlivened by vivid buds and leaflets of reddish brown. She gathered here and there a pretty sprig, sometimes placing them in her hair, sometimes in her little black silk apron, coquettishly decorated with cherry-colored ribbons. She stopped before a luxuriant wild myrtle, pulling at the branches, while she sang, "When the little hollow drum beats to bed, When the little fifer hangs his head, When is mute the Moorish flute--" Her song was suddenly interrupted by a clasp round the waist, and a warm kiss on the lips. "O Gerald, you've come back!" she exclaimed. "How glad Rosa will be!" "And nobody else will be glad, I suppose?" rejoined he. "Won't you give me back my kiss, when I've been gone a whole week?" "Certainly, _mon bon frère_," she replied; and as he inclined his face toward her, she imprinted a slight kiss on his cheek. "That's not giving me back _my_ kiss," said he. "I kissed your mouth, and you must kiss mine." "I will if you wish it," she replied, suiting the action to the word. "But you needn't hold me so tight," she added, as she tried to extricate herself. Finding he did not release her, she looked up wonderingly in his face, then lowered her eyes, blushing crimson. No one had ever looked at her so before. "Come, don't be coy, _ma petite_," said he. She slipped from him with sudden agility, and said somewhat sharply: "Gerald, I don't want to be always called _petite_; and I don't want to be treated as if I were a child. I am no longer a child. I am fifteen. I am a young lady." "So you are, and a very charming one," rejoined he, giving her a playful tap on the cheek as he spoke. "I am going to tell Rosa you have come," said she; and she started on the run. When they were all together in the cottage she tried not to seem constrained; but she succeeded so ill that Rosa would have noticed it if she had not been so absorbed in her own happiness. Gerald was all affection to her, and full of playful raillery with Flora,--which, however, failed to animate her as usual. From that time a change came over the little maiden, and increased as the days passed on. She spent much of her time in her own room; and when Rosa inquired why she deserted them so, she excused herself by saying she wanted to do a great deal of shell-work for Madame Guirlande, and that she needed so many boxes they would be in the way in the sitting-room. Her passion for that work grew wonderfully, and might be accounted for by the fascination of perfect success; for her coronets and garlands and bouquets and baskets were arranged with so much lightness and elegance, and the different-colored shells were so tastefully combined, that they looked less like manufactured articles than like flowers that grew in the gardens of the Nereids. Tulee wondered why her vivacious little pet had all of a sudden become so sedentary in her habits,--why she never took her customary rambles except when Mr. Fitzgerald was gone, and even then never without her sister. The conjecture she formed was not very far amiss, for Chloe's gossip had made her better acquainted with the character of her master than were the other inmates of the cottage; but the extraordinary industry was a mystery to her. One evening, when she found Floracita alone in her room at dusk, leaning her head on her hand and gazing out of the window dreamily, she put her hand on the silky head and said, "Is my little one homesick?" "I have no home to be sick for," she replied, sadly. "Is she lovesick then?" "I have no lover," she replied, in the same desponding tone. "What is it, then, my pet? Tell Tulee." "I wish I could go to Madame Guirlande," responded Flora. "She was so kind to us in our first troubles." "It would do you good to make her a visit," said Tulee, "and I should think you might manage to do it somehow." "No. Gerald said, a good while ago, that it would be dangerous for us ever to go to New Orleans." "Does he expect to keep you here always?" asked Tulee. "He might just as well keep you in a prison, little bird." "O, what's the use of talking, Tulee!" exclaimed she, impatiently. "I have no friends to go to, and I _must_ stay here." But, reproaching herself for rejecting the sympathy so tenderly offered, she rose and kissed the black cheek as she added, "Good Tulee! kind Tulee! I _am_ a little homesick; but I shall feel better in the morning." The next afternoon Gerald and Rosa invited her to join them in a drive round the island. She declined, saying the box that was soon to be sent to Madame was not quite full, and she wanted to finish some more articles to put in it. But she felt a longing for the fresh air, and the intense blue glory of the sky made the house seem prison-like. As soon as they were gone, she took down her straw hat and passed out, swinging it by the strings. She stopped on the lawn to gather some flame-colored buds from a Pyrus Japonica, and, fastening them in the ribbons as she went, she walked toward her old familiar haunts in the woods. It was early in February, but the warm sunshine brought out a delicious aroma from the firs, and golden garlands of the wild jasmine, fragrant as heliotrope, were winding round the evergreen thickets, and swinging in flowery festoons from the trees. Melancholy as she felt when she started from the cottage, her elastic nature was incapable of resisting the glory of the sky, the beauty of the earth, the music of the birds, and the invigorating breath of the ocean, intensified as they all were by a joyful sense of security and freedom, growing out of the constraint that had lately been put upon her movements. She tripped along faster, carolling as she went an old-fashioned song that her father used to be often humming:-- "Begone, dull care! I prithee begone from me! Begone, dull care! Thou and I shall never agree!" The walk changed to hopping and dancing, as she warbled various snatches from ballets and operas, settling at last upon the quaint little melody, "Once on a time there was a king," and running it through successive variations. A very gentle and refined voice, from behind a clump of evergreens, said, "Is this Cinderella coming from the ball?" She looked up with quick surprise, and recognized a lady she had several times seen in Nassau. "And it is really you, Señorita Gonsalez!" said the lady. "I thought I knew your voice. But I little dreamed of meeting you here. I have thought of you many times since I parted from you at Madame Conquilla's store of shell-work. I am delighted to see you again." "And I am glad to see you again, Mrs. Delano," replied Flora; "and I am very much pleased that you remember me." "How could I help remembering you?" asked the lady. "You were a favorite with me from the first time I saw you, and I should like very much to renew our acquaintance. Where do you live, my dear?" Covered with crimson confusion, Flora stammered out: "I don't live anywhere, I'm only staying here. Perhaps I shall meet you again in the woods or on the beach. I hope I shall." "Excuse me," said the lady. "I have no wish to intrude upon your privacy. But if you would like to call upon me at Mr. Welby's plantation, where I shall be for three or four weeks, I shall always be glad to receive you." "Thank you," replied Flora, still struggling with embarrassment. "I should like to come very much, but I don't have a great deal of time for visiting." "It's not common to have such a pressure of cares and duties at your age," responded the lady, smiling. "My carriage is waiting on the beach. Trusting you will find a few minutes to spare for me, I will not say adieu, but _au revoir_." As she turned away, she thought to herself: "What a fascinating child! What a charmingly unsophisticated way she took to tell me she would rather not have me call on her! I observed there seemed to be some mystery about her when she was in Nassau. What can it be? Nothing wrong, I hope." Floracita descended to the beach and gazed after the carriage as long as she could see it. Her thoughts were so occupied with this unexpected interview, that she took no notice of the golden drops which the declining sun was showering on an endless procession of pearl-crested waves; nor did she cast one of her customary loving glances at the western sky, where masses of violet clouds, with edges of resplendent gold, enclosed lakes of translucent beryl, in which little rose-colored islands were floating. She retraced her steps to the woods, almost crying. "How strange my answers must appear to her!" murmured she. "How I do wish I could go about openly, like other people! I am so tired of all this concealment!" She neither jumped, nor danced, nor sung, on her way homeward. She seemed to be revolving something in her mind very busily. After tea, as she and Rosa were sitting alone in the twilight, her sister, observing that she was unusually silent, said, "What are you thinking of, Mignonne?" "I am thinking of the time we passed in Nassau," replied she, "and of that Yankee lady who seemed to take such a fancy to me when she came to Madame Conquilla's to look at the shell-work. "I remember your talking about her," rejoined Rosa. "You thought her beautiful." "Yes," said Floracita, "and it was a peculiar sort of beauty. She wasn't the least like you or Mamita. Everything about her was violet. Her large gray eyes sometimes had a violet light in them. Her hair was not exactly flaxen, it looked like ashes of violets. She always wore fragrant violets. Her ribbons and dresses were of some shade of violet; and her breastpin was an amethyst set with pearls. Something in her ways, too, made me think of a violet. I think she knew it, and that was the reason she always wore that color. How delicate she was! She must have been very beautiful when she was young." "You used to call her the Java sparrow," said Rosa. "Yes, she made me think of my little Java sparrow, with pale fawn-colored feathers, and little gleams of violet on the neck," responded Flora. "That lady seems to have made a great impression on your imagination," said Rosa; and Floracita explained that it was because she had never seen anything like her. She did not mention that she had seen that lady on the island. The open-hearted child was learning to be reticent. A few minutes afterward, Rosa exclaimed, "There's Gerald coming!" Her sister watched her as she ran out to meet him, and sighed, "Poor Rosa!" CHAPTER VIII. A week later, when Gerald had gone to Savannah and Rosa was taking her daily siesta, Floracita filled Thistle's panniers with several little pasteboard boxes, and, without saying anything to Tulee, mounted and rode off in a direction she had never taken, except in the barouche. She was in search of the Welby plantation. Mrs. Delano, who was busy with her crochet-needle near the open window, was surprised to see a light little figure seated on a donkey riding up the avenue. As soon as Floracita dismounted, she recognized her, and descended the steps of the piazza to welcome her. "So you have found the Welby plantation," said she. "I thought you wouldn't have much difficulty, for there are only two plantations on the island, this and Mr. Fitzgerald's. I don't know that there are any other _dwellings_ except the huts of the negroes." She spoke the last rather in a tone of inquiry; but Flora merely answered that she had once passed the Welby plantation in a barouche. As the lady led the way into the parlor, she said, "What is that you have in your hand, my dear?" "You used to admire Madame Conquilla's shell-work," replied Flora," and I have brought you some of mine, to see whether you think I succeed tolerably in my imitations." As she spoke, she took out a small basket and poised it on her finger. "Why, that is perfectly beautiful!" said Mrs. Delano. "I don't know how you could contrive to give it such an air of lightness and grace. I used to think shell-work heavy, and rather vulgar, till I saw those beautiful productions at Nassau. But you excel your teacher, my dear Miss Gonsalez. I should think the sea-fairies made this." Four or five other articles were brought forth from the boxes and examined with similar commendation. Then they fell into a pleasant chat about their reminiscences of Nassau; and diverged from that to speak of the loveliness of their lonely little island, and the increasing beauty of the season. After a while, Flora looked at her watch, and said, "I must not stay long, for I didn't tell anybody I was going away." Mrs. Delano, who caught a glimpse of the medallion inserted in the back, said: "That is a peculiar little watch. Have you the hair of some friend set in it?" "No," replied Flora. "It is the likeness of my father." She slipped the slight chain from her neck, and placed the watch in the lady's hand. Her face flushed as she looked at it, but the habitual paleness soon returned. "You were introduced to me as a Spanish young lady," said she, "but this face is not Spanish. What was your father's name?" "Mr. Alfred Royal of New Orleans," answered Flora. "But _your_ name is Gonsalez," said she. Flora blushed crimson with the consciousness of having betrayed the incognito assumed at Nassau. "Gonsalez was my mother's name," she replied, gazing on the floor while she spoke. Mrs. Delano looked at her for an instant, then, drawing her gently toward her, she pressed her to her side, and said with a sigh, "Ah, Flora, I wish you were my daughter." "O, how I wish I was!" exclaimed the young girl, looking up with a sudden glow; but a shadow immediately clouded her expressive face, as she added, "But you wouldn't want me for a daughter, if you knew everything about me." The lady was obviously troubled. "You seem to be surrounded by mysteries, my little friend," responded she. "I will not ask you for any confidence you are unwilling to bestow. But I am a good deal older than you, and I know the world better than you do. If anything troubles you, or if you are doing anything wrong, perhaps if you were to tell me, I could help you out of it." "O, no, I'm not doing anything wrong," replied Floracita, eagerly. "I never did anything wrong in my life." Seeing a slight smile hovering about the lady's lips, she made haste to add: "I didn't mean exactly that. I mean I never did anything _very_ wrong. I'm cross sometimes, and I have told some _fibititas_; but then I couldn't seem to help it, things were in such a tangle. It comes more natural to me to tell the truth." "That I can readily believe," rejoined Mrs. Delano. "But I am not trying to entrap your ingenuousness into a betrayal of your secrets. Only remember one thing; if you ever do want to open your heart to any one, remember that I am your true friend, and that you can trust me." "O, thank you! thank you!" exclaimed Flora, seizing her hand and kissing it fervently. "But tell me one thing, my little friend," continued Mrs. Delano. "Is there anything I can do for you now?" "I came to ask you to do something for me," replied Flora; "but you have been so kind to me, that it has made me almost forget my errand. I have very particular reasons for wanting to earn some money. You used to admire the shell-work in Nassau so much, that I thought, if you liked mine, you might be willing to buy it, and that perhaps you might have friends who would buy some. I have tried every way to think how I could manage, to sell my work." "I will gladly buy all you have," rejoined the lady, "and I should like to have you make me some more; especially of these garlands of rice-shells, trembling so lightly on almost invisible silver wire." "I will make some immediately," replied Flora. "But I must go, dear Mrs. Delano. I wish I could stay longer, but I cannot." "When will you come again?" asked the lady. "I can't tell," responded Flora, "for I have to manage to come here." "That seems strange," said Mrs. Delano. "I know it seems strange," answered the young girl, with a kind of despairing impatience in her tone. "But please don't ask me, for everything seems to come right out to you; and I don't know what I ought to say, indeed I don't." "I want you to come again as soon as you can," said Mrs. Delano, slipping a gold eagle into her hand. "And now go, my dear, before you tell me more than you wish to." "Not more than I wish," rejoined Floracita; "but more than I ought. I _wish_ to tell you everything." In a childish way she put up her lips for a kiss, and the lady drew her to her heart and caressed her tenderly. When Flora had descended the steps of the piazza, she turned and looked up. Mrs. Delano was leaning against one of the pillars, watching her departure. Vines of gossamer lightness were waving round her, and her pearly complexion and violet-tinted dress looked lovely among those aerial arabesques of delicate green. The picture impressed Flora all the more because it was such a contrast to the warm and gorgeous styles of beauty to which she had been accustomed. She smiled and kissed her hand in token of farewell; the lady returned the salutation, but she thought the expression of her face was sad, and the fear that this new friend distrusted her on account of unexplained mysteries haunted her on her way homeward. Mrs. Delano looked after her till she and her donkey disappeared among the trees in the distance. "What a strange mystery is this!" murmured she. "Alfred Royal's child, and yet she bears her mother's name. And why does she conceal from me where she lives? Surely, she cannot be consciously doing anything wrong, for I never saw such perfect artlessness of look and manner." The problem occupied her thoughts for days after, without her arriving at any satisfactory conjecture. Flora, on her part, was troubled concerning the distrust which she felt must be excited by her mysterious position, and she was continually revolving plans to clear herself from suspicion in the eyes of her new friend. It would have been an inexpressible consolation if she could have told her troubles to her elder sister, from whom she had never concealed anything till within the last few weeks. But, alas! by the fault of another, a barrier had arisen between them, which proved an obstruction at every turn of their daily intercourse; for while she had been compelled to despise and dislike Gerald, Rosa was always eulogizing his noble and loving nature, and was extremely particular to have his slightest wishes obeyed. Apart from any secret reasons for wishing to obtain money, Floracita was well aware that it would not do to confess her visit to Mrs. Delano; for Gerald had not only forbidden their making any acquaintances, but he had also charged them not to ride or walk in the direction of either of the plantations unless he was with them. Day after day, as Flora sat at work upon the garlands she had promised, she was on the watch to elude his vigilance; but more than a week passed without her finding any safe opportunity. At last Gerald proposed to gratify Rosa's often-expressed wish, by taking a sail to one of the neighboring islands. They intended to make a picnic of it, and return by moonlight. Rosa was full of pleasant anticipations, which, however, were greatly damped when her sister expressed a decided preference for staying at home. Rosa entreated, and Gerald became angry, but she persisted in her refusal. She said she wanted to use up all her shells, and all her flosses and chenilles. Gerald swore that he hated the sight of them, and that he would throw them all into the sea if she went on wearing her beautiful eyes out over them. Without looking up from her work, she coolly answered, "Why need you concern yourself about _my_ eyes, when you have a wife with such beautiful eyes?"' Black Tom and Chloe and the boat were in waiting, and after a flurried scene they departed reluctantly without her. "I never saw any one so changed as she is," said Rosa. "She used to be so fond of excursions, and now she wants to work from morning till night." "She's a perverse, self-willed, capricious little puss. She's been too much indulged. She needs to be brought under discipline," said Gerald, angrily whipping off a blossom with his rattan as they walked toward the boat. As soon as they were fairly off, Flora started on a second visit to the Welby plantation. Tulee noticed all this in silence, and shook her head, as if thoughts were brooding there unsafe for utterance. Mrs. Delano was bending over her writing-desk finishing a letter, when she perceived a wave of fragrance, and, looking up, she saw Flora on the threshold of the open door, with her arms full of flowers. "Excuse me for interrupting you," said she, dropping one of her little quick courtesies, which seemed half frolic, half politeness. "The woods are charming to-day. The trees are hung with curtains of jasmine, embroidered all over with golden flowers. You love perfumes so well, I couldn't help stopping by the way to load Thistle with an armful of them." "Thank you, dear," replied Mrs. Delano. "I rode out yesterday afternoon, and I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful as the flowery woods and the gorgeous sunset. After being accustomed to the splendor of these Southern skies, the Northern atmosphere will seem cold and dull." "Shall you go to the North soon?" inquired Flora, anxiously. "I shall leave here in ten or twelve days," she replied; "but I may wait a short time in Savannah, till March has gone; for that is a blustering, disagreeable month in New England, though it brings you roses and perfume. I came to Savannah to spend the winter with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Welby; but I have always taken a great fancy to this island, and when they were suddenly called away to Arkansas by the illness of a son, I asked their permission to come here for a few weeks and watch the beautiful opening of the spring. I find myself much inclined to solitude since I lost a darling daughter, who died two years ago. If she had lived, she would have been about your age." "I am _so_ sorry you are going away," said Flora. "It seems as if I had always known you. I don't know what I shall do without you. But when you go back among your friends, I suppose you will forget all about poor little me." "No, my dear little friend, I shall never forget you," she replied; "and when I come again, I hope I shall find you here." "I felt troubled when I went away the other day," said Flora. "I thought you seemed to look sadly after me, and I was afraid you thought I had done something wicked, because I said you wouldn't wish I were your daughter if you knew everything about me. So I have come to tell you my secrets, as far as I can without betraying other people's. I am afraid you won't care anything more about me after I have told you; but I can't help it if you don't. Even that would be better than to have you suspect me of being bad." Mrs. Delano drew an ottoman toward her, and said, "Come and sit here, dear, and tell me all about it, the same as if I were your mother." Floracita complied; and resting one elbow on her knee, and leaning her cheek upon the hand, she looked up timidly and wistfully into the friendly face that was smiling serenely over her. After a moment's pause, she said abruptly: "I don't know how to begin, so I won't begin at all, but tell it right out. You see, dear Mrs. Delano, I am a colored girl." The lady's smile came nearer to a laugh than was usual with her. She touched the pretty dimpled cheek with her jewelled finger, as she replied: "O, you mischievous little kitten! I thought you were really going to tell me something about your troubles. But I see you are hoaxing me. I remember when you were at Madame Conquilla's you always seemed to be full of fun, and the young ladies there said you were a great rogue." "But this is not fun; indeed it is not," rejoined Flora. "I _am_ a colored girl." She spoke so earnestly that the lady began to doubt the evidence of her own eyes. "But you told me that Mr. Alfred Royal was your father," said she. "So he was my father," replied Flora; "and the kindest father that ever was. Rosa and I were brought up like little princesses, and we never knew that we were colored. My mother was the daughter of a rich Spanish gentleman named Gonsalez. She was educated in Paris, and was elegant and accomplished. She was handsomer than Rosa; and if you were to see Rosa, you would say nobody _could_ be handsomer than she is. She was good, too. My father was always saying she was the dearest and best wife in the world. You don't know how he mourned when she died. He couldn't bear to have anything moved that she had touched. But _cher papa_ died very suddenly; and first they told us that we were very poor, and must earn our living; and then they told us that our mother was a slave, and so, according to law, we were slaves too. They would have sold us at auction, if a gentleman who knew us when papa was alive hadn't smuggled us away privately to Nassau. He had been very much in love with Rosa for a good while; and he married her, and I live with them. But he keeps us very much hidden; because, he says, he should get into lawsuits and duels and all sorts of troubles with papa's creditors if they should find out that he helped us off. And that was the reason I was called Señorita Gonsalez in Nassau, though my real name is Flora Royal." She went on to recount the kindness of Madame Guirlande, and the exciting particulars of their escape; to all of which Mrs. Delano listened with absorbed attention. As they sat thus, they made a beautiful picture. The lady, mature in years, but scarcely showing the touch of time, was almost as fair as an Albiness, with serene lips, and a soft moonlight expression in her eyes. Every attitude and every motion indicated quietude and refinement. The young girl, on the contrary, even when reclining, seemed like impetuosity in repose for a moment, but just ready to spring. Her large dark eyes laughed and flashed and wept by turns, and her warmly tinted face glowed like the sunlight, in its setting of glossy black hair. The lady looked down upon her with undisguised admiration while she recounted their adventures in lively dramatic style, throwing in imitations of the whistling of _Ça ira_, and the tones of the coachman as he sang, "Who goes there?" "But you have not told me," said Mrs. Delano, "who the gentleman was that married your sister. Ah, I see you hesitate. No matter. Only tell me one thing,--is he kind to you?" Flora turned red and pale, and red again. "Let that pass, too," said the lady. "I asked because I wished to know if I could help you in any way. I see you have brought some more boxes of shell-work, and by and by we will examine them. But first I want to tell you that I also have a secret, and I will confide it to you that you may feel assured I shall love you always. Flora, dear, when your father and I were young, we were in love with each other, and I promised to be his wife." "So you might have been my Mamita!" exclaimed Floracita, impetuously. "No, not _your_ Mamita, dear," replied Mrs. Delano, smiling. "You call me the Java sparrow, and Java sparrows never hatch gay little humming-birds or tuneful mocking-birds. I might tell you a long story about myself, dear; but the sun is declining, and you ought not to be out after dusk. My father was angry about our love, because Alfred was then only a clerk with a small salary. They carried me off to Europe, and for two years I could hear nothing from Alfred. Then they told me he was married; and after a while they persuaded me to marry Mr. Delano. I ought not to have married him, because my heart was not in it. He died and left me with a large fortune and the little daughter I told you of. I have felt very much alone since my darling was taken from me. That void in my heart renders young girls very interesting to me. Your looks and ways attracted me when I first met you; and when you told me Alfred Royal was your father, I longed to clasp you to my heart. And now you know, my dear child, that you have a friend ever ready to listen to any troubles you may choose to confide, and desirous to remove them if she can." She rose to open the boxes of shell-work; but Flora sprung up, and threw herself into her arms, saying, "My Papasito sent you to me,--I know he did." After a few moments spent in silent emotion, Mrs. Delano again spoke of the approaching twilight, and with mutual caresses they bade each other adieu. Four or five days later, Floracita made her appearance at the Welby plantation in a state of great excitement. She was in a nervous tremor, and her eyelids were swollen as if with much weeping. Mrs. Delano hastened to enfold her in her arms, saying: "What is it, my child? Tell your new Mamita what it is that troubles you so." "O, _may_ I call you Mamita?" asked Flora, looking up with an expression of grateful love that warmed all the fibres of her friend's heart. "O, I do so need a Mamita! I am very wretched; and if you don't help me, I don't know what I _shall_ do!" "Certainly, I will help you, if possible, when you have told me your trouble," replied Mrs. Delano. "Yes, I will tell," said Flora, sighing. "Mr. Fitzgerald is the gentleman who married my sister; but we don't live at his plantation. We live in a small cottage hidden away in the woods. You never saw anybody so much in love as he was with Rosa. When we first came here, he was never willing to have her out of his sight a moment. And Rosa loves him so! But for these eight or ten weeks past he has been making love to me; though he is just as affectionate as ever with Rosa. When she is playing to him, and I am singing beside her, he keeps throwing kisses to me behind her back. It makes me feel so ashamed that I can't look my sister in the face. I have tried to--keep out of his way. When I am in the house I stick to Rosa like a burr; and I have given up riding or walking, except when he is away. But there's no telling when he _is_ away. He went away yesterday, and said he was going to Savannah to be gone a week; but this morning, when I went into the woods behind the cottage to feed Thistle, he was lurking there. He seized me, and held his hand over my mouth, and said I _should_ hear him. Then he told me that Rosa and I were his slaves; that he bought us of papa's creditors, and could sell us any day. And he says he will carry me off to Savannah and sell me if I don't treat him better. He would not let me go till I promised to meet him in Cypress Grove at dusk to-night. I have been trying to earn money to go to Madame Guirlande, and get her to send me somewhere where I could give dancing-lessons, or singing-lessons, without being in danger of being taken up for a slave. But I don't know how to get to New Orleans alone; and if I am his slave, I am afraid he will come there with officers to take me. So, dear new Mamita, I have come to you, to see if you can't help me to get some money and go somewhere." Mrs. Delano pressed her gently to her heart, and responded in tones of tenderest pity: "Get some money and go somewhere, you poor child! Do you think I shall let dear Alfred's little daughter go wandering alone about the world? No, darling, you shall live with me, and be my daughter." "And don't you care about my being colored and a slave?" asked Floracita, humbly. "Let us never speak of that," replied her friend. "The whole transaction is so odious and wicked that I can't bear to think of it." "I do feel so grateful to you, my dear new Mamita, that I don't know what to say. But it tears my heart in two to leave Rosa. We have never been separated for a day since I was born. And she is so good, and she loves me so! And Tulee, too. I didn't dare to try to speak to her. I knew I should break down. All the way coming here I was frightened for fear Gerald would overtake me and carry me off. And I cried so, thinking about Rosa and Tulee, not knowing when I should see them again, that I couldn't see; and if Thistle hadn't known the way himself, I shouldn't have got here. Poor Thistle! It seemed as if my heart would break when I threw the bridle on his neck and left him to go back alone; I didn't dare to hug, him but once, I was so afraid. O, I am so glad that you will let me stay here!" "I have been thinking it will not be prudent for you to stay here, my child," replied Mrs. Delano. "Search will be made for you in the morning, and you had better be out of the way before that. There are some dresses belonging to Mrs. Welby's daughter in a closet up stairs. I will borrow one of them for you to wear. The boat from Beaufort to Savannah will stop here in an hour to take some freight. We will go to Savannah. My colored laundress there has a chamber above her wash-room where you will be better concealed than in more genteel lodgings. I will come back here to arrange things, and in a few days I will return to you and take you to my Northern home." The necessary arrangements were soon made; and when Flora was transformed into Miss Welby, she smiled very faintly as she remarked, "How queer it seems to be always running away." "This is the last time, my child," replied Mrs. Delano. "I will keep my little bird carefully under my wings." When Flora was in the boat, hand in hand with her new friend, and no one visible whom she had ever seen before, her excitement began to subside, but sadness increased. In her terror the poor child had scarcely thought of anything except the necessity of escaping somewhere. But when she saw her island home receding from her, she began to realize the importance of the step she was taking. She fixed her gaze on that part where the lonely cottage was embowered, and she had a longing to see even a little whiff of smoke from Tulee's kitchen. But there was no sign of life save a large turkey-buzzard, like a black vulture, sailing gracefully over the tree-tops. The beloved sister, the faithful servant, the brother from whom she had once hoped so much, the patient animal that had borne her through so many pleasant paths, the flowery woods, and the resounding sea, had all vanished from her as suddenly as did her father and the bright home of her childhood. The scenes through which they were passing were beautiful as Paradise, and all nature seemed alive and jubilant. The white blossoms of wild-plum-trees twinkled among dark evergreens, a vegetable imitation of starlight. Wide-spreading oaks and superb magnolias were lighted up with sudden flashes of color, as scarlet grosbeaks flitted from tree to tree. Sparrows were chirping, doves cooing, and mocking-birds whistling, now running up the scale, then down the scale, with an infinity of variations between. The outbursts of the birds were the same as in seasons that were gone, but the listener was changed. Rarely before had her quick musical ear failed to notice how they would repeat the same note with greater or less emphasis, then flat it, then sharp it, varying their performances with all manner of unexpected changes. But now she was merely vaguely conscious of familiar sounds, which brought before her that last merry day in her father's house, when Rosabella laughed so much to hear her puzzle the birds with her musical vagaries. Memory held up her magic mirror, in which she saw pictured processions of the vanished years. Thus the lonely child, with her loving, lingering looks upon the past, was floated toward an unknown future with the new friend a kind Providence had sent her. CHAPTER IX. Rosa was surprised at the long absence of her sister; and when the sun showed only a narrow golden edge above the horizon, she began to feel anxious. She went to the kitchen and said, "Tulee, have you seen anything of Floracita lately? She went away while I was sleeping." "No, missy," she replied. "The last I see of her was in her room, with the embroidery-frame before her. She was looking out of the window, as she did sometimes, as if she was looking nowhere. She jumped up and hugged and kissed me, and called me 'Dear Tulee, good Tulee.' The little darling was always mighty loving. When I went there again, her needle was sticking in her work, and her thimble was on the frame, but she was gone. I don't know when she went away. Thistle's come back alone; but he does that sometimes when little missy goes rambling round." There was no uneasiness expressed in her tones, but, being more disquieted than she wished to acknowledge, she went forth to search the neighboring wood-paths and the sea-shore. When she returned, Rosa ran out with the eager inquiry, "Is she anywhere in sight?" In reply to the negative answer, she said: "I don't know what to make of it. Have you ever seen anybody with Floracita since we came here?" "Nobody but Massa Gerald," replied Tulee. "I wonder whether she was discontented here," said Rosa. "I don't see why she should be, for we all loved her dearly; and Gerald was as kind to her as if she had been his own sister. But she hasn't seemed like herself lately; and this forenoon she hugged and kissed me ever so many times, and cried. When I asked her what was the matter, she said she was thinking of the pleasant times when _Papasito querido_ was alive. Do you think she was unhappy?" "She told me once she was homesick for Madame Guirlande," replied Tulee. "Did she? Perhaps she was making so many things for Madame because she meant to go there. But she couldn't find her way alone, and she knew it would be very dangerous for either of us to go to New Orleans." Tulee made no reply. She seated herself on a wooden bench by the open door, swinging her body back and forth in an agitated way, ever and anon jumping up and looking round in all directions. The veil of twilight descended upon the earth, and darkness followed. The two inmates of the cottage felt very miserable and helpless, as they sat there listening to every sound. For a while nothing was heard but the dash of the waves, and the occasional hooting of an owl. The moon rose up above the pines, and flooded earth and sea with silvery splendor. "I want to go to the plantation and call Tom," said Rosa; "and there is such bright moonshine we might go, but I am afraid Gerald would be displeased." Tulee at once volunteered to bring out Thistle, and to walk beside her mistress. Both started at the sound of footsteps. They were not light enough for Floracita, but they thought it might be some one bringing news. It proved to be the master of the house. "Why, Gerald, how glad I am! I thought you were in Savannah," exclaimed Rosa. "Have you seen anything of Floracita?" "No. Isn't she here?" inquired he, in such a tone of surprise, that Tulee's suspicions were shaken. Rosa repeated the story of her disappearance, and concluded by saying, "She told Tulee she was homesick to go to Madame." "She surely wouldn't dare to do that," he replied. "Massa Gerald," said Tulee, and she watched him closely while she spoke, "there's something I didn't tell Missy Rosy, 'cause I was feared it would worry her. I found this little glove of Missy Flory's, with a bunch of sea-weed, down on the beach; and there was marks of her feet all round." Rosa uttered a cry. "O heavens!" she exclaimed, "I saw an alligator a few days ago." An expression of horror passed over his face. "I've cautioned her not to fish so much for shells and sea-mosses," said he; "but she was always so self-willed." "_Don't_ say anything against the little darling!" implored Rosa. "Perhaps we shall never see her again." He spoke a few soothing words, and then took his hat, saying, "I am going to the sea-shore." "Take good care of yourself, dear Gerald!" cried Rosa. "No danger 'bout that," muttered Tulee, as she walked out of hearing. "There's things with handsomer mouths than alligators that may be more dangerous. Poor little bird! I wonder where he has put her." His feelings as he roamed on the beach were not to be envied. His mind was divided between the thoughts that she had committed suicide, or had been drowned accidentally. That she had escaped from his persecutions by flight he could not believe; for he knew she was entirely unused to taking care of herself, and felt sure she had no one to help her. He returned to say that the tide had washed away the footprints, and that he found no vestige of the lost one. At dawn he started for the plantation, whence, after fruitless inquiries, he rode to the Welby estate. Mrs. Delano had requested the household servants not to mention having seen a small young lady there, and they had nothing to communicate. He resolved to start for New Orleans as soon as possible. After a fortnight's absence he returned, bringing grieved and sympathizing letters from the Signor and Madame; and on the minds of all, except Tulee, the conviction settled that Floracita was drowned. Hope lingered long in her mind. "Wherever the little pet may be, she'll surely contrive to let us know," thought she. "She ain't like the poor slaves when _they_'re carried off. She can write." Her mistress talked with her every day about the lost darling; but of course such suspicions were not to be mentioned to her. Gerald, who disliked everything mournful, avoided the subject entirely; and Rosabella, looking upon him only with the eyes of love, considered it a sign of deep feeling, and respected it accordingly. But, blinded as she was, she gradually became aware that he did not seem exactly like the same man who first won her girlish love. Her efforts to please him were not always successful. He was sometimes moody and fretful. He swore at the slightest annoyance, and often flew into paroxysms of anger with Tom and Tulee. He was more and more absent from the cottage, and made few professions of regret for such frequent separations. Some weeks after Flora's disappearance, he announced his intention to travel in the North during the summer months. Rosabella looked up in his face with a pleading expression, but pride prevented her from asking whether she might accompany him. She waited in hopes he would propose it; but as he did not even think of it, he failed to interpret the look of disappointment in her expressive eyes, as she turned from him with a sigh. "Tom will come with the carriage once a week," said he; "and either he or Joe will be here every night." "Thank you," she replied. But the tone was so sad that he took her hand with the tenderness of former times, and said, "You are sorry to part with me, Bella Rosa?" "How can I be otherwise than sorry," she asked, "when I am all alone in the world without you? Dear Gerald, are we always to live thus? Will you never acknowledge me as your wife?" "How can I do it," rejoined he, "without putting myself in the power of those cursed creditors? It is no fault of mine that your mother was a slave." "We should be secure from them in Europe," she replied. "Why couldn't we live abroad?" "Do you suppose my rich uncle would leave me a cent if he found out I had married the daughter of a quadroon?" rejoined he. "I have met with losses lately, and I can't afford to offend my uncle. I am sorry, dear, that you are dissatisfied with the home I have provided for you." "I am not dissatisfied with my home," said she. "I have no desire to mix with the world, but it is necessary for you, and these separations are dreadful." His answer was: "I will write often, dearest, and I will send you quantities of new music. I shall always be looking forward to the delight of hearing it when I return. You must take good care of your health, for my sake. You must go ambling about with Thistle every day." The suggestion brought up associations that overcame her at once. "O how Floracita loved Thistle!" she exclaimed. "And it really seems as if the poor beast misses her. I am afraid we neglected her too much, Gerald. We were so taken up with our own happiness, that we didn't think of her so much as we ought to have done." "I am sure I tried to gratify all her wishes," responded he. "I have nothing to reproach myself with, and certainly you were always a devoted sister. This is a morbid state of feeling, and you must try to drive it off. You said a little while ago that you wanted to see how the plantation was looking, and what flowers had come out in the garden. Shall I take you there in the barouche to-morrow?" She gladly assented, and a few affectionate words soon restored her confidence in his love. When the carriage was brought to the entrance of the wood the next day, she went to meet it with a smiling face and a springing step. As he was about to hand her in, he said abruptly, "You have forgotten your veil." Tulee was summoned to bring it. As Rosa arranged it round her head, she remarked, "One would think you were ashamed of me, Gerald." The words were almost whispered, but the tone sounded more like a reproach than anything she had ever uttered. With ready gallantry he responded aloud, "I think so much of my treasure that I want to keep it all to myself." He was very affectionate during their drive; and this, combined with the genial air, the lovely scenery, and the exhilaration of swift motion, restored her to a greater sense of happiness than she had felt since her darling sister vanished so suddenly. The plantation was in gala dress. The veranda was almost covered with the large, white, golden-eyed stars of the Cherokee rose, gleaming out from its dark, lustrous foliage. The lawn was a sheet of green velvet embroidered with flowers. Magnolias and oaks of magnificent growth ornamented the extensive grounds. In the rear was a cluster of negro huts. Black picaninnies were rolling about in the grass, mingling their laughter with the songs of the birds. The winding paths of the garden were lined with flowering shrubs, and the sea sparkled in the distance. Wherever the eye glanced, all was sunshine, bloom, and verdure. For the first time, he invited her to enter the mansion. Her first movement was toward the piano. As she opened it, and swept her hand across the keys, he said: "It is sadly out of tune. It has been neglected because its owner had pleasanter music elsewhere." "But the tones are very fine," rejoined she. "What a pity it shouldn't be used!" As she glanced out of the window on the blooming garden and spacious lawn, she said: "How pleasant it would be if we could live here! It is so delightful to look out on such an extensive open space." "Perhaps we will some time or other, my love," responded he. She smiled, and touched the keys, while she sang snatches of familiar songs. The servants who brought in refreshments wondered at her beauty, and clear, ringing voice. Many dark faces clustered round the crack of the door to obtain a peep; and as they went away they exchanged nudges and winks with each other. Tom and Chloe had confidentially whispered to some of them the existence of such a lady, and that Tulee said Massa married her in the West Indies; and they predicted that she would be the future mistress of Magnolia Lawn. Others gave it as their opinion, that Massa would never hide her as he did if she was to be the Missis. But all agreed that she was a beautiful, grand lady, and they paid her homage accordingly. Her cheeks would have burned to scarlet flame if she had heard all their comments and conjectures; but unconscious of blame or shame, she gave herself up to the enjoyment of those bright hours. A new access of tenderness seemed to have come over Fitzgerald; partly because happiness rendered her beauty more radiant, and partly because secret thoughts that were revolving in his mind brought some twinges of remorse. He had never seemed more enamored, not even during the first week in Nassau, when he came to claim her as his bride. Far down in the garden was an umbrageous walk, terminating in a vine-covered bower. They remained there a long time, intertwined in each other's arms, talking over the memories of their dawning consciousness of love, and singing together the melodies in which their voices had first mingled. Their road home was through woods and groves festooned with vines, some hanging in massive coils, others light and aerial enough for fairy swings; then over the smooth beach, where wave after wave leaped up and tossed its white foam-garland on the shore. The sun was sinking in a golden sea, and higher toward the zenith little gossamer clouds blushingly dissolved in the brilliant azure, and united again, as if the fragrance of roses had floated into form. When they reached the cottage, Rosa passed through the silent little parlor with swimming eyes, murmuring to herself: "Poor little Floracita! how the sea made me think of her. I ought not to have been so happy." But memory wrote the record of that halcyon day in illuminated manuscript, all glowing with purple and gold, with angel faces peeping through a graceful network of flowers. CHAPTER X. Rosabella had never experienced such loneliness as in the months that followed. All music was saddened by far-off echoes of past accompaniments. Embroidery lost its interest with no one to praise the work, or to be consulted in the choice of colors and patterns. The books Gerald occasionally sent were of a light character, and though they served to while away a listless hour, there was nothing in them to strengthen or refresh the soul. The isolation was the more painful because there was everything around her to remind her of the lost and the absent. Flora's unfinished embroidery still remained in the frame, with the needle in the last stitch of a blue forget-me-not. Over the mirror was a cluster of blush-roses she had made. On the wall was a spray of sea-moss she had pressed and surrounded with a garland of small shells. By the door was a vine she had transplanted from the woods; and under a tree opposite was a turf seat where she used to sit sketching the cottage, and Tulee, and Thistle, and baskets of wild-flowers she had gathered. The sight of these things continually brought up visions of the loving and beautiful child, who for so many years had slept nestling in her arms, and made the days tuneful with her songs. Then there was Gerald's silent flute, and the silken cushion she had embroidered for him, on which she had so often seen him reposing, and thought him handsome as a sleeping Adonis. A letter from him made her cheerful for days; but they did not come often, and were generally brief. Tom came with the carriage once a week, according to his master's orders; but she found solitary drives so little refreshing to body or mind that she was often glad to avail herself of Tulee's company. So the summer wore away, and September came to produce a new aspect of beauty in the landscape, by tinging the fading flowers and withering leaves with various shades of brown and crimson, purple and orange. One day, early in the month, when Tom came with the carriage, she told him to drive to Magnolia Lawn. She had long been wishing to revisit the scene where she had been so happy on that bright spring day; but she had always said to herself, "I will wait till Gerald comes." Now she had grown so weary with hope deferred, that she felt as if she could wait no longer. As she rode along she thought of improvements in the walks that she would suggest to Gerald, if they ever went there to live, as he had intimated they might. The servants received her with their usual respectful manner and wondering looks; but when she turned back to ask some question, she saw them whispering together with an unusual appearance of excitement. Her cheeks glowed with a consciousness that her anomalous position was well calculated to excite their curiosity; and she turned away, thinking how different it had been with her mother,--how sheltered and protected she had always been. She remembered how very rarely her father left home, and how he always hastened to return. She stood awhile on the veranda, thinking sadly, "If Gerald loves me as Papasito loved Mamita, how can he be contented to leave me so much?" With a deep sigh she turned and entered the house through an open window. The sigh changed at once to a bright smile. The parlor had undergone a wondrous transformation since she last saw it. The woodwork had been freshly painted, and the walls were covered with silvery-flowered paper. Over curtains of embroidered lace hung a drapery of apple-green damask, ornamented with deep white-silk fringe and heavy tassels. "How kind of Gerald!" murmured she. "He has done this because I expressed a wish to live here. How ungrateful I was to doubt him in my thoughts!" She passed into the chamber, where she found a white French bedstead, on which were painted bouquets of roses. It was enveloped in roseate lace drapery, caught up at the centre in festoons on the silver arrow of a pretty little Cupid. From silver arrows over the windows there fell the same soft, roseate folds. Her whole face was illuminated with happiness as she thought to herself: "Ah! I know why everything has a tinge of _roses_. How kind of him to prepare such a beautiful surprise for me!" She traversed the garden walks, and lingered long in the sequestered bower. On the floor was a bunch of dried violets which he had placed in her belt on that happy day. She took them up, kissed them fervently, and placed them near her heart. That heart was lighter than it had been for months. "At last he is going to acknowledge me as his wife," thought she. "How happy I shall be when there is no longer any need of secrecy!" The servants heard her singing as she traversed the garden, and gathered in groups to listen; but they scattered as they saw her approach the house. "She's a mighty fine lady," said Dinah, the cook. "Mighty fine lady," repeated Tom; "an' I tell yer she's married to Massa, an' she's gwine to be de Missis." Venus, the chambermaid, who would have passed very well for a bronze image of the sea-born goddess, tossed her head as she replied: "Dunno bout dat ar. Massa does a heap o' courtin' to we far sex." "How yer know dat ar?" exclaimed Dinah. "Whar d' yer git dem year-rings?" And then there was a general titter. Rosabella, all unconscious in her purity, came up to Tom while the grin was still upon his face, and in her polite way asked him to have the goodness to bring the carriage. It was with great difficulty that she could refrain from outbursts of song as she rode homeward; but Gerald had particularly requested her not to sing in the carriage, lest her voice should attract the attention of some one who chanced to be visiting the island. Her first words when she entered the cottage were: "O Tulee, I am _so_ happy! Gerald has fitted up Magnolia Lawn beautifully, because I told him I wished we could live there. He said, that day we were there, that he would try to make some arrangement with Papasito's creditors, and I do believe he has, and that I shall not have to hide much longer. He has been fitting up the house as if it were for a queen. Isn't he kind?" Tulee, who listened rather distrustfully to praises bestowed on the master, replied that nobody could do anything too good for Missy Rosy. "Ah, Tulee, you have always done your best to spoil me," said she, laying her hand affectionately on the shoulder of her petted servant, while a smile like sunshine mantled her face. "But do get me something to eat. The ride has made me hungry." "Ise glad to hear that, Missy Rosy. I begun to think 't want no use to cook nice tidbits for ye, if ye jist turned 'em over wi' yer fork, and ate one or two mouthfuls, without knowing what ye was eatin'." "I've been pining for Gerald, Tulee; and I've been afraid sometimes that he didn't love me as he used to do. But now that he has made such preparations for us to live at Magnolia Lawn, I am as happy as a queen." She went off singing, and as Tulee looked after her she murmured to herself: "And what a handsome queen she'd make! Gold ain't none too good for her to walk on. But is it the truth he told her about settling with the creditors? There's never no telling anything by what _he_ says. Do hear her singing now! It sounds as lively as Missy Flory. Ah! that was a strange business. I wonder whether the little darling _is_ dead." While she was preparing supper, with such cogitations passing through her mind, Rosa began to dash off a letter, as follows:-- "DEARLY BELOVED,--I am so happy that I cannot wait a minute without telling you about it. I have done a naughty thing, but, as it is the first time I ever disobeyed you, I hope you will forgive me. You told me never to go to the plantation without you. But I waited and waited, and you didn't come; and we were so happy there, that lovely day, that I longed to go again. I knew it would be very lonesome without you; but I thought it would be some comfort to see again the places where we walked together, and sang together, and called each other all manner of foolish fond names. Do you remember how many variations you rung upon my name,--Rosabella, Rosalinda, Rosamunda, Rosa Regina? How you did pelt me with roses! Do you remember how happy we were in the garden bower? How we sang together the old-fashioned canzonet, 'Love in thine eyes forever plays'? And how the mocking-bird imitated your guitar, while you were singing the Don Giovanni serenade? "I was thinking this all over, as I rode alone over the same ground we traversed on that happy day. But it was so different without the love-light of your eyes and the pressure of your dear hand, that I felt the tears gathering, and had all manner of sad thoughts. I feared you didn't care for me as you used to do, and were finding it easy to live without me. But when I entered the parlor that overlooks the beautiful lawn, all my doubts vanished. You had encouraged me to hope that it might be our future home; but I little dreamed it was to be so soon, and that you were preparing such a charming surprise for me. Don't be vexed with me, dearest, for finding out your secret. It made me _so_ happy! It made the world seem like Paradise. Ah! I _knew_ why everything was so _rose_-colored. It was so like _you_ to think of that! Then everything is so elegant! You knew your Rosamunda's taste for elegance. "But Tulee summons me to supper. Dear, good, faithful Tulee! What a comfort she has been to me in this lonesome time!" * * * * * "Now I have come back to the pretty little writing-desk you gave me, and I will finish my letter. I feel as if I wanted to write to you forever, if I can't have you to talk to. You can't imagine how lonesome I have been. The new music you sent me was charming; but whatever I practised or improvised took a solemn and plaintive character, like the moaning of the sea and the whispering of the pines. One's own voice sounds so solitary when there is no other voice to lean upon, and no appreciating ear to listen for the coming chords. I have even found it a relief to play and sing to Tulee, who is always an admiring listener, if not a very discriminating one; and as for Tom, it seems as if the eyes would fly out of his head when I play to him. I have tried to take exercise every day, as you advised; but while the hot weather lasted, I was afraid of snakes, and the mosquitoes and sand-flies were tormenting. Now it is cooler I ramble about more, but my loneliness goes everywhere with me. Everything is so still here, that it sometimes makes me afraid. The moonlight looks awfully solemn on the dark pines. You remember that dead pine-tree? The wind has broken it, and there it stands in front of the evergreen grove, with two arms spread out, and a knot like a head with a hat on it, and a streamer of moss hanging from it. It looks so white and strange in the moonlight, that it seems as if Floracita's spirit were beckoning to me. "But I didn't mean to write about sad things. I don't feel sad now; I was only telling you how lonely and nervous I _had_ been, that you might imagine how much good it has done me to see such kind arrangements at Magnolia Lawn. Forgive me for going there, contrary to your orders. I did so long for a little variety! I couldn't have dreamed you were planning such a pleasant surprise for me. Sha'n't we be happy there, calling one another all the old foolish pet names? Dear, good Gerald, I shall never again have any ungrateful doubts of your love. "_Adios, luz de mes ojos_. Come soon to "Your grateful and loving "ROSA." That evening the plash of the waves no longer seemed like a requiem over her lost sister; the moonlight gave poetic beauty to the pines; and even the blasted tree, with its waving streamer of moss, seemed only another picturesque feature in the landscape; so truly does Nature give us back a reflection of our souls. She waked from a refreshing sleep with a consciousness of happiness unknown for a long time. When Tom came to say he was going to Savannah, she commissioned him to go to the store where her dresses were usually ordered, and buy some fine French merino. She gave him very minute directions, accompanied with a bird-of-paradise pattern. "That is Gerald's favorite color," she said to herself. "I will embroider it with white floss-silk, and tie it with white silk cord and tassels. The first time we breakfast together at Magnolia Lawn I will wear it, fastened at the throat with that pretty little knot of silver filigree he gave me on my birthday. Then I shall look as bridal as the home he is preparing for me." The embroidery of this dress furnished pleasant occupation for many days. When it was half finished, she tried it on before the mirror, and smiled to see how becoming was the effect. She queried whether Gerald would like one or two of Madame Guirlande's pale amber-colored artificial nasturtiums in her hair. She placed them coquettishly by the side of her head for a moment, and laid them down, saying to herself: "No; too much dress for the morning. He will like better the plain braids of my hair with the curls falling over them." As she sat, hour after hour, embroidering the dress which was expected to produce such a sensation, Tulee's heart was gladdened by hearing her sing almost continually. "Bless her dear heart!" exclaimed she; "that sounds like the old times." But when a fortnight passed without an answer to her letter, the showers of melody subsided. Shadows of old doubts began to creep over the inward sunshine; though she tried to drive them away by recalling Gerald's promise to try to secure her safety by making a compromise with her father's creditors. And were not the new arrangements at Magnolia Lawn a sign that he had accomplished his generous purpose? She was asking herself that question for the hundredth time, as she sat looking out on the twilight landscape, when she heard a well-known voice approaching, singing, "C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour, qui fait le monde à la ronde"; and a moment after she was folded in Gerald's arms, and he was calling her endearing names in a polyglot of languages, which he had learned from her and Floracita. "So you are not very angry with me for going there and finding out your secret," inquired she. "I _was_ angry," he replied; "but while I was coming to you all my anger melted away." "And you do love me as well as ever," said she. "I thought perhaps so many handsome ladies would fall in love with you, that I should not be your Rosa _munda_ any more." "I have met many handsome ladies," responded he, "but never one worthy to bear the train of my Rosa Regina." Thus the evening passed in conversation more agreeable to them than the wittiest or the wisest would have been. But it has been well said, "the words of lovers are like the rich wines of the South,--they are delicious in their native soil, but will not bear transportation." The next morning he announced the necessity of returning to the North to complete some business, and said he must, in the mean time, spend some hours at the plantation. "And Rosa dear," added he, "I shall really be angry with you if you go there again unless I am with you." She shook her finger at him, and said, with one of her most expressive smiles: "Ah, I see through you! You are planning some more pleasant surprises for me. How happy we shall be there! As for that rich uncle of yours, if you will only let me see him, I will do my best to make him love me, and perhaps I shall succeed." "It would be wonderful if you did not, you charming enchantress," responded he. He folded her closely, and looked into the depths of her beautiful eyes with intensity, not unmingled with sadness. A moment after he was waving his hat from the shrubbery; and so he passed away out of her sight. His sudden reappearance, his lavish fondness, his quick departure, and the strange earnestness of his farewell look, were remembered like the flitting visions of a dream. CHAPTER XI. In less than three weeks after that tender parting, an elegant barouche stopped in front of Magnolia Lawn, and Mr. Fitzgerald assisted a very pretty blonde young lady to alight from it. As she entered the parlor, wavering gleams of sunset lighted up the pearl-colored paper, softened by lace-shadows from the windows. The lady glanced round the apartment with a happy smile, and, turning to the window, said: "What a beautiful lawn! What superb trees!" "Does it equal your expectations, dear?" he asked. "You had formed such romantic ideas of the place, I feared you might be disappointed." "I suppose that was the reason you tried to persuade me to spend our honeymoon in Savannah," rejoined she. "But we should be so bored with visitors. Here, it seems like the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve had it all to themselves, before the serpent went there to make mischief. I had heard father and mother tell so much about Magnolia Lawn that I was eager to see it." "They visited it in spring, when it really does look like Paradise," replied he. "It has its beauties now; but this is not the favorable season for seeing it; and after we have been here a few days, I think we had better return to Savannah, and come again when the lawn is carpeted with flowers." "I see your mind is bent upon not staying here," answered she; "and I suppose it _would_ be rather tiresome to have no other company than your stupid little Lily Bell." She spoke with a pouting affectation of reproach, and he exclaimed, "Lily, darling!" as he passed his arm round her slender waist, and, putting aside a shower of pale yellowish ringlets, gazed fondly into the blue eyes that were upturned to his. They were interrupted by the entrance of Venus, who came to ask their orders. "Tell them to serve supper at seven, and then come and show your mistress to her dressing-room," he said. As she retired, he added: "Now she'll have something to tell of. She'll be proud enough of being the first to get a full sight of the new Missis; and it _is_ a sight worth talking about." With a gratified smile, she glanced at the pier-glass which reflected her graceful little figure, and, taking his arm, she walked slowly round the room, praising the tasteful arrangements. "Everything has such a bridal look!" she said. "Of course," replied he; "when I have such a fair Lily Bell for a bride, I wish to have her bower pearly and lily-like. But here is Venus come to show you to your dressing-room. I hope you will like the arrangements up stairs also." She kissed her hand to him as she left the room, and he returned the salute. When she had gone, he paced slowly up and down for a few moments. As he passed the piano, he touched the keys in a rambling way. The tones he brought out were a few notes of an air he and Rosabella had sung in that same room a few months before. He turned abruptly from the instrument, and looked out from the window in the direction of the lonely cottage, Nothing was visible but trees and a line of the ocean beyond. But the chambers of his soul were filled with visions of Rosa. He thought of the delightful day they had spent together, looking upon these same scenes; of their songs and caresses in the bower; of her letter, so full of love and glad surprise at the bridal arrangements she supposed he had made for her, "I really hope Lily won't insist upon staying here long," thought he; "for it is rather an embarrassing position for me." He seated himself at the piano and swept his hand up and down the keys, as if trying to drown his thoughts in a tempest of sound. But, do what he would, the thoughts spoke loudest; and after a while he leaned his head forward on the piano, lost in revery. A soft little hand touched his head, and a feminine voice inquired, "What are you thinking of, Gerald?" "Of you, my pearl," he replied, rising hastily, and stooping to imprint a kiss on the forehead of his bride. "And pray what were you thinking about _me_?" she asked. "That you are the greatest beauty in the world, and that I love you better than man ever loved woman," rejoined he. And so the game of courtship went on, till it was interrupted by a summons to supper. When they returned some time later, the curtains were drawn and candles lighted. "You have not yet tried the piano," said he, as he placed the music-stool. She seated herself, and, after running up and down the keys, and saying she liked the tone of the instrument, she began to play and sing "Robin Adair." She had a sweet, thin voice, and her style of playing indicated rather one who had learned music, than one whose soul lived in its element. Fitzgerald thought of the last singing he had heard at that piano; and without asking for another song, he began to sing to her accompaniment, "Drink to me only with thine eyes." He had scarcely finished the line, "Leave a kiss within the cup, and I'll not ask for wine," when clear, liquid tones rose on the air, apparently from the veranda; and the words they carried on their wings were these:-- "Down in the meadow, 'mong the clover, I walked with Nelly by my side. Now all those happy days are over, Farewell, my dark Virginia bride. Nelly was a lady; Last night she died. Toll the bell for lovely Nell, My dark Virginia bride." The bride listened intensely, her fingers resting lightly on the keys, and when the sounds--died away she started up, exclaiming, "What a voice! I never heard anything like it." She moved eagerly toward the veranda, but was suddenly arrested by her husband. "No, no, darling," said he. "You mustn't expose yourself to the night air." "Then do go out yourself and bring her in," urged she. "I must hear more of that voice. Who is she?" "One of the darkies, I suppose," rejoined he. "You know they all have musical gifts." "Not such gifts as that, I imagine," she replied. "Do go out and bring her in." She was about to draw the curtain aside to look out, when he nervously called her attention to another window. "See here!" he exclaimed. "My people are gathering to welcome their new missis. In answer to Tom's request, I told him I would introduce you to them to-night. But you are tired, and I am afraid you will take cold in the evening air; so we will postpone the ceremony until to-morrow." "O, no," she replied, "I would prefer to go now. How their black faces will shine when they see the glass beads and gay handkerchiefs I have brought for them! Besides, I want to find out who that singer is. It's strange you don't take more interest in such a voice as that, when you are so full of music. Will you have the goodness to ring for my shawl?" With a decision almost peremptory in its tone, he said, "No; I had rather you would _not_ go out." Seeing that his manner excited some surprise, he patted her head and added: "Mind your husband now, that's a good child. Amuse yourself at the piano while I go out." She pouted a little, but finished by saying coaxingly, "Come back soon, dear." She attempted to follow him far enough to look out on the veranda, but he gently put her back, and, kissing his hand to her, departed. She raised a corner of the curtain and peeped out to catch the last glimpse of his figure. The moon was rising, and she could see that he walked slowly, peering into spots of dense shadow or thickets of shrubbery, as if looking for some one. But all was motionless and still, save the sound of a banjo from the group of servants. "How I wish I could hear that voice again!" she thought to herself. "It's very singular Gerald should appear so indifferent to it. What can be the meaning of it?" She pondered for a few minutes, and then she tried to play; but not finding it entertaining without an auditor, she soon rose, and, drawing aside one of the curtains, looked out upon the lovely night. The grand old trees cast broad shadows on the lawn, and the shrubbery of the garden gleamed in the soft moonlight. She felt solitary without any one to speak to, and, being accustomed to have her whims gratified, she was rather impatient under the prohibition laid upon her. She rung the bell and requested Venus to bring her shawl. The obsequious dressing-maid laid it lightly on her shoulders, and holding out a white nubia of zephyr worsted, she said, "P'r'aps missis would like to war dis ere." She stood watching while her mistress twined the gossamer fabric round her head with careless grace. She opened the door for her to pass out on the veranda, and as she looked after her she muttered to herself, "She's a pooty missis; but not such a gran' hansom lady as turrer." A laugh shone through her dark face as she added, "'T would be curus ef she should fine turrer missis out dar." As she passed through the parlor she glanced at the large mirror, which dimly reflected her dusky charms, and said with a smile: "Massa knows what's hansome. He's good judge ob we far sex." The remark was inaudible to the bride, who walked up and down the veranda, ever and anon glancing at the garden walks, to see if Gerald were in sight. She had a little plan of hiding among the vines when she saw him coming, and peeping out suddenly as he approached. She thought to herself she should look so pretty in the moonlight, that he would forget to chide her. And certainly she was a pleasant vision. Her fairy figure, enveloped in soft white folds of muslin, her delicate complexion shaded by curls so fair that they seemed a portion of the fleecy nubia, were so perfectly in unison with the mild radiance of the evening, that she seemed like an embodied portion of the moonlight. Gerald absented himself so long that her little plan of surprising him had time to cool. She paused more frequently in her promenade, and looked longer at the distant sparkle of the sea. Turning to resume her walk, after one of these brief moments of contemplation, she happened to glance at the lattice-work of the veranda, and through one of its openings saw a large, dark eye watching her. She started to run into the house, but upon second thought she called out, "Gerald, you rogue, why didn't you speak to let me know you were there?" She darted toward the lattice, but the eye disappeared. She tried to follow, but saw only a tall shadow gliding away behind the corner of the house. She pursued, but found only a tremulous reflection of vines in the moonlight. She kept on round the house, and into the garden, frequently calling out, "Gerald! Gerald!" "Hark! hark!" she murmured to herself, as some far-off tones of "Toll the bell" floated through the air. The ghostly moonlight, the strange, lonely place, and the sad, mysterious sounds made her a little afraid. In a more agitated tone, she called Gerald again. In obedience to her summons, she saw him coming toward her in the garden walk. Forgetful of her momentary fear, she sprang toward him, exclaiming: "Are you a wizard? How did you get there, when two minutes ago you were peeping at me through the veranda lattice?" "I haven't been there," he replied; "but why are you out here, Lily, when I particularly requested you to stay in the house till I came?" "O, you were so long coming, that I grew tired of being alone. The moonlight looked so inviting that I went out on the veranda to watch for you; and when I saw you looking at me through the lattice, I ran after you, and couldn't find you." "I haven't been near the lattice," he replied. "If you saw somebody looking at you, I presume it was one of the servants peeping at the new missis." "None of your tricks!" rejoined she, snapping her fingers at him playfully. "It was _your_ eye that I saw. If it weren't for making you vain, I would ask you whether your handsome eyes could be mistaken for the eyes of one of your negroes. But I want you to go with me to that bower down there." "Not to-night, dearest," said he. "I will go with you to-morrow." "Now is just the time," persisted she. "Bowers never look so pretty as by moonlight. I don't think you are very gallant to your bride to refuse her such a little favor." Thus urged, he yielded, though reluctantly, to her whim. As she entered the bower, and turned to speak to him, the moonlight fell full upon her figure. "What a pretty little witch you are!" he exclaimed. "My Lily Bell, my precious pearl, my sylph! You look like a spirit just floated down from the moon." "All moonshine!" replied she, with a smile. He kissed the saucy lips, and the vines which had witnessed other caresses in that same bower, a few months earlier, whispered to each other, but told no tales. She leaned her head upon his bosom, and looking out upon the winding walks of the garden, so fair and peaceful in sheen and shadow, she said that her new home was more beautiful than she had dreamed. "Hark!" said she, raising her head suddenly, and listening. "I thought I heard a sigh." "It was only the wind among the vines," he replied. "Wandering about in the moonlight has made you nervous." "I believe I _was_ a little afraid before you came," said she. "That eye looking at me through the lattice gave me a start; and while I was running after your shadow, I heard that voice again singing, 'Toll the bell.' I wonder how you can be so indifferent about such a remarkable voice, when you are such a lover of music." "I presume, as I told you before, that it was one of the darkies," rejoined he. "I will inquire about it to-morrow." "I should sooner believe it to be the voice of an angel from heaven, than a darky," responded the bride. "I wish I could hear it again before I sleep." In immediate response to her wish, the full rich voice she had invoked began to sing an air from "Norma," beginning, "O, how his art deceived thee!" Fitzgerald started so suddenly, he overturned a seat near them. "Hush!" she whispered, clinging to his arm. Thus they stood in silence, she listening with rapt attention, he embarrassed and angry almost beyond endurance. The enchanting sounds were obviously receding. "Let us follow her, and settle the question who she is," said Lily, trying to pull him forward. But he held her back strongly. "No more running about to-night," he answered almost sternly. Then, immediately checking himself, he added, in a gentler tone: "It is imprudent in you to be out so long in the evening air; and I am really very tired, dear Lily. To-morrow I will try to ascertain which of the servants has been following you round in this strange way." "Do you suppose any servant could sing _that_?" she exclaimed. "They are nearly all musical, and wonderfully imitative," answered he. "They can catch almost anything they hear." He spoke in a nonchalant tone, but she felt his arm tremble as she leaned upon it. He had never before made such an effort to repress rage. In tones of tender anxiety, she said: "I am afraid you are very tired, dear. I am sorry I kept you out so long." "I am rather weary," he replied, taking her hand, and holding it in his. He was so silent as they walked toward the house, that she feared he was seriously offended with her. As they entered the parlor she said, "I didn't think you cared about my not going out, Gerald, except on account of my taking cold; and with my shawl and nubia I don't think there was the least danger of that. It was such a beautiful night, I wanted to go out to meet you, dear." He kissed her mechanically, and replied, "I am not offended, darling." "Then, if the blue devils possess you, we will try Saul's method of driving them away," said she. She seated herself at the piano, and asked him whether he would accompany her with voice or flute. He tried the flute, but played with such uncertainty, that she looked at him with surprise. Music was the worst remedy she could have tried to quiet the disturbance in his soul; for its voice evoked ghosts of the past. "I am really tired, Lily," said he; and, affecting a drowsiness he did not feel, he proposed retiring for the night. The chamber was beautiful with the moon shining through its rose-tinted drapery, and the murmur of the ocean was a soothing lullaby. But it was long before either of them slept; and when they slumbered, the same voice went singing through their dreams. He was in the flowery parlor at New Orleans, listening to "The Light of other Days"; and she was following a veiled shadow through a strange garden, hearing the intermingled tones of "Norma" and "Toll the bell." It was late in the morning when she awoke. Gerald was gone, but a bouquet of fragrant flowers lay on the pillow beside her. Her dressing-gown was on a chair by the bedside, and Venus sat at the window sewing. "Where is Mr. Fitzgerald?" she inquired. "He said he war gwine to turrer plantation on business. He leff dem flower dar, an' tole me to say he 'd come back soon." The fair hair was neatly arranged by the black hands that contrasted so strongly with it. The genteel little figure was enveloped in a morning-dress of delicate blue and white French cambric, and the little feet were ensconced in slippers of azure velvet embroidered with silver. The dainty breakfast, served on French porcelain, was slowly eaten, and still Gerald returned not. She removed to the chamber window, and, leaning her cheek on her hand, looked out upon the sun-sparkle of the ocean. Her morning thought was the same with which she had passed into slumber the previous night. How strange it was that Gerald would take no notice of that enchanting voice! The incident that seemed to her a charming novelty had, she knew not why, cast a shadow over the first evening in their bridal home. CHAPTER XII. Mr. Fitzgerald had ordered his horse to be saddled at an earlier hour than Tom had ever known him to ride, except on a hunting excursion, and in his own mind he concluded that his master would be asleep at the hour he had indicated. Before he stretched himself on the floor for the night, he expressed this opinion to the cook by saying, "Yer know, Dinah, white folks is allers mighty wide awake de night afore dey gits up." To his surprise, however, Mr. Fitzgerald made his appearance at the stable just as he was beginning to comb the horse. "You lazy black rascal," he exclaimed, "didn't I order you to have the horse ready by this time?" "Yes, Massa," replied Tom, sheering out of the way of the upraised whip; "but it peers like Massa's watch be leetle bit faster dan de sun dis ere mornin'." The horse was speedily ready, and Tom looked after his master as he leaped into the saddle and dashed off in the direction of the lonely cottage. There was a grin on his face as he muttered, "Reckon Missis don't know whar yer gwine." He walked toward the house, whistling, "Nelly was a lady." "Dat ar war gwine roun' an' roun' de hus las' night, jes like a sperit. 'Twar dat ar Spanish lady," said Dinah. "She sings splendiferous," rejoined Tom, "an' Massa liked it more dan de berry bes bottle ob wine." He ended by humming, "Now all dem happy days am ober." "Better not let Massa hear yer sing dat ar," said Dinah. "He make yer sing nudder song." "She's mighty gran' lady, an' a bery perlite missis, an' Ise sorry fur her," replied Tom. Mr. Fitzgerald had no sense of refreshment in his morning ride. He urged his horse along impatiently, with brow contracted and lips firmly compressed. He was rehearsing in his mind the severe reprimand he intended to bestow upon Rosa. He expected to be met with tears and reproaches, to which he would show himself hard till she made contrite apologies for her most unexpected and provoking proceedings. It was his purpose to pardon her at last, for he was far enough from wishing to lose her; and she had always been so gentle and submissive, that he entertained no doubt the scene would end with a loving willingness to accept his explanations, and believe in his renewed professions. "She loves me to distraction, and she is entirely in my power," thought he. "It will be strange indeed if I cannot mould her as I will." Arrived at the cottage, he found Tulee washing on a bench outside the kitchen. "Good morning, Tulee," said he. "Is your mistress up yet?" "Missy Rosy ha'n't been asleep," she answered in a very cold tone, without looking up from her work. He entered the house, and softly opened the door of Rosa's sleeping apartment. She was walking slowly, with arms crossed, looking downward, as if plunged in thought. Her extreme pallor disarmed him, and there was no hardness in his tone when he said, "Rosabella!" She started, for she had supposed the intruder was Tulee. With head proudly erect, nostrils dilated, and eyes that flashed fire, she exclaimed, "How dare you come here?" This reception was so entirely unexpected, that it disconcerted him; and instead of the severe reproof he had contemplated, he said, in an expostulating tone: "Rosa, I always thought you the soul of honor. When we parted, you promised not to go to the plantation unless I was with you. Is this the way you keep your word?" "_You_ talk of honor and promises!" she exclaimed. The sneer conveyed in the tones stung him to the quick. But he made an effort to conceal his chagrin, and said, with apparent calmness: "You must admit it was an unaccountable freak to start for the plantation in the evening, and go wandering round the grounds in that mysterious way. What could have induced you to take such a step?" "I accidentally overheard Tom telling Tulee that you were to bring home a bride from the North yesterday. I could not believe it of you, and I was too proud to question him. But after reflecting upon it, I chose to go and see for myself. And when I _had_ seen for myself, I wished to remind you of that past which you seemed to have forgotten." "Curse on Tom!" he exclaimed. "He shall smart for this mischief." "Don't be so unmanly as to punish a poor servant for mentioning a piece of news that interested the whole plantation, and which must of course be a matter of notoriety," she replied very quietly. "Both he and Tulee were delicate enough to conceal it from me." Fitzgerald felt embarrassed by her perfect self-possession. After a slight pause, during which she kept her face averted from him, he said: "I confess that appearances are against me, and that you have reason to feel offended. But if you knew just how I was situated, you would, perhaps, judge me less harshly. I have met with heavy losses lately, and I was in danger of becoming bankrupt unless I could keep up my credit by a wealthy marriage. The father of this young lady is rich, and she fell in love with me. I have married her; but I tell you truly, dear Rosa, that I love you more than I ever loved any other woman." "You say she loved you, and yet you could deceive her so," she replied. "You could conceal from her that you already had a wife. When I watched her as she walked on the veranda I was tempted to reveal myself, and disclose your baseness." Fitzgerald's eyes flashed with sudden anger, as he vociferated, "Rosa, if you ever dare to set up any such claim--" "If I _dare_!" she exclaimed, interrupting him in a tone of proud defiance, that thrilled through all his nerves. Alarmed by the strength of character which he had never dreamed she possessed, he said: "In your present state of mind, there is no telling what you may dare to do. It becomes necessary for you to understand your true position. You are not my wife. The man who married us had no legal authority to perform the ceremony." "O steeped in falsehood to the lips!" exclaimed she. "And _you_ are the idol I have worshipped!" He looked at her with astonishment not unmingled with admiration. "Rosa, I could not have believed you had such a temper," rejoined he. "But why will you persist in making yourself and me unhappy? As long as my wife is ignorant of my love for you, no harm is done. If you would only listen to reason, we might still be happy. I could manage to visit you often. You would find me as affectionate as ever; and I will provide amply for you." "_Provide_ for me?" she repeated slowly, looking him calmly and loftily in the face. "What have you ever seen in me, Mr. Fitzgerald, that has led you to suppose I would consent to sell myself?" His susceptible temperament could not withstand the regal beauty of her proud attitude and indignant look. "O Rosa," said he, "there is no woman on earth to be compared with you. If you only knew how I idolize you at this moment, after all the cruel words you have uttered, you surely would relent. Why will you not be reasonable, dearest? Why not consent to live with me as your mother lived with your father?" "Don't wrong the memory of my mother," responded she hastily. "She was too pure and noble to be dishonored by your cruel laws. She would never have entered into any such base and degrading arrangement as you propose. She couldn't have lived under the perpetual shame of deceiving another wife. She couldn't have loved my father, if he had deceived her as you have deceived me. She trusted him entirely, and in return he gave her his undivided affection." "And I give you undivided affection," he replied. "By all the stars of heaven, I swear that you are now, as you always have been, my Rosa Regina, my Rosa _munda_." "Do not exhaust your oaths," rejoined she, with a contemptuous curl of the lip. "Keep some of them for your Lily Bell, your precious pearl, your moonlight sylph." Thinking the retort implied a shade of jealousy, he felt encouraged to persevere. "You may thank your own imprudence for having overheard words so offensive to you," responded he. "But Rosa, dearest, you cannot, with all your efforts, drive from you the pleasant memories of our love. You surely do not hate me?" "No, Mr. Fitzgerald; you have fallen below hatred. I despise you." His brow contracted, and his lips tightened. "I cannot endure this treatment," said he, in tones of suppressed rage. "You tempt me too far. You compel me to humble your pride. Since I cannot persuade you to listen to expostulations and entreaties, I must inform you that my power over you is complete. You are my slave. I bought you of your father's creditors before I went to Nassau. I can sell you any day I choose; and, by Jove, I will, if--" The sudden change that came over her arrested him. She pressed one hand hard upon her heart, and gasped for breath. He sank at once on his knees, crying, "O, forgive me, Rosa! I was beside myself." But she gave no sign of hearing him; and seeing her reel backward into a chair, with pale lips and closing eyes, he hastened to summon Tulee. Such remorse came over him that he longed to wait for her returning consciousness. But he remembered that his long absence must excite surprise in the mind of his bride, and might, perhaps, connect itself with the mysterious singer of the preceding evening. Goaded by contending feelings, he hurried through the footpaths whence he had so often kissed his hand to Rosa in fond farewell, and hastily mounted his horse without one backward glance. Before he came in sight of the plantation, the perturbation of his mind had subsided, and he began to think himself a much-injured individual. "Plague on the caprices of women!" thought he. "All this comes of Lily's taking the silly, romantic whim of coming here to spend the honeymoon. And Rosa, foolish girl, what airs she assumes! I wanted to deal generously by her; but she rejected all my offers as haughtily as if she had been queen of Spain and all the Americas. There's a devilish deal more of the Spanish blood in her than I thought for. Pride becomes her wonderfully; but it won't hold out forever. She'll find that she can't live without me. I can wait." Feeling the need of some safety-valve to let off his vexation, he selected poor Tom for that purpose. When the obsequious servant came to lead away the horse, his master gave him a sharp cut of the whip, saying, "I'll teach you to tell tales again, you black rascal!" But having a dainty aversion to the sight of pain, he summoned the overseer, and consigned him to his tender mercies. CHAPTER XIII. If Flora could have known all this, the sisters would have soon been locked in each other's arms; but while she supposed that Rosa still regarded Mr. Fitzgerald with perfect love and confidence, no explanation of her flight could be given. She did indeed need to be often reminded by Mrs. Delano that it would be the most unkind thing toward her sister, as well as hazardous to herself, to attempt any communication. Notwithstanding the tenderest care for her comfort and happiness, she could not help being sometimes oppressed with homesickness. Her Boston home was tasteful and elegant, but everything seemed foreign and strange. She longed for Rosa and Tulee, and Madame and the Signor. She missed what she called the _olla-podrida_ phrases to which she had always been accustomed; and in her desire to behave with propriety, there was an unwonted sense of constraint. When callers came, she felt like a colt making its first acquaintance with harness. She endeavored to conceal such feelings from her kind benefactress; but sometimes, if she was surprised in tears, she would say apologetically, "I love you dearly, Mamita Lila; but it is dreadful to be so far away from anybody that ever knew anything about the old times." "But you forget that I do know something about them, darling," replied Mrs. Delano. "I am never so happy as when you are telling me about your father. Perhaps by and by, when you have become enough used to your new home to feel as mischievous as you are prone to be, you will take a fancy to sing to me, 'O, there's nothing half so sweet in life as love's _old_ dream.'" It was beautiful to see how girlish the sensible and serious lady became in her efforts to be companionable to her young _protégée_. Day after day, her intimate friends found her playing battledoor or the Graces, or practising pretty French romanzas, flowery rondeaux, or lively dances. She was surprised at herself; for she had not supposed it possible for her ever to take an interest in such things after her daughter died. But, like all going out of self, these efforts brought their recompense. She always introduced the little stranger as "Miss Flora Delano, my adopted daughter." To those who were curious to inquire further, she said: "She is an orphan, in whom I became much interested in the West Indies. As we were both very much alone in the world, I thought the wisest thing we could do would be to cheer each other's loneliness." No allusion was ever made to her former name, for that might have led to inconvenient questions concerning her father's marriage; and, moreover, the lady had no wish to resuscitate the little piece of romance in her own private history, now remembered by few. It was contrary to Mrs. Delano's usual caution and deliberation to adopt a stranger so hastily; and had she been questioned beforehand, she would have pronounced it impossible for her to enter into such a relation with one allied to the colored race, and herself a slave. But a strange combination of circumstances had all at once placed her in this most unexpected position. She never for one moment regretted the step she had taken; but the consciousness of having a secret to conceal, especially a secret at war with the conventional rules of society, was distasteful to her, and felt as some diminution of dignity. She did not believe in the genuineness of Rosa's marriage, though she deemed it best not to impart such doubts to Flora. If Mr. Fitzgerald should marry another, she foresaw that it would be her duty to assist in the reunion of the sisters, both of whom were slaves. She often thought to herself, "In what a singular complication I have become involved! So strange for me, who have such an aversion to all sorts of intrigues and mysteries." With these reflections were mingled anxieties concerning Flora's future. Of course, it would not be well for her to be deprived of youthful companionship; and if she mixed with society, her handsome person, her musical talent, and her graceful dancing would be sure to attract admirers. And then, would it be right to conceal her antecedents? And if they should be explained or accidentally discovered, after her young affections were engaged, what disappointment and sadness might follow! But Flora's future was in a fair way to take care of itself. One day she came flying into the parlor with her face all aglow. "O Mamita Lila," exclaimed she, "I have had such a pleasant surprise! I went to Mr. Goldwin's store to do your errand, and who should I find there but Florimond Blumenthal!" "And, pray, who is Florimond Blumenthal?" inquired Mrs. Delano. "O, haven't I told you? I thought I had told you all about everybody and everything. He was a poor orphan, that papa took for an errand-boy. He sent him to school, and afterward he was his clerk. He came to our house often when I was a little girl; but after he grew tall, papa used to send an old negro man to do our errands. So I didn't see him any more till _cher papa_ died. He was very kind to us then. He was the one that brought those beautiful baskets I told you of. Isn't it funny? They drove him away from New Orleans because they said he was an Abolitionist, and that he helped us to escape, when he didn't know anything at all about it. He said he heard we had gone to the North. And he went looking all round in New York, and then he came to Boston, hoping to see us or hear from us some day; but he had about done expecting it when I walked into the store. You never saw anybody so red as he was, when he held out his hand and said, in such a surprised way, 'Miss Royal, is it you?' Just out of mischief, I told him very demurely that my name was Delano. Then he became very formal all at once, and said, 'Does this silk suit you, Mrs. Delano?' That made me laugh, and blush too. I told him I wasn't married, but a kind lady in Summer Street had adopted me and given me her name. Some other customers came up to the counter, and so I had to come away." "Did you ask him not to mention your former name?" inquired Mrs. Delano. "No, I hadn't time to think of that," replied Flora; "but I _will_ ask him." "Don't go to the store on purpose to see him, dear. Young ladies should be careful about such things," suggested her maternal friend. Two hours afterward, as they returned from a carriage-drive, Flora had just drawn off her gloves, when she began to rap on the window, and instantly darted into the street. Mrs. Delano, looking out, saw her on the opposite sidewalk, in earnest conversation with a young gentleman. When she returned, she said to her: "You shouldn't rap on the windows to young gentlemen, my child. It hasn't a good appearance." "I didn't rap to young gentlemen," replied Flora. "It was only Florimond. I wanted to tell him not to mention my name. He asked me about my sister, and I told him she was alive and well, and I couldn't tell him any more at present. Florimond won't mention anything I request him not to,--I know he won't." Mrs. Delano smiled to herself at Flora's quick, off-hand way of doing things. "But after all," thought she, "it is perhaps better settled so, than it would have been with more ceremony." Then speaking aloud, she said, "Your friend has a very blooming name." "His name was Franz," rejoined Flora; "but Mamita called him Florimond, because he had such pink cheeks; and he liked Mamita so much, that he always writes his name Franz Florimond. We always had so many flowery names mixed up with our _olla-podrida_ talk. _Your_ name is flowery too. I used to say Mamita would have called you Lady Viola; but violet colors and lilac colors are cousins, and they both suit your complexion and your name, Mamita Lila." After dinner, she began to play and sing with more gayety than she had manifested for many a day. While her friend played, she practised several new dances with great spirit; and after she had kissed good-night, she went twirling through the door, as if music were handing her out. Mrs. Delano sat awhile in revery. She was thinking what a splendid marriage her adopted daughter might make, if it were not for that stain upon her birth. She was checked by the thought: "How I have fallen into the world's ways, which seemed to me so mean and heartless when I was young! Was _I_ happy in the splendid marriage they made for _me_? From what Flora lets out occasionally, I judge her father felt painfully the anomalous position of his handsome daughters. Alas! if I had not been so weak as to give him up, all this miserable entanglement might have been prevented. So one wrong produces another wrong; and thus frightfully may we affect the destiny of others, while blindly following the lead of selfishness. But the past, with all its weaknesses and sins, has gone beyond recall; and I must try to write a better record on the present." As she passed to her sleeping-room, she softly entered the adjoining chamber, and, shading the lamp with her hand, she stood for a moment looking at Flora. Though it was but a few minutes since she was darting round like a humming-bird, she was now sleeping as sweetly as a babe. She made an extremely pretty picture in her slumber, with the long dark eyelashes resting on her youthful cheek, and a shower of dark curls falling over her arm. "No wonder Alfred loved her so dearly," thought she. "If his spirit can see us, he must bless me for saving his innocent child." Filled with this solemn and tender thought, she knelt by the bedside, and prayed for blessing and guidance in the task she had undertaken. The unexpected finding of a link connected with old times had a salutary effect on Flora's spirits. In the morning, she said that she had had pleasant dreams about Rosabella and Tulee, and that she didn't mean to be homesick any more. "It's very ungrateful," added she, "when my dear, good Mamita Lila does so much to make me happy." "To help you keep your good resolution, I propose that we go to the Athenaeum," said Mrs. Delano, smiling. Flora had never been in a gallery of paintings, and she was as much pleased as a little child with a new picture-book. Her enthusiasm attracted attention, and visitors smiled to see her clap her hands, and to hear her little shouts of pleasure or of fun. Ladies said to each other, "It's plain that this lively little _adoptée_ of Mrs. Delano's has never been much in good society." And gentlemen answered, "It is equally obvious that she has never kept vulgar company." Mrs. Delano's nice ideas of conventional propriety were a little disturbed, and she was slightly annoyed by the attention they attracted. But she said to herself, "If I am always checking the child, I shall spoil the naturalness which makes her so charming." So she quietly went on explaining the pictures, and giving an account of the artists. The next day it rained; and Mrs. Delano read aloud "The Lady of the Lake," stopping now and then to explain its connection with Scottish history, or to tell what scenes Rossini had introduced in _La Donna del Lago_, which she had heard performed in Paris. The scenes of the opera were eagerly imbibed, but the historical lessons rolled off her memory, like water from a duck's back. It continued to rain and drizzle for three days; and Flora, who was very atmospheric, began to yield to the dismal influence of the weather. Her watchful friend noticed the shadow of homesickness coming over the sunlight of her eyes, and proposed that they should go to a concert. Flora objected, saying that music would make her think so much of Rosabella, she was afraid she should cry in public. But when the programme was produced, she saw nothing associated with her sister, and said, "I will go if you wish it, Mamita Lila, because I like to do everything you wish." She felt very indifferent about going; but when Mr. Wood came forward, singing, "The sea, the sea, the open sea!" in tones so strong and full that they seemed the voice of the sea itself, she was half beside herself with delight. She kept time with her head and hands, with a degree of animation that made the people round her smile. She, quite unconscious of observation, swayed to the music, and ever and anon nodded her approbation to a fair-faced young gentleman, who seemed to be enjoying the concert very highly, though not to such a degree as to be oblivious of the audience. Mrs. Delano was partly amused and partly annoyed. She took Flora's hand, and by a gentle pressure, now and then, sought to remind her that they were in public; but she understood it as an indication of musical sympathy, and went on all the same. When they entered the carriage to return home, she drew a long breath, and exclaimed, O Mamita, how I have enjoyed the concert!" "I am very glad of it," replied her friend. "I suppose that was Mr. Blumenthal to whom you nodded several times, and who followed you to the carriage. But, my dear, it isn't the custom for young ladies to keep nodding to young gentlemen in public places." "Isn't it? I didn't think anything about it," rejoined Flora. "But Florimond isn't a gentleman. He's an old acquaintance. Don't you find it very tiresome, Mamita, to be always remembering what is the custom? I'm sure _I_ shall never learn." When she went singing up stairs that night, Mrs. Delano smiled to herself as she said, "What _am_ I to do with this mercurial young creature? What an overturn she makes in all my serious pursuits and quiet ways! But there is something singularly refreshing about the artless little darling." Warm weather was coming, and Mrs. Delano began to make arrangements for passing the summer at Newport; but her plans were suddenly changed. One morning Flora wished to purchase some colored crayons to finish a drawing she had begun. As she was going out, her friend said to her, "The sun shines so brightly, you had better wear your veil." "O, I've been muffled up so much, I do detest veils," replied Flora, half laughingly and half impatiently. "I like to have a whole world full of air to breathe in. But if you wish it, Mamita Lila, I will wear it." It seemed scarcely ten minutes after, when the door-bell was rung with energy, and Flora came in nervously agitated. "O Mamita!" exclaimed she, "I am so glad you advised me to wear a veil. I met Mr. Fitzgerald in this very street. I don't think he saw me, for my veil was close, and as soon as I saw him coming I held my head down. He can't take me here in Boston, and carry me off, can he?" "He shall not carry you off, darling; but you must not go in the street, except in the carriage with me. We will sit up stairs, a little away from the windows; and if I read aloud, you won't forget yourself and sing at your embroidery or drawing, as you are apt to do. It's not likely he will remain in the city many days, and I will try to ascertain his movements." Before they had settled to their occupations, a ring at the door made Flora start, and quickened the pulses of her less excitable friend. It proved to be only a box of flowers from the country. But Mrs. Delano, uneasy in the presence of an undefined danger, the nature and extent of which she did not understand, opened her writing-desk and wrote the following note:-- "MR. WILLARD PERCIVAL. "Dear Sir,--If you can spare an hour this evening to talk with me on a subject of importance, you will greatly oblige yours, "Very respectfully, "LILA DELANO" A servant was sent with the note, and directed to admit no gentleman during the day or evening, without first bringing up his name. While they were lingering at the tea-table, the door-bell rang, and Flora, with a look of alarm, started to run up stairs. "Wait a moment, till the name is brought in," said her friend. "If I admit the visitor, I should like to have you follow me to the parlor, and remain there ten or fifteen minutes. You can then go to your room, and when you are there, dear, be careful not to sing loud. Mr. Fitzgerald shall not take you from me; but if he were to find out you were here, it might give rise to talk that would be unpleasant." The servant announced Mr. Willard Percival; and a few moments afterward Mrs. Delano introduced her _protégée_. Mr. Percival was too well bred to stare, but the handsome, foreign-looking little damsel evidently surprised him. He congratulated them both upon the relation between them, and said he need not wish the young lady happiness in her new home, for he believed Mrs. Delano always created an atmosphere of happiness around her. After a few moments of desultory conversation, Flora left the room. When she had gone, Mr. Percival remarked, "That is a very fascinating young person." "I thought she would strike you agreeably," replied Mrs. Delano. "Her beauty and gracefulness attracted me the first time I saw her; and afterward I was still more taken by her extremely _naïve_ manner. She has been brought up in seclusion as complete as Miranda's on the enchanted island; and there is no resisting the charm of her impulsive naturalness. But, if you please, I will now explain the note I sent to you this morning. I heard some months ago that you had joined the Anti-Slavery Society." "And did you send for me hoping to convert me from the error of my ways?" inquired he, smiling. "On the contrary, I sent for you to consult concerning a slave in whom I am interested." "_You_, Mrs. Delano!" he exclaimed, in a tone of great surprise. "You may well think it strange," she replied, "knowing, as you do, how bitterly both my father and my husband were opposed to the anti-slavery agitation, and how entirely apart my own life has been from anything of that sort. But while I was at the South this winter, I heard of a case which greatly interested my feelings. A wealthy American merchant in New Orleans became strongly attached to a beautiful quadroon, who was both the daughter and the slave of a Spanish planter. Her father became involved in some pecuniary trouble, and sold his daughter to the American merchant, knowing that they were mutually attached. Her bondage was merely nominal, for the tie of affection remained constant between them as long as she lived; and he would have married her if such marriages had been legal in Louisiana. By some unaccountable carelessness, he neglected to manumit her. She left two handsome and accomplished daughters, who always supposed their mother to be a Spanish lady, and the wedded wife of their father. But he died insolvent, and, to their great dismay, they found themselves claimed as slaves under the Southern law, that 'the child follows the condition of the mother.' A Southern gentleman, who was in love with the eldest, married her privately, and smuggled them both away to Nassau. After a while he went there to meet them, having previously succeeded in buying them of the creditors. But his conduct toward the younger was so base, that she absconded. The question I wish to ask of you is, whether, if he should find her in the Free States, he could claim her as his slave, and have his claim allowed by law." "Not if he sent them to Nassau," replied Mr. Percival. "British soil has the enviable distinction of making free whosoever touches it." "But he afterward brought them back to an island between Georgia and South Carolina," said Mrs. Delano. "The eldest proved a most loving and faithful wife, and to this day has no suspicion of his designs with regard to her sister." "If he married her before he went to Nassau, the ceremony is not binding," rejoined Mr. Percival; "for no marriage with a slave is legal in the Southern States." "I was ignorant of that law," said Mrs. Delano, "being very little informed on the subject of slavery. But I suspected trickery of some sort in the transaction, because he proved himself so unprincipled with regard to the sister." "And where is the sister?" inquired Mr. Percival. "I trust to your honor as a gentleman to keep the secret from every mortal," answered Mrs. Delano. "You have seen her this evening." "Is it possible," he exclaimed, "that you mean to say she is your adopted daughter?" "I did mean to say that," she replied. "I have placed great confidence in you; for you can easily imagine it would be extremely disagreeable to me, as well as to her, to become objects of public notoriety." "Your confidence is a sacred deposit," answered he. "I have long been aware that the most romantic stories in the country have grown out of the institution of slavery; but this seems stranger than fiction. With all my knowledge of the subject, I find it hard to realize that such a young lady as that has been in danger of being sold on the auction-block in this republic. It makes one desirous to conceal that he is an American." "My principal reason for wishing to consult you," said Mrs. Delano, "is, that Mr. Fitzgerald, the purchaser of these girls, is now in the city, and Flora met him this morning. Luckily, she was closely veiled, and he did not recognize her. I think it is impossible he can have obtained any clew to my connivance at her escape, and yet I feel a little uneasy. I am so ignorant of the laws on this subject, that I don't know what he has the power to do if he discovers her. Can he claim her here in Boston?" "He could claim her and bring her before the United States Court," replied Mr. Percival; "but I doubt whether he _would_ do it. To claim such a girl as _that_ for a slave, would excite general sympathy and indignation, and put too much ammunition into the hands of us Abolitionists. Besides, no court in the Free States could help deciding that, if he sent her to Nassau, she became free. If he should discover her whereabouts, I shouldn't wonder if attempts were made to kidnap her; for men of his character are very unscrupulous, and there are plenty of caitiffs in Boston ready to do any bidding of their Southern masters. If she were conveyed to the South, though the courts _ought_ to decide she was free, it is doubtful whether they _would_ do it; for, like Achilles, they scorn the idea that laws were made for such as they." "If I were certain that Mr. Fitzgerald knew of her being here, or that he even suspected it," said Mrs. Delano, "I would at once take measures to settle the question by private purchase; but the presumption is that he and the sister suppose Flora to be dead, and her escape cannot be made known without betraying the cause of it. Flora has a great dread of disturbing her sister's happiness, and she thinks that, now she is away, all will go well. Another difficulty is, that, while the unfortunate lady believes herself to be his lawful wife, she is really his slave, and if she should offend him in any way he could sell her. It troubles me that I cannot discover any mode of ascertaining whether he deserts her or not. He keeps her hidden in the woods in that lonely island, where her existence is unknown, except to a few of his negro slaves. The only white friends she seems to have in the world are her music teacher and French teacher in New Orleans. Mr. Fitzgerald has impressed it upon their minds that the creditors of her father will prosecute him, and challenge him, if they discover that he first conveyed the girls away and then bought them at reduced prices. Therefore, if I should send an agent to New Orleans at any time to obtain tidings of the sister, those cautious friends would doubtless consider it a trap of the creditors, and would be very secretive." "It is a tangled skein to unravel," rejoined Mr. Percival. "I do not see how anything can be done for the sister, under present circumstances." "I feel undecided what course to pursue with regard to my adopted daughter," said Mrs. Delano. "Entire seclusion is neither cheerful nor salutary at her age. But her person and manners attract attention and excite curiosity. I am extremely desirous to keep her history secret, but I already find it difficult to answer questions without resorting to falsehood, which is a practice exceedingly abhorrent to me, and a very bad education for her. After this meeting with Mr. Fitzgerald, I cannot take her to any public place without a constant feeling of uneasiness. The fact is, I am so unused to intrigues and mysteries, and I find it so hard to realize that a young girl like her _can_ be in such a position, that I am bewildered, and need time to settle my thoughts upon a rational basis." "Such a responsibility is so new to you, so entirely foreign to your habits, that it must necessarily be perplexing," replied her visitor. "I would advise you to go abroad for a while. Mrs. Percival and I intend to sail for Europe soon, and if you will join us we shall consider ourselves fortunate." "I accept the offer thankfully," said the lady. "It will help me out of a present difficulty in the very way I was wishing for." When the arrangement was explained to Flora, with a caution not to go in the streets, or show herself at the windows meanwhile, she made no objection. But she showed her dimples with a broad smile, as she said, "It is written in the book of fate, Mamita Lila, 'Always hiding or running away.'" CHAPTER XIV. Alfred R. King, when summoned home to Boston by the illness of his mother, had, by advice of physicians, immediately accompanied her to the South of France, and afterward to Egypt. Finding little benefit from change of climate, and longing for familiar scenes and faces, she urged her son to return to New England, after a brief sojourn in Italy. She was destined never again to see the home for which she yearned. The worn-out garment of her soul was laid away under a flowery mound in Florence, and her son returned alone. During the two years thus occupied, communication with the United States had been much interrupted, and his thoughts had been so absorbed by his dying mother, that the memory of that bright evening in New Orleans recurred less frequently than it would otherwise have done. Still, the veiled picture remained in his soul, making the beauty of all other women seem dim. As he recrossed the Atlantic, lonely and sad, a radiant vision of those two sisters sometimes came before his imagination with the distinctness of actual presence. As he sat silently watching the white streak of foam in the wake of the vessel, he could see, as in a mirror, all the details of that flowery parlor; he could hear the continuous flow of the fountain in the garden, and the melodious tones of "Buena Notte, amato bene." Arrived in Boston, his first inquiry of the merchants was whether they had heard anything of Mr. Royal. He received the news of his death with a whirl of emotions. How he longed for tidings concerning the daughters! But questions would of course be unavailing, since their existence was entirely unknown at the North. That Mr. Royal had died insolvent, and his property had been disposed of at auction, filled him with alarm. It instantly occurred to him how much power such circumstances would place in the hands of Mr. Fitzgerald. The thought passed through his mind, "Would he marry Rosabella?" And he seemed to hear a repetition of the light, careless tones, "Of course not,--she was a quadroon." His uneasiness was too strong to be restrained, and the second day after his arrival he started for New Orleans. He found the store of his old friend occupied by strangers, who could only repeat what he had already heard. He rode out to the house where he had passed that never-to-be-forgotten evening. There all was painfully changed. The purchasers had refurnished the house with tasteless gewgaws, and the spirit of gracefulness had vanished. Their unmodulated voices grated on his ear, in contrast with the liquid softness of Rosabella's tones, and the merry, musical tinkling of Floracita's prattle. All they could tell him was, that they heard the quadroons who used to be kept there by the gentleman that owned the house had gone to the North somewhere. A pang shot through his soul as he asked himself whether they remembered his offer of assistance, and had gone in search of him. He turned and looked back upon the house, as he had done that farewell morning, when he assured them that he would be a brother in time of need. He could hardly believe that all the life and love and beauty which animated that home had vanished into utter darkness. It seemed stranger than the changes of a dream. Very sad at heart, he returned to the city and sought out a merchant with whom his father had been accustomed to transact business. "Mr. Talbot," said he, "I have come to New Orleans to inquire concerning the affairs of the late Mr. Alfred Royal, who was a particular friend of my father. I have been surprised to hear that he died insolvent; for I supposed him to be wealthy." "He was generally so considered," rejoined Mr. Talbot. "But he was brought down by successive failures, and some unlucky investments, as we merchants often are, you know." "Were you acquainted with him," asked Alfred. "I knew very little of him, except in the way of business," replied the merchant. "He was disinclined to society, and therefore some people considered him eccentric; but he had the reputation of being a kind-hearted, honorable man." "I think he never married," said Alfred, in a tone of hesitating inquiry, which he hoped might lead to the subject he had at heart. But it only elicited the brief reply, "He was a bachelor." "Did you ever hear of any family not legitimated by law?" inquired the young man. "There was a rumor about his living somewhere out of the city with a handsome quadroon," answered the merchant. "But such arrangements are so common here, they excite no curiosity." "Can you think of any one who had intimate relations with him, of whom I could learn something about that connection?" "No, I cannot. As I tell you, he never mixed with society, and people knew very little about him. Ha! there's a gentleman going by now, who may be able to give you some information. Hallo, Signor Papanti!" The Italian, who was thus hailed, halted in his quick walk, and, being beckoned to by Mr. Talbot, crossed the street and entered the store. "I think you brought a bill against the estate of the late Mr. Alfred Royal for lessons given to some quadroon girls. Did you not?" inquired the merchant. Having received an answer in the affirmative, he said: "This is Mr. King, a young gentleman from the North, who wishes to obtain information on that subject. Perhaps you can give it to him." "I remember the young gentleman," replied the Signor. "Mr. Royal did introduce me to him at his store." The two gentlemen thus introduced bade Mr. Talbot good morning, and walked away together, when Mr. King said, "My father and Mr. Royal were as brothers, and that is the reason I feel interested to know what has become of his daughters." The Italian replied, "I will tell _you_, sir, because Mr. Royal told me you were an excellent man, and the son of his old friend." Rapid questions and answers soon brought out the principal features of the sisters' strange history. When it came to the fact of their being claimed as slaves, Mr. King started. "Is such a thing possible in this country?" he exclaimed. "Girls so elegant and accomplished as they were!" "Quite possible, sir," responded the Signor. "I have known several similar instances in this city. But in this case I was surprised, because I never knew their mother was a slave. She was a singularly handsome and ladylike woman." "How was it possible that Mr. Royal neglected to manumit her?" inquired the young man. "I suppose he never thought of her otherwise than as his wife, and never dreamed of being otherwise than rich," rejoined the Signor." Besides, you know how often death does overtake men with their duties half fulfilled. He did manumit his daughters a few months before his decease; but it was decided that he was then too deeply in debt to have a right to dispose of any portion of his property." "Property!" echoed the indignant young man. "Such a term applied to women makes me an Abolitionist." "Please not to speak that word aloud," responded the Italian. "I was in prison several weeks on the charge of helping off those interesting pupils of mine, and I don't know what might have become of me, if Mr. Fitzgerald had not helped me by money and influence. I have my own opinions about slavery, but I had rather go out of New Orleans before I express them." "A free country indeed!" exclaimed the young man, "where one cannot safely express his indignation against such enormities. But tell me how the girls were rescued from such a dreadful fate; for by the assurance you gave me at the outset that they needed no assistance, I infer that they were rescued." He listened with as much composure as he could to the account of Mr. Fitzgerald's agency in their escape, his marriage, Rosabella's devoted love for him, and her happy home on a Paradisian island. The Signor summed it up by saying, "I believe her happiness has been entirely without alloy, except the sad fate of her sister, of which we heard a few weeks ago." "What has happened to her?" inquired Alfred, with eager interest. "She went to the sea-shore to gather mosses, and never returned," replied the Signor. "It is supposed she slipped into the water and was drowned, or that she was seized by an alligator." "O horrid!" exclaimed Alfred. "Poor Floracita! What a bright, beaming little beauty she was! But an alligator's mouth was a better fate than slavery." "Again touching upon the dangerous topic!" rejoined the Signor. "If you stay here long, I think you and the prison-walls will become acquainted. But here is what used to be poor Mr. Royal's happy home, and yonder is where Madame Papanti resides,--the Madame Guirlande I told you of, who befriended the poor orphans when they had no other friend. Her kindness to them, and her courage in managing for them, was what first put it in my head to ask her to be my wife. Come in and have a _tête-à-tête_ with her, sir. She knew the girls from the time they were born, and she loved them like a mother." Within the house, the young man listened to a more prolonged account, some of the details of which were new, others a repetition. Madame dwelt with evident satisfaction on the fact that Rosa, in the midst of all her peril, refused to accept the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald, unless she were married to him; because she had so promised her father, the night before he died. "That was highly honorable to her," replied Mr. King; "but marriage with a slave is not valid in law." "So the Signor says," rejoined Madame. "I was so frightened and hurried, and I was so relieved when a protector offered himself, that I didn't think to inquire anything about it. Before Mr. Fitzgerald made his appearance, we had planned to go to Boston in search of you." "Of _me_!" he exclaimed eagerly. "O, how I wish you had, and that I had been in Boston to receive you!" "Well, I don't know that anything better could be done than has been done," responded Madame. "The girls were handsome to the perdition of their souls, as we say in France; and they knew no more about the world than two blind kittens. Their mother came here a stranger, and she made no acquaintance. Thus they seemed to be left singularly alone when their parents were gone. Mr. Fitzgerald was so desperately in love with Rosabella, and she with him, that they could not have been kept long apart any way. He has behaved very generously toward them. By purchasing them, he has taken them out of the power of the creditors, some of whom were very bad men. He bought Rosa's piano, and several other articles to which they were attached on their father's and mother's account, and conveyed them privately to the new home he had provided for them. Rosabella always writes of him as the most devoted of husbands; and dear little Floracita used to mention him as the kindest of brothers. So there seems every reason to suppose that Rosa will be as fortunate as her mother was." "I hope so," replied Mr. King. "But I know Mr. Royal had very little confidence in Mr. Fitzgerald; and the brief acquaintance I had with him impressed me with the idea that he was a heartless, insidious man. Moreover, they are his slaves." "They don't know that," rejoined Madame. "He has had the delicacy to conceal it from them." "It would have been more delicate to have recorded their manumission," responded Mr. King. "That would necessarily involve change of residence," remarked the Signor; "for the laws of Georgia forbid the manumission of slaves within the State." "What blasphemy to call such cruel enactments by the sacred name of law!" replied the young man. "As well might the compacts of robbers to secure their plunder be called law. The walls have no ears or tongues, Signor," added he, smiling; "so I think you will not be thrust in jail for having such an imprudent guest. But, as I was saying, I cannot help having misgivings concerning the future. I want you to keep a sharp lookout concerning the welfare of those young ladies, and to inform me from time to time. Wheresoever I may happen to be, I will furnish you with my address, and I wish you also to let me know where you are to be found, if you should change your residence. My father and Mr. Royal were like brothers when they were young men, and if my father were living he would wish to protect the children of his friend. The duty that he would have performed devolves upon me. I will deposit five thousand dollars with Mr. Talbot, for their use, subject to your order, should any unhappy emergency occur. I say _their_ use, bearing in mind the possibility that Floracita may reappear, though that seems very unlikely. But, my friends, I wish to bind you, by the most solemn promise, never to mention my name in connection with this transaction, and never to give any possible clew to it. I wish you also to conceal my having come here to inquire concerning them. If they ever need assistance, I do not wish them to know or conjecture who their benefactor is. If you have occasion to call for the money, merely say that an old friend of their father's deposited it for their use." "I will solemnly pledge myself to secrecy," answered the Signor; "and though secrets are not considered very safe with women, I believe Madame may be trusted to any extent, where the welfare of these girls is concerned." "I think you might say rather more than that, my friend," rejoined Madame. "But that will do. I promise to do in all respects as the young gentleman has requested, though I trust and believe that his precautions will prove needless. Mr. Fitzgerald is very wealthy, and I cannot suppose it possible that he would ever allow Rosabella to want for anything." "That may be," replied Mr. King. "But storms come up suddenly in the sunniest skies, as was the case with poor Mr. Royal. If Mr. Fitzgerald's love remains constant, he may fail, or he may die, without making provision for her manumission or support." "That is very true," answered the Signor. "How much forecast you Yankees have!" "I should hardly deserve that compliment, my friends, if I failed to supply you with the necessary means to carry out my wishes." He put two hundred dollars into the hands of each, saying, "You will keep me informed on the subject; and if Mrs. Fitzgerald should be ill or in trouble, your will go to her." They remonstrated, saying it was too much. "Take it then for what you _have_ done," replied he. When he had gone, Madame said, "Do you suppose he does all this on account of the friendship of their fathers?" "He's an uncommon son, if he does," replied the Signor. "But I'm glad Rosabella has such a firm anchor to the windward if a storm should come." Mr. King sought Mr. Talbot again, and placed five thousand dollars in his hands, with the necessary forms and instructions, adding: "Should any unforeseen emergency render a larger sum necessary, please to advance it, and draw on me. I am obliged to sail for Smyrna soon, on business, or I would not trouble you to attend to this." Mr. Talbot smiled significantly, as he said, "These young ladies must be very charming, to inspire so deep an interest in their welfare." The young man, clad in the armor of an honest purpose, did not feel the point of the arrow, and answered quietly: "They _are_ very charming. I saw them for a few hours only, and never expect to see them again. Their father and mine were very intimate friends, and I feel it a duty to protect them from misfortune if possible." When the business was completed, and they had exchanged parting salutations, he turned back to say, "Do you happen to know anything of Mr. Fitzgerald of Savannah?" "I never had any acquaintance with him," replied Mr. Talbot; "but he has the name of being something of a _roué_, and rather fond of cards." "Can the death of Floracita be apocryphal?" thought Alfred. "Could he be capable of selling her? No. Surely mortal man could not wrong that artless child." He returned to his lodgings, feeling more fatigued and dispirited than usual. He had done all that was possible for the welfare of the woman who had first inspired him with love; but O, what would he not have given for such an opportunity as Fitzgerald had! He was obliged to confess to himself that the utter annihilation of his hope was more bitter than he had supposed it would be. He no longer doubted that he would have married her if he could, in full view of all her antecedents, and even with his mother's prejudices to encounter. He could not, however, help smiling at himself, as he thought: "Yet how very different she was from what I had previously resolved to choose! How wisely I have talked to young men about preferring character to beauty! And lo! I found myself magnetized at first sight by mere beauty!" But manly pride rebelled against the imputation of such weakness. "No, it was not mere outward beauty," he said to himself. "True, I had no opportunity of becoming acquainted with the qualities of her soul, but her countenance unmistakably expressed sweetness, modesty, and dignity, and the inflexions of her voice were a sure guaranty for refinement." With visions of past and future revolving round him, he fell asleep and dreamed he saw Rosabella alone on a plank, sinking in a tempestuous sea. Free as he thought himself from superstition, the dream made an uncomfortable impression on him, though he admitted that it was the natural sequence of his waking thoughts. CHAPTER XV. Rosa came out of her swoon in a slow fever accompanied with delirium. Tulee was afraid to leave her long enough to go to the plantation in search of Tom; and having no medicines at hand, she did the best thing that could have been done. She continually moistened the parched tongue with water, and wiped the hot skin with wet cloths. While she was doing this, tears fell on her dear young mistress, lying there so broken and helpless, talking incoherently about her father and Floracita, about being a slave and being sold. This continued eight or ten days, during which she never seemed to recognize Tulee's presence, or to be conscious where she was. She was never wild or troublesome, but there were frequent restless motions, and signs of being afraid of something. Then such a heavy drowsiness came over her, that it was difficult to arouse her sufficiently to swallow a spoonful of nourishment. She slept, and slept, till it seemed as if she would sleep forever. "Nature, dear goddess," was doing the best she could for the poor weak body, that had been so racked by the torture of the soul. Three weeks passed before Mr. Fitzgerald again made his appearance at the lonely cottage. He had often thought of Rosa meanwhile, not without uneasiness and some twinges of self-reproach. But considering the unlucky beginning of his honeymoon at Magnolia Lawn, he deemed it prudent to be very assiduous in his attentions to his bride. He took no walks or drives without her, and she seemed satisfied with his entire devotion; but a veiled singing shadow haunted the chambers of her soul. When she and her husband were occupied with music, she half expected the pauses would be interrupted by another voice; nor was he free from fears that those wandering sounds would come again. But annoyed as he would have been by the rich tones of that voice once so dear to him, his self-love was piqued that Rosa took no steps to recall him. He had such faith in his power over her, that he had been daily hoping for a conciliatory note. Tom had been as attentive to the invalid as his enslaved condition would admit; but as Tulee said very decidedly that she didn't want Massa Fitzgerald to show his face there, he did not volunteer any information. At last, his master said to him one day, "You've been to the cottage, I suppose, Tom?" "Yes, Massa." "How are they getting on there?" "Missy Rosy hab bin bery sick, but she done better now." "Why didn't you tell me, you black rascal?" "Massa hab neber ax me," replied Tom. Mr. Fitzgerald found some food for vanity in this news. He presumed the illness was caused by love for him, which Rosa found herself unable to conquer. This idea was very pleasant to him; for it was not easy to relinquish the beautiful young creature who had loved him so exclusively. Making a pretext of business, he mounted his horse and rode off; throwing a farewell kiss to his bride as he went. For greater security, he travelled a few moments in another direction, and then sought the sequestered cottage by a circuitous route. Tulee was vexed at heart when she heard him, as he came through the woods, humming, "_C'est l'amour, l'amour_"; and when he entered the cottage, she wished she was a white man, that she could strike him. But when he said, "Tulee, how is your mistress?" she civilly answered, "Better, Massa." He passed softly into Rosa's room. She was lying on the bed, in a loose white robe, over which fell the long braids of her dark hair. The warm coloring had entirely faded from her cheeks, leaving only that faintest reflection of gold which she inherited from her mother; and the thinness and pallor of her face made her large eyes seem larger and darker. They were open, but strangely veiled; as if shadows were resting on the soul, like fogs upon a landscape. When Gerald bent over her, she did not see him, though she seemed to be looking at him. He called her by the tenderest names; he cried out in agony, "O Rosa, speak to me, darling!" She did not hear him. He had never before been so deeply moved. He groaned aloud, and, covering his face with his hands, he wept. When Tulee, hearing the sound, crept in to see whether all was well with her mistress, she found him in that posture. She went out silently, but when she was beyond hearing she muttered to herself, "Ise glad he's got any human feelin'." After the lapse of a few moments, he came to her, saying, "O Tulee, do you think she's going to die? Couldn't a doctor save her?" "No, Massa, I don't believe she's going to die," replied Tulee; "but she'll be very weak for a great while. I don't think all the doctors in the world could do poor Missy Rosy any good. It's her soul that's sick, Massa; and nobody but the Great Doctor above can cure that." Her words cut him like a knife; but, without any attempt to excuse the wrong he had done, he said: "I am going to Savannah for the winter. I will leave Tom and Chloe at the plantation, with instructions to do whatever you want done. If I am needed, you can send Tom for me." The melancholy wreck he had seen saddened him for a day or two; those eyes, with their mysterious expression of somnambulism, haunted him, and led him to drown uncomfortable feelings in copious draughts of wine. But, volatile as he was impressible, the next week saw him the gayest of the gay in parties at Savannah, where his pretty little bride was quite the fashion. At the cottage there was little change, except that Chloe, by her master's permission, became a frequent visitor. She was an affectionate, useful creature, with good voice and ear, and a little wild gleam of poetry in her fervid eyes. When she saw Rosa lying there so still, helpless and unconscious as a new-born babe, she said, solemnly, "De sperit hab done gone somewhar." She told many stories of wonderful cures she had performed by prayer; and she would kneel by the bedside, hour after hour, holding the invalid's hand, praying, "O Lord, fotch back de sperit! Fotch back de sperit! Fotch back de sperit!" she would continue to repeat in ascending tones, till they rose to wild imploring. Tulee, looking on one day, said, "Poor Missy Rosy don't hear nothin' ye say, though ye call so loud." "De good Lord up dar, He hars," replied Chloe, reverently pointing upward; and she went on with the vehement repetition. These supplications were often varied with Methodist hymns and negro melodies, of which the most common refrain was, "O glory! glory! glory!" But whether singing or praying, she made it a point to hold the invalid's hand and look into her eyes. For a long while, the spirit that had gone somewhere showed no signs of returning, in obedience to the persevering summons. But after several weeks had elapsed, there was a blind groping for Chloe's hand; and when it was found, Tulee thought she perceived something like a little flickering gleam flit over the pale face. Still, neither of the nurses was recognized; and no one ever knew what the absent soul was seeing and hearing in that mysterious somewhere whither it had flown. At last, Chloe's patient faith was rewarded by a feeble pressure of her hand. Their watchfulness grew more excited; and never did mother welcome the first gleam of intelligence in her babe with more thrilling joy, than the first faint, quivering smile on Rosa's lips was welcomed by those anxious, faithful friends. The eyes began to resume their natural expression. The fog was evidently clearing away from the soul, and the sunshine was gleaming through. The process of resuscitation was thenceforth constant, though very slow. It was three months after those cruel blows fell upon her loving heart before she spoke and feebly called them by their names. And not until a month later was she able to write a few lines to quiet the anxiety of Madame and the Signor. A few days before her last ghostly visit to Magnolia Lawn, she had written them a very joyful letter, telling them of Gerald's preparations to acknowledge her as his wife, and make her the mistress of his beautiful home. They received the tidings with great joy, and answered with hearty congratulations. The Signor was impatient to write to Mr. King; but Madame, who had learned precaution and management by the trials and disappointments of a changing life, thought it best to wait till they could inform him of the actual fact. As Rosa had never been in the habit of writing oftener than once in four or five weeks, they felt no uneasiness until after that time had elapsed; and even then they said to each other, "She delays writing, as we do, until everything is arranged." But when seven or eight weeks had passed, Madame wrote again, requesting an immediate answer. Owing to the peculiar position of the sisters, letters to them had always been sent under cover to Mr. Fitzgerald; and when this letter arrived, he was naturally curious to ascertain whether Madame was aware of his marriage. It so happened that it had not been announced in the only paper taken by the Signor; and as they lived in a little foreign world of their own, they remained in ignorance of it. Having read the letter, Mr. Fitzgerald thought, as Rosa was not in a condition to read it, it had better be committed to the flames. But fearing that Madame or the Signor might come to Savannah in search of tidings, and that some unlucky accident might bring them to speech of his bride, he concluded it was best to ward off such a contingency. He accordingly wrote a very studied letter to Madame, telling her that, with her knowledge of the world, he supposed she must be well aware that the daughter of a quadroon slave could not be legally recognized as the wife of a Southern gentleman; that he still loved Rosa better than any other woman, but wishing for legal heirs to his hereditary estate, it was necessary for him to marry. He stated that Rosa was recovering from a slow fever, and had requested him to say that they must not feel anxious about her; that she had everything for her comfort, had been carefully attended by two good nurses, was daily getting better, and would write in a few weeks; meanwhile, if anything retarded her complete recovery, he would again write. This letter he thought would meet the present emergency. His plans for the future were unsettled. He still hoped that Rosa, alone and unprotected as she was, without the legal ownership of herself, and subdued by sickness and trouble, would finally accede to his terms. She, in her unconscious state, was of course ignorant of this correspondence. For some time after she recognized her nurses, she continued to be very drowsy, and manifested no curiosity concerning her condition. She was as passive in their hands as an infant, and they treated her as such. Chloe sung to her, and told her stories, which were generally concerning her own remarkable experiences; for she was a great seer of visions. Perhaps she owed them to gifts of imagination, of which culture would have made her a poet; but to her they seemed to be an objective reality. She often told of seeing Jesus, as she walked to and from the plantation. Once she had met him riding upon Thistle, with a golden crown upon his head. One evening he had run before her all the way, as a very little child, whose shining garments lighted up all the woods. Four months after the swift destruction of her hopes, Rosa, after taking some drink from Tulee's hand, looked up in her face, and said, "How long have I been sick, dear Tulee?" "No matter about that, darling," she replied, patting her head fondly. "Ye mustn't disturb your mind 'bout that." After a little pause, the invalid said, "But tell me how long." "Well then, darling, I didn't keep no 'count of the time; but Tom says it's February now." "Yer see, Missy Rosy," interposed Chloe, "yer sperit hab done gone somewhar, an' yer didn't know nottin'. But a booful angel, all in white, tuk yer by de han' an' toted yer back to Tulee an' Chloe. Dat ar angel hab grat hansum eyes, an' she tole me she war yer mudder; an' dat she war gwine to be wid yer allers, cause twar de will ob de Lord." Rosa listened with a serious, pleased expression in her face; for the words of her simple comforter inspired a vague consciousness of some supernatural presence surrounding her with invisible protection. A few hours after, she asked, with head averted from her attendant, "Has any one been here since I have been ill?" Anxious to soothe the wounded heart as much as possible, Tulee answered: "Massa Gerald come to ask how ye did; and when he went to Savannah, he left Tom and Chloe at the plantation to help me take care of ye." She manifested no emotion; and after a brief silence she inquired for letters from Madame. Being informed that there were none, she expressed a wish to be bolstered up, that she might try to write a few lines to her old friend. Chloe, in reply, whispered something in her ear, which seemed to surprise her. Her cheeks flushed, the first time for many a day; but she immediately closed her eyes, and tears glistened on the long, dark lashes. In obedience to the caution of her nurses, she deferred any attempt to write till the next week. She remained very silent during the day, but they knew that her thoughts were occupied; for they often saw tears oozing through the closed eyelids. Meanwhile, her friends in New Orleans were in a state of great anxiety. Mr. Fitzgerald had again written in a strain very similar to his first letter, but from Rosa herself nothing had been received. "I don't know what to make of this," said Madame. "Rosa is not a girl that would consent to a secondary position where her heart was concerned." "You know how common it is for quadroons to accede to such double arrangements," rejoined the Signor. "Of course I am well aware of that," she replied; "but they are educated, from childhood, to accommodate themselves to their subordinate position, as a necessity that cannot be avoided. It was far otherwise with Rosa. Moreover, I believe there is too much of Grandpa Gonsalez in her to submit to anything she deemed dishonorable. I think, my friend, somebody ought to go to Savannah to inquire into this business. If you should go, I fear you would get into a duel. You know dear Floracita used to call you Signor Pimentero. But Mr. Fitzgerald won't fight _me_, let me say what I will. So I think I had better go." "Yes, you had better go. You're a born diplomate, which I am not," replied the Signor. Arrangements were accordingly made for going in a day or two; but they were arrested by three or four lines from Rosa, stating that she was getting well, that she had everything for her comfort, and would write more fully soon. But what surprised them was that she requested them to address her as Madame Gonsalez, under cover to her mantuamaker in Savannah, whose address was given. "That shows plainly enough that she and Fitzgerald have dissolved partnership," said Madame; "but as she does not ask me to come, I will wait for her letter of explanation." Meanwhile, however, she wrote very affectionately in reply to the brief missive, urging Rosa to come to New Orleans, and enclosing fifty dollars, with the statement that an old friend of her father's had died and left a legacy for his daughters. Madame had, as Floracita observed, a talent for arranging the truth with variations. The March of the Southern spring returned, wreathed with garlands, and its pathway strewn with flowers. She gave warm kisses to the firs and pines as she passed, and they returned her love with fragrant sighs. The garden at Magnolia Lawn had dressed itself with jonquils, hyacinths, and roses, and its bower was a nest of glossy greenery, where mocking-birds were singing their varied tunes, moving their white tail-feathers in time to their music. Mrs. Fitzgerald, who was not strong in health, was bent upon returning thither early in the season, and the servants were busy preparing for her reception. Chloe was rarely spared to go to the hidden cottage, where her attendance upon Rosa was no longer necessary; but Tom came once a week, as he always had done, to do whatever jobs or errands the inmates required. One day Tulee was surprised to hear her mistress ask him whether Mr. Fitzgerald was at the plantation; and being answered in the affirmative, she said, "Have the goodness to tell him that Missy Rosy would like to see him soon." When Mr. Fitzgerald received the message, he adjusted his necktie at the mirror, and smiled over his self-complacent thoughts. He had hopes that the proud beauty was beginning to relent. Having left his wife in Savannah, there was no obstacle in the way of his obeying the summons. As he passed over the cottage lawn, he saw that Rosa was sewing at the window. He slackened his pace a little, with the idea that she might come out to meet him; but when he entered the parlor, she was still occupied with her work. She rose on his entrance, and moved a chair toward him; and when he said, half timidly, "How do you do now, dear Rosa?" she quietly replied, "Much better, I thank you. I have sent for you, Mr. Fitzgerald, to ask a favor." "If it is anything in my power, it shall be granted," he replied. "It is a very easy thing for you to do," rejoined she, "and very important to me. I want you to give me papers of manumission." "Are you so afraid of me?" he asked, coloring as he remembered a certain threat he had uttered. "I did not intend the request as any reproach to you," answered she, mildly; "but simply as a very urgent necessity to myself. As soon as my health will permit, I wish to be doing something for my own support, and, if possible, to repay you what you expended for me and my sister." "Do you take me for a mean Yankee," exclaimed he indignantly, "that you propose such an account of dollars and cents?" "I expressed my own wishes, not what I supposed you would require," replied she. "But aside from that, you can surely imagine it must be painful to have my life haunted by this dreadful spectre of slavery." "Rosa," said he earnestly, "do me the justice to remember that I did not purchase you as a slave, or consider you a slave. I expended money with all my heart to save my best-beloved from misfortune." "I believe those were your feelings then," she replied. "But let the past be buried. I simply ask you now, as a gentleman who has it in his power to confer a great favor on an unprotected woman, whether you will manumit me." "Certainly I will," answered he, much discomposed by her cool business tone. She rose at once, and placed the writing-desk before him. It was the pretty little desk he had given her for a birthday present. He put his finger on it, and, looking up in her face, with one of his old insinuating glances, he said, "Rosa, do you remember what we said when I gave you this?" Without answering the question, she said, "Will you have the goodness to write it now?" "Why in such haste?" inquired he. "I have given you my promise, and do you suppose I have no sense of honor?" A retort rose to her lips, but she suppressed it. "None of us can be sure of the future," she replied. "You know what happened when my dear father died." Overcome by that tender memory, she covered her eyes with her hand, and the tears stole through her fingers. He attempted to kiss away the tears, but she drew back, and went on to say: "At that time I learned the bitter significance of the law, 'The child shall follow the condition of the mother.' It was not mainly on my own account that I sent for you, Mr. Fitzgerald. I wish to secure my child from such a dreadful contingency as well-nigh ruined me and my sister." She blushed, and lowered her eyes as she spoke. "O Rosa!" he exclaimed. The impulse was strong to fold her to his heart; but he could not pass the barrier of her modest dignity. After an embarrassed pause, she looked up bashfully, and said, "Knowing this, you surely will not refuse to write it now." "I must see a lawyer and obtain witnesses," he replied. She sighed heavily. "I don't know what forms are necessary," said she. "But I beg of you to take such steps as will make me perfectly secure against any accidents. And don't delay it, Mr. Fitzgerald. Will you send the papers next week?" "I see you have no confidence in me," replied he, sadly. Then, suddenly dropping on his knees beside her, he exclaimed, "O Rosa, don't call me Mr. again. Do call me Gerald once more! Do say you forgive me!" She drew back a little, but answered very gently: "I do forgive you, and I hope your innocent little wife will never regret having loved you; for that is a very bitter trial. I sincerely wish you may be happy; and you may rest assured I shall not attempt to interfere with your happiness. But I am not strong enough to talk much. Please promise to send those papers next week." He made the promise, with averted head and a voice that was slightly tremulous. "I thank you," she replied; "but I am much fatigued, and will bid you good morning." She rose to leave the room, but turned back and added, with solemn earnestness, "I think it will be a consolation on your death-bed if you do not neglect to fulfil Rosa's last request." She passed into the adjoining room, fastened the door, and threw herself on the couch, utterly exhausted. How strange and spectral this meeting seemed! She heard his retreating footsteps without the slightest desire to obtain a last glimpse of his figure. How entirely he had passed out of her life, he who so lately was _all_ her life! The next day Rosa wrote as follows to Madame and the Signor:-- "Dearest and best friends,--It would take days to explain to you all that has happened since I wrote you that long, happy letter; and at present I have not strength to write much. When we meet we will talk about it more fully, though I wish to avoid the miserable particulars as far as possible. The preparations I so foolishly supposed were being made for me were for a rich Northern bride,--a pretty, innocent-looking little creature. The marriage with me, it seems, was counterfeit. When I discovered it, my first impulse was to fly to you. But a strange illness came over me, and I was oblivious of everything for four months. My good Tulee and a black woman named Chloe brought me back to life by their patient nursing. I suppose it was wrong, but when I remembered who and what I was, I felt sorry they didn't let me go. I was again seized with a longing to fly to you, who were as father and mother to me and my darling little sister in the days of our first misfortune. But I was too weak to move, and I am still far from being able to bear the fatigue of such a journey. Moreover, I am fastened here for the present by another consideration. Mr. Fitzgerald says he bought us of papa's creditors, and that I am his slave. I have entreated him, for the sake of our unborn child, to manumit me, and he has promised to do it. If I could only be safe in New Orleans, it is my wish to come and live with you, and find some way to support myself and my child. But I could have no peace, so long as there was the remotest possibility of being claimed as slaves. Mr. Fitzgerald may not mean that I shall ever come to harm; but he may die without providing against it, as poor papa did. I don't know what forms are necessary for my safety. I don't understand how it is that there is no law to protect a defenceless woman, who has done no wrong. I will wait here a little longer to recruit my strength and have this matter settled. I wish it were possible for you, my dear, good mother, to come to me for two or three weeks in June; then perhaps you could take back with you your poor Rosa and her baby, if their lives should be spared. But if you cannot come, there is an experienced old negress here, called Granny Nan, who, Tulee says, will take good care of me. I thank you for your sympathizing, loving letter. Who could papa's friend be that left me a legacy? I was thankful for the fifty dollars, for it is very unpleasant to me to use any of Mr. Fitzgerald's money, though he tells Tom to supply everything I want. If it were not for you, dear friends, I don't think I should have courage to try to live. But something sustains me wonderfully through these dreadful trials. Sometimes I think poor Chloe's prayers bring me help from above; for the good soul is always praying for me. "Adieu. May the good God bless you both. "Your loving and grateful "ROSABELLA." * * * * * Week passed after week, and the promised papers did not come. The weary days dragged their slow length along, unsoothed by anything except Tulee's loving care and Madame's cheering letters. The piano was never opened; for all tones of music were draped in mourning, and its harmonies were a funeral march over buried love. But she enjoyed the open air and the fragrance of the flowers. Sometimes she walked slowly about the lawn, and sometimes Tulee set her upon Thistle's back, and led him round and round through the bridle-paths. But out of the woods that concealed their nest they never ventured, lest they should meet Mrs. Fitzgerald. Tulee, who was somewhat proud on her mistress's account, was vexed by this limitation. "I don't see why ye should hide yerself from her," said she. "Yese as good as she is; and ye've nothin' to be shamed of." "It isn't on my own account that I wish to avoid her seeing me," replied Rosa. "But I pity the innocent young creature. She didn't know of disturbing my happiness, and I should be sorry to disturb hers." As the weeks glided away without bringing any fulfilment of Fitzgerald's promise, anxiety changed to distrust. She twice requested Tom to ask his master for the papers he had spoken of, and received a verbal answer that they would be sent as soon as they were ready. There were greater obstacles in the way than she, in her inexperience, was aware of. The laws of Georgia restrained humane impulses by forbidding the manumission of a slave. Consequently, he must either incur very undesirable publicity by applying to the legislature for a special exception in this case, or she must be manumitted in another State. He would gladly have managed a journey without the company of his wife, if he could thereby have regained his former influence with Rosa; but he was disinclined to take so much trouble to free her entirely from him. When he promised to send the papers, he intended to satisfy her with a sham certificate, as he had done with a counterfeit marriage; but he deferred doing it, because he had a vague sense of satisfaction in being able to tantalize the superior woman over whom he felt that he no longer had any other power. CHAPTER XVI. Madame's anxiety was much diminished after she began to receive letters in Rosa's own handwriting; but, knowing the laws of Georgia, and no longer doubtful concerning Fitzgerald's real character, she placed small reliance upon his promise of manumission. "This is another of his deceptions," said she to the Signor. "I have been thinking a good deal about the state of things, and I am convinced there will be no security in this country for that poor girl. You have been saying for some time that you wanted to see your beautiful Italy again, and I have the same feeling about my beautiful France. We each of us have a little money laid up; and if we draw upon the fund Mr. King has deposited, we can take Rosabella to Europe and bring her out as a singer." "She would have a great career, no doubt," replied the Signor; "and I was going to suggest such a plan to you. But you would have to change your name again on my account, Madame; for I was obliged to leave Italy because I was discovered to be one of the Carbonari; and though fifteen years have elapsed, it is possible the watchful authorities have not forgotten my name." "That's a trifling obstacle," resumed Madame. "You had better give notice to your pupils at once that you intend to leave as soon as present engagements are fulfilled. I will use up my stock for fancy articles, and sell off as fast as possible, that we may be ready to start for Europe as soon as Rosa has sufficient strength." This resolution was immediately acted upon; but the fates were unpropitious to Madame's anticipated visit to the lonely island. A few days before her intended departure, the Signor was taken seriously ill, and remained so for two or three weeks. He fretted and fumed, more on her account than his own, but she, as usual, went through the trial bravely. She tried to compensate Rosa for the disappointment, as far as she could, by writing frequent letters, cheerful in tone, though prudently cautious concerning details. Fearing that Mr. Fitzgerald's suspicions might be excited by an apparent cessation of correspondence, she continued to write occasionally under cover to him, in a style adapted to his views, in case he should take a fancy to open the letters. The Signor laughed, and said, "Your talent for diplomacy is not likely to rust for want of use, Madame." Even Rosa, sad at heart as she was, could not help smiling sometimes at the totally different tone of the letters which she received under different covers. She had become so accustomed to passive endurance, that no murmur escaped her when she found that her only white friend could not come to her, as she had expected. Granny Nan boasted of having nursed many grand white ladies, and her skill in the vocation proved equal to her pretensions. Only her faithful Tulee and the kind old colored mammy were with her when, hovering between life and death, she heard the cry that announced the advent of a human soul. Nature, deranged by bodily illness and mental trouble, provided no nourishment for the little one; but this, which under happier circumstances would have been a disappointment, called forth no expressions of regret from the patient sufferer. When Tulee held the babe before her in its first dress, she smiled faintly, but immediately closed her eyes. As she lay there, day after day, with the helpless little creature nestling in her arms, the one consoling reflection was that she had not given birth to a daughter. A chaos of thoughts were revolving through her mind; the theme of all the variations being how different it was from what it might have been, if the ideal of her girlhood had not been shattered so cruelly. Had it not been for that glimmering light in the future which Madame so assiduously presented to her view, courage would have forsaken her utterly. As it was, she often listened to the dash of the sea with the melancholy feeling that rest might be found beneath its waves. But she was still very young, the sky was bright, the earth was lovely, and she had a friend who had promised to provide a safe asylum for her somewhere. She tried to regain her strength, that she might leave the island, with all its sad reminders of departed happiness. Thinking of this, she rose one day and wandered into the little parlor to take a sort of farewell look. There was the piano, so long unopened, with a whole epic of love and sorrow in its remembered tones; the pretty little table her mother had painted; the basket she had received from her father after his death; Floracita's paintings and mosses; and innumerable little tokens of Gerald's love. Walking round slowly and feebly in presence of all those memories, how alone she felt, with none to speak to but Tulee and the old colored mammy,--she, who had been so tenderly cared for by her parents, so idolized by him to whom she gave her heart! She was still gazing pensively on these souvenirs of the past, when her attention was arrested by Tom's voice, saying: "Dar's a picaninny at de Grat Hus. How's turrer picaninny?" The thought rushed upon her, "Ah, that baby had a father to welcome it and fondle it; but _my_ poor babe--" A sensation of faintness came over her; and, holding on by the chairs and tables, she staggered back to the bed she had left. Before the babe was a fortnight old, Tom announced that he was to accompany his master to New Orleans, whither he had been summoned by business. The occasion was eagerly seized by Rosa to send a letter and some small articles to Madame and the Signor. Tulee gave him very particular directions how to find the house, and charged him over and over again to tell them everything. When she cautioned him not to let his master know that he carried anything, Tom placed his thumb on the tip of his nose, and moved the fingers significantly, saying: "Dis ere nigger ha'n't jus' wakum'd up. Bin wake mos' ob de time sense twar daylight." He foresaw it would be difficult to execute the commission he had undertaken; for as a slave he of course had little control over his own motions. He, however, promised to try; and Tulee told him she had great confidence in his ingenuity in finding out ways and means. "An' I tinks a heap o' ye, Tulee. Ye knows a heap more dan mos' niggers," was Tom's responsive compliment. In his eyes Tulee was in fact a highly accomplished person; for though she could neither read nor write, she had caught the manners and speech of white people, by living almost exclusively with them, and she was, by habit, as familiar with French as English, beside having a little smattering of Spanish. To have his ingenuity praised by her operated as a fillip upon his vanity, and he inwardly resolved to run the risk of a flogging, rather than fail to do her bidding. He was also most loyal in the service of Rosa, whose beauty and kindliness had won his heart, before his sympathy had been called out by her misfortunes. But none of them foresaw what important consequences would result from his mission. The first day he was in New Orleans, he found no hour when he could be absent without the liability of being called for by his master. The next day Mr. Bruteman dined with his master, and Tom was in attendance upon the table. Their conversation was at first about cotton crops, the prices of negroes, and other business matters, to which Tom paid little attention. But a few minutes afterward his ears were wide open. "I suppose you came prepared to pay that debt you owe me," said Mr. Bruteman. "I am obliged to ask an extension of your indulgence," replied Mr. Fitzgerald. "It is not in my power to raise that sum just now." "How is that possible," inquired Mr. Bruteman, "when you have married the daughter of a Boston nabob?" "The close old Yankee keeps hold of most of his money while he lives," rejoined his companion; "and Mrs. Fitzgerald has expensive tastes to be gratified." "And do you expect me to wait till the old Yankee dies?" asked Mr. Bruteman. "Gentlemen generally consider themselves bound to be prompt in paying debts of honor." "I'll pay you as soon as I can. What the devil can you ask more?" exclaimed Fitzgerald. "It seems to me it's not the part of a gentleman to play the dun so continually." They had already drank pretty freely; but Mr. Bruteman took up a bottle, and said, "Let us drink another glass to the speedy replenishing of your purse." They poured full bumpers, touched glasses, and drank the contents. There was a little pause, during which Mr. Bruteman sat twirling his glass between thumb and finger, with looks directed toward his companion. All at once he said, "Fitzgerald, did you ever find those handsome octoroon girls?" "What octoroon girls?" inquired the other. "O, you disremember them, do you?" rejoined he. "I mean how did that bargain turn out that you made with Royal's creditors? You seemed to have small chance of finding the girls; unless, indeed, you hid them away first, for the purpose of buying them for less than half they would have brought to the creditors,--which, of course, is not to be supposed, because no gentleman would do such a thing." Thrown off his guard by too much wine, Fitzgerald vociferated, "Do you mean to insinuate that I am no gentleman?" Mr. Bruteman smiled, as he answered: "I said such a thing was not to be supposed. But come, Fitzgerald, let us understand one another. I'd rather, a devilish sight, have those girls than the money you owe me. Make them over to me, and I'll cancel the debt. Otherwise, I shall be under the necessity of laying an attachment on some of your property." There was a momentary silence before Mr. Fitzgerald answered, "One of them is dead." "Which one?" inquired his comrade. "Flora, the youngest, was drowned." "And that queenly beauty, where is she? I don't know that I ever heard her name." "Rosabella Royal," replied Fitzgerald. "She is living at a convenient distance from my plantation." "Well, I will be generous," said Bruteman. "If you will make _her_ over to me, I will cancel the debt." "She is not in strong health at present," rejoined Fitzgerald. "She has a babe about two weeks old." "You know you have invited me to visit your island two or three weeks hence," replied Bruteman; "and then I shall depend upon you to introduce me to your fair Rosamond. But we will draw up the papers and sign them now, if you please." Some jests unfit for repetition were uttered by the creditor, to which the unhappy debtor made no reply. When he called Tom to bring paper and ink, the observing servant noticed that he was very pale, though but a few moments before his face had been flushed. That night, he tried to drown recollection in desperate gambling and frequent draughts of wine. Between one and two o'clock in the morning, his roisterous companions were led off by their servants, and he was put into bed by Tom, where he immediately dropped into a perfectly senseless sleep. As soon as there was sufficient light, Tom started for the house of the Signor; judging that he was safe from his master for three hours at least. Notwithstanding the earliness of the hour, Madame made her appearance in a very few moments after her servant informed her who was in waiting, and the Signor soon followed. In the course of the next hour and a half an incredible amount of talking was done in negro "lingo" and broken English. The impetuous Signor strode up and down, clenching his fists, cursing slavery, and sending Fitzgerald to the Devil in a volley of phrases hard enough in their significance, though uttered in soft-flowing Italian. "Swearing does no good, my friend," said Madame; "besides, there isn't time for it. Rosabella must be brought away immediately. Bruteman will be on the alert, you may depend. She slipped through his fingers once, and he won't trust Fitzgerald again." The Signor cooled down, and proposed to go for her himself. But that was overruled, in a very kind way, by his prudent wife, who argued that he was not well enough for such an exciting adventure, or to be left without her nursing, when his mind would be such a prey to uneasiness. It was her proposition to send at once for her cousin Duroy, and have him receive very particular directions from Tom how to reach the island and find the cottage. Tom said he didn't know whether he could get away for an hour again, because his master was always very angry if he was out of the way when called; but if Mr. Duroy would come to the hotel, he would find chances to tell him what to do. And that plan was immediately carried into effect. While these things were going on in New Orleans, Mrs. Fitzgerald was taking frequent drives about the lovely island with her mother, Mrs. Bell; while Rosa was occasionally perambulating her little circuit of woods on the back of patient Thistle. One day Mrs. Fitzgerald and her mother received an invitation to the Welby plantation, to meet some Northern acquaintances who were there; and as Mrs. Fitzgerald's strength was not yet fully restored, Mrs. Welby proposed that they should remain all night. Chloe, who had lost her own baby, was chosen to nurse her master's new-born heir, and was consequently tied so closely that she could find no chance to go to the cottage, whose inmates she had a great longing to see. But when master and mistress were both gone, she thought she might take her freedom for a while without incurring any great risk. The other servants agreed to keep her secret, and Joe the coachman promised to drive her most of the way when he came back with the carriage. Accordingly, she made her appearance at the cottage quite unexpectedly, to the great joy of Tulee. When she unwrapped the little black-haired baby from its foldings of white muslin, Tulee exclaimed: "He looks jus' like his good-for-nothing father; and so does Missy Rosy's baby. I'm 'fraid 't will make poor missy feel bad to see it, for she don't know nothin' 'bout it." "Yes I do, Tulee," said Rosa, who had heard Chloe's voice, and gone out to greet her. "I heard Tom tell you about it." She took up the little hand, scarcely bigger than a bird's claw, and while it twined closely about her finger, she looked into its eyes, so like to Gerald's in shape and color. She was hoping that those handsome eyes might never be used as his had been, but she gave no utterance to her thoughts. Her manner toward Chloe was full of grateful kindness; and the poor bondwoman had some happy hours, playing free for a while. She laid the infant on its face in her lap, trotting it gently, and patting its back, while she talked over with Tulee all the affairs at the "Grat Hus." And when the babe was asleep, she asked and obtained Rosa's permission to lay him on her bed beside his little brother. Then poor Chloe's soul took wing and soared aloft among sun-lighted clouds. As she prayed, and sang her fervent hymns, and told of her visions and revelations, she experienced satisfaction similar to that of a troubadour, or palmer from Holy Land, with an admiring audience listening to his wonderful adventures. While she was thus occupied, Tulee came in hastily to say that a stranger gentleman was coming toward the house. Such an event in that lonely place produced general excitement, and some consternation. Rosa at once drew her curtain and bolted the door. But Tulee soon came rapping gently, saying, "It's only I, Missy Rosy." As the door partially opened, she said, "It's a friend Madame has sent ye." Rosa, stepping forward, recognized Mr. Duroy, the cousin in whose clothes Madame had escaped with them from New Orleans. She was very slightly acquainted with him, but it was such a comfort to see any one who knew of the old times that she could hardly refrain from throwing herself on his neck and bursting into tears. As she grasped his hand with a close pressure, he felt the thinness of her emaciated fingers. The paleness of her cheeks, and the saddened expression of her large eyes, excited his compassion. He was too polite to express it in words, but it was signified by the deference of his manner and the extreme gentleness of his tones. He talked of Madame's anxious love for her, of the Signor's improving health, of the near completion of their plan for going to Europe, and of their intention to take her with them. Rosa was full of thankfulness, but said she was as yet incapable of much exertion. Mr. Duroy went on to speak of Tom's visit to Madame; and slowly and cautiously he prepared the way for his account of the conversation between Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Bruteman. But careful as he was, he noticed that her features tightened and her hands were clenched. When he came to the interchange of writings, she sprung to her feet, and, clutching his arm convulsively, exclaimed, "Did he do that?" Her eyes were like a flame, and her chest heaved with the quick-coming breath. He sought to draw her toward him, saying in soothing tones, "They shall not harm you, my poor girl. Trust to me, as if I were your father." But she burst from him impetuously, and walked up and down rapidly; such a sudden access of strength had the body received from the frantic soul. "Try not to be so much agitated," said he. "In a very short time you will be in Europe, and then you will be perfectly safe." She paused an instant in her walk, and, with a strange glare in her eyes, she hissed out, "I hate him." He laid his hand gently upon her shoulder, and said: "I want very much that you should try to be calm. Some negroes are coming with a boat at daybreak, and it is necessary we should all go away with them. You ought to rest as much as possible beforehand." "_Rest_!" repeated she with bitter emphasis. And clenching her teeth hard, she again said, "I hate him!" Poor Rosa! It had taken a mountain-weight of wrong so to crush out all her gentleness. Mr. Duroy became somewhat alarmed. He hastened to the kitchen and told Chloe to go directly to Miss Rosa. He then briefly explained his errand to Tulee, and told her to prepare for departure as fast as possible. "But first go to your mistress," said he; "for I am afraid she may go crazy." The sufferer yielded more readily to Tulee's accustomed influence than she had done to that of Mr. Duroy. She allowed herself to be laid upon the bed; but while her forehead and temples were being bathed, her heart beat violently, and all her pulses were throbbing. It was, however, necessary to leave her with Chloe, who knelt by the bedside, holding her hand, and praying in tones unusually low for her. "I'm feared for her," said Tulee to Mr. Duroy. "I never see Missy Rosy look so wild and strange." A short time after, when she looked into the room, Rosa's eyes were closed. She whispered to Chloe: "Poor Missy's asleep. You can come and help me a little now." But Rosa was not in the least drowsy. She had only remained still, to avoid being talked to. As soon as her attendants had withdrawn, she opened her eyes, and, turning toward the babes, she gazed upon them for a long time. There they lay side by side, like twin kittens. But ah! thought she, how different is their destiny! One is born to be cherished and waited upon all his days, the other is an outcast and a slave. My poor fatherless babe! He wouldn't manumit us. It was not thoughtlessness. He _meant_ to sell us. "He _meant_ to sell us," she repeated aloud; and again the wild, hard look came into her eyes. Such a tempest was raging in her soul, that she felt as if she could kill him if he stood before her. This savage paroxysm of revenge was followed by thoughts of suicide. She was about to rise, but hearing the approach of Tulee, she closed her eyes and remained still. Language is powerless to describe the anguish of that lacerated soul. At last the storm subsided, and she fell into a heavy sleep. Meanwhile the two black women were busy with arrangements for the early flight. Many things had been already prepared with the expectation of a summons to New Orleans, and not long after midnight all was in readiness. Chloe, after a sound nap on the kitchen floor, rose up with the first peep of light. She and Tulee hugged each other, with farewell kisses and sobs. She knelt by Rosa's bedside to whisper a brief prayer, and, giving her one long, lingering look, she took up her baby, and set off for the plantation, wondering at the mysterious ways of Providence. They deferred waking Rosa as long as possible, and when they roused her, she had been so deeply sunk in slumber that she was at first bewildered. When recollection returned, she looked at her babe. "Where's Chloe?" she asked. "Gone back to the plantation," was the reply. "O, I am so sorry!" sighed Rosa. "She was feared they would miss her," rejoined Tulee. "So she went away as soon as she could see. But she prayed for ye, Missy Rosy; and she told me to say poor Chloe would never forget ye." "O, I'm _so_ sorry!" repeated Rosa, mournfully. She objected to taking the nourishment Tulee offered, saying she wanted to die. But Mr. Duroy reminded her that Madame was longing to see her, and she yielded to that plea. When Tulee brought the same travelling-dress in which she had first come to the cottage, she shrunk from it at first, but seemed to remember immediately that she ought not to give unnecessary trouble to her friends. While she was putting it on, Tulee said, "I tried to remember to put up everything ye would want, darling." "I don't want _any_thing," she replied listlessly. Then, looking up suddenly, with that same wild, hard expression, she added, "Don't let me ever see anything that came from _him_!" She spoke so sternly, that Tulee, for the first time in her life, was a little afraid of her. The eastern sky was all of a saffron glow, but the golden edge of the sun had not yet appeared above the horizon, when they entered the boat which was to convey them to the main-land. Without one glance toward the beautiful island where she had enjoyed and suffered so much, the unhappy fugitive nestled close to Tulee, and hid her face on her shoulder, as if she had nothing else in the world to cling to. * * * * * A week later, a carriage stopped before Madame's door, and Tulee rushed in with the baby on her shoulder, exclaiming, "_Nous voici_!" while Mr. Duroy was helping Rosa to alight. Then such huggings and kissings, such showers of French from Madame, and of mingled French and Italian from the Signor, while Tulee stood by, throwing up her hand, and exclaiming, "Bless the Lord! bless the Lord!" The parrot listened with ear upturned, and a lump of sugar in her claw, then overtopped all their voices with the cry of "_Bon jour, Rosabella! je suis enchantée_." This produced a general laugh, and there was the faint gleam of a smile on Rosa's face, as she looked up at the cage and said, "_Bon jour, jolie Manon_!" But she soon sank into a chair with an expression of weariness. "You are tired, darling," said Madame, as she took off her bonnet and tenderly put back the straggling hair. "No wonder, after all you have gone through, my poor child!" Rosa clasped her round the neck, and murmured, "O my dear friend, I _am_ tired, _so_ tired!" Madame led her to the settee, and arranged her head comfortably on its pillows. Then, giving her a motherly kiss, she said, "Rest, darling, while Tulee and I look after the boxes." When they had all passed into another room, she threw up her hands and exclaimed: "How she's changed! How thin and pale she is! How large her eyes look! But she's beautiful as an angel." "I never see Missy Rosy but once when she wasn't beautiful as an angel," said Tulee; "and that was the night Massa Duroy told her she was sold to Massa Bruteman. Then she looked as if she had as many devils as that Mary Magdalene Massa Royal used to read about o' Sundays." "No wonder, poor child!" exclaimed Madame. "But I hope the little one is some comfort to her." "She ha'n't taken much notice of him, or anything else, since Massa Duroy told her that news," rejoined Tulee. Madame took the baby and tried to look into its face as well as the lopping motions of its little head would permit. "I shouldn't think she'd have much comfort in looking at it," said she; "for it's the image of its father; but the poor little dear ain't to blame for that." An animated conversation followed concerning what had happened since Tulee went away,--especially the disappearance of Flora. Both hinted at having entertained similar suspicions, but both had come to the conclusion that she could not be alive, or she would have written. Rosa, meanwhile, left alone in the little parlor, where she had listened so anxiously for the whistling of _Ça ira_, was scarcely conscious of any other sensation than the luxury of repose, after extreme fatigue of body and mind. There was, indeed, something pleasant in the familiar surroundings. The parrot swung in the same gilded ring in her cage. Madame's table, with its basket of chenilles, stood in the same place, and by it was her enamelled snuffbox. Rosa recognized a few articles that had been purchased at the auction of her father's furniture;--his arm-chair, and the astral lamp by which he used to sit to read his newspaper; a sewing-chair that was her mother's; and one of Flora's embroidered slippers, hung up for a watch-case. With these memories floating before her drowsy eyes, she fell asleep, and slept for a long time. As her slumbers grew lighter, dreams of father, mother, and sister passed through various changes; the last of which was that Flora was puzzling the mocking-birds. She waked to the consciousness that some one was whistling in the room. "Who is that!" exclaimed she; and the parrot replied with a tempest of imitations. Madame, hearing the noise, came in, saying: "How stupid I was not to cover the cage! She is _so_ noisy! Her memory is wonderful. I don't think she'll ever forget a note of all the _mélange_ dear Floracita took so much pains to teach her." She began to call up reminiscences of Flora's incessant mischief; but finding Rosa in no mood for anything gay, she proceeded to talk over the difficulties of her position, concluding with the remark: "To-day and to-night you must rest, my child. But early to-morrow you and the Signor will start for New York, whence you will take passage to Marseilles, under the name of Signor Balbino and daughter." "I wish I could stay here, at least for a little while," sighed Rosa. "It's never wise to wish for what cannot be had," rejoined Madame. "It would cause great trouble and expense to obtain your freedom; and it is doubtful whether we could secure it at all, for Bruteman won't give you up if he can avoid it. The voyage will recruit your strength, and it will do you good to be far away from anything that reminds you of old troubles. I have nothing left to do but to dispose of my furniture, and settle about the lease of this house. You will wait at Marseilles for me. I shall be uneasy till I have the sea between me and the agents of Mr. Bruteman, and I shall hurry to follow after you as soon as possible." "And Tulee and the baby?" asked Rosa. "Yes, with Tulee and the baby," replied Madame. "But I shall send them to my cousin's to-morrow, to be out of the way of being seen by the neighbors. He lives off the road, and three miles out. They'll be nicely out of the way there." It was all accomplished as the energetic Frenchwoman had planned. Rosa was whirled away, without time to think of anything. At parting, she embraced Tulee, and looked earnestly in the baby's face, while she stroked his shining black hair. "Good by, dear, kind Tulee," said she. "Take good care of the little one." At Philadelphia, her strength broke down, and they were detained three days. Consequently, when they arrived in New York, they found that the Mermaid, in which they expected to take passage, had sailed. The Signor considered it imprudent to correspond with his wife on the subject, and concluded to go out of the city and wait for the next vessel. When they went on board, they found Madame, and explained to her the circumstances. "I am glad I didn't know of the delay," said she; "for I was frightened enough as it was. But, luckily, I got off without anybody's coming to make inquiries." "But where are Tulee and the baby? Are they down below?" asked Rosa. "No, dear, I didn't bring them." "O, how came you to leave them?" said Rosa. "Something will happen to them." "I have provided well for their safety," rejoined Madame. "The reason I did it was this. We have no certain home or prospects at present; and I thought we had better be settled somewhere before the baby was brought. My cousin is coming to Marseilles in about three months, and he will bring them with him. His wife was glad to give Tulee her board, meanwhile, for what work she could do. I really think it was best, dear. The feeble little thing will be stronger for the voyage by that time; and you know Tulee will take just as good care of it as if it were her own." "Poor Tulee!" sighed Rosa. "Was she willing to be left?" "She didn't know when I came away," replied Madame. Rosa heaved an audible groan, as she said: "I am so sorry you did this, Madame! If anything should happen to them, it would be a weight on my mind as long as I live." "I did what I thought was for the best," answered Madame. "I was in such a hurry to get away, on your account, that, if I hadn't all my wits about me, I hope you will excuse me. But I think myself I made the best arrangement." Rosa, perceiving a slight indication of pique in her tone, hastened to kiss her, and call her her best and dearest friend. But in her heart she mourned over what she considered, for the first time in her life, a great mistake in the management of Madame. * * * * * After Tom's return from New Orleans, he continued to go to the cottage as usual, and so long as no questions were asked, he said nothing; but when his master inquired how they were getting on there, he answered that Missy Rosy was better. When a fortnight had elapsed, he thought the fugitives must be out of harm's way, and he feared Mr. Bruteman might be coming soon to claim his purchase. Accordingly he one day informed his master, with a great appearance of astonishment and alarm, that the cottage was shut up, and all the inmates gone. Fitzgerald's first feeling was joy; for he was glad to be relieved from the picture of Rosa's horror and despair, which had oppressed him like the nightmare. But he foresaw that Bruteman would suspect him of having forewarned her, though he had solemnly pledged himself not to do so. He immediately wrote him the tidings, with expressions of surprise and regret. The answer he received led to a duel, in which he received a wound in the shoulder, that his wife always supposed was occasioned by a fall from his horse. When Mr. Bruteman ascertained that Madame and the Signor had left the country, he at once conjectured that the fugitive was with them. Having heard that Mr. Duroy was a relative, he waited upon him, at his place of business, and was informed that Rosabella Royal had sailed for France, with his cousin, in the ship Mermaid. Not long after, it was stated in the ship news that the Mermaid had foundered at sea, and all on board were lost. CHAPTER XVII. While Rosabella had been passing through these dark experiences, Flora was becoming more and more accustomed to her new situation. She strove bravely to conceal the homesickness which she could not always conquer; but several times, in the course of their travels, Mrs. Delano noticed moisture gathering on her long black eyelashes when she saw the stars and stripes floating from the mast of a vessel. Once, when a rose was given her, she wept outright; but she soon wiped her eyes, and apologized by saying: "I wonder whether a _Pensée-Vivace_ makes Rosa feel as I do when I see a rose? But what an ungrateful child I am, when I have such a dear, kind, new Mamita!" And a loving smile again lighted up her swimming eyes,--those beautiful April eyes of tears and sunshine, that made rainbows in the heart. Mrs. Delano wisely kept her occupied with a succession of teachers and daily excursions. Having a natural genius for music and drawing, she made rapid progress in both during a residence of six months in England, six months in France, and three months in Switzerland. And as Mr. and Mrs. Percival were usually with them, she picked up, in her quick way, a good degree of culture from the daily tone of conversation. The one drawback to the pleasure of new acquisitions was that she could not share them with Rosa. One day, when she was saying this, Mrs. Delano replied: "We will go to Italy for a short time, and then we will return to live in Boston. I have talked the matter over a good deal with Mr. Percival, and I think I should know how to guard against any contingency that may occur. And as you are so anxious about your sister, I have been revolving plans for taking you back to the island, to see whether we can ascertain what is going on in that mysterious cottage." From that time there was a very perceptible increase of cheerfulness in Flora's spirits. The romance of such an adventure hit her youthful fancy, while the idea of getting even a sly peep at Rosa filled her with delight. She imagined all sorts of plans to accomplish this object, and often held discussions upon the propriety of admitting Tulee to their confidence. Her vivacity redoubled when they entered Italy. She was herself composed of the same materials of which Italy was made; and without being aware of the spiritual relationship, she at once felt at home there. She was charmed with the gay, impulsive people, the bright costumes, the impassioned music, and the flowing language. The clear, intense blue of the noonday sky, and the sun setting in a glowing sea of amber, reminded her of her Southern home; and the fragrance of the orange-groves was as incense waved by the memory of her childhood. The ruins of Rome interested her less than any other features of the landscape; for, like Bettini, she never asked who any of the ancients were, for fear they would tell her. The play of sunshine on the orange-colored lichens interested her more than the inscriptions they covered; and while their guide was telling the story of mouldering arches, she was looking through them at the clear blue sky and the soft outline of the hills. One morning they rode out early to spend a whole day at Albano; and every mile of the ride presented her with some charming novelty. The peasants who went dancing by in picturesque costumes, and the finely formed women walking erect with vases of water on their heads, or drawing an even thread from their distaffs, as they went singing along, furnished her memory with subjects for many a picture. Sometimes her exclamations would attract the attention of a group of dancers, who, pleased with an exuberance of spirits akin to their own, and not unmindful of forthcoming coin, would beckon to the driver to stop, while they repeated their dances for the amusement of the Signorina. A succession of pleasant novelties awaited her at Albano. Running about among the ilex-groves in search of bright mosses, she would come suddenly in front of an elegant villa, with garlands in stucco, and balconies gracefully draped with vines. Wandering away from that, she would utter a little cry of joy at the unexpected sight of some reclining marble nymph, over which a little fountain threw a transparent veil of gossamer sparkling with diamonds. Sometimes she stood listening to the gurgling and dripping of unseen waters; and sometimes melodies floated from the distance, which her quick ear caught at once, and her tuneful voice repeated like a mocking-bird. The childlike zest with which she entered into everything, and made herself a part of everything, amused her quiet friend, and gave her even more pleasure than the beauties of the landscape. After a picnic repast, they ascended Monte Cavo, and looked down on the deep basins of the lakes, once blazing with volcanic fire, now full of water blue as the sky it reflected; like human souls in which the passions have burned out, and left them calm recipients of those divine truths in which the heavens are mirrored. As Mrs. Delano pointed out various features in the magnificent panorama around them, she began to tell Flora of scenes in the Aeneid with which they were intimately connected. The young girl, who was serious for the moment, dropped on the grass to listen, with elbows on her friend's lap, and her upturned face supported by her hands. But the lecture was too grave for her mercurial spirit; and she soon sprang up, exclaiming: "O Mamita Lila, all those people were dead and buried so long ago! I don't believe the princess that Aeneas was fighting about was half as handsome as that dancing Contadina from Frascati, with a scarlet bodice and a floating veil fastened among her black braids with a silver arrow. How her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks glowed! And the Contadino who was dancing with her, with those long streamers of red ribbon flying round his peaked hat, he looked almost as handsome as she did. How I wish I could see them dance the saltarello again! O Mamita Lila, as soon as we get back to Rome, do buy a tambourine." Inspired by the remembrance, she straightway began to hum the monotonous tune of that grasshopper dance, imitating the hopping steps and the quick jerks of the arms, marking the time with ever-increasing rapidity on her left hand, as if it were a tambourine. She was so aglow with the exercise, and so graceful in her swift motions, that Mrs. Delano watched her with admiring smiles. But when the extempore entertainment came to a close, she thought to herself: "It is a hopeless undertaking to educate her after the New England pattern. One might as well try to plough with a butterfly, as to teach her ancient history." When they had wandered about a little while longer, happy as souls newly arrived in the Elysian Fields, Mrs. Delano said: "My child, you have already gathered mosses enough to fill the carriage, and it is time for us to return. You know twilight passes into darkness very quickly here." "Just let me gather this piece of golden lichen," pleaded she. "It will look so pretty among the green moss, in the cross I am going to make you for Christmas." When all her multifarious gleanings were gathered up, they lingered a little to drink in the beauty of the scene before them. In the distance was the Eternal City, girdled by hills that stood out with wonderful distinctness in the luminous atmosphere of that brilliant day, which threw a golden veil over all its churches, statues, and ruins. Before they had gone far on their homeward ride, all things passed through magical changes. The hills were seen in vapory visions, shifting their hues with opaline glances; and over the green, billowy surface of the broad Campagna was settling a prismatic robe of mist, changing from rose to violet. Earth seemed to be writing, in colored notes, with tenderest modulations, her farewell hymn to the departing God of Light. And the visible music soon took voice in the vibration of vesper-bells, in the midst of which they entered Rome. Flora, who was sobered by the solemn sounds and the darkening landscape, scarcely spoke, except to remind Mrs. Delano of the tambourine as they drove through the crowded Corso; and when they entered their lodgings in Via delle Quattro Fontane, she passed to her room without any of her usual skipping and singing. When they met again at supper her friend said: "Why so serious? Is my little one tired?" "I have been thinking, Mamita, that something is going to happen to me," she replied; "for always when I am very merry something happens." "I should think something would happen very often then," rejoined Mrs. Delano with a smile, to which she responded with her ready little laugh. "Several visitors called while we were gone," said Mrs. Delano. "Our rich Boston friend, Mr. Green, has left his card. He follows us very diligently." She looked at Flora as she spoke; but though the light from a tall lamp fell directly on her face, she saw no emotion, either of pleasure or embarrassment. She merely looked up with a smile, as she remarked: "He always seems to be going round very leisurely in search of something to entertain him. I wonder whether he has found it yet." Though she was really tired with the exertions of the day, the sight of the new tambourine, after supper, proved too tempting; and she was soon practising the saltarello again, with an agility almost equal to that of the nimble Contadina from whom she had learned it. She was whirling round more and more swiftly, as if fatigue were a thing impossible to her, when Mr. Green was announced; and a very stylishly dressed gentleman, with glossy shirt-bosom and diamond studs, entered the room. She had had scarcely time to seat herself, and her face was still flushed with exercise, while her dimples were revealed by a sort of shy smile at the consciousness of having been so nearly caught in her rompish play by such an exquisite. The glowing cheek and the dimpling smile were a new revelation to Mr. Green; for he had never interested her sufficiently to call out the vivacity which rendered her so charming. Mrs. Delano noticed his glance of admiration, and the thought occurred, as it had often done before, what an embarrassing dilemma she would be in, if he should propose marriage to her _protégée_. "I called this morning," said he, "and found you had gone to Albano. I was tempted to follow, but thought it likely I should miss you. It is a charming drive." "Everything is charming here, I think," rejoined Flora. "Ah, it is the first time you have seen Rome," said he. "I envy you the freshness of your sensations. This is the third time I have been here, and of course it palls a little upon me." "Why don't you go to some new place then?" inquired Flora. "Where _is_ there any new place?" responded he languidly. "To be sure, there is Arabia Petraea, but the accommodations are not good. Besides, Rome has attractions for me at present; and I really think I meet more acquaintances here than I should at home. Rome is beginning to swarm with Americans, especially with Southerners. One can usually recognize them at a glance by their unmistakable air of distinction. They are obviously of porcelain clay, as Willis says." "I think our New England Mr. Percival is as polished a gentleman as any. I have seen," observed Mrs. Delano. "He is a gentleman in manners and attainments, I admit," replied Mr. Green; "but with his family and education, what a pity it is he has so disgraced himself." "Pray what has he done?" inquired the lady. "Didn't you know he was an Abolitionist?" rejoined Mr. Green. "It is a fact that he has actually spoken at their meetings. I was surprised to see him travelling with you in England. It must be peculiarly irritating to the South to see a man of his position siding with those vulgar agitators. Really, unless something effectual can be done to stop that frenzy, I fear Southern gentlemen will be unable to recover a fugitive slave." Flora looked at Mrs. Delano with a furtive, sideway glance, and a half-smile on her lips. Her impulse was to jump up, dot one of her quick courtesies, and say: "I am a fugitive slave. Please, sir, don't give _me_ up to any of those distinguished gentlemen." Mr. Green noticed her glance, and mistook it for distaste of his theme. "Pardon me, ladies," said he, "for introducing a subject tabooed in polite society. I called for a very different purpose. One novelty remains for me in Rome. I have never seen the statues of the Vatican by torchlight. Some Americans are forming a party for that purpose to-morrow evening, and if you would like to join them, it will give me great pleasure to be your escort." Flora, being appealed to, expressed acquiescence, and Mrs. Delano replied: "We will accept your invitation with pleasure. I have a great predilection for sculpture." "Finding myself so fortunate in one request encourages me to make another," rejoined Mr. Green. "On the evening following Norma is to be brought out, with a new _prima donna_, from whom great things are expected. I should be much gratified if you would allow me to procure tickets and attend upon you." Flora's face lighted up at once. "I see what my musical daughter wishes," said Mrs. Delano. "We will therefore lay ourselves under obligations to you for two evenings' entertainment." The gentleman, having expressed his thanks, bade them good evening. Flora woke up the next morning full of pleasant anticipations. When Mrs. Delano looked in upon her, she found her already dressed, and busy with a sketch of the dancing couple from Frascati. "I cannot make them so much alive as I wish," said she, "because they are not in motion. No picture can give the gleamings of the arrow or the whirlings of the veil. I wish we could dress like Italians. How I should like to wear a scarlet bodice, and a veil fastened with a silver arrow." "If we remained till Carnival, you might have that pleasure," replied Mrs. Delano; "for everybody masquerades as they like at that time. But I imagine you would hardly fancy my appearance in scarlet jacket, with laced sleeves, big coral necklace, and long ear-rings, like that old Contadina we met riding on a donkey." Flora laughed. "To think of Mamita Lila in such costume!" exclaimed she. "The old Contadina would make a charming picture; but a picture of the Campagna, sleepy with purple haze, would be more like you." "Am I then so sleepy?" inquired her friend. "O, no, not sleepy. You know I don't mean that. But so quiet; and always with some sort of violet or lilac cloud for a dress. But here comes Carlina to call us to breakfast," said she, as she laid down her crayon, and drummed the saltarello on her picture while she paused a moment to look at it. As Mrs. Delano wished to write letters, and Flora expected a teacher in drawing, it was decided that they should remain at home until the hour arrived for visiting the Vatican. "We have been about sight-seeing so much," said Mrs. Delano, "that I think it will be pleasant to have a quiet day." Flora assented; but as Mrs. Delano wrote, she could not help smiling at her ideas of quietude. Sometimes rapid thumps on the tambourine might be heard, indicating that the saltarello was again in rehearsal. If a _piffero_ strolled through the street, the monotonous drone of his bagpipe was reproduced in most comical imitation; and anon there was a gush of bird-songs, as if a whole aviary were in the vicinity. Indeed, no half-hour passed without audible indication that the little recluse was in merry mood. At the appointed time Mr. Green came to conduct them to the Vatican. They ascended the wide slopes, and passed through open courts into long passages lined with statues, and very dimly lighted with occasional lamps. Here and there a marble figure was half revealed, and looked so spectral in the gloaming that they felt as if they were entering the world of spirits. Several members of the party preceded them, and all seemed to feel the hushing influence, for they passed on in silence, and stepped softly as they entered the great Palace of Art. The torch-bearers were soon in readiness to illuminate the statues, which they did by holding a covered light over each, making it stand out alone in the surrounding darkness, with very striking effects of light and shadow. Flora, who was crouched on a low seat by the side of Mrs. Delano, gazed with a reverent, half-afraid feeling on the thoughtful, majestic looking Minerva Medica. When the graceful vision of Venus Anadyomene was revealed, she pressed her friend's hand, and the pressure was returned. But when the light was held over a beautiful Cupid, the face looked out from the gloom with such an earnest, childlike expression, that she forgot the presence of strangers, and impulsively exclaimed, "O Mamita, how lovely!" A gentleman some little distance in front of them turned toward them suddenly, at the sound of her voice; and a movement of the torch-bearer threw the light full upon him for an instant. Flora hid her face in the lap of Mrs. Delano, who attributed the quick action to her shame at having spoken so audibly. But placing her hand caressingly on her shoulder, she felt that she was trembling violently. She stooped toward her, and softly inquired, "What is the matter, dear?" Flora seized her head with both hands, and, drawing it closer, whispered: "Take me home, Mamita! Do take me right home!" Wondering what sudden caprice had seized the emotional child, she said, "Why, are you ill, dear?" Flora whispered close into her ear: "No, Mamita. But Mr. Fitzgerald is here." Mrs. Delano rose very quietly, and, approaching Mr. Green, said: "My daughter is not well, and we wish to leave. But I beg you will return as soon as you have conducted us to the carriage." But though he was assured by both the ladies that nothing alarming was the matter, when they arrived at their lodgings he descended from the driver's seat to assist them in alighting. Mrs. Delano, with polite regrets at having thus disturbed his pleasure, thanked him, and bade him good evening. She hurried after Flora, whom she found in her room, weeping bitterly. "Control your feelings, my child," said she. "You are perfectly safe here in Italy." "But if he saw me, it will make it so very unpleasant for you, Mamita." "He couldn't see you; for we were sitting in very deep shadow," replied Mrs. Delano. "But even if he had seen you, I should know how to protect you." "But what I am thinking of," said Floracita, still weeping, "is that he may have brought Rosa with him, and I can't run to her this very minute. I _must_ see her! I _will_ see her! If I have to tell ever so many _fibititas_ about the reason of my running away." "I wouldn't prepare any _fibititas_ at present," rejoined Mrs. Delano. "I always prefer the truth. I will send for Mr. Percival, and ask him to ascertain whether Mr. Fitzgerald brought a lady with him. Meanwhile, you had better lie down, and keep as quiet as you can. As soon as I obtain any information, I will come and tell you." When Mr. Percival was informed of the adventure at the Vatican, he sallied forth to examine the lists of arrivals; and before long he returned with the statement that Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald were registered among the newcomers. "Flora would, of course, consider that conclusive," said he; "but you and I, who have doubts concerning that clandestine marriage, will deem it prudent to examine further." "If it should prove to be her sister, it will be a very embarrassing affair," rejoined Mrs. Delano. Mr. Percival thought it very unlikely, but said he would ascertain particulars to-morrow. With that general promise, without a knowledge of the fact already discovered, Flora retired to rest; but it was nearly morning before she slept. CHAPTER XVIII. Though Flora had been so wakeful the preceding night, she tapped at Mrs. Delano's door very early the next morning. "Excuse me for coming before you were dressed," said she; "but I wanted to ask you how long you think it will be before Mr. Percival can find out whether Mr. Fitzgerald has brought Rosa with him." "Probably not before noon," replied Mrs. Delano, drawing the anxious little face toward her, and imprinting on it her morning kiss. "Last evening I wrote a note to Mr. Green, requesting him to dispose of the opera tickets to other friends. Mr. Fitzgerald is so musical, he will of course be there; and whether your sister is with him or not, you will be in too nervous a state to go to any public place. You had better stay in your room, and busy yourself with books and drawings, till we can ascertain the state of things. I will sit with you as much as I can; and when I am absent you must try to be a good, quiet child." "I will try to be good, because I don't want to trouble you, Mamita Lila; but you know I can't be quiet in my mind. I did long for the opera; but unless Mr. Fitzgerald brought Rosa with him, and I could see her before I went, it would almost kill me to hear Norma; for every part of it is associated with her." After breakfast, Mrs. Delano sat some time in Flora's room, inspecting her recent drawings, and advising her to work upon them during the day, as the best method of restraining restlessness. While they were thus occupied, Carlina brought in a beautiful bouquet for Miss Delano, accompanied with a note for the elder lady, expressing Mr. Green's great regret at being deprived of the pleasure of their company for the evening. "I am sorry I missed seeing him," thought Mrs. Delano; "for he is always so intimate with Southerners, I dare say he would know all about Mr. Fitzgerald; though I should have been at a loss how to introduce the inquiry." Not long afterward Mr. Percival called, and had what seemed to Flora a very long private conference with Mrs. Delano. The information he brought was, that the lady with Mr. Fitzgerald was a small, slight figure, with yellowish hair and very delicate complexion. "That is in all respects the very opposite of Flora's description of her sister," rejoined Mrs. Delano. Their brief conversation on the subject was concluded by a request that Mr. Percival would inquire at Civita Vecchia for the earliest vessels bound either to France or England. Mrs. Delano could not at once summon sufficient resolution to recount all the particulars to Flora; to whom she merely said that she considered it certain that her sister was not with Mr. Fitzgerald. "Then why can't I go right off to the United States to-day?" exclaimed the impetuous little damsel. "Would you then leave Mamita Lila so suddenly?" inquired her friend; whereupon the emotional child began to weep and protest. This little scene was interrupted by Carlina with two visiting-cards on a silver salver. Mrs. Delano's face flushed unusually as she glanced at them. She immediately rose to go, saying to Flora: "I must see these people; but I will come back to you as soon as I can. Don't leave your room, my dear." In the parlor, she found a gentleman and lady, both handsome, but as different from each other as night and morning. The lady stepped forward and said: "I think you will recollect me; for we lived in the same street in Boston, and you and my mother used to visit together." "Miss Lily Bell," rejoined Mrs. Delano, offering her hand. "I had not heard you were on this side the Atlantic." "Not Miss Bell now, but Mrs. Fitzgerald," replied the fair little lady. "Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Fitzgerald." Mrs. Delano bowed, rather coldly; and her visitor continued: "I was so sorry I didn't know you were with the Vatican party last night. Mr. Green told us of it this morning, and said you were obliged to leave early, on account of the indisposition of Miss Delano. I hope she has recovered, for Mr. Green has told me so much about her that I am dying with curiosity to see her." "She is better, I thank you, but not well enough to see company," replied Mrs. Delano. "What a pity she will be obliged to relinquish the opera to-night!" observed Mr. Fitzgerald. "I hear she is very musical; and they tell wonderful stories about this new _prima donna_. They say she has two more notes in the altissimo scale than any singer who has been heard here, and that her sostenuto is absolutely marvellous." Mrs. Delano replied politely, expressing regret that she and her daughter were deprived of the pleasure of hearing such a musical genius. After some desultory chat concerning the various sights in Rome, the visitors departed. "I'm glad your call was short," said Mr. Fitzgerald. "That lady is a perfect specimen of Boston ice." Whereupon his companion began to rally him for want of gallantry in saying anything disparaging of Boston. Meanwhile Mrs. Delano was pacing the parlor in a disturbed state of mind. Though she had foreseen such a contingency as one of the possible consequences of adopting Flora, yet when it came so suddenly in a different place, and under different circumstances from any she had thought of, the effect was somewhat bewildering. She dreaded the agitation into which the news would throw Flora, and she wanted to mature her own future plans before she made the announcement. So, in answer to Flora's questions about the visitors, she merely said a lady from Boston, the daughter of one of her old acquaintances, had called to introduce her husband. After dinner, they spent some time reading Tasso's Aminta together; and then Mrs. Delano said: "I wish to go and have a talk with Mr. and Mrs. Percival. I have asked him to inquire about vessels at Civita Vecchia; for, under present circumstances, I presume you would be glad to set out sooner than we intended on that romantic expedition in search of your sister." "O, thank you! thank you!" exclaimed Flora, jumping up and kissing her. "I trust you will not go out, or sing, or show yourself at the windows while I am gone," said Mrs. Delano; "for though Mr. Fitzgerald can do you no possible harm, it would be more agreeable to slip away without his seeing you." The promise was readily and earnestly given, and she proceeded to the lodgings of Mr. and Mrs. Percival in the next street. After she had related the experiences of the morning, she asked what they supposed had become of Rosabella. "It is to be hoped she does not continue her relation with that base man if she knows of his marriage," said Mrs. Percival; "for that would involve a moral degradation painful for you to think of in Flora's sister." "If she has ceased to interest his fancy, very likely he may have sold her," said Mr. Percival; "for a man who could entertain the idea of selling Flora, I think would sell his own Northern wife, if the law permitted it and circumstances tempted him to it." "What do you think I ought to do in the premises?" inquired Mrs. Delano. "I would hardly presume to say what you ought to do," rejoined Mrs. Percival; "but I know what I should do, if I were as rich as you, and as strongly attached to Flora." "Let me hear what you would do," said Mrs. Delano. The prompt reply was: "I would go in search of her. And if she was sold, I would buy her and bring her home, and be a mother to her." "Thank you," said Mrs. Delano, warmly pressing her hand. "I thought you would advise what was kindest and noblest. Money really seems to me of very little value, except as a means of promoting human happiness. And in this case I might perhaps prevent moral degradation, growing out of misfortune and despair." After some conversation concerning vessels that were about to sail, the friends parted. On her way homeward, she wondered within herself whether they had any suspicion of the secret tie that bound her so closely to these unfortunate girls. "I ought to do the same for them without that motive," thought she; "but should I?" Though her call had not been very long, it seemed so to Flora, who had latterly been little accustomed to solitude. She had no heart for books or drawing. She sat listlessly watching the crowd on Monte Pincio;--children chasing each other, or toddling about with nurses in bright-red jackets; carriages going round and round, ever and anon bringing into the sunshine gleams of gay Roman scarfs, or bright autumnal ribbons fluttering in the breeze. She had enjoyed few things more than joining that fashionable promenade to overlook the city in the changing glories of sunset. But now she cared not for it. Her thoughts were far away on the lonely island. As sunset quickly faded into twilight, carriages and pedestrians wound their way down the hill. The noble trees on its summit became solemn silhouettes against the darkening sky, and the monotonous trickling of the fountain in the court below sounded more distinct as the street noises subsided. She was growing a little anxious, when she heard soft footfalls on the stairs, which she at once recognized and hastened to meet. "O, you have been gone so long!" she exclaimed. Happy, as all human beings are, to have another heart so dependent on them, the gratified lady passed her arm round the waist of the loving child, and they ascended to their rooms like two confidential school-girls. After tea, Mrs. Delano said, "Now I will keep my promise of telling you all I have discovered." Flora ran to an ottoman by her side, and, leaning on her lap, looked up eagerly into her face. "You must try not to be excitable, my dear," said her friend; "for I have some unpleasant news to tell you." The expressive eyes, that were gazing wistfully into hers while she spoke, at once assumed that startled, melancholy look, strangely in contrast with their laughing shape. Her friend was so much affected by it that she hardly knew how to proceed with her painful task. At last Flora murmured, "Is she dead?" "I have heard no such tidings, darling," she replied. "But Mr. Fitzgerald has married a Boston lady, and they were the visitors who came here this morning." Flora sprung up and pressed her hand on her heart, as if a sharp arrow had hit her. But she immediately sank on the ottoman again, and said in tones of suppressed agitation: "Then he has left poor Rosa. How miserable she must be! She loved him so! O, how wrong it was for me to run away and leave her! And only to think how I have been enjoying myself, when she was there all alone, with her heart breaking! Can't we go to-morrow to look for her, dear Mamita?" "In three days a vessel will sail for Marseilles," replied Mrs. Delano. "Our passage is taken; and Mr. and Mrs. Percival, who intended to return home soon, are kind enough to say they will go with us. I wish they could accompany us to the South; but he is so well known as an Abolitionist that his presence would probably cause unpleasant interruptions and delays, and perhaps endanger his life." Flora seized her hand and kissed it, while tears were dropping fast upon it. And at every turn of the conversation, she kept repeating, "How wrong it was for me to run away and leave her!" "No, my child," replied Mrs. Delano, "you did right in coming to me. If you had stayed there, you would have made both her and yourself miserable, beside doing what was very wrong. I met Mr. Fitzgerald once on horseback, while I was visiting at Mr. Welby's plantation; but I never fairly saw him until to-day. He is so very handsome, that, when I looked at him, I could not but think it rather remarkable he did not gain a bad power over you by his insinuating flattery, when you were so very young and inexperienced." The guileless little damsel looked up with an expression of surprise, and said: "How _could_ I bear to have him make love to _me_, when he was Rosa's husband? He is so handsome and fascinating, that, if he had loved me instead of Rosa, in the beginning, I dare say I should have been as much in love with him as she was. I did dearly love him while he was a kind brother; but I couldn't love him _so_. It would have killed Rosa if I had. Besides, he told falsehoods; and papa taught us to consider that as the meanest of faults. I have heard him tell Rosa he never loved anybody but her, when an hour before he had told me he loved me better than Rosa. What could I do but despise such a man? Then, when he threatened to sell me, I became dreadfully afraid of him." She started up, as if struck by a sudden thought, and exclaimed wildly, "What if he has sold Rosa?" Her friend brought forward every argument and every promise she could think of to pacify her; and when she had become quite calm, they sang a few hymns together, and before retiring to rest knelt down side by side and prayed for strength and guidance in these new troubles. Flora remained a long time wakeful, thinking of Rosa deserted and alone. She had formed many projects concerning what was to be seen and heard and done in Rome; but she forgot them all. She did not even think of the much-anticipated opera, until she heard from the street snatches of Norma, whistled or sung by the dispersing audience. A tenor voice passed the house singing, _Vieni_ _in Roma_. "Ah," thought she, "Gerald and I used to sing that duet together. And in those latter days how languishingly he used to look at me, behind her back, while he sang passionately, '_Ah, deh cedi, cedi a me_!' And poor cheated Rosa would say, 'Dear Gerald, how much heart you put into your voice!' O shame, shame! What _could_ I do but run away? Poor Rosa! How I wish I could hear her sing 'Casta Diva,' as she used to do when we sat gazing at the moon shedding its soft light over the pines in that beautiful lonely island." And so, tossed for a long while on a sea of memories, she finally drifted into dream-land. CHAPTER XIX. While Flora was listlessly gazing at Monte Pincio from the solitude of her room in the Via delle Quattro Fontane, Rosabella was looking at the same object, seen at a greater distance, over intervening houses, from her high lodgings in the Corso. She could see the road winding like a ribbon round the hill, with a medley of bright colors continually moving over it. But she was absorbed in revery, and they floated round and round before her mental eye, like the revolving shadows of a magic lantern. She was announced to sing that night, as the new Spanish _prima donna_, La Señorita Rosita Campaneo; and though she had been applauded by manager and musicians at the rehearsal that morning, her spirit shrank from the task. Recent letters from America had caused deep melancholy; and the idea of singing, not _con amore_, but as a performer before an audience of entire strangers, filled her with dismay. She remembered how many times she and Flora and Gerald had sung together from Norma; and an oppressive feeling of loneliness came over her. Returning from rehearsal, a few hours before, she had seen a young Italian girl, who strongly reminded her of her lost sister. "Ah!" thought she, "if Flora and I had gone out into the world together, to make our own way, as Madame first intended, how much sorrow and suffering I might have been spared!" She went to the piano, where the familiar music of Norma lay open before her, and from the depths of her saddened soul gushed forth, "_Ah, bello a me Ritorno_." The last tone passed sighingly away, and as her hands lingered on the keys, she murmured, "Will my heart pass into it there, before that crowd of strange faces, as it does here?" "To be sure it will, dear," responded Madame, who had entered softly and stood listening to the last strains. "Ah, if all would hear with _your_ partial ears!" replied Rosabella, with a glimmering smile. "But they will not. And I may be so frightened that I shall lose my voice." "What have you to be afraid of, darling?" rejoined Madame. "It was more trying to sing at private parties of accomplished musicians, as you did in Paris; and especially at the palace, where there was such an _élite_ company. Yet you know that Queen Amelia was so much pleased with your performance of airs from this same opera, that she sent you the beautiful enamelled wreath you are to wear to-night." "What I was singing when you came in wept itself out of the fulness of my heart," responded Rosabella. "This dreadful news of Tulee and the baby unfits me for anything. Do you think there is no hope it may prove untrue?" "You know the letter explicitly states that my cousin and his wife, the negro woman, and the white baby, all died of yellow-fever," replied Madame. "But don't reproach me for leaving them, darling. I feel badly enough about it, already. I thought it would be healthy so far out of the city; and it really seemed the best thing to do with the poor little _bambino_, until we could get established somewhere." "I did not intend to reproach you, my kind friend," answered Rosa. "I know you meant it all for the best. But I had a heavy presentiment of evil when you first told me they were left. This news makes it hard for me to keep up my heart for the efforts of the evening. You know I was induced to enter upon this operatic career mainly by the hope of educating that poor child, and providing well for the old age of you and Papa Balbino, as I have learned to call my good friend, the Signor. And poor Tulee, too,--how much I intended to do for her! No mortal can ever know what she was to me in the darkest hours of my life." "Well, poor Tulee's troubles are all over," rejoined Madame, with a sigh; "and _bambinos_ escape a great deal of suffering by going out of this wicked world. For, between you and I, dear, I don't believe one word about the innocent little souls staying in purgatory on account of not being baptized." "O, my friend, if you only _knew_!" exclaimed Rosa, in a wild, despairing tone. But she instantly checked herself, and said: "I will try not to think of it; for if I do, I shall spoil my voice; and Papa Balbino would be dreadfully mortified if I failed, after he had taken so much pains to have me brought out." "That is right, darling," rejoined Madame, patting her on the shoulder. "I will go away, and leave you to rehearse." Again and again Rosa sang the familiar airs, trying to put soul into them, by imagining how she would feel if she were in Norma's position. Some of the emotions she knew by her own experience, and those she sang with her deepest feeling. "If I could only keep the same visions before me that I have here alone, I should sing well to-night," she said to herself; "for now, when I sing 'Casta Diva,' I seem to be sitting with my arm round dear little Flora, watching the moon as it rises above the dark pines on that lonely island." At last the dreaded hour came. Rosa appeared on the stage with her train of priestesses. The orchestra and the audience were before her; and she knew that Papa and Mamma Balbino were watching her from the side with anxious hearts. She was very pale, and her first notes were a little tremulous. But her voice soon became clear and strong; and when she fixed her eyes on the moon, and sang "Casta Diva," the fulness and richness of the tones took everybody by surprise. "_Bis! Bis_!" cried the audience; and the chorus was not allowed to proceed till she had sung it a second and third time. She courtesied her acknowledgments gracefully. But as she retired, ghosts of the past went with her; and with her heart full of memories, she seemed to weep in music, while she sang in Italian, "Restore to mine affliction one smile of love's protection." Again the audience shouted, "_Bis! Bis_!" The duet with Adalgisa was more difficult; for she had not yet learned to be an actress, and she was embarrassed by the consciousness of being an object of jealousy to the _seconda donna_, partly because she was _prima_, and partly because the tenor preferred her. But when Adalgisa sang in Italian the words, "Behold him!" she chanced to raise her eyes to a box near the stage, and saw the faces of Gerald Fitzgerald and his wife bending eagerly toward her. She shuddered, and for an instant her voice failed her. The audience were breathless. Her look, her attitude, her silence, her tremor, all seemed inimitable acting. A glance at the foot-lights and at the orchestra recalled the recollection of where she was, and by a strong effort she controlled herself; though there was still an agitation in her voice, which the audience and the singers thought to be the perfection of acting. Again she glanced at Fitzgerald, and there was terrible power in the tones with which she uttered, in Italian, "Tremble, perfidious one! Thou knowest the cause is ample." Her eyes rested for a moment on Mrs. Fitzgerald, and with a wonderful depth of pitying sadness, she sang, "O, how his art deceived thee!" The wish she had formed was realized. She was enabled to give voice to her own emotions, forgetful of the audience for the time being. And even in subsequent scenes, when the recollection of being a performer returned upon her, her inward excitation seemed to float her onward, like a great wave. Once again her own feelings took her up, like a tornado, and made her seem a wonderful actress. In the scene where Norma is tempted to kill her children, she fixed her indignant gaze full upon Fitzgerald, and there was an indescribable expression of stern resolution in her voice, and of pride in the carriage of her queenly head, while she sang: "Disgrace worse than death awaits them. Slavery? No! never!" Fitzgerald quailed before it. He grew pale, and slunk back in the box. The audience had never seen the part so conceived, and a few criticised it. But her beauty and her voice and her overflowing feeling carried all before her; and this, also, was accepted as a remarkable inspiration of theatrical genius. When the wave of her own excitement was subsiding, the magnetism of an admiring audience began to affect her strongly. With an outburst of fury, she sang, "War! War!" The audience cried, "_Bis! Bis_!" and she sang it as powerfully the second time. What it was that had sustained and carried her through that terrible ordeal, she could never understand. When the curtain dropped, Fitzgerald was about to rush after her; but his wife caught his arm, and he was obliged to follow. It was an awful penance he underwent, submitting to this necessary restraint; and while his soul was seething like a boiling caldron, he was obliged to answer evasively to Lily's frequent declaration that the superb voice of this Spanish _prima donna_ was exactly like the wonderful voice that went wandering round the plantation, like a restless ghost. Papa and Mamma Balbino were waiting to receive the triumphant _cantatrice_, as she left the stage. "_Brava! Brava_!" shouted the Signor, in a great fever of excitement; but seeing how pale she looked, he pressed her hand in silence, while Madame wrapped her in shawls. They lifted her into the carriage as quickly as possible, where her head drooped almost fainting on Madame's shoulder. It required them both to support her unsteady steps, as they mounted the stairs to their lofty lodging. She told them nothing that night of having seen Fitzgerald; and, refusing all refreshment save a sip of wine, she sank on the bed utterly exhausted. CHAPTER XX. She slept late the next day, and woke with a feeling of utter weariness of body and prostration of spirit. When her dressing-maid Giovanna came at her summons, she informed her that a gentleman had twice called to see her, but left no name or card. "Let no one be admitted to-day but the manager of the opera," said Rosa. "I will dress now; and if Mamma Balbino is at leisure, I should like to have her come and talk with me while I breakfast." "Madame has gone out to make some purchases," replied Giovanna. "She said she should return soon, and charged me to keep everything quiet, that you might sleep. The Signor is in his room waiting to speak to you." "Please tell him I have waked," said Rosa; "and as soon as I have dressed and breakfasted, ask him to come to me." Giovanna, who had been at the opera the preceding evening, felt the importance of her mission in dressing the celebrated Señorita Rosita Campaneo, of whose beauty and gracefulness everybody was talking. And when the process was completed, the _cantatrice_ might well have been excused if she had thought herself the handsomest of women. The glossy dark hair rippled over her forehead in soft waves, and the massive braids behind were intertwisted with a narrow band of crimson velvet, that glowed like rubies where the sunlight fell upon it. Her morning wrapper of fine crimson merino, embroidered with gold-colored silk, was singularly becoming to her complexion, softened as the contact was by a white lace collar fastened at the throat with a golden pin. But though she was seated before the mirror, and though her own Spanish taste had chosen the strong contrast of bright colors, she took no notice of the effect produced. Her face was turned toward the window, and as she gazed on the morning sky, all unconscious of its translucent brilliancy of blue, there was an inward-looking expression in her luminous eyes that would have made the fortune of an artist, if he could have reproduced her as a Sibyl. Giovanna looked at her with surprise, that a lady could be so handsome and so beautifully dressed, yet not seem to care for it. She lingered a moment contemplating the superb head with an exultant look, as if it were a picture of her own painting, and then she went out noiselessly to bring the breakfast-tray. The Señorita Campaneo ate with a keener appetite than she had ever experienced as Rosabella the recluse; for the forces of nature, exhausted by the exertions of the preceding evening, demanded renovation. But the services of the cook were as little appreciated as those of the dressing-maid; the luxurious breakfast was to her simply food. The mirror was at her side, and Giovanna watched curiously to see whether she would admire the effect of the crimson velvet gleaming among her dark hair. But she never once glanced in that direction. When she had eaten sufficiently, she sat twirling her spoon and looking into the depths of her cup, as if it were a magic mirror revealing all the future. She was just about to say, "Now you may call Papa Balbino," when Giovanna gave a sudden start, and exclaimed, "Signorita! a gentleman!" And ere she had time to look round, Fitzgerald was kneeling at her feet. He seized her hand and kissed it passionately, saying, in an agony of entreaty: "O Rosabella, do say you forgive me! I am suffering the tortures of the damned." The irruption was so sudden and unexpected, that for an instant she failed to realize it. But her presence of mind quickly returned, and, forcibly withdrawing the hand to which he clung, she turned to the astonished waiting-maid and said quite calmly, "Please deliver _immediately_ the message I spoke of." Giovanna left the room and proceeded directly to the adjoining apartment, where Signor Balbino was engaged in earnest conversation with another gentleman. Fitzgerald remained kneeling, still pleading vehemently for forgiveness. "Mr. Fitzgerald," said she, "this audacity is incredible. I could not have imagined it possible you would presume ever again to come into my presence, after having sold me to that infamous man." "He took advantage of me, Rosa. I was intoxicated with wine, and knew not what I did. I could not have done it if I had been in my senses. I have always loved you as I never loved any other woman; and I never loved you so wildly as now." "Leave me!" she exclaimed imperiously. "Your being here does me injury. If you have any manhood in you, leave me!" He strove to clutch the folds of her robe, and in frenzied tones cried out: "O Rosabella, don't drive me from you! I can't live without--" A voice like a pistol-shot broke in upon his sentence: "Villain! Deceiver! What are you doing here? Out of the house this instant!" Fitzgerald sprung to his feet, pale with rage, and encountered the flashing eyes of the Signor. "What right have _you_ to order me out of the house?" said he. "I am her adopted father," replied the Italian; "and no man shall insult her while I am alive." "So _you_ are installed as her protector!" retorted Fitzgerald, sneeringly. "You are not the first gallant I have known to screen himself behind his years." "By Jupiter!" vociferated the enraged Italian; and he made a spring to clutch him by the throat. Fitzgerald drew out a pistol. With a look of utter distress, Rosa threw herself between them, saying, in imploring accents, "_Will_ you go?" At the same moment, a hand rested gently on the Signor's shoulder, and a manly voice said soothingly, "Be calm, my friend." Then, turning to Mr. Fitzgerald, the gentleman continued: "Slight as our acquaintance is, sir, it authorizes me to remind you that scenes like this are unfit for a lady's apartment." Fitzgerald slowly replaced his pistol, as he answered coldly: "I remember your countenance, sir, but I don't recollect where I have seen it, nor do I understand what right you have to intrude here." "I met you in New Orleans, something more than four years ago," replied the stranger; "and I was then introduced to you by this lady's father, as Mr. Alfred King of Boston." "O, I remember," replied Fitzgerald, with a slight curl of his lip. "I thought you something of a Puritan then; but it seems _you_ are her protector also." Mr. King colored to the temples; but he replied calmly: "I know not whether Miss Royal recognizes me; for I have never seen her since the evening we spent so delightfully at her father's house." "I do recognize you," replied Rosabella; "and as the son of my father's dearest friend, I welcome you." She held out her hand as she spoke, and he clasped it for an instant. But though the touch thrilled him, he betrayed no emotion. Relinquishing it with a respectful bow, he turned to Mr. Fitzgerald, and said: "You have seen fit to call me a Puritan, and may not therefore accept me as a teacher of politeness; but if you wish to sustain the character of a cavalier, you surely will not remain in a lady's house after she has requested you to quit it." With a slight shrug of his shoulders, Mr. Fitzgerald took his hat, and said, "Where ladies command, I am of course bound to obey." As he passed out of the door, he turned toward Rosabella, and, with a low bow, said, "_Au revoir_!" The Signor was trembling with anger, but succeeded in smothering his half-uttered anathemas. Mr. King compressed his lips tightly for a moment, as if silence were a painful effort. Then, turning to Rosa, he said: "Pardon my sudden intrusion, Miss Royal. Your father introduced me to the Signor, and I last night saw him at the opera. That will account for my being in his room to-day." He glanced at the Italian with a smile, as he added: "I heard very angry voices, and I thought, if there was to be a duel, perhaps the Signor would need a second. You must be greatly fatigued with exertion and excitement. Therefore, I will merely congratulate you on your brilliant success last evening, and wish you good morning." "I _am_ fatigued," she replied; "but if I bid you good morning now, it is with the hope of seeing you again soon. The renewal of acquaintance with one whom my dear father loved is too pleasant to be willingly relinquished." "Thank you," he said. But the simple words were uttered with a look and tone so deep and earnest, that she felt the color rising to her cheeks. "Am I then still capable of being moved by such tones?" she asked herself, as she listened to his departing footsteps, and, for the first time that morning, turned toward the mirror and glanced at her own flushed countenance. "What a time you've been having, dear!" exclaimed Madame, who came bustling in a moment after. "Only to think of Mr. Fitzgerald's coming here! His impudence goes a little beyond anything I ever heard of. Wasn't it lucky that Boston friend should drop down from the skies, as it were, just at the right minute; for the Signor's such a flash-in-the-pan, there 's no telling what might have happened. Tell me all about it, dear." "I will tell you about it, dear mamma," replied Rosa; "but I must beg you to excuse me just now; for I am really very much flurried and fatigued. If you hadn't gone out, I should have told you this morning, at breakfast, that I saw Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald at the opera, and that I was singing at them in good earnest, while people thought I was acting. We will talk it all over some time; but now I must study, for I shall have hard work to keep the ground I have gained. You know I must perform again to-night. O, how I dread it!" "You are a strange child to talk so, when you have turned everybody's head," responded Madame. "Why should I care for everybody's head?" rejoined the successful _cantatrice_. But she thought to herself: "I shall not feel, as I did last night, that I am going to sing _merely_ to strangers. There will be _one_ there who heard me sing to my dear father. I must try to recall the intonations that came so naturally last evening, and see whether I can act what I then felt." She seated herself at the piano, and began to sing, "_Oh, di qual sei tu vittima_." Then, shaking her head slowly, she murmured: "No; it doesn't come. I must trust to the inspiration of the moment. But it is a comfort to know they will not _all_ be strangers." * * * * * Mr. King took an opportunity that same day to call on Mr. Fitzgerald. He was very haughtily received; but, without appearing to notice it, he opened his errand by saying, "I have come to speak with you concerning Miss Royal." "All I have to say to you, sir," replied Mr. Fitzgerald, "is, that neither you nor any other man can induce me to give up my pursuit of her. I will follow her wherever she goes." "What possible advantage can you gain by such a course?" inquired his visitor. "Why uselessly expose yourself to disagreeable notoriety, which must, of course, place Mrs. Fitzgerald in a mortifying position?" "How do you know my perseverance would be useless?" asked Fitzgerald. "Did she send you to tell me so?" "She does not know of my coming," replied Mr. King. "I have told you that my acquaintance with Miss Royal is very slight. But you will recollect that I met her in the freshness of her young life, when she was surrounded by all the ease and elegance that a father's wealth and tenderness could bestow; and it was unavoidable that her subsequent misfortunes should excite my sympathy. She has never told me anything of her own history, but from others I know all the particulars. It is not my purpose to allude to them; but after suffering all she _has_ suffered, now that she has bravely made a standing-place for herself, and has such an arduous career before her, I appeal to your sense of honor, whether it is generous, whether it is manly, to do anything that will increase the difficulties of her position." "It is presumptuous in you, sir, to come here to teach me what is manly," rejoined Fitzgerald. "I merely presented the case for the verdict of your own conscience," answered his visitor; "but I will again take the liberty to suggest for your consideration, that if you persecute this unfortunate young lady with professions you know are unwelcome, it must necessarily react in a very unpleasant way upon your own reputation, and consequently upon the happiness of your family." "You mistook your profession, sir. You should have been a preacher," said Fitzgerald, with a sarcastic smile. "I presume you propose to console the lady for her misfortunes; but let me tell you, sir, that whoever attempts to come between me and her will do it at his peril." "I respect Miss Royal too much to hear her name used in any such discussion," replied Mr. King. "Good morning, sir." "The mean Yankee!" exclaimed the Southerner, as he looked after him. "If he were a gentleman he would have challenged me, and I should have met him like a gentleman; but one doesn't know what to do with such cursed Yankee preaching." He was in a very perturbed state of mind. Rosabella had, in fact, made a much deeper impression on him than any other woman had ever made. And now that he saw her the bright cynosure of all eyes, fresh fuel was heaped on the flickering flame of his expiring passion. Her disdain piqued his vanity, while it produced the excitement of difficulties to be overcome. He was exasperated beyond measure, that the beautiful woman who had depended solely upon him should now be surrounded by protectors. And if he could regain no other power, he was strongly tempted to exert the power of annoyance. In some moods, he formed wild projects of waylaying her, and carrying her off by force. But the Yankee preaching, much as he despised it, was not without its influence. He felt that it would be most politic to keep on good terms with his rich wife, who was, besides, rather agreeable to him. He concluded, on the whole, that he would assume superiority to the popular enthusiasm about the new _prima donna_; that he would coolly criticise her singing and her acting, while he admitted that she had many good points. It was a hard task he undertook; for on the stage Rosabella attracted him with irresistible power, to which was added the magnetism of the admiring audience. After the first evening, she avoided looking at the box where he sat; but he had an uneasy satisfaction in the consciousness that it was impossible she could forget he was present and watching her. The day after the second appearance of the Señorita Campaneo, Mrs. Delano was surprised by another call from the Fitzgeralds. "Don't think we intend to persecute you," said the little lady. "We merely came on business. We have just heard that you were to leave Rome very soon; but Mr. Green seemed to think it couldn't be so soon as was said." "Unexpected circumstances make it necessary for me to return sooner than I intended," replied Mrs. Delano. "I expect to sail day after to-morrow." "What a pity your daughter should go without hearing the new _prima donna_!" exclaimed Mrs. Fitzgerald. "She is really a remarkable creature. Everybody says she is as beautiful as a houri. And as for her voice, I never heard anything like it, except the first night I spent on Mr. Fitzgerald's plantation. There was somebody wandering about in the garden and groves who sang just like her. Mr. Fitzgerald didn't seem to be much struck with the voice, but I could never forget it." "It was during our honeymoon," replied her husband; "and how could I be interested in any other voice, when I had yours to listen to?" His lady tapped him playfully with her parasol, saying: "O, you flatterer! But I wish I could get a chance to speak to this Señorita. I would ask her if she had ever been in America." "I presume not," rejoined Mr. Fitzgerald. "They say an Italian musician heard her in Andalusia, and was so much charmed with her voice that he adopted her and educated her for the stage; and he named her Campaneo, because there is such a bell-like echo in her voice sometimes. Do you think, Mrs. Delano, that it would do your daughter any serious injury to go with us this evening? We have a spare ticket; and we would take excellent care of her. If she found herself fatigued, I would attend upon her home any time she chose to leave." "It would be too exciting for her nerves," was Mrs. Delano's laconic answer. "The fact is," said Mrs. Fitzgerald, "Mr. Green has told us so much about her, that we are extremely anxious to be introduced to her. He says she hasn't half seen Rome, and he wishes she could join our party. I wish we could persuade you to leave her with us. I can assure you Mr. Fitzgerald is a most agreeable and gallant protector to ladies. And then it is such a pity, when she is so musical, that she should go without hearing this new _prima donna_." "Thank you," rejoined Mrs. Delano; "but we have become so much attached to each other's society, that I don't think either of us could be happy separated. Since she cannot hear this musical wonder, I shall not increase her regrets by repeating your enthusiastic account of what she has missed." "If you had been present at her _début_, you wouldn't wonder at my enthusiasm," replied the little lady. "Mr. Fitzgerald is getting over the fever a little now, and undertakes to criticise. He says she overacted her part; that she 'tore a passion to tatters,' and all that. But I never saw him so excited as he was then. I think she noticed it; for she fixed her glorious dark eyes directly upon our box while she was singing several of her most effective passages." "My dear," interrupted her husband, "you are so opera-mad, that you are forgetting the object of your call." "True," replied she. "We wanted to inquire whether you were certainly going so soon, and whether any one had engaged these rooms. We took a great fancy to them. What a desirable situation! So sunny! Such a fine view of Monte Pincio and the Pope's gardens!" "They were not engaged last evening," answered Mrs. Delano. "Then you will secure them immediately, won't you, dear?" said the lady, appealing to her spouse. With wishes that the voyage might prove safe and pleasant, they departed. Mrs. Delano lingered a moment at the window, looking out upon St. Peter's and the Etruscan Hills beyond, thinking the while how strangely the skeins of human destiny sometimes become entangled with each other. Yet she was unconscious of half the entanglement. CHAPTER XXI. The engagement of the Señorita Rosita Campaneo was for four weeks, during which Mr. King called frequently and attended the opera constantly. Every personal interview, and every vision of her on the stage, deepened the impression she made upon him when they first met. It gratified him to see that, among the shower of bouquets she was constantly receiving, his was the one she usually carried; nor was she unobservant that he always wore a fresh rose. But she was unconscious of his continual guardianship, and he was careful that she should remain so. Every night that she went to the opera and returned from it, he assumed a dress like the driver's, and sat with him on the outside of the carriage,--a fact known only to Madame and the Signor, who were glad enough to have a friend at hand in case Mr. Fitzgerald should attempt any rash enterprise. Policemen were secretly employed to keep the _cantatrice_ in sight, whenever she went abroad for air or recreation. When she made excursions out of the city in company with her adopted parents, Mr. King was always privately informed of it, and rode in the same direction; at a sufficient distance, however, not to be visible to her, or to excite gossiping remarks by appearing to others to be her follower. Sometimes he asked himself: "What would my dear prudential mother say, to see me leaving my business to agents and clerks, while I devote my life to the service of an opera-singer?--an opera-singer, too, who has twice been on the verge of being sold as a slave, and who has been the victim of a sham marriage!" But though such queries jostled against conventional ideas received from education, they were always followed by the thought: "My dear mother has gone to a sphere of wider vision, whence she can look down upon the merely external distinctions of this deceptive world. Rosabella must be seen as a pure, good soul, in eyes that see as the angels do; and as the defenceless daughter of my father's friend, it is my duty to protect her." So he removed from his more eligible lodgings in the Piazza di Spagna, and took rooms in the Corso, nearly opposite to hers, where day by day he continued his invisible guardianship. He had reason, at various times, to think his precautions were not entirely unnecessary. He had several times seen a figure resembling Fitzgerald's lurking about the opera-house, wrapped in a cloak, and with a cap very much drawn over his face. Once Madame and the Signor, having descended from the carriage, with Rosa, to examine the tomb of Cecilia Metella, were made a little uneasy by the appearance of four rude-looking fellows, who seemed bent upon lurking in their vicinity. But they soon recognized Mr. King in the distance, and not far from him the disguised policemen in his employ. The fears entertained by her friends were never mentioned to Rosa, and she appeared to feel no uneasiness when riding in daylight with the driver and her adopted parents. She was sometimes a little afraid when leaving the opera late at night; but there was a pleasant feeling of protection in the idea that a friend of her father's was in Rome, who knew better than the Signor how to keep out of quarrels. That recollection also operated as an additional stimulus to excellence in her art. This friend had expressed himself very highly gratified by her successful _début_, and that consideration considerably increased her anxiety to sustain herself at the height she had attained. In some respects that was impossible; for the thrilling circumstances of the first evening could not again recur to set her soul on fire. Critics generally said she never equalled her first acting; though some maintained that what she had lost in power she had gained in a more accurate conception of the character. Her voice was an unfailing source of wonder and delight. They were never weary of listening to that volume of sound, so full and clear, so flexible in its modulations, so expressive in its intonations. As the completion of her engagement drew near, the manager was eager for its renewal; and finding that she hesitated, he became more and more liberal in his offers. Things were in this state, when Mr. King called upon Madame one day while Rosa was absent at rehearsal. "She is preparing a new aria for her last evening, when they will be sure to encore the poor child to death," said Madame. "It is very flattering, but very tiresome; and to my French ears their '_Bis! Bis_!' sounds too much like a hiss." "Will she renew her engagement, think you?" inquired Mr. King. "I don't know certainly," replied Madame. "The manager makes very liberal offers; but she hesitates. She seldom alludes to Mr. Fitzgerald, but I can see that his presence is irksome to her; and then his sudden irruption into her room, as told by Giovanna, has given rise to some green-room gossip. The tenor is rather too assiduous in his attentions, you know; and the _seconda donna_ is her enemy, because she has superseded her in his affections. These things make her wish to leave Rome; but I tell her she will have to encounter very much the same anywhere." "Madame," said the young man, "you stand in the place of a mother to Miss Royal; and as such, I have a favor to ask of you. Will you, without mentioning the subject to her, enable me to have a private interview with her to-morrow morning?" "You are aware that it is contrary to her established rule to see any gentleman, except in the presence of myself or Papa Balbino. But you have manifested so much delicacy, as well as friendliness, that we all feel the utmost confidence in you." She smiled significantly as she added: "If I slip out of the room, as it were by accident, I don't believe I shall find it very difficult to make my peace with her." Alfred King looked forward to the next morning with impatience; yet when he found himself, for the first time, alone with Rosabella, he felt painfully embarrassed. She glanced at the fresh rose he wore, but could not summon courage to ask whether roses were his favorite flowers. He broke the momentary silence by saying: "Your performances here have been a source of such inexpressible delight to me, Miss Royal, that it pains me to think of such a thing as a last evening." "Thank you for calling me by that name," she replied. "It carries me back to a happier time. I hardly know myself as La Señorita Campaneo. It all seems to me so strange and unreal, that, were it not for a few visible links with the past, I should feel as if I had died and passed into another world." "May I ask whether you intend to renew your engagement?" inquired he. She looked up quickly and earnestly, and said, "What would you advise me?" "The brevity of our acquaintance would hardly warrant my assuming the office of adviser," replied he modestly. The shadow of a blush flitted over her face, as she answered, in a bashful way: "Excuse me if the habit of associating you with the memory of my father makes me forget the shortness of our acquaintance. Beside, you once asked me if ever I was in trouble to call upon you as I would upon a brother." "It gratifies me beyond measure that you should remember my offer, and take me at my word," responded he. "But in order to judge for you, it is necessary to know something of your own inclinations. Do you enjoy the career on which you have entered?" "I should enjoy it if the audience were all my personal friends," answered she. "But I have lived such a very retired life, that I cannot easily become accustomed to publicity; and there is something I cannot exactly define, that troubles me with regard to operas. If I could perform only in pure and noble characters, I think it would inspire me; for then I should represent what I at least wish to be; but it affects me like a discord to imagine myself in positions which in reality I should scorn and detest." "I am not surprised to hear you express this feeling," responded he. "I had supposed it must be so. It seems to me the _libretti_ of operas are generally singularly ill conceived, both morally and artistically. Music is in itself so pure and heavenly, that it seems a desecration to make it the expression of vile incidents and vapid words. But is the feeling of which you speak sufficiently strong to induce you to retire from the brilliant career now opening before you, and devote yourself to concert-singing?" "There is one thing that makes me hesitate," rejoined she. "I wish to earn money fast, to accomplish certain purposes I have at heart. Otherwise, I don't think I care much for the success you call so brilliant. It is certainly agreeable to feel that I delight the audience, though they are strangers; but their cries of '_Bis! Bis_!' give me less real pleasure than it did to have Papasito ask me to sing over something that he liked. I seem to see him now, as he used to listen to me in our flowery parlor. Do you remember that room, Mr. King?" "Do I _remember_ it?" he said, with a look and emphasis so earnest that a quick blush suffused her eloquent face. "I see that room as distinctly as you can see it," he continued. "It has often been in my dreams, and the changing events of my life have never banished it from my memory for a single day. How _could I_ forget it, when my heart there received its first and only deep impression. I have loved you from the first evening I saw you. Judging that your affections were pre-engaged, I would gladly have loved another, if I could; but though I have since met fascinating ladies, none of them have interested me deeply." An expression of pain passed over her face while she listened, and when he paused she murmured softly, "I am sorry." "Sorry!" echoed he. "Is it then impossible for me to inspire you with sentiments similar to my own?" "I am sorry," she replied, "because a first, fresh love, like yours, deserves better recompense than it could receive from a bruised and worn-out heart like mine. I can never experience the illusion of love again. I have suffered too deeply." "I do not wish you to experience the _illusion_ of love again," he replied. "But my hope is that the devotion of my life may enable you to experience the true and tender _reality_" He placed his hand gently and timidly upon hers as he spoke, and looked in her face earnestly. Without raising her eyes she said, "I suppose you are aware that my mother was a slave, and that her daughters inherited her misfortune." "I am aware of it," he replied. "But that only makes me ashamed of my country, not of her or of them. Do not, I pray you, pain yourself or me by alluding to any of the unfortunate circumstances of your past life, with the idea that they can depreciate your value in my estimation. From Madame and the Signor I have learned the whole story of your wrongs and your sufferings. Fortunately, my good father taught me, both by precept and example, to look through the surface of things to the reality. I have seen and heard enough to be convinced that your own heart is noble and pure. Such natures cannot be sullied by the unworthiness of others; they may even be improved by it. The famous Dr. Spurzheim says, he who would have the best companion for his life should choose a woman who has suffered. And though I would gladly have saved you from suffering, I cannot but see that your character has been elevated by it. Since I have known you here in Rome, I have been surprised to observe how the young romantic girl has ripened into the thoughtful, prudent woman. I will not urge you for an answer now, my dear Miss Royal. Take as much time as you please to reflect upon it. Meanwhile, if you choose to devote your fine musical genius to the opera, I trust you will allow me to serve you in any way that a brother could under similar circumstances. If you prefer to be a concert-singer, my father had a cousin who married in England, where she has a good deal of influence in the musical world. I am sure she would take a motherly interest in you, both for your own sake and mine. Your romantic story, instead of doing you injury in England, would make you a great lioness, if you chose to reveal it." "I should dislike that sort of attention," she replied hastily. "Do not suppose, however, that I am ashamed of my dear mother, or of her lineage; but I wish to have any interest I excite founded on my own merits, not on any extraneous circumstance. But you have not yet advised me whether to remain on the stage or to retire from it." "If I presumed that my opinion would decide the point," rejoined he, "I should be diffident about expressing it in a case so important to yourself." "You are very delicate," she replied. "But I conjecture that you would be best pleased if I decided in favor of concert-singing." While he was hesitating what to say, in order to leave her in perfect freedom, she added: "And so, if you will have the goodness to introduce me to your relative, and she is willing to be my patroness, I will try my fortune in England. Of course she ought to be informed of my previous history; but I should prefer to have her consider it strictly confidential. And now, if you please, I will say, _An revoir_; for Papa Balbino is waiting for some instructions on matters of business." She offered her hand with a very sweet smile. He clasped it with a slight pressure, bowed his head upon it for an instant, and said, with deep emotion: "Thank you, dearest of women. You send me away a happy man; for hope goes with me." When the door closed after him, she sank into a chair, and covered her face with both her hands. "How different is his manner of making love from that of Gerald," thought she. "Surely, I can trust _this_ time. O, if I was only worthy of such love!" Her revery was interrupted by the entrance of Madame and the Signor. She answered their inquisitive looks by saying, rather hastily, "When you told Mr. King the particulars of my story, did you tell him about the poor little _bambino_ I left in New Orleans?" Madame replied, "I mentioned to him how the death of the poor little thing afflicted you." Rosa made no response, but occupied herself with selecting some pieces of music connected with the performance at the opera. The Signor, as he went out with the music, said, "Do you suppose she didn't want him to know about the _bambino_?" "Perhaps she is afraid he will think her heartless for leaving it," replied Madame. "But I will tell her I took all the blame on myself. If she is so anxious about his good opinion, it shows which way the wind blows." The Señorita Rosita Campaneo and her attendants had flitted, no one knew whither, before the public were informed that her engagement was not to be renewed. Rumor added that she was soon to be married to a rich American, who had withdrawn her from the stage. "Too much to be monopolized by one man," said Mr. Green to Mr. Fitzgerald. "Such a glorious creature belongs to the world." "Who is the happy man?" inquired Mrs. Fitzgerald. "They say it is King, that pale-faced Puritan from Boston," rejoined her husband. "I should have given her credit for better taste." In private, he made all possible inquiries; but merely succeeded in tracing them to a vessel at Civita Vecchia, bound to Marseilles. To the public, the fascinating _prima donna_, who had rushed up from the horizon like a brilliant rocket, and disappeared as suddenly, was only a nine-days wonder. Though for some time after, when opera-goers heard any other _cantatrice_ much lauded, they would say: "Ah, you should have heard the Campaneo! Such a voice! She rose to the highest D as easily as she breathed. And such glorious eyes!" CHAPTER XXII. While Rosabella was thus exchanging the laurel crown for the myrtle wreath, Flora and her friend were on their way to search the places that had formerly known her. Accompanied by Mr. Jacobs, who had long been a steward in her family, Mrs. Delano passed through Savannah, without calling on her friend Mrs. Welby, and in a hired boat proceeded to the island. Flora almost flew over the ground, so great was her anxiety to reach the cottage. Nature, which pursues her course with serene indifference to human vicissitudes, wore the same smiling aspect it had worn two years before, when she went singing through the woods, like Cinderella, all unconscious of the beneficent fairy she was to meet there in the form of a new Mamita. Trees and shrubs were beautiful with young, glossy foliage. Pines and firs offered their aromatic incense to the sun. Birds were singing, and bees gathering honey from the wild-flowers. A red-headed woodpecker was hammering away on the umbrageous tree under which Flora used to sit while busy with her sketches. He cocked his head to listen as they approached, and, at first sight of them, flew up into the clear blue air, with undulating swiftness. To Flora's great disappointment, they found all the doors fastened; but Mr. Jacobs entered by a window and opened one of them. The cottage had evidently been deserted for a considerable time. Spiders had woven their tapestry in all the corners. A pane had apparently been cut out of the window their attendant had opened, and it afforded free passage to the birds. On a bracket of shell-work, which Flora had made to support a vase of flowers, was a deserted nest, bedded in soft green moss, which hung from it in irregular streamers and festoons. "How pretty!" said Mrs. Delano. "If the little creature had studied the picturesque, she couldn't have devised anything more graceful. Let us take it, bracket and all, and carry it home carefully." "That was the very first shell-work I made after we came from Nassau," rejoined Flora. "I used to put fresh flowers on it every morning, to please Rosa. Poor Rosa! Where _can_ she be?" She turned away her head, and was silent for a moment. Then, pointing to the window, she said: "There's that dead pine-tree I told you I used to call Old Man of the Woods. He is swinging long pennants of moss on his arms, just as he did when I was afraid to look at him in the moonlight." She was soon busy with a heap of papers swept into a corner of the room she used to occupy. They were covered with sketches of leaves and flowers, and embroidery-patterns, and other devices with which she had amused herself in those days. Among them she was delighted to find the head and shoulders of Thistle, with a garland round his neck. In Rosa's sleeping-room, an old music-book, hung with cobwebs, leaned against the wall. "O Mamita Lila, I am glad to find this!" exclaimed Flora. "Here is what Rosa and I used to sing to dear papa when we were ever so little. He always loved old-fashioned music. Here are some of Jackson's canzonets, that were his favorites." She began to hum, "Time has not thinned my flowing hair." "Here is Dr. Arne's 'Sweet Echo.' Rosa used to play and sing that beautifully. And here is what he always liked to have us sing to him at sunset. We sang it to him the very night before he died." She began to warble, "Now Phoebus sinketh in the west." "Why, it seems as if I were a little girl again, singing to Papasito and Mamita," said she. Looking up, she saw that Mrs. Delano had covered her face with her handkerchief; and closing the music-book, she nestled to her side, affectionately inquiring what had troubled her. For a little while her friend pressed her hand in silence. "O darling," said she, "what a strange, sad gift is memory! I sang that to your father the last time we ever saw the sunset together; and perhaps when he heard it he used to see me sometimes, as plainly as I now see him. It is consoling to think he did not quite forget me." "When we go home, I will sing it to you every evening if you would like it, Mamita Lila," said Flora. Her friend patted her head fondly, and said: "You must finish your researches soon, darling; for I think we had better go to Magnolia Lawn to see if Tom and Chloe can be found." "How shall we get there? It's too far for you to walk, and poor Thistle's gone," said Flora. "I have sent Mr. Jacobs to the plantation," replied Mrs. Delano, "and I think he will find some sort of vehicle. Meanwhile, you had better be getting together any little articles you want to carry away." As Flora took up the music-book, some of the loose leaves fell out, and with them came a sketch of Tulee's head, with the large gold hoops and the gay turban. "Here's Tulee!" shouted Flora. "It isn't well drawn, but it _is_ like her. I'll make a handsome picture from it, and frame it, and hang it by my bedside, where I can see it every morning. Dear, good Tulee! How she jumped up and kissed us when we first arrived here. I suppose she thinks I am dead, and has cried a great deal about little Missy Flory. O, what wouldn't I give to see her!" She had peeped about everywhere, and was becoming very much dispirited with the desolation, when Mr. Jacobs came back with a mule and a small cart, which he said was the best conveyance he could procure. The jolting over hillocks, and the occasional grunts of the mule, made it an amusing ride; but it was a fruitless one. The plantation negroes were sowing cotton, but all Mr. Fitzgerald's household servants were leased out in Savannah during his absence in Europe. The white villa at Magnolia Lawn peeped out from its green surroundings; but the jalousies were closed, and the tracks on the carriage-road were obliterated by rains. Hiring a negro to go with them to take back the cart, they made the best of their way to the boat, which was waiting for them. Fatigued and disconsolate with their fruitless search, they felt little inclined to talk as they glided over the bright waters. The negro boatmen frequently broke in upon the silence with some simple, wild melody, which they sang in perfect unison, dipping their oars in rhythm. When Savannah came in sight, they urged the boat faster, and, improvising words to suit the occasion, they sang in brisker strains:-- "Row, darkies, row! See de sun down dar am creepin'; Row, darkies, row! Hab white ladies in yer keepin'; Row, darkies, row!" With the business they had on hand, Mrs. Delano preferred not to seek her friends in the city, and they took lodgings at a hotel. Early the next morning, Mr. Jacobs was sent out to ascertain the whereabouts of Mr. Fitzgerald's servants; and Mrs. Delano proposed that, during his absence, they should drive to The Pines, which she described as an extremely pleasant ride. Flora assented, with the indifference of a preoccupied mind. But scarcely had the horses stepped on the thick carpet of pine foliage with which the ground was strewn, when she eagerly exclaimed, "Tom! Tom!" A black man, mounted on the seat of a carriage that was passing them, reined in his horses and stopped. "Keep quiet, my dear," whispered Mrs. Delano to her companion, "till I can ascertain who is in the carriage." "Are you Mr. Fitzgerald's Tom?" she inquired. "Yes, Missis," replied the negro, touching his hat. She beckoned him to come and open her carriage-door, and, speaking in a low voice, she said: "I want to ask you about a Spanish lady who used to live in a cottage, not far from Mr. Fitzgerald's plantation. She had a black servant named Tulee, who used to call her Missy Rosy. We went to the cottage yesterday, and found it shut up. Can you tell us where they have gone?" Tom looked at them very inquisitively, and answered, "Dunno, Missis." "We are Missy Rosy's friends, and have come to bring her some good news. If you can tell us anything about her, I will give you this gold piece." Tom half stretched forth his hand to take the coin, then drew it back, and repeated, "Dunno, Missis." Flora, who felt her heart rising in her throat, tossed back her veil, and said, "Tom, don't you know me?" The negro started as if a ghost had risen before him. "Now tell me where Missy Rosy has gone, and who went with her," said she, coaxingly. "Bress yer, Missy Flory! _am_ yer alive!" exclaimed the bewildered negro. Flora laughed, and, drawing off her glove, shook hands with him. "Now you know I'm alive, Tom. But don't tell anybody. Where's Missy Rosy gone." "O Missy," replied Tom, "dar am heap ob tings to tell." Mrs. Delano suggested that it was not a suitable place; and Tom said he must go home with his master's carriage. He told them he had obtained leave to go and see his wife Chloe that evening; and he promised to come to their hotel first. So, with the general information that Missy Rosy and Tulee were safe, they parted for the present. Tom's communication in the evening was very long, and intensely interesting to his auditors; but it did not extend beyond a certain point. He told of Rosa's long and dangerous illness; of Chloe's and Tulee's patient praying and nursing; of the birth of the baby; of the sale to Mr. Bruteman; and of the process by which she escaped with Mr. Duroy. Further than that he knew nothing. He had never been in New Orleans afterward, and had never heard Mr. Fitzgerald speak of Rosa. At that crisis in the conversation, Mrs. Delano summoned Mr. Jacobs, and requested him to ascertain when a steamboat would go to New Orleans. Flora kissed her hand, with a glance full of gratitude. Tom looked at her in a very earnest, embarrassed way, and said: "Missis, am yer one ob dem Ab-lish-nishts dar in de Norf, dat Massa swars 'bout?" Mrs. Delano turned toward Flora with a look of perplexity, and, having received an interpretation of the question, she smiled as she answered: "I rather think I am half an Abolitionist, Tom. But why do you wish to know?" Tom went on to state, in "lingo" that had to be frequently explained, that he wanted to run away to the North, and that he could manage to do it if it were not for Chloe and the children. He had been in hopes that Mrs. Fitzgerald would have taken her to the North to nurse her baby while she was gone to Europe. In that case, he intended to follow after; and he thought some good people would lend them money to buy their little ones, and, both together, they could soon work off the debt. But this project had been defeated by Mrs. Bell, who brought a white nurse from Boston, and carried her infant grandson back with her. "Yer see, Missis," said Tom, with a sly look, "dey tinks de niggers don't none ob 'em wants dare freedom, so dey nebber totes 'em whar it be." Ever since that disappointment had occurred, he and his wife had resolved themselves into a committee of ways and means, but they had not yet devised any feasible mode of escape. And now they were thrown into great consternation by the fact that a slave-trader had been to look at Chloe, because Mr. Fitzgerald wanted money to spend in Europe, and had sent orders to have some of his negroes sold. Mrs. Delano told him she didn't see how she could help him, but she would think about it; and Flora, with a sideway inclination of the head toward her, gave Tom an expressive glance, which he understood as a promise to persuade her. He urged the matter no further, but asked what time it was. Being told it was near nine o'clock, he said he must hasten to Chloe, for it was not allowable for negroes to be in the street after that hour. He had scarcely closed the door, before Mrs. Delano said, "If Chloe is sold, I must buy her." "I thought you would say so," rejoined Flora. A discussion then took place as to ways and means, and a strictly confidential letter was written to a lawyer from the North, with whom Mrs. Delano was acquainted, requesting him to buy the woman and her children for her, if they were to be sold. It happened fortunately that a steamer was going to New Orleans the next day. Just as they were going on board, a negro woman with two children came near, and, dropping a courtesy, said: "Skuse, Missis. Dis ere's Chloe. Please say Ise yer nigger! Do, Missis!" Flora seized the black woman's hand, and pressed it, while she whispered: "Do, Mamita! They're going to sell her, you know." She took the children by the hand, and hurried forward without waiting for an answer. They were all on board before Mrs. Delano had time to reflect. Tom was nowhere to be seen. On one side of her stood Chloe, with two little ones clinging to her skirts, looking at her imploringly with those great fervid eyes, and saying in suppressed tones, "Missis, dey's gwine to sell me away from de chillen"; and on the other side was Flora, pressing her hand, and entreating, "Don't send her back, Mamita! She was _so_ good to poor Rosa." "But, my dear, if they should trace her to me, it would be a very troublesome affair," said the perplexed lady. "They won't look for her in New Orleans. They'll think she's gone North," urged Flora. During this whispered consultation, Mr. Jacobs approached with some of their baggage. Mrs. Delano stopped him, and said: "When you register our names, add a negro servant and her two children." He looked surprised, but bowed and asked no questions. She was scarcely less surprised at herself. In the midst of her anxiety to have the boat start, she called to mind her former censures upon those who helped servants to escape from Southern masters, and she could not help smiling at the new dilemma in which she found herself. The search in New Orleans availed little. They alighted from their carriage a few minutes to look at the house where Flora was born. She pointed out to Mrs. Delano the spot whence her father had last spoken to her on that merry morning, and the grove where she used to pelt him with oranges; but neither of them cared to enter the house, now that everything was so changed. Madame's house was occupied by strangers, who knew nothing of the previous tenants, except that they were said to have gone to Europe to live. They drove to Mr. Duroy's, and found strangers there, who said the former occupants had all died of yellow-fever,--the lady and gentleman, a negro woman, and a white baby. Flora was bewildered to find every link with her past broken and gone. She had not lived long enough to realize that the traces of human lives often disappear from cities as quickly as the ocean closes over the tracks of vessels. Mr. Jacobs proposed searching for some one who had been in Mr. Duroy's employ; and with that intention, they returned to the city. As they were passing a house where a large bird-cage hung in the open window, Flora heard the words, "_Petit blanc, mon bon frère! Ha! ha_!" She called out to Mr. Jacobs, "Stop! Stop!" and pushed at the carriage door, in her impatience to get out. "What _is_ the matter, my child?" inquired Mrs. Delano. "That's Madame's parrot," replied she; and an instant after she was ringing at the door of the house. She told the servant they wished to make some inquiries concerning Signor and Madame Papanti, and Monsieur Duroy; and she and Mrs. Delano were shown in to wait for the lady of the house. They had no sooner entered, than the parrot flapped her wings and cried out, "_Bon jour, joli petit diable_!" And then she began to whistle and warble, twitter and crow, through a ludicrous series of noisy variations. Flora burst into peals of laughter, in the midst of which the lady of the house entered the room. "Excuse me, Madame," said she. "This parrot is an old acquaintance of mine. I taught her to imitate all sorts of birds, and she is showing me that she has not forgotten my lessons." "It will be impossible to hear ourselves speak, unless I cover the cage," replied the lady. "Allow me to quiet her, if you please," rejoined Flora. She opened the door of the cage, and the bird hopped on her arm, flapping her wings, and crying, "_Bon jour! Ha! ha_!" "_Taisez vous, jolie Manon_," said Flora soothingly, while she stroked the feathery head. The bird nestled close and was silent. When their errand was explained, the lady repeated the same story they had already heard about Mr. Duroy's family. "Was the black woman who died there named Tulee?" inquired Flora. "I never heard her name but once or twice," replied the lady. "It was not a common negro name, and I think that was it. Madame Papanti had put her and the baby there to board. After Mr. Duroy died, his son came home from Arkansas to settle his affairs. My husband, who was one of Mr. Duroy's clerks, bought some of the things at auction; and among them was that parrot." "And what has become of Signor and Madame Papanti?" asked Mrs. Delano. The lady could give no information, except that they had returned to Europe. Having obtained directions where to find her husband, they thanked her, and wished her good morning. Flora held the parrot up to the cage, and said, "_Bon jour, jolie Manon_!" "_Bon jour_!" repeated the bird, and hopped upon her perch. After they had entered the carriage, Flora said: "How melancholy it seems that everybody is gone, except _Jolie Manon_! How glad the poor thing seemed to be to see me! I wish I could take her home." "I will send to inquire whether the lady will sell her," replied her friend. "O Mamita, you will spoil me, you indulge me so much," rejoined Flora. Mrs. Delano smiled affectionately, as she answered: "If you were very spoilable, dear, I think that would have been done already." "But it will be such a bother to take care of Manon," said Flora. "Our new servant Chloe can do that," replied Mrs. Delano. "But I really hope we shall get home without any further increase of our retinue." From the clerk information was obtained that he heard Mr. Duroy tell Mr. Bruteman that a lady named Rosabella Royal had sailed to Europe with Signor and Madame Papanti in the ship Mermaid. He added that news afterward arrived that the vessel foundered at sea, and all on board were lost. With this sorrow on her heart, Flora returned to Boston. Mr. Percival was immediately informed of their arrival, and hastened to meet them. When the result of their researches was told, he said: "I shouldn't be disheartened yet. Perhaps they didn't sail in the Mermaid. I will send to the New York Custom-House for a list of the passengers." Flora eagerly caught at that suggestion; and Mrs. Delano said, with a smile: "We have some other business in which we need your help. You must know that I am involved in another slave case. If ever a quiet and peace-loving individual was caught up and whirled about by a tempest of events, I am surely that individual. Before I met this dear little Flora, I had a fair prospect of living and dying a respectable and respected old fogy, as you irreverent reformers call discreet people. But now I find myself drawn into the vortex of abolition to the extent of helping off four fugitive slaves. In Flora's case, I acted deliberately, from affection and a sense of duty; but in this second instance I was taken by storm, as it were. The poor woman was aboard before I knew it, and I found myself too weak to withstand her imploring looks and Flora's pleading tones." She went on to describe the services Chloe had rendered to Rosa, and added: "I will pay any expenses necessary for conveying this woman to a place of safety, and supplying all that is necessary for her and her children, until she can support them; but I do not feel as if she were safe here." "If you will order a carriage, I will take them directly to the house of Francis Jackson, in Hollis Street," said Mr. Percival. "They will be safe enough under the protection of that honest, sturdy friend of freedom. His house is the depot of various subterranean railroads; and I pity the slaveholder who tries to get on any of his tracks. He finds himself 'like a toad under a harrow, where ilka tooth gies him a tug,' as the Scotch say." While waiting for the carriage, Chloe and her children were brought in. Flora took the little ones under her care, and soon had their aprons filled with cakes and sugarplums. Chloe, unable to restrain her feelings, dropped down on her knees in the midst of the questions they were asking her, and poured forth an eloquent prayer that the Lord would bless these good friends of her down-trodden people. When the carriage arrived, she rose, and, taking Mrs. Delano's hand, said solemnly: "De Lord bress yer, Missis! De Lord bress yer! I seed yer once fore ebber I knowed yer. I seed yer in a vision, when I war prayin' to de Lord to open de free door fur me an' my chillen. Ye war an angel wid white shiny wings. Bress de Lord! 'T war Him dat sent yer.--An' now, Missy Flory, de Lord bress yer! Ye war allers good to poor Chloe, down dar in de prison-house. Let me gib yer a kiss, little Missy." Flora threw her arms round the bended neck, and promised to go and see her wherever she was. When the carriage rolled away, emotion kept them both silent for a few minutes. "How strange it seems to me now," said Mrs. Delano, "that I lived so many years without thinking of the wrongs of these poor people! I used to think prayer-meetings for slaves were very fanatical and foolish. It seemed to me enough that they were included in our prayer for 'all classes and conditions of men'; but after listening to poor Chloe's eloquent outpouring, I am afraid such generalizing will sound rather cold." "Mamita," said Flora, "you know you gave me some money to buy a silk dress. Are you willing I should use it to buy clothes for Chloe and her children?" "More than willing, my child," she replied. "There is no clothing so beautiful as the raiment of righteousness." The next morning, Flora went out to make her purchases. Some time after, Mrs. Delano, hearing voices near the door, looked out, and saw her in earnest conversation with Florimond Blumenthal, who had a large parcel in his arms. When she came in, Mrs. Delano said, "So you had an escort home?" "Yes, Mamita," she replied; "Florimond would bring the parcel, and so we walked together." "He was very polite," said Mrs. Delano; "but ladies are not accustomed to stand on the doorstep talking with clerks who bring bundles for them." "I didn't think anything about that," rejoined Flora. "He wanted to know about Rosa, and I wanted to tell him. Florimond seems just like a piece of my old home, because he loved papa so much. Mamita Lila, didn't you say papa was a poor clerk when you and he first began to love one another?" "Yes, my child," she replied; and she kissed the bright, innocent face that came bending over her, looking so frankly into hers. When she had gone out of the room, Mrs. Delano said to herself, "That darling child, with her strange history and unworldly ways, is educating me more than I can educate her." A week later, Mr. and Mrs. Percival came, with tidings that no such persons as Signor and Madame Papanti were on board the Mermaid; and they proposed writing letters of inquiry forthwith to consuls in various parts of Italy and France. Flora began to hop and skip and clap her hands. But she soon paused, and said, laughingly: "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. Mamita often tells me I was brought up in a bird-cage; and I ask her how then can she expect me to do anything but hop and sing. Excuse me. I forgot Mamita and I were not alone." "You pay us the greatest possible compliment," rejoined Mr. Percival. And Mrs. Percival added, "I hope you will always forget it when we are here." "Do you really wish it?" asked Flora, earnestly. "Then I will." And so, with a few genial friends, an ever-deepening attachment between her and her adopted mother, a hopeful feeling at her heart about Rosa, Tulee's likeness by her bedside, and Madame's parrot to wish her _Bon jour_! Boston came to seem to her like a happy home. CHAPTER XXIII. About two months after their return from the South, Mr. Percival called one evening, and said: "Do you know Mr. Brick, the police-officer? I met him just now, and he stopped me. 'There's plenty of work for you Abolitionists now-a-days,' said he. 'There are five Southerners at the Tremont, inquiring for runaways, and cursing Garrison. An agent arrived last night from Fitzgerald's plantation,--he that married Bell's daughter, you know. He sent for me to give me a description of a nigger that had gone off in a mysterious way to parts unknown. He wanted me to try to find the fellow, and, of course, I did; for I always calculate to do my duty, as the law directs. So I went immediately to Father Snowdon, and described the black man, and informed him that his master had sent for him, in a great hurry. I told him I thought it very likely he was lurking somewhere in Belknap Street; and if he would have the goodness to hunt him up, I would call, in the course of an hour or two, to see what luck he had.'" "Who is Father Snowdon?" inquired Mrs. Delano. "He is the colored preacher in Belknap Street Church," replied Mr. Percival, "and a remarkable man in his way. He fully equals Chloe in prayer; and he is apt to command the ship Buzzard to the especial attention of the Lord. The first time I entered his meeting, he was saying, in a loud voice, 'We pray thee, O Lord, to bless her Majesty's good ship, the Buzzard; and if there's a slave-trader now on the coast of Africa, we pray thee, O Lord, to blow her straight under the lee of the Buzzard.' He has been a slave himself, and he has perhaps helped off more slaves than any man in the country. I doubt whether Garrick himself had greater power to disguise his countenance. If a slaveholder asks him about a slave, he is the most stolid-looking creature imaginable. You wouldn't suppose he understood anything, or ever _could_ understand anything. But if he meets an Abolitionist a minute after, his black face laughs all over, and his roguish eyes twinkle like diamonds, while he recounts how he 'come it' over the Southern gentleman. That bright soul of his is a jewel set in ebony." "It seems odd that the police-officer should apply to _him_ to catch a runaway," said Mrs. Delano. "That's the fun of it," responded Mr. Percival. "The extinguishers are themselves taking fire. The fact is, Boston policemen don't feel exactly in their element as slave-hunters. They are too near Bunker Hill; and on the Fourth of July they are reminded of the Declaration of Independence, which, though it is going out of fashion, is still regarded by a majority of the people as a venerable document. Then they have Whittier's trumpet-tones ringing in their ears,-- "'No slave hunt in _our_ borders! no pirate on _our_ strand! No fetters in the Bay State! no slave upon _our_ land!'" "How did Mr. Brick describe Mr. Fitzgerald's runaway slave?" inquired Flora. "He said he was tall and very black, with a white scar over his right eye." "That's Tom!" exclaimed she. "How glad Chloe will be! But I wonder he didn't come here the first thing. We could have told him how well she was getting on in New Bedford." "Father Snowdon will tell him all about that," rejoined Mr. Percival. "If Tom was in the city, he probably kept him closely hidden, on account of the number of Southerners who have recently arrived; and after the hint the police-officer gave him, he doubtless hustled him out of town in the quickest manner." "I want to hurrah for that policeman," said Flora; "but Mamita would think I was a very rude young lady, or rather that I was no lady at all. But perhaps you'll let me _sing_ hurrah, Mamita?" Receiving a smile for answer, she flew to the piano, and, improvising an accompaniment to herself, she began to sing hurrah! through all manner of variations, high and low, rapidly trilled and slowly prolonged, now bursting full upon the ear, now receding in the distance. It was such a lively fantasia, that it made Mr. Percival laugh, while Mrs. Delano's face was illuminated by a quiet smile. In the midst of the merriment, the door-bell rang. Flora started from the piano, seized her worsted-work, and said, "Now, Mamita, I'm ready to receive company like a pink of propriety." But the change was so sudden, that her eyes were still laughing when Mr. Green entered an instant after; and he again caught that archly demure expression which seemed to him so fascinating. The earnestness of his salutation was so different from his usual formal politeness, that Mrs. Delano could not fail to observe it. The conversation turned upon incidents of travel after they had parted so suddenly. "I shall never cease to regret," said he, "that you missed hearing La Señorita Campaneo. She was a most extraordinary creature. Superbly handsome; and do you know, Miss Delano, I now and then caught a look that reminded me very much of you. Unfortunately, you have lost your chance to hear her. For Mr. King, the son of our Boston millionnaire, who has lately been piling up money in the East, persuaded her to quit the stage when she had but just started in her grand career. All the musical world in Rome were vexed with him for preventing her re-engagement. As for Fitzgerald, I believe he would have shot him if he could have found him. It was a purely musical disappointment, for he was never introduced to the fascinating Señorita; but he fairly pined upon it. I told him the best way to drive off the blue devils would be to go with me and a few friends to the Grotta Azzura. So off we started to Naples, and thence to Capri. The grotto was one of the few novelties remaining for me in Italy. I had heard much of it, but the reality exceeded all descriptions. We seemed to be actually under the sea in a palace of gems. Our boat glided over a lake of glowing sapphire, and our oars dropped rubies. High above our heads were great rocks of sapphire, deepening to lapis-lazuli at the base, with here and there a streak of malachite." "It seems like Aladdin's Cave," remarked Flora. "Yes," replied Mr. Green; "only it was Aladdin's Cave undergoing a wondrous 'sea change.' A poetess, who writes for the papers under the name of Melissa Mayflower, had fastened herself upon our party in some way; and I suppose she felt bound to sustain the reputation of the quill. She said the Nereids must have built that marine palace, and decorated it for a visit from fairies of the rainbow." "That was a pretty thought," said Flora. "It sounds like 'Lalla Rookh.'" "It was a pretty thought," rejoined the gentleman, "but can give you no idea of the unearthly splendor. I thought how you would have been delighted if you had been with our party. I regretted your absence almost as much as I did at the opera. But the Blue Grotto, wonderful as it was, didn't quite drive away Fitzgerald's blue devils, though it made him forget his vexations for the time. The fact is, just as we started he received a letter from his agent, informing him of the escape of a negro woman and her two children; and he spent most of the way back to Naples swearing at the Abolitionists." Flora, the side of whose face was toward him, gave Mrs. Delano a furtive glance full of fun; but he saw nothing of the mischief in her expressive face, except a little whirlpool of a dimple, which played about her mouth for an instant, and then subsided. A very broad smile was on Mr. Percival's face, as he sat examining some magnificent illustrations of the Alhambra. Mr. Green, quite unconscious of the by-play in their thoughts, went on to say, "It is really becoming a serious evil that Southern gentlemen have so little security for that species of property." "Then you consider women and children _property_?" inquired Mr. Percival, looking up from his book. Mr. Green bowed with a sort of mock deference, and replied: "Pardon me, Mr. Percival, it is so unusual for gentlemen of your birth and position to belong to the Abolition troop of rough-riders, that I may be excused for not recollecting it." "I should consider my birth and position great misfortunes, if they blinded me to the plainest principles of truth and justice," rejoined Mr. Percival. The highly conservative gentleman made no reply, but rose to take leave. "Did your friends the Fitzgeralds return with you?" inquired Mrs. Delano. "No," replied he. "They intend to remain until October, Good evening, ladies. I hope soon to have the pleasure of seeing you again." And with an inclination of the head toward Mr. Percival, he departed. "Why did you ask him that question?" said Flora. "Are you afraid of anything?" "Not in the slightest degree," answered Mrs. Delano. "If, without taking much trouble, we can avoid your being recognized by Mr. Fitzgerald, I should prefer it, because I do not wish to have any conversation with him. But now that your sister's happiness is no longer implicated, there is no need of caution. If he happens to see you, I shall tell him you sought my protection, and that he has no legal power over you." The conversation diverged to the Alhambra and Washington Irving; and Flora ended the evening by singing the Moorish ballad of "Xarifa," which she said always brought a picture of Rosabella before her eyes. The next morning, Mr. Green called earlier than usual. He did not ask for Flora, whom he had in fact seen in the street a few minutes before. "Excuse me, Mrs. Delano, for intruding upon you at such an unseasonable hour," said he. "I chose it because I wished to be sure of seeing you alone. You must have observed that I am greatly interested in your adopted daughter." "The thought has crossed my mind," replied the lady; "but I was by no means certain that she interested you more than a very pretty girl must necessarily interest a gentleman of taste." "Pretty!" repeated he. "That is a very inadequate word to describe the most fascinating young lady I have ever met. She attracts me so strongly, that I have called to ask your permission to seek her for a wife." Mrs. Delano hesitated for a moment, and then answered, "It is my duty to inform you that she is not of high family on the father's side; and on the mother's, she is scarcely what you would deem respectable." "Has she vulgar, disagreeable relations, who would be likely to be intrusive?" he asked. "She has no relative, near or distant, that I know of," replied the lady. "Then her birth is of no consequence," he answered. "My family would be satisfied to receive her as your daughter. I am impatient to introduce her to my mother and sisters, who I am sure will be charmed with her." Mrs. Delano was embarrassed, much to the surprise of her visitor, who was accustomed to consider his wealth and social position a prize that would be eagerly grasped at. After watching her countenance for an instant, he said, somewhat proudly: "You do not seem to receive my proposal very cordially, Mrs. Delano. Have you anything to object to my character or family?" "Certainly not," replied the lady. "My doubts are concerning my daughter." "Is she engaged, or partially engaged, to another?" he inquired. "She is not," rejoined Mrs. Delano; "though I imagine she is not quite 'fancy free.'" "Would it be a breach of confidence to tell me who has been so fortunate as to attract her?" "Nothing of the kind has ever been confided to me." answered the lady. "It is merely an imagination of my own, and relates to a person unknown to you." "Then I will enter the lists with my rival, if there is one," said he. "Such a prize is not to be given up without an effort. But you have not yet said that I have your consent." "Since you are so persistent," rejoined Mrs. Delano, "I will tell you a secret, if you will pledge your honor, as a gentleman, never to repeat it, or hint at it, to any mortal." "I pledge my honor," he replied, "that whatever you choose to tell me shall be sacred between us." "It is not pleasant to tell the story of Flora's birth," responded she; "but under present circumstances it seems to be a duty. When I have informed you of the facts, you are free to engage her affections if you can. On the paternal side, she descends from the French gentry and the Spanish nobility; but her mother was a quadroon slave, and she herself was sold as a slave." Mr. Green bowed his head upon his hand, and spoke no word. Drilled to conceal his emotions, he seemed outwardly calm, though it cost him a pang to relinquish the captivating young creature, who he felt would have made his life musical, though by piquant contrast rather than by harmony. After a brief, troubled silence, he rose and walked toward the window, as if desirous to avoid looking the lady in the face. After a while, he said, slowly, "Do you deem it quite right, Mrs. Delano, to pass such a counterfeit on society?" "I have attempted to pass no counterfeit on society," she replied, with dignity. "Flora is a blameless and accomplished young lady. Her beauty and vivacity captivated me before I knew anything of her origin; and in the same way they have captivated you. She was alone in the world, and I was alone; and we adopted each other. I have never sought to introduce her into society; and so far as relates to yourself, I should have told you these facts sooner if I had known the state of your feelings; but so long as they were not expressed, it would scarcely have been delicate for me to take them for granted." "Very true," rejoined the disenchanted lover. "You certainly had a right to choose a daughter for yourself; though I could hardly have imagined that any amount of attraction would have overcome _such_ obstacles in the mind of a lady of your education and refined views of life. Excuse my using the word 'counterfeit.' I was slightly disturbed when it escaped me." "It requires no apology," she replied. "I am aware that society would take the same view of my proceeding that you do. As for my education, I have learned to consider it as, in many respects, false. As for my views, they have been greatly modified by this experience. I have learned to estimate people and things according to their real value, not according to any merely external accidents." Mr. Green extended his hand, saying: "I will bid you farewell, Mrs. Delano; for, under existing circumstances, it becomes necessary to deny myself the pleasure of again calling upon you. I must seek to divert my mind by new travels, I hardly know where. I have exhausted Europe, having been there three times. I have often thought I should like to look on the Oriental gardens and bright waters of Damascus. Everything is so wretchedly new, and so disagreeably fast, in this country! It must be refreshing to see a place that has known no changes for three thousand years." They clasped hands with mutual adieus; and the unfortunate son of wealth, not knowing what to do in a country full of noble work, went forth to seek a new sensation in the slow-moving caravans of the East. A few days afterward, when Flora returned from taking a lesson in oil-colors, she said: "How do you suppose I have offended Mr. Green? When I met him just now, he touched his hat in a very formal way, and passed on, though I was about to speak to him." "Perhaps he was in a hurry," suggested Mrs. Delano. "No, it wasn't that," rejoined Flora. "He did just so day before yesterday, and he can't always be in a hurry. Besides, you know he is never in a hurry; he is too much of a gentleman." Her friend smiled as she answered, "You are getting to be quite a judge of aristocratic manners, considering you were brought up in a bird-cage." The young girl was not quite so ready as usual with a responsive smile. She went on to say, in a tone of perplexity: "What _can_ have occasioned such a change in his manner? You say I am sometimes thoughtless about politeness. Do you think I have offended him in any way?" "Would it trouble you very much if you had?" inquired Mrs. Delano. "Not _very_ much," she replied; "but I should be sorry if he thought me rude to him, when he was so very polite to us in Europe. What is it, Mamita? I think you know something about it." "I did not tell you, my child," replied she, "because I thought it would be unpleasant. But you keep no secrets from me, and it is right that I should be equally open-hearted with you. Did you never suspect that Mr. Green was in love with you?" "The thought never occurred to me till he called here that first evening after his return from Europe. Then, when he took my hand, he pressed it a little. I thought it was rather strange in such a formal gentleman; but I did not mention it to you, because I feared you would think me vain. But if he is in love with me, why don't he tell me so? And why does he pass me without speaking?" Her friend replied: "He deemed it proper to tell me first, and ask my consent to pay his addresses to you. As he persisted very urgently, I thought it my duty to tell him, under the seal of secrecy, that you were remotely connected with the colored race. The announcement somewhat disturbed his habitual composure. He said he must deny himself the pleasure of calling again. He proposes to go to Damascus, and there I hope he will forget his disappointment." Flora flared up as Mrs. Delano had never seen her. She reddened to the temples, and her lip curled scornfully. "He is a mean man!" she exclaimed. "If he thought that I myself was a suitable wife for his serene highness, what had my great-grandmother to do with it? I wish he had asked me to marry him. I should like to have him know I never cared a button about him; and that, if I didn't care for him, I should consider it more shameful to sell myself for his diamonds, than it would have been to have been sold for a slave by papa's creditors when I couldn't help myself. I am glad you don't feel like going into parties, Mamita; and if you ever do feel like it, I hope you will leave me at home. I don't want to be introduced to any of these cold, aristocratic Bostonians." "Not all of them cold and aristocratic, darling," replied Mrs. Delano. "Your Mamita is one of them; and she is becoming less cold and aristocratic every day, thanks to a little Cinderella who came to her singing through the woods, two years ago." "And who found a fairy godmother," responded Flora, subsiding into a tenderer tone. "It _is_ ungrateful for me to say anything against Boston; and with such friends as the Percivals too. But it does seem mean that Mr. Green, if he really liked me, should decline speaking to me because my great-grandmother had a dark complexion. I never knew the old lady, though I dare say I should love her if I did know her. Madame used to say Rosabella inherited pride from our Spanish grandfather. I think I have some of it, too; and it makes me shy of being introduced to your stylish acquaintance, who might blame you if they knew all about me. I like people who do know all about me, and who like me because I am I. That's one reason why I like Florimond. He admired my mother, and loved my father; and he thinks just as well of me as if I had never been sold for a slave." "Do you always call him Florimond?" inquired Mrs. Delano. "I call him Mr. Blumenthal before folks, and he calls me Miss Delano. But when no one is by, he sometimes calls me Miss Royal, because he says he loves that name, for the sake of old times; and then I call him Blumen, partly for short, and partly because his cheeks are so pink, it comes natural. He likes to have me call him so. He says Flora is the _Göttinn der Blumen_ in German, and so I am the Goddess of Blumen." Mrs. Delano smiled at these small scintillations of wit, which in the talk of lovers sparkle to them like diamond-dust in the sunshine. "Has he ever told you that he loved _you_ as well as your name?" asked she. "He never said so, Mamita; but I think he does," rejoined Flora. "What reason have you to think so?" inquired her friend. "He wants very much to come here," replied the young lady; "but he is extremely modest. He says he knows he is not suitable company for such a rich, educated lady as you are. He is taking dancing-lessons, and lessons on the piano, and he is studying French and Italian and history, and all sorts of things. And he says he means to make a mint of money, and then perhaps he can come here sometimes to see me dance, and hear me play on the piano." "I by no means require that all my acquaintance should make a mint of money," answered Mrs. Delano. "I am very much pleased with the account you give of this young Blumenthal. When you next see him, give him my compliments, and tell him I should be happy to become acquainted with him." Flora dropped on her knees and hid her face in her friend's lap. She didn't express her thanks in words, but she cried a little. "This is more serious than I supposed," thought Mrs. Delano. A fortnight afterward, she obtained an interview with Mr. Goldwin, and asked, "What is your estimate of that young Mr. Blumenthal, who has been for some time in your employ?" "He is a modest young man, of good habits," answered the merchant; "and of more than common business capacity." "Would you be willing to receive him as a partner?" she inquired. "The young man is poor," rejoined Mr. Goldwin; "and we have many applications from those who can advance some capital." "If a friend would loan him ten thousand dollars for twenty years, and leave it to him by will in case she should die meanwhile, would that be sufficient to induce you?" said the lady. "I should be glad to do it, particularly if it obliges you, Mrs. Delano," responded the merchant; "for I really think him a very worthy young man." "Then consider it settled," she replied. "But let it be an affair between ourselves, if you please; and to him you may merely say that a friend of his former employer and benefactor wishes to assist him." When Blumenthal informed Flora of this unexpected good-fortune, they of course suspected from whom it came; and they looked at each other, and blushed. Mrs. Delano did not escape gossiping remarks. "How she has changed!" said Mrs. Ton to Mrs. Style. "She used to be the most fastidious of exclusives; and now she has adopted nobody knows whom, and one of Mr. Goldwin's clerks seems to be on the most familiar footing there. I should have no objection to invite the girl to my parties, for she is Mrs. Delano's _adoptée_, and she would really be an ornament to my rooms, besides being very convenient and an accomplished musician; but, of course, I don't wish my daughters to be introduced to that nobody of a clerk." "She has taken up several of the Abolitionists too," rejoined Mrs. Style. "My husband looked into an anti-slavery meeting the other evening, partly out of curiosity to hear what Garrison had to say, and partly in hopes of obtaining some clew to a fugitive slave that one of his Southern friends had written to him about. And who should he see there, of all people in the world, but Mrs. Delano and her _adoptée_, escorted by that young clerk. Think of her, with her dove-colored silks and violet gloves, crowded and jostled by Dinah and Sambo! I expect the next thing we shall hear will be that she has given a negro party." "In that case, I presume she will choose to perfume her embroidered handkerchiefs with musk, or pachouli, instead of her favorite breath of violets," responded Mrs. Ton. And, smiling at their wit, the fashionable ladies parted, to quote it from each other as among the good things they had recently heard. Only the faint echoes of such remarks reached Mrs. Delano; though she was made to feel, in many small ways, that she had become a black sheep in aristocratic circles. But these indications passed by her almost unnoticed, occupied as she was in earnestly striving to redeem the mistakes of the past by making the best possible use of the present. PART SECOND. CHAPTER XXIV. An interval of nineteen years elapsed, bringing with them various changes to the personages of this story. A year after Mr. Fitzgerald's return from Europe, a feud sprang up between him and his father-in-law, Mr. Bell, growing out of his dissipated and spendthrift habits. His intercourse with Boston was consequently suspended, and the fact of Flora's existence remained unknown to him. He died nine years after he witnessed the dazzling apparition of Rosa in Rome, and the history of his former relation to her was buried with him, as were several other similar secrets. There was generally supposed to be something mysterious about his exit. Those who were acquainted with Mr. Bell's family were aware that the marriage had been an unhappy one, and that there was an obvious disposition to hush inquiries concerning it. Mrs. Fitzgerald had always continued to spend her summers with her parents; and having lost her mother about the time of her widowhood, she became permanently established at the head of her father's household. She never in any way alluded to her married life, and always dismissed the subject as briefly as possible, if any stranger touched upon it. Of three children, only one, her eldest, remained. Time had wrought changes in her person. Her once fairy-like figure was now too short for its fulness, and the blue eyes were somewhat dulled in expression; but the fair face and the paly-gold tresses were still very pretty. When she had at last succeeded in obtaining an introduction to Flora, during one of her summer visits to Boston, she had been very much captivated by her, and was disposed to rally Mr. Green about his diminished enthusiasm, after he had fallen in love with a fair cousin of hers; but that gentleman was discreetly silent concerning the real cause of his disenchantment. Mrs. Delano's nature was so much deeper than that of her pretty neighbor, that nothing like friendship could grow up between them; but Mrs. Fitzgerald called occasionally, to retail gossip of the outer world, or to have what she termed a musical treat. Flora had long been Mrs. Blumenthal. At the time of her marriage, Mrs. Delano said she was willing to adopt a son, but not to part with a daughter; consequently, they formed one household. As years passed on, infant faces and lisping voices came into the domestic circle,--fresh little flowers in the floral garland of Mamita Lila's life. Alfred Royal, the eldest, was a complete reproduction, in person and character, of the grandfather whose name he bore. Rosa, three years younger, was quite as striking a likeness of her namesake. Then came two little ones, who soon went to live with the angels. And, lastly, there was the five-year-old pet, Lila, who inherited her father's blue eyes, pink cheeks, and flaxen hair. These children were told that their grandfather was a rich American merchant in New Orleans, and their grandmother a beautiful and accomplished Spanish lady; that their grandfather failed in business and died poor; that his friend Mrs. Delano adopted their mother; and that they had a very handsome Aunt Rosa, who went to Europe with some good friends, and was lost at sea. It was not deemed wise to inform them of any further particulars, till time and experience had matured their characters and views of life. Applications to American consuls, in various places, for information concerning Signor and Madame Papanti had proved unavailing, in consequence of the Signor's change of name; and Rosabella had long ceased to be anything but a very tender memory to her sister, whose heart was now completely filled with new objects of affection. The bond between her and her adopted mother strengthened with time, because their influence on each other was mutually improving to their characters. The affection and gayety of the young folks produced a glowing atmosphere in Mrs. Delano's inner life, as their mother's tropical taste warmed up the interior aspect of her dwelling. The fawn-colored damask curtains had given place to crimson; and in lieu of the silvery paper, the walls were covered with bird-of-paradise color, touched with golden gleams. The centre-table was covered with crimson, embroidered with a gold-colored garland; and the screen of the gas-light was a gorgeous assemblage of bright flowers. Mrs. Delano's lovely face was even more placid than it had been in earlier years; but there was a sunset brightness about it, as of one growing old in an atmosphere of love. The ash-colored hair, which Flora had fancied to be violet-tinged, was of a silky whiteness now, and fell in soft curls about the pale face. On the day when I again take up the thread of this story, she was seated in her parlor, in a dress of silvery gray silk, which contrasted pleasantly with the crimson chair. Under her collar of Honiton lace was an amethystine ribbon, fastened with a pearl pin. Her cap of rich white lace, made in the fashion of Mary Queen of Scots, was very slightly trimmed with ribbon of the same color, and fastened in front with a small amethyst set with pearls. For fanciful Flora had said: "Dear Mamita Lila, don't have _every_thing about your dress cold white or gray. Do let something violet or lilac peep out from the snow, for the sake of 'auld lang syne.'" The lady was busy with some crochet-work, when a girl, apparently about twelve years old, came through the half-opened folding-doors, and settled on an ottoman at her feet. She had large, luminous dark eyes, very deeply fringed, and her cheeks were like ripened peaches. The dark mass of her wavy hair was gathered behind into what was called a Greek cap, composed of brown network strewn with gold beads. Here and there very small, thin dark curls strayed from under it, like the tendrils of a delicate vine; and nestling close to each ear was a little dark, downy crescent, which papa called her whisker when he was playfully inclined to excite her juvenile indignation. "See!" said she. "This pattern comes all in a tangle. I have done the stitches wrong. Will you please to help me, Mamita Lila?" Mrs. Delano looked up, smiling as she answered, "Let me see what the trouble is, Rosy Posy." Mrs. Blumenthal, who was sitting opposite, noticed with artistic eye what a charming contrast of beauty there was between that richly colored young face, with its crown of dark hair, and that pale, refined, symmetrical face, in its frame of silver. "What a pretty picture I could make, if I had my crayons here," thought she. "How gracefully the glossy folds of Mamita's gray dress fall over Rosa's crimson merino." She was not aware that she herself made quite as charming a picture. The spirit of laughter still flitted over her face, from eyes to dimples; her shining black curls were lighted up with a rope of cherry-colored chenille, hanging in a tassel at her ear; and her graceful little figure showed to advantage in a neatly fitting dress of soft brown merino, embroidered with cherry-colored silk. On her lap was little Lila, dressed in white and azure, with her fine flaxen curls tossed about by the motion of riding to "Banbury Cross." The child laughed and clapped her hands at every caper; and if her steed rested for a moment, she called out impatiently, "More agin, mamma!" But mamma was thinking of the picture she wanted to make, and at last she said: "We sha'n't get to Banbury Cross to-day, Lila Blumen; so you must fall off your horse, darling, and nursey will take you, while I go to fetch my crayons." She had just taken her little pet by the hand to lead her from the room, when the door-bell rang. "That's Mrs. Fitzgerald," said she. "I know, because she always rings an _appoggiatura_. Rosen Blumen, take sissy to the nursery, please." While the ladies were interchanging salutations with their visitor, Rosa passed out of the room, leading her little sister by the hand. "I declare," said Mrs. Fitzgerald, "that oldest daughter of yours, Mrs. Blumenthal, bears a striking resemblance to the _cantatrice_ who was turning everybody's head when I was in Rome. You missed hearing her, I remember. Let me see, what was her _nomme de guerre_? I forget; but it was something that signified a bell, because there was a peculiar ringing in her voice. When I first saw your daughter, she reminded me of somebody I had seen; but I never thought who it was till now. I came to tell you some news about the fascinating Señorita; and I suppose that brought the likeness to my mind. You know Mr. King, the son of our rich old merchant, persuaded her to leave the stage to marry him. They have been living in the South of France for some years, but he has just returned to Boston. They have taken rooms at the Revere House, while his father's house is being fitted up in grand style for their reception. The lady will of course be a great lioness. She is to make her first appearance at the party of my cousin, Mrs. Green. The winter is so nearly at an end, that I doubt whether there will be any more large parties this season; and I wouldn't fail of attending this one on any account, if it were only for the sake of seeing her. She was the handsomest creature I ever beheld. If you had ever seen her, you would consider it a compliment indeed to be told that your Rosa resembles her." "I should like to get a glimpse of her, if I could without the trouble of going to a party," replied Mrs. Blumenthal. "I will come the day after," rejoined Mrs. Fitzgerald, "and tell you how she was dressed, and whether she looks as handsome in the parlor as she did on the stage." After some more chat about reported engagements, and the probable fashions for the coming season, the lady took her leave. When she was gone, Mrs. Delano remarked: "Mrs. King must be very handsome if she resembles our Rosa. But I hope Mrs. Fitzgerald will not be so injudicious as to talk about it before the child. She is free from vanity, and I earnestly wish she may remain so. By the way, Flora, this Mr. King is your father's namesake,--the one who, you told me, called at your house in New Orleans, when you were a little girl." "I was thinking of that very thing," rejoined Mrs. Blumenthal, "and I was just going to ask you his Christian name. I should like to call there to take a peep at his handsome lady, and see whether he would recollect me. If he did, it would be no matter. So many years have passed, and I am such an old story in Boston, that nobody will concern themselves about me." "I also should be rather pleased to call," said Mrs. Delano. "His father was a friend of mine; and it was through him that I became acquainted with your father. They were inseparable companions when they were young men. Ah, how long ago that seems! No wonder my hair is white. But please ring for Rosa, dear. I want to arrange her pattern before dinner." "There's the door-bell again, Mamita!" exclaimed Flora; "and a very energetic ring it is, too. Perhaps you had better wait a minute." The servant came in to say that a person from the country wanted to speak with Mrs. Delano; and a tall, stout man, with a broad face, full of fun, soon entered. Having made a short bow, he said, "Mrs. Delano, I suppose?" The lady signified assent by an inclination of the head. "My name's Joe Bright," continued he. "No relation of John Bright, the bright Englishman. Wish I was. I come from Northampton, ma'am. The keeper of the Mansion House told me you wanted to get board there in some private family next summer; and I called to tell you that I can let you have half of my house, furnished or not, just as you like. As I'm plain Joe Bright the blacksmith, of course you won't find lace and damask, and such things as you have here." "All we wish for," rejoined Mrs. Delano, "is healthy air and wholesome food for the children." "Plenty of both, ma'am," replied the blacksmith. "And I guess you'll like my wife. She ain't one of the kind that raises a great dust when she sweeps. She's a still sort of body; but she knows a deal more than she tells for." After a description of the accommodations he had to offer, and a promise from Mrs. Delano to inform him of her decision in a few days, he rose to go. But he stood, hat in hand, looking wistfully toward the piano. "Would it be too great a liberty, ma'am, to ask which of you ladies plays?" said he. "I seldom play," rejoined Mrs. Delano, "because my daughter, Mrs. Blumenthal, plays so much better." Turning toward Flora, he said, "I suppose it would be too much trouble to play me a tune?" "Certainty not," she replied; and, seating herself at the piano, she dashed off, with voice and instrument, "The Campbells are coming, Oho! Oho!" "By George!" exclaimed the blacksmith. "You was born to it, ma'am; that's plain enough. Well, it was just so with me. I took to music as a Newfoundland pup takes to the water. When my brother Sam and I were boys, we were let out to work for a blacksmith. We wanted a fiddle dreadfully; but we were too poor to buy one; and we couldn't have got much time to play on't if we had had one, for our boss watched us as a weasel watches mice. But we were bent on getting music somehow. The boss always had plenty of iron links of all sizes, hanging in a row, ready to be made into chains when wanted. One day, I happened to hit one of the links with a piece of iron I had in my hand. 'By George! Sam,' said I, 'that was Do.' 'Strike again,' says he. 'Blow! Sam, blow!' said I. I was afraid the boss would come in and find the iron cooling in the fire. So he kept blowing away, and I struck the link again. 'That's Do, just as plain as my name's Sam,' said he. A few days after, I said, 'By George! Sam, I've found Sol.' 'So you have,' said he. 'Now let _me_ try. Blow, Joe, blow!' Sam, he found Re and La. And in the course of two months we got so we could play Old Hundred. I don't pretend to say we could do it as glib as you run over the ivory, ma'am; but it was Old Hundred, and no mistake. And we played Yankee Doodle, first rate. We called our instrument the Harmolinks; and we enjoyed it all the more because it was our own invention. I tell you what, ma'am, there's music hid away in everything, only we don't know how to bring it out." "I think so," rejoined Mrs. Blumenthal. "Music is a sleeping beauty, that needs the touch of a prince to waken her. Perhaps you will play something for us, Mr. Bright?" She rose and vacated the music-stool as she spoke. "I should be ashamed to try my clumsy fingers in your presence, ladies," he replied. "But I'll sing the Star-spangled Banner, if you will have the goodness to accompany me." She reseated herself, and he lifted up his voice and sang. When he had done, he drew a long breath, wiped the perspiration from his face with a bandana handkerchief, and laughed as he said: "I made the screen of your gas-light shake, ma'am. The fact is, when I sing _that_, I _have_ to put all my heart into it." "And all your voice, too," rejoined Mrs. Blumenthal. "O, no," answered he, "I could have put on a good deal more steam, if I hadn't been afraid of drowning the piano. I'm greatly obliged to you, ladies; and I hope I shall have the pleasure of hearing you again in my own house. I should like to hear some more now, but I've stayed too long. My wife agreed to meet me at a store, and I don't know what she'll say to me." "Tell her we detained you by playing to you," said Mrs. Blumenthal. "O, that would be too much like Adam," rejoined he. "I always feel ashamed to look a woman in the face, after reading that story. I always thought Adam was a mean cuss to throw off all the blame on Eve." With a short bow, and a hasty "Good morning, ladies," he went out. His parting remark amused Flora so much, that she burst into one of her musical peals of laughter; while her more cautious friend raised her handkerchief to her mouth, lest their visitor should hear some sound of mirth, and mistake its import. "What a great, beaming face!" exclaimed Flora. "It looks like a sunflower. I have a fancy for calling him Monsieur Girasol. What a pity Mr. Green hadn't longed for a musical instrument, and been too poor to buy one. It would have done him so much good to have astonished himself by waking up a tune in the Harmolinks." "Yes," responded Mrs. Delano, "it might have saved him the trouble of going to Arabia Petraea or Damascus, in search of something new. What do you think about accepting Mr. Bright's offer?" "O, I hope we shall go, Mamita. The children would be delighted with him. If Alfred had been here this morning, he would have exclaimed, 'Isn't he jolly?'" "I think things must go cheerfully where such a sunflower spirit presides," responded Mrs. Delano. "And he is certainly sufficiently _au naturel_ to suit you and Florimond." "Yes, he bubbles over," rejoined Flora. "It isn't the fashion; but I like folks that bubble over." Mrs. Delano smiled as she answered: "So do I. And perhaps you can guess who it was that made me in love with bubbling over?" Flora gave a knowing smile, and dotted one of her comic little courtesies. "I don't see what makes you and Florimond like me so well," said she. "I'm sure I'm neither wise nor witty." "But something better than either," replied Mamita. The vivacious little woman said truly that she was neither very wise nor very witty; but she was a transparent medium of sunshine; and the commonest glass, filled with sunbeams, becomes prismatic as a diamond. CHAPTER XXV. Mrs. Green's ball was _the_ party of the season. Five hundred invitations were sent out, all of them to people unexceptionable for wealth, or fashion, or some sort of high distinction, political, literary, or artistic. Smith had received _carte blanche_ to prepare the most luxurious and elegant supper possible. Mrs. Green was resplendent with diamonds; and the house was so brilliantly illuminated, that the windows of carriages traversing that part of Beacon Street glittered as if touched by the noonday sun. A crowd collected on the Common, listening to the band of music, and watching the windows of the princely mansion, to obtain glimpses through its lace curtains of graceful figures revolving in the dance, like a vision of fairy-land seen through a veil of mist. In that brilliant assemblage, Mrs. King was the centre of attraction. She was still a Rose Royal, as Gerald Fitzgerald had called her twenty-three years before. A very close observer would have noticed that time had slightly touched her head; but the general effect of the wavy hair was as dark and glossy as ever. She had grown somewhat stouter, but that only rendered her tall figure more majestic. It still seemed as if the fluid Art, whose harmonies were always flowing through her soul, had fashioned her form and was swaying all its motions; and to this natural gracefulness was now added that peculiar stylishness of manner, which can be acquired only by familiar intercourse with elegant society. There was nothing foreign in her accent, but the modulations of her voice were so musical, that English, as she spoke it, seemed all vowels and liquid consonants. She had been heralded as La Señorita, and her dress was appropriately Spanish. It was of cherry-colored satin, profusely trimmed with black lace. A mantilla of very rich transparent black lace was thrown over her head, and fastened on one side with a cluster of red fuchsias, the golden stamens of which were tipped with small diamonds. The lace trimming on the corsage was looped up with a diamond star, and her massive gold bracelets were clasped with, diamonds. Mr. Green received her with great _empressement_; evidently considering her the "bright particular star" of the evening. She accepted her distinguished position with the quietude of one accustomed to homage. With a slight bow she gave Mr. Green the desired promise to open the ball with him, and then turned to answer another gentleman, who wished to obtain her for the second dance. She would have observed her host a little more curiously, had she been aware that he once proposed to place her darling Floracita at the head of that stylish mansion. Mrs. King's peculiar style of beauty and rich foreign dress attracted universal attention; but still greater admiration was excited by her dancing, which was the very soul of music taking form in motion; and as the tremulous diamond drops of the fuchsias kept time with her graceful movements, they sparkled among the waving folds of her black lace mantilla, like fire-flies in a dark night. She was, of course, the prevailing topic of conversation; and when Mr. Green was not dancing, he was called upon to repeat, again and again, the account of her wonderful _début_ in the opera at Rome. In the midst of one of these recitals, Mrs. Fitzgerald and her son entered; and a group soon gathered round that lady, to listen to the same story from her lips. It was familiar to her son; but he listened to it with quickened interest, while he gazed at the beautiful opera-singer winding about so gracefully in the evolutions of the dance. Mr. King was in the same set with his lady, and had just touched her hand, as the partners crossed over, when he noticed a sudden flush on her countenance, succeeded by deadly pallor. Following the direction her eye had taken, he saw a slender, elegant young man, who, with some variation in the fashion of dress, seemed the veritable Gerald Fitzgerald to whom he had been introduced in the flowery parlor so many years ago. His first feeling was pain, that this vision of her first lover had power to excite such lively emotion in his wife; but his second thought was, "He recalls her first-born son." Young Fitzgerald eagerly sought out Mr. Green, and said: "Please introduce me the instant this dance is ended, that I may ask her for the next. There will be so many trying to engage her, you know." He was introduced accordingly. The lady politely acceded to his request, and the quick flush on her face was attributed by all, except Mr. King, to the heat produced by dancing. When her young partner took her hand to lead her to the next dance, she stole a glance toward her husband, and he saw that her soul was troubled. The handsome couple were "the observed of all observers"; and the youth was so entirely absorbed with his mature partner, that not a little jealousy was excited in the minds of young ladies. When he led her to a seat, she declined the numerous invitations that crowded upon her, saying she should dance no more that evening. Young Fitzgerald at once professed a disinclination to dance, and begged that, when she was sufficiently rested, she would allow him to lead her to the piano, that he might hear her sing something from Norma, by which she had so delighted his mother, in Rome. "Your son seems to be entirely devoted to the queen of the evening," said Mr. Green to his cousin. "How can you wonder at it?" replied Mrs. Fitzgerald. "She is such a superb creature!" "What was her character in Rome?" inquired a lady who had joined the group. "Her stay there was very short," answered Mrs. Fitzgerald. "Her manners were said to be unexceptionable. The gentlemen were quite vexed because she made herself so inaccessible." The conversation was interrupted by La Campaneo's voice, singing, "_Ah, bello a me ritorno_." The orchestra hushed at once, and the dancing was suspended, while the company gathered round the piano, curious to hear the remarkable singer. Mrs. Fitzgerald had long ceased to allude to what was once her favorite topic,--the wonderful resemblance between La Señorita's voice and a mysterious voice she had once heard on her husband's plantation. But she grew somewhat pale as she listened; for the tones recalled that adventure in her bridal home at Magnolia Lawn, and the fair moonlight vision was followed by dismal spectres of succeeding years. Ah, if all the secret histories and sad memories assembled in a ball-room should be at once revealed, what a judgment night it would be! Mrs. King had politely complied with the request to sing, because she was aware that her host and the company would be disappointed if she refused; but it was known only to her own soul how much the effort cost her. She bowed rather languidly to the profuse compliments which followed-her performance, and used her fan as if she felt oppressed. "Fall back!" said one of the gentlemen, in a low voice. "There is too great a crowd round her." The hint was immediately obeyed, and a servant was requested to bring iced lemonade. She soon breathed more freely, and tried to rally her spirits to talk with Mr. Green and others concerning European reminiscences. Mrs. Fitzgerald drew near, and signified to her cousin a wish to be introduced; for it would have mortified her vanity, when she afterward retailed the gossip of the ball-room, if she had been obliged to acknowledge that she was not presented to _la belle lionne_. "If you are not too much fatigued," said she, "I hope you will allow my son to sing a duet with you. He would esteem it such an honor! I assure you he has a fine voice, and he is thought to sing with great expression, especially '_M'odi! Ah, m'odi_!'" The young gentleman modestly disclaimed the compliment to his musical powers, but eagerly urged his mother's request. As he bent near the _cantatrice_, waiting for her reply, her watchful husband again noticed a quick flush suffusing her face, succeeded by deadly pallor. Gently moving young Fitzgerald aside, he said in a low tone, "Are you not well, my dear?" She raised her eyes to his with a look of distress, and replied: "No, I am not well. Please order the carriage." He took her arm within his, and as they made their way through the crowd she bowed gracefully to the right and left, in answer to the lamentations occasioned by her departure. Young Fitzgerald followed to the hall door to offer, in the name of Mrs. Green, a beautiful bouquet, enclosed within an arum lily of silver filigree. She bowed her thanks, and, drawing from it a delicate tea-rose, presented it to him. He wore it as a trophy the remainder of the evening; and none of the young ladies who teased him for it succeeded in obtaining it. When Mr. and Mrs. King were in the carriage, he took her hand tenderly, and said, "My dear, that young man recalled to mind your infant son, who died with poor Tulee." With a heavy sigh she answered, "Yes, I am thinking of that poor little baby." He held her hand clasped in his; but deeming it most kind not to intrude into the sanctum of that sad and tender memory, he remained silent. She spoke no other word as they rode toward their hotel. She was seeing a vision of those two babes, lying side by side, on that dreadful night when her tortured soul was for a while filled with bitter hatred for the man she had loved so truly. Mrs. Fitzgerald and her son were the earliest among the callers the next day. Mrs. King happened to rest her hand lightly on the back of a chair, while she exchanged salutations with them, and her husband noticed that the lace of her hanging sleeve trembled violently. "You took everybody by storm last evening, Mrs. King, just as you did when you first appeared as Norma," said the loquacious Mrs. Fitzgerald. "As for you, Mr. King, I don't know but you would have received a hundred challenges, if gentlemen had known you were going to carry off the prize. So sly of you, too! For I always heard you were entirely indifferent to ladies." "Ah, well, the world don't always know what it's talking about," rejoined Mr. King, smiling. Further remarks were interrupted by the entrance of a young girl, whom he took by the hand, and introduced as "My daughter Eulalia." Nature is very capricious in the varieties she produces by mixing flowers with each other. Sometimes the different tints of each are blended in a new color, compounded of both; sometimes the color of one is delicately shaded into the other; sometimes one color is marked in distinct stripes or rings upon the other; and sometimes the separate hues are mottled and clouded. Nature had indulged in one of her freaks in the production of Eulalia, a maiden of fifteen summers, the only surviving child of Mr. and Mrs. King. She inherited her mother's tall, flexile form, and her long dark eyelashes, eyebrows, and hair; but she had her father's large blue eyes, and his rose-and-white complexion. The combination was peculiar, and very handsome; especially the serene eyes, which, looked out from their dark surroundings like clear blue water deeply shaded by shrubbery around its edges. Her manners were a little shy, for her parents had wisely forborne an early introduction to society. But she entered pleasantly enough into some small talk with Fitzgerald about the skating parties of the winter, and a new polka that he thought she would like to practise. Callers began to arrive rapidly. There was a line of carriages at the door, and still it lengthened. Mrs. King received them all with graceful courtesy, and endeavored to say something pleasing to each; but in the midst of it all, she never lost sight of Gerald and Eulalia. After a short time she beckoned to her daughter with a slight motion of her fan, and spoke a few words to her aside. The young girl left the room, and did not return to it. Fitzgerald, after interchanging some brief remarks with Mr. King about the classes at Cambridge, approached the _cantatrice_, and said in lowered tones: "I tried to call early with the hope of hearing you sing. But I was detained by business for grandfather; and even if you were graciously inclined to gratify my presumptuous wish, you will not be released from company this morning. May I say, _Au revoir_?" "Certainly," she replied, looking up at him with an expression in her beautiful eyes that produced a glow of gratified vanity. He bowed good morning, with the smiling conviction that he was a great favorite with the distinguished lady. When the last caller had retired, Mrs. King, after exchanging some general observations with her husband concerning her impressions of Boston and its people, seated herself at the window, with a number of Harper's Weekly in her hand; but the paper soon dropped on her lap, and she seemed gazing into infinity. The people passing and repassing were invisible to her. She was away in that lonely island home, with two dark-haired babies lying near her, side by side. Her husband looked at her over his newspaper, now and then; and observing her intense abstraction, he stepped softly across the room, and, laying his hand gently upon her head, said: "Rosa, dear, do memories trouble you so much that you regret having returned to America?" Without change of posture, she answered: "It matters not where we are. We must always carry ourselves with us." Then, as if reproaching herself for so cold a response to his kind inquiry, she looked up at him, and, kissing his hand, said: "Dear Alfred! Good angel of my life! I do not deserve such a heart as yours." He had never seen such a melancholy expression in her eyes since the day she first encouraged him to hope for her affection. He made no direct allusion to the subject of her thoughts, for the painful history of her early love was a theme they mutually avoided; but he sought, by the most assiduous tenderness, to chase away the gloomy phantoms that were taking possession of her soul. In answer to his urgent entreaty that she would express to him unreservedly any wish she might form, she said, as if thinking aloud: "Of course they buried poor Tulee among the negroes; but perhaps they buried the baby with Mr. and Mrs. Duroy, and inscribed something about him on the gravestone." "It is hardly probable," he replied; "but if it would give you satisfaction to search, we will go to New Orleans." "Thank you," rejoined she; "and I should like it very much if you could leave orders to engage lodgings for the summer somewhere distant from Boston, that we might go and take possession as soon as we return." He promised compliance with her wishes; but the thought flitted through his mind, "Can it be possible the young man fascinates her, that she wants to fly from him?" "I am going to Eulalia now," said she, with one of her sweet smiles. "It will be pleasanter for the dear child when we get out of this whirl of society, which so much disturbs our domestic companionship." As she kissed her hand to him at the door, he thought to himself, "Whatever this inward struggle may be, she will remain true to her pure and noble character." Mrs. Fitzgerald, meanwhile, quite unconscious that the flowery surface she had witnessed covered such agitated depths, hastened to keep her promise of describing the party to Mrs. Delano and her daughter. "I assure you," said she, "La Señorita looked quite as handsome in the ball-room as she did on the stage. She is stouter than she was then, but not so; 'fat and forty' as I am. Large proportions suit her stately figure. As for her dress, I wish you could have seen it. It was splendid, and wonderfully becoming to her rich complexion. It was completely Spanish, from the mantilla on her head to the black satin slippers with red bows and brilliants. She was all cherry-colored satin, black lace, and diamonds." "How I should like to have seen her!" exclaimed Mrs. Blumenthal, whose fancy was at once taken by the bright color and strong contrast of the costume. But Mrs. Delano remarked: "I should think her style of dress rather too _prononcé_ and theatrical; too suggestive of Fanny Elsler and the Bolero." "Doubtless it would be so for you or I," rejoined Mrs. Fitzgerald. "Mother used to say you had a poet lover, who called you the twilight cloud, violet dissolving into lilac. And when I was a young lady, some of my admirers compared me to the new moon, which must, of course, appear in azure and silver. But I assure you Mrs. King's conspicuous dress was extremely becoming to her style of face and figure. I wish I had counted how many gentlemen quoted, 'She walks in beauty like the night' It became really ridiculous at last. Gerald and I called upon her this morning, and we found her handsome in the parlor by daylight, which is a trying test to the forties, you know. We were introduced to their only daughter, Eulalia,--a very peculiar-looking young miss, with sky-blue eyes and black eyelashes, like some of the Circassian beauties I have read off. Gerald thinks her almost as handsome as her mother. What a fortune that girl will be! But I have promised ever so many people to tell them about the party; so I must bid you good by." When the door closed after her, Flora remarked, "I never heard of anybody but my Mamita who was named Eulalia." "Eulalia was a Spanish saint," responded Mrs. Delano; "and her name is so very musical that it would naturally please the ear of La Señorita." "My curiosity is considerably excited to see this stylish lady," said Flora. "We will wait a little, till the first rush of visitors has somewhat subsided, and then we will call," rejoined Mrs. Delano. They called three days after, and were informed that Mr. and Mrs. King had gone to New Orleans. CHAPTER XXVI. Strange contrasts occur in human society, even where there is such a strong tendency toward equality as there is in New England. A few hours before Queen Fashion held her splendid court in Beacon Street, a vessel from New Orleans called "The King Cotton" approached Long Wharf in Boston. Before she touched the pier, a young man jumped on board from another vessel close by. He went directly up to the captain, and said, in a low, hurried tone: "Let nobody land. You have slaves on board. Mr. Bell is in a carriage on the wharf waiting to speak to you." Having delivered this message, he disappeared in the same direction that he came. This brief interview was uneasily watched by one of the passengers, a young man apparently nineteen or twenty years old. He whispered to a yellow lad, who was his servant, and both attempted to land by crossing the adjoining vessel. But the captain intercepted them, saying, "All must remain on board till we draw up to the wharf." With desperate leaps, they sprang past him. He tried to seize them, calling aloud, "Stop thief! Stop thief!" Some of his sailors rushed after them. As they ran up State Street, lads and boys, always ready to hunt anything, joined in the pursuit. A young black man, who was passing down the street as the crowd rushed up, saw the yellow lad race by him, panting for breath, and heard him cry, "Help me!" The crowd soon turned backward, having caught the fugitives. The black man hurried after, and as they were putting them on board the vessel he pushed his way close to the yellow lad, and again heard him say, "Help me! I am a slave." The black man paused only to look at the name of the vessel, and then hastened with all speed to the house of Mr. Willard Percival. Almost out of breath with his hurry, he said to that gentleman: "A vessel from New Orleans, named 'The King Cotton,' has come up to Long Wharf. They've got two slaves aboard. They was chasing 'em up State Street, calling out, 'Stop thief!' and I heard a mulatto lad cry, 'Help me!' I run after 'em; and just as they was going to put the mulatto lad aboard the vessel, I pushed my way close up to him, and he said, 'Help me! I'm a slave.' So I run fast as I could to tell you." "Wait a moment till I write a note to Francis Jackson, which you must carry as quick as you can," said Mr. Percival. "I will go to Mr. Sewall for a writ of _habeas corpus_" While this was going on, the captain had locked the fugitives in the hold of his vessel, and hastened to the carriage, which had been waiting for him at a short distance from the wharf. "Good evening, Mr. Bell," said he, raising his hat as he approached the carriage door. "Good evening, Captain Kane," replied the gentleman inside. "You've kept me waiting so long, I was nearly out of patience." "I sent you word they'd escaped, sir," rejoined the captain. "They gave us a run; but we've got 'em fast enough in the hold. One of 'em seems to be a white man. Perhaps he's an Abolitionist, that's been helping the nigger off. It's good enough for him to be sent back to the South. If they get hold of him there, he'll never have a chance to meddle with gentlemen's property again." "They're both slaves," replied Mr. Bell. "The telegram I received informed me that one would pass himself for a white man. But, captain, you must take 'em directly to Castle Island. One of the officers there will lock 'em up, if you tell them I sent you. And you can't be off too quick; for as likely as not the Abolitionists will get wind of it, and be raising a row before morning. There's no safety for property now-a-days." Having given these orders, the wealthy merchant bade the captain good evening, and his carriage rolled away. The unhappy fugitives were immediately taken from the hold of the vessel, pinioned fast, and hustled on board a boat, which urged its swift way through the waters to Castle Island, where they were safely locked up till further orders. "O George, they'll send us back," said the younger one. "I wish we war dead." George answered, with a deep groan: "O how I have watched the North Star! thinking always it pointed to a land of freedom. O my God, is there _no_ place of refuge for the slave?" "_You_ are so white, you could have got off, if you hadn't brought _me_ with you," sobbed the other. "And what good would freedom do me without you, Henny?" responded the young man, drawing his companion closer to his breast. "Cheer up, honey! I'll try again; and perhaps we'll make out better next time." He tried to talk hopefully; but when yellow Henny, in her boy's dress, cried herself to sleep on his shoulder, his tears dropped slowly on her head, while he sat there gazing at the glittering stars, with a feeling of utter discouragement and desolation. That same evening, the merchant who was sending them back to bondage, without the slightest inquiry into their case, was smoking his amber-lipped meerschaum, in an embroidered dressing-gown, on a luxurious lounge; his daughter, Mrs. Fitzgerald, in azure satin and pearls, was meandering through the mazes of the dance; and his exquisitely dressed grandson, Gerald, was paying nearly equal homage to Mrs. King's lambent eyes and the sparkle of her diamonds. When young Fitzgerald descended to a late breakfast, the morning after the great party, his grandfather was lolling back in his arm-chair, his feet ensconced in embroidered slippers, and resting on the register, while he read the Boston Courier. "Good morning, Gerald," said he, "if it be not past that time of day. If you are sufficiently rested from last night's dissipation, I should like to have you attend to a little business for me." "I hope it won't take very long, grandfather," replied Gerald; "for I want to call on Mrs. King early, before her rooms are thronged with visitors." "That opera-singer seems to have turned your head, though she is old enough to be your mother," rejoined Mr. Bell. "I don't know that my head was any more turned than others," answered the young man, in a slightly offended tone. "If you call to see her, sir, as mother says you intend to do, perhaps she will make _you_ feel as if you had a young head on your shoulders." "Likely as not, likely as not," responded the old gentleman, smiling complacently at the idea of re-enacting the beau. "But I wish you to do an errand for me this morning, which I had rather not put in writing, for fear of accidents, and which I cannot trust verbally to a servant. I got somewhat chilled waiting in a carriage near the wharf, last evening, and I feel some rheumatic twinges in consequence. Under these circumstances, I trust you will excuse me if I ask the use of your young limbs to save my own." "Certainly, sir," replied Gerald, with thinly disguised impatience. "What is it you want me to do?" "Two slaves belonging to Mr. Bruteman of New Orleans, formerly a friend of your father, have escaped in my ship, 'The King Cotton,' The oldest, it seems, is a head carpenter, and would bring a high price, Bruteman values them at twenty-five hundred dollars. He is my debtor to a considerable amount, and those negroes are mortgaged to me. But independently of that circumstance, it would be very poor policy, dealing with the South as I do, to allow negroes to be brought away in my vessels with impunity. Besides, there is a heavy penalty in all the Southern States, if the thing is proved. You see, Gerald, it is every way for my interest to make sure of returning those negroes; and your interest is somewhat connected with mine, seeing that the small pittance saved from the wreck of your father's property is quite insufficient to supply your rather expensive wants." "I think I have been reminded of that often enough, sir, to be in no danger of forgetting it," retorted the youth, reddening as he spoke. "Then you will perhaps think it no great hardship to transact a little business for me now and then," coolly rejoined the grandfather. "I shall send orders to have these negroes sold as soon as they arrive, and the money transmitted to me; for when they once begin to run away, the disease is apt to become chronic." "Have you seen them, sir," inquired Gerald. "No," replied the merchant. "That would have been unpleasant, without being of any use. When a disagreeable duty is to be done, the quicker it is done the better. Captain Kane took 'em down to Castle Island last night; but it won't do for them to stay there. The Abolitionists will ferret 'em out, and be down there with their devilish _habeas corpus_. I want you to go on board 'The King Cotton,' take the captain aside, and tell him, from me, to remove them forthwith from Castle Island, keep them under strong guard, and skulk round with them in the best hiding-places he can find, until a ship passes that will take them to New Orleans. Of course, I need not caution you to be silent about this affair, especially concerning the slaves being mortgaged to me. If that is whispered abroad, it will soon get into the Abolition papers that I am a man-stealer, as those rascals call the slaveholders." The young man obeyed his instructions to the letter; and having had some difficulty in finding Captain Kane, he was unable to dress for quite so early a call at the Revere House as he had intended. "How much trouble these niggers give us!" thought he, as he adjusted his embroidered cravat, and took his fresh kid gloves from the box. * * * * * When Mr. Blumenthal went home to dine that day, the ladies of the household noticed that he was unusually serious. As he sat after dinner, absently playing a silent tune on the table-cloth, his wife touched his hand with her napkin, and said, "_What_ was it so long ago, Florimond?" He turned and smiled upon her, as he answered: "So my fingers were moving to the tune of 'Long, long ago,' were they? I was not conscious of it, but my thoughts were with the long ago. Yesterday afternoon, as I was passing across State Street, I heard a cry of 'Stop thief!' and I saw them seize a young man, who looked like an Italian. I gave no further thought to the matter, and pursued the business I had in hand. But to-day I have learned that he was a slave, who escaped in 'The King Cotton' from New Orleans. I seem to see the poor fellow's terrified look now; and it brings vividly to mind something dreadful that came very near happening, long ago, to a person whose complexion is similar to his. I was thinking how willingly I would then have given the services of my whole life for a portion of the money which our best friend here has enabled me to acquire." "What _was_ the dreadful thing that was going to happen, papa?" inquired Rosa. "That is a secret between mamma and I," he replied. "It is something not exactly suitable to talk with little girls about, Rosy Posy." He took her hand, as it lay on the table, and pressed it affectionately, by way of apology for refusing his confidence. Then, looking at Mrs. Delano, he said: "If I had only known the poor fellow was a slave, I might, perhaps, have done something to rescue him. But the Abolitionists are doing what can be done. They procured a writ of _habeas corpus_, and went on board 'The King Cotton'; but they could neither find the slaves nor obtain any information from the captain. They are keeping watch on all vessels bound South, in which Mr. Goldwin and I are assisting them. There are at least twenty spies out on the wharves." "I heartily wish you as much success as I have had in that kind of business," replied Mrs. Delano with a smile. "O, I do hope they'll be rescued," exclaimed Flora. "How shameful it is to have such laws, while we keep singing, in the face of the world, about 'the land of the free, and the home of the brave.' I don't mean to sing that again; for it's false." "There'll come an end to this some time or other, as surely as God reigns in the heavens," rejoined Blumenthal. * * * * * Two days passed, and the unremitting efforts of Mr. Percival and Mr. Jackson proved unavailing to obtain any clew to the fugitives. After an anxious consultation with Samuel E. Sewall, the wisest and kindest legal adviser in such cases, they reluctantly came to the conclusion that nothing more could be done without further information. As a last resort, Mr. Percival suggested a personal appeal to Mr. Bell. "Rather a forlorn hope that," replied Francis Jackson. "He has named his ship for the king that rules over us all, trampling on freedom of petition, freedom of debate, and even on freedom of locomotion." "We will try," said Mr. Percival. "It is barely possible we may obtain some light on the subject." Early in the evening they accordingly waited upon the merchant at his residence. When the servant informed him that two gentlemen wished to see him on business, he laid aside his meerschaum and the Courier, and said, "Show them in." Captain Kane had informed him that the Abolitionists were "trying to get up a row"; but he had not anticipated that they would call upon him, and it was an unpleasant surprise when he saw who his visitors were. He bowed stiffly, and waited in silence for them to explain their business. "We have called," said Mr. Percival, "to make some inquiries concerning two fugitives from slavery, who, it is said, were found on board your ship, 'The King Cotton.'" "I know nothing about it," replied Mr. Bell. "My captains understand the laws of the ports they sail from; and it is their business to see that those laws are respected." "But," urged Mr. Percival "that a man is _claimed_ as a slave by no means proves that he _is_ a slave. The law presumes that every man has a right to personal liberty, until it is proved otherwise; and in order to secure a fair trial of the question, the writ of _habeas corpus_ has been provided." "It's a great disgrace to Massachusetts, sir, that she puts so many obstacles in the way of enforcing the laws of the United States," replied Mr. Bell. "If your grandson should be claimed as a slave, I rather think you would consider the writ of _habeas corpus_ a wise and just provision," said the plain-speaking Francis Jackson. "It is said that this young stranger, whom they chased as a thief, and carried off as a slave, had a complexion no darker than his." "I take it for granted," added Mr. Percival, "that you do not wish for a state of things that would make every man and woman in Massachusetts liable to be carried off as slaves, without a chance to prove their right to freedom." Mr. Bell answered, in tones of suppressed anger, his face all ablaze with excitement, "If I could choose _who_ should be thus carried off, I would do the Commonwealth a service by ridding her of a swarm of malignant fanatics." "If you were to try that game," quietly rejoined Francis Jackson, "I apprehend you would find some of the fire of '76 still alive under the ashes." "A man is strongly tempted to argue," said Mr. Percival, "when he knows that all the laws of truth and justice and freedom are on his side; but we did not come here to discuss the subject of slavery, Mr. Bell. We came to appeal to your own good sense, whether it is right or safe that men should be forcibly carried from the city of Boston without any process of law." "I stand by the Constitution," answered Mr. Bell, doggedly. "I don't presume to be wiser than the framers of that venerable document." "That is evading the question," responded Mr. Percival. "There is no question before us concerning the framers of the Constitution. The simple proposition is, whether it is right or safe for men to be forcibly carried from Boston without process of law. Two strangers _have_ been thus abducted; and you say it is your captain's business. You know perfectly well that a single line from you would induce your captain to give those men a chance for a fair trial. Is it not your duty so to instruct him?" A little thrown off his guard, Mr. Bell exclaimed: "And give an Abolition mob a chance to rescue them? I shall do no such thing." "It is not the Abolitionists who get up mobs," rejoined Francis Jackson. "Garrison was dragged through the streets for writing against slavery; but when Yancey of Alabama had the use of Faneuil Hall, for the purpose of defending slavery, no Abolitionist attempted to disturb his speaking." A slight smile hovered about Mr. Percival's lips; for it was well known that State Street and Ann Street clasped hands when mobs were wanted, and that money changed palms on such occasions; and the common rumor was that Mr. Bell's purse had been freely used. The merchant probably considered it an offensive insinuation, for his face, usually rubicund from the effects of champagne and oysters, became redder, and his lips were tightly compressed; but he merely reiterated, "I stand by the Constitution, sir." "Mr. Bell, I must again urge it upon your conscience," said Mr. Percival, "that you are more responsible than the captain in this matter. Your captains, of course, act under your orders, and would do nothing contrary to your expressed wishes. Captain Kane has, doubtless, consulted you in this business." "That's none of your concern, sir," retorted the irascible merchant. "My captains know that I think Southern gentlemen ought to be protected in their property; and that is sufficient. I stand by the Constitution, sir. I honor the reverend gentleman who said he was ready to send his mother or his brother into slavery, if the laws required it. That's the proper spirit, sir. You fanatics, with your useless abstractions about human rights, are injuring trade, and endangering the peace of the country. You are doing all you can to incite the slaves to insurrection. I don't pretend, to be wiser than the framers of the Constitution, sir. I don't pretend to be wiser than Daniel Webster, sir, who said in Congress that he; would support, to the fullest extent, any law Southern gentlemen chose to frame for the recovery of fugitive slaves." "I wish you a better conscience-keeper," rejoined Francis Jackson, rising as he spoke. "I don't see, my friend, that there's any use in staying here to talk any longer. There's none so deaf as those that _won't_ hear." Mr. Percival rose at this suggestion, and "Good evening" was exchanged, with formal bows on both sides. But sturdy Francis Jackson made no bow, and uttered no "Good evening." When they were in the street, and the subject was alluded to by his companion, he simply replied: "I've pretty much done with saying or doing what I don't mean. It's a pity that dark-complexioned grandson of his couldn't be carried off as a slave. That might, perhaps, bring him to a realizing sense of the state of things." CHAPTER XXVII. A few days past the middle of the following May, a carriage stopped before the house of Mr. Joseph Bright, in Northampton, and Mrs. Delano, with all the Blumenthal family, descended from it. Mr. Bright received them at the gate, his face smiling all over. "You're welcome, ladies," said he. "Walk in! walk in! Betsey, this is Mrs. Delano. This is Mrs. Bright, ladies. Things ain't so stylish here as at your house; but I hope you'll find 'em comfortable." Mrs. Bright, a sensible-looking woman, with great moderation of manner, showed them into a plainly furnished, but very neat parlor. "O, how pleasant this is!" exclaimed Mrs. Blumenthal, as she looked out of one of the side-windows. The children ran up to her repeating: "How pleasant! What a nice hedge, mamma! And see that wall all covered with pretty flowers!" "Those are moss-pinks," said Mrs. Bright. "I think they are very ornamental to a wall." "Did you plant them?" inquired Rosa. "O, no," said Mr. Bright, who was bringing in various baskets and shawls. "That's not our garden; but we have just as much pleasure looking at it as if it was. A great Southern nabob lives there. He made a heap o' money selling women and children, and he's come North to spend it. He's a very pious man, and deacon of the church." The children began to laugh; for Mr. Bright drawled out his words in solemn tones, and made his broad face look very comical by trying to lengthen it. "His name is Stillham," added he, "but I call him Deacon Steal'em." As he passed out, Rosa whispered to her mother, "What does he mean about a deacon's selling women and children?" Before an answer could be given, Mr. Bright reappeared with a bird-cage. "I guess this is a pretty old parrot," said he. "Yes, she is quite old," replied Mrs. Delano. "But we are all attached to her; and our house being shut up for the summer, we were unwilling to trust her with strangers." The parrot, conscious of being talked about, turned up her head sideways, and winked her eye, without stirring from the corner of the cage, where she was rolled up like a ball of feathers. Then she croaked out an English phrase, which she had learned of the children, "Polly wants a cacker." "She shall have a cracker," said good-natured Mr. Bright; and Rosa and little Lila were soon furnished with a cracker and a lump of sugar for Poll. In a short time they were summoned to tea; and after enjoying Mrs. Bright's light bread and sweet butter, they saw no more of their host and hostess for the evening. In the morning the whole family were up before the hour appointed for breakfast, and were out in the garden, taking a look at the environments of their new abode. As Mrs. Blumenthal was walking among the bushes, Mr. Bright's beaming face suddenly uprose before her, from where he was stooping to pluck up some weeds. "Good morning, ma'am," said he. "Do hear that old thief trying to come Paddy over the Lord!" As he spoke, he pointed his thumb backward toward Deacon Stillham's house, whence proceeded a very loud and monotonous voice of prayer. Mrs. Blumenthal smiled as she inquired, "What did you mean by saying he sold women and children?" "Made his money by slave-trading down in Carolina, ma'am. I reckon a man has to pray a deal to get himself out of that scrape; needs to pray pretty loud too, or the voice of women screaming for their babies would get to the throne afore him. He don't like us over and above well, 'cause we're Abolitionists. But there's Betsey calling me; I mustn't stop here talking." Mrs. Blumenthal amused her companions by a repetition of his remarks concerning the Deacon. She was much entertained by their host's original style of bubbling over, as she termed it. After breakfast she said: "There he is in the garden. Let's go and talk with him, Florimond." And taking her parasol, she went out, leaning on her husband's arm. "So you are an Abolitionist?" said Mr. Blumenthal, as they stopped near their host. Mr. Bright tossed his hat on a bush, and, leaning on his hoe, sang in a stentorian voice: "I am an Abolitionist; I glory in the name.--There," said he, laughing, "I let out _all_ my voice, that the Deacon might hear. He can pray the loudest; but I reckon I can sing the loudest. I'll tell you what first made me begin to think about slavery. You see I was never easy without I could be doing something in the musical way, so I undertook to teach singing. One winter, I thought I should like to run away from Jack Frost, and I looked in the Southern papers to see if any of 'em advertised for a singing-master. The first thing my eye lighted on was this advertisement:-- "Ran away from the subscriber a stout mulatto slave, named Joe; has light sandy hair, blue eyes, and ruddy complexion; is intelligent, and will pass himself for a white man. I will give one hundred dollars' reward to whoever will seize him and put him in jail.' "'By George!' said I, 'that's a description of _me_. I didn't know before that I was a mulatto. It'll never do for me to go _there_.' So I went to Vermont to teach. I told 'em I was a runaway slave, and showed 'em the advertisement that described me. Some of 'em believed me, till I told 'em it was a joke. Well, it is just as bad for those poor black fellows as it would have been for me; but that blue-eyed Joe seemed to bring the matter home to me. It set me to thinking about slavery, and I have kept thinking ever since." "Not exactly such a silent thinking as the apothecary's famous owl, I judge," said Mrs. Blumenthal. "No," replied he, laughing. "I never had the Quaker gift of gathering into the stillness, that's a fact. But I reckon even that 'pothecary's owl wouldn't be silent if he could hear and understand all that Betsey has told me about the goings-on down South. Before I married her, she went there to teach; but she's a woman o' feeling, and she couldn't stand it long. But, dear me, if I believed Deacon Steal'em's talk, I should think it was just about the pleasantest thing in the world to be sold; and that the niggers down South had nothing 'pon earth to do but to lick treacle and swing on a gate. Then he proves it to be a Divine institution from Scripture, chapter and verse. You may have noticed, perhaps, that such chaps are always mighty well posted up about the original designs of Providence; especially as to who's foreordained to be kept down. He says God cussed Ham, and the niggers are the descendants of Ham. I told him if there was an estate of Ham's left unsettled, I reckoned 't would puzzle the 'cutest lawyer to hunt up the rightful heirs." "I think so," rejoined Mr. Blumenthal, smiling; "especially when they've become so mixed up that they advertise runaway negroes with sandy hair, blue eyes, and ruddy complexion." "When the Deacon feels the ground a little shaky under him," resumed Mr. Bright, he leans on his minister down in Carolina, who, he says, is a Northern man, and so pious that folks come from far and near to get him to pray for rain in a dry time; thinking the prayers of such a godly man will be sure to bring down the showers. He says that man preached a sermon that proved niggers were born to be servants of servants unto their brethren. I told him I didn't doubt that part of the prophecy was fulfilled about their serving their _brethren_; and I showed him the advertisement about sandy hair and blue eyes. But as for being servants of _servants_, I never heard of slaveholders serving anybody except--a chap whose name it ain't polite to mention before ladies. As for that preacher, he put me in mind of a minister my father used to tell of. He'd been to a wedding, and when he come home he couldn't light his lamp. After trying a long spell he found out that the extinguisher was on it. I told the deacon that ministers down South had put an extinguisher on their lamp, and couldn't be expected to raise much of a light from it to guide anybody's steps." "Some of the Northern ministers are not much better guides, I think," rejoined Mr. Blumenthal. "Just so," replied his host; "'cause they've got the same extinguisher on; and ain't it curious to see 'em puffing and blowing at the old lamp? I get 'most tired of talking common sense and common feeling to the Deacon. You can't get it into him, and it won't stay on him. You might as well try to heap a peck o' flax-seed. He keeps eating his own words, too; though they don't seem to agree with him, neither. He maintains that the slaves are perfectly contented and happy; and the next minute, if you quote any of their cruel laws, he tells you they are obliged to make such laws or else they would rise and cut their masters' throats. He says blacks and whites won't mix any more than oil and water; and the next minute he says if the slaves are freed they'll marry our daughters. I tell him his arguments are like the Kilkenny cats, that ate one another up to the tip o' their tails. The Deacon is sensible enough, too, about many other subjects; but he nor no other man can saw straight with a crooked saw." "It's an old saying," rejoined Blumenthal, "that, when men enter into a league with Satan, he always deserts them at the tightest pinch; and I've often observed he's sure to do it where arguments pinch." "I don't wonder you are far from being a favorite with the Deacon," remarked Flora; "for, according to your own account, you hit him rather hard." "I suppose I do," rejoined Mr. Bright. "I'm always in earnest myself; and when I'm sure I'm in the right, I always drive ahead. I soon get out o' patience trying to twist a string that ain't fastened at nary end, as an old neighbor of my father used to say. I suppose some of us Abolitionists _are_ a little rough at times; but I reckon the coarsest of us do more good than the false prophets that prophesy smooth things." "You said Mrs. Bright had been a teacher in the South. What part of the South was it?" inquired Mrs. Blumenthal. "She went to Savannah to be nursery governess to Mrs. Fitzgerald's little girl," replied he. "But part of the time she was on an island where Mr. Fitzgerald had a cotton plantation. I dare say you've heard of him, for he married the daughter of that rich Mr. Bell who lives in your street. He died some years ago; at least they suppose he died, but nobody knows what became of him." Flora pressed her husband's arm, and was about to inquire concerning the mystery, when Mrs. Delano came, hand in hand with Rosa and Lila, to say that she had ordered the carriage and wanted them to be in readiness to take a drive. They returned to a late dinner; and when they rose from a long chat over the dessert, Mr. Bright was not to be found, and his wife was busy; so further inquiries concerning Mr. Fitzgerald's fate were postponed. Mr. Blumenthal proposed a walk on Round Hill; but the children preferred staying at home. Rosa had a new tune she wanted to practise with her guitar; and her little sister had the promise of a story from Mamita Lila. So Mr. Blumenthal and his wife went forth on their ramble alone. The scene from Round Hill was beautiful with the tender foliage of early spring. Slowly they sauntered round from point to point, pausing now and then to look at the handsome villages before them, at the blooming peach-trees, the glistening river, and the venerable mountains, with feathery crowns of violet cloud. Suddenly a sound of music floated on the air; and they stood spell-bound, with heads bowed, as if their souls were hushed in prayer. When it ceased, Mr. Blumenthal drew a long breath, and said, "Ah! that was our Mendelssohn." "How exquisitely it was played," observed his wife, "and how in harmony it was with these groves! It sounded like a hymn in the forest." They lingered, hoping again to hear the invisible musician. As they leaned against the trees, the silver orb of the moon ascended from the horizon, and rested on the brow of Mount Holyoke; and from the same quarter whence Mendelssohn's "Song without Words" had proceeded, the tones of "Casta Diva" rose upon the air. Flora seized her husband's arm with a quick, convulsive grasp, and trembled all over. Wondering at the intensity of her emotion, he passed his arm tenderly round her waist and drew her closely to him. Thus, leaning upon his heart, she listened with her whole being, from the inmost recesses of her soul, throughout all her nerves, to her very fingers' ends. When the sounds died away, she sobbed out: "O, how like Rosa's voice! It seemed as if she had risen from the dead." He spoke soothingly, and in a few minutes they descended the hill and silently wended their way homeward. The voice that had seemed to come from another world invested the evening landscape with mystical solemnity. The expression of the moon seemed transfigured, like a great clairvoyant eye, reflecting light from invisible spheres, and looking out upon the external world with dreamy abstraction. When they arrived at their lodgings, Flora exclaimed: "O Mamita Lila, we have heard such heavenly music, and a voice so wonderfully like Rosa's! I don't believe I shall sleep a wink to-night." "Do you mean the Aunt Rosa I was named for?" inquired her daughter. "Yes, Rosen Blumen," replied her mother; "and I wish you had gone with us, that you might have an idea what a wonderful voice she had." This led to talk about old times, and to the singing of various airs associated with those times. When they retired to rest, Flora fell asleep with those tunes marching and dancing through her brain; and, for the first time during many years, she dreamed of playing them to her father, while Rosabella sang. The next morning, when the children had gone out to ramble in the woods with their father, her memory being full of those old times, she began to say over to the parrot some of the phrases that formerly amused her father and Rosabella. The old bird was never talkative now; but when urged by Flora, she croaked out some of her familiar phrases. "I'm glad we brought _pauvre Manon_ with us," said Mrs. Blumenthal. "I think she seems livelier since she came here. Sometimes I fancy she looks like good Madame Guirlande. Those feathers on her head make me think of the bows on Madame's cap. Come, _jolie Manon_, I'll carry you out doors, where the sun will shine upon you. You like sunshine, don't you, Manon?" She took the cage, and was busy fastening it on the bough of a tree, when a voice from the street said, "_Bon jour, jolie Manon_!" The parrot suddenly flapped her wings, gave a loud laugh, and burst into a perfect tornado of French and Spanish phrases: "_Bon jour! Buenos dias! Querida mia! Joli diable! Petit blanc! Ha! ha_!" Surprised at this explosion, Mrs. Blumenthal looked round to discover the cause, and exclaiming, "_Oh ciel_!" she turned deadly pale, and rushed into the house. "What _is_ the matter, my child? inquired Mrs. Delano, anxiously. "O Mamita, I've seen Rosa's ghost," she replied, sinking into a chair. Mrs. Delano poured some cologne on a handkerchief, and bathed her forehead, while she said, "You were excited last night by the tune you used to hear your sister sing; and it makes you nervous, dear." While she was speaking, Mrs. Bright entered the room, saying, "Have you a bottle of sal volatile you can lend me? A lady has come in, who says she is a little faint." "I will bring it from my chamber," replied Mrs. Delano. She left the room, and was gone some time. When she returned, she found Mrs. Blumenthal leaning her head on the table, with her face buried in her hands. "My child, I want you to come into the other room," said Mrs. Delano. "The lady who was faint is the famous Mrs. King, from Boston. She is boarding on Round Hill, and I suppose it was her voice you heard singing. She said she had seen a lady come into this house who looked so much like a deceased relative that it made her feel faint. Now don't be excited, darling; but this lady certainly resembles the sketch you made of your sister; and it is barely possible--" Before she could finish the sentence, Flora started up, and flew into the adjoining room. A short, quick cry, "O Floracita!" "O Rosabella!" and they were locked in each other's arms. After hugging and kissing, and weeping and laughing by turns, Mrs. King said: "That must have been Madame's parrot. The sight of her made me think of old times, and I said, '_Bon jour, jolie Manon_! Your back was toward me, and I should have passed on, if my attention had not been arrested by her wild outpouring of French and Spanish. I suppose she knew my voice." "Bless the dear old bird!" exclaimed Flora. "It was she who brought us together again at last. She shall come in to see you." They went out to bring in their old pet. But _jolie Manon_ was lying on the floor of her cage, with eyes closed and wings outstretched. The joyful surprise had been too much for her feeble old nerves. She was dead. CHAPTER XXVIII. "So you _are_ alive!" exclaimed Rosa, holding her sister back a little, and gazing upon her face with all her soul in her eyes. "Yes, very _much_ alive," answered Flora, with a smile that brought out all her dimples. "But do tell me," said Rosa, "how you came to go away so strangely, and leave me to mourn for you as if you were dead." The dimples disappeared, and a shadow clouded Flora's expressive eyes, as she replied: "It would take a long while to explain all that, _sistita mia_. We will talk it over another time, please." Rosa sighed as she pressed her sister's hand, and said: "Perhaps I have already conjectured rightly about it, Floracita. My eyes were opened by bitter experiences after we were parted. Some time I will explain to you how I came to run to Europe in such a hurry, with Madame and the Signor." "But tell me, the first thing of all, whether Tulee is dead," rejoined Flora. "You know Madame was always exceedingly careful about expense," responded Rosa. "Mrs. Duroy was willing to board Tulee for her work, and Madame thought it was most prudent to leave her there till we got established in Europe, and could send for her; and just when we were expecting her to rejoin us, letters came informing us that Mr. and Mrs. Duroy and Tulee all died of yellow-fever. It distresses me beyond measure to think of our having left poor, faithful Tulee." "When we found out that Mr. Fitzgerald had married another wife," replied Flora, "my new Mamita kindly volunteered to go with me in search of you and Tulee. We went to the cottage, and to the plantation, and to New Orleans. Everybody I ever knew seemed to be dead or gone away. But Madame's parrot was alive, and her chattering led me into a stranger's house, where I heard that you were lost at sea on your way to Europe; and that Tulee, with a white baby she had charge of, had died of yellow-fever. Was that baby yours, dear?" Rosa lowered her eyes, and colored deeply, as she answered: "That subject is very painful to me. I can never forgive myself for having left Tulee and that poor little baby." Flora pressed her sister's hand in silence for a moment, and then said: "You told me Madame and the Signor were alive and well. Where are they?" "They lived with us in Provence," replied Rosa. "But when we concluded to return to America, the Signor expressed a wish to end his days in his native country. So Mr. King purchased an estate for them near Florence, and settled an annuity upon them. I had a letter from Madame a few days ago, and she writes that they are as happy as rabbits in clover. The Signor is getting quite old; and if she survives him, it is agreed that she will come and end her days with us. How it will delight her heart to hear that you are alive! What a strange fortune we have had! It seems that Mr. King always loved me, from the first evening that he spent at our house. Do you remember how you laughed because he offered to help us if ever we were in trouble? He knew more about us then than we knew about ourselves; and he afterward did help me out of very great troubles. I will tell you all about it some time. But first I want to know about you. Who is this new Mamita that you speak of?" "O, it was wonderful how she came to me when I had the greatest need of a friend," answered Flora. "You must know that she and Papasito were in love with each other when they were young; and she is in love with his memory now. I sometimes think his spirit led her to me. I will show you a picture I have made of Papasito and Mamita as guardian angels, placing a crown of violets and lilies of the valley on the head of my new Mamita. When I had to run away, she brought me to live with her in Boston; and there I met with an old acquaintance. Do you remember Florimond Blumenthal?" "The good German boy that Papasito took such an interest in?" inquired Rosa. "To be sure I remember him." "Well, he's a good German boy now," rejoined Flora; "and I'm Mrs. Blumenthal." "Is it possible?" exclaimed Rosa. "You look so exactly as you did when you were such a merry little elf, that I never thought to inquire whether you were married. In the joy of this sudden meeting, I forgot how many years had passed since we saw each other." "You will realize how long it has been when you see my children," rejoined Flora. "My oldest, Alfred Royal, is fitting for college. He is the image of _cher Papa_; and you will see how Mamita Lila doats upon him. She must have loved Papasito very much. Then I had a daughter that died in a few days; then I had my Rosen Blumen, and you will see who she looks like; then some more came and went to the angels. Last of all came little Lila, who looks just like her father,--flaxen hair, pink cheeks, and great German forget-me-nots for eyes." "How I shall love them all!" exclaimed Rosa. "And you will love our Eulalia. I had a little Alfred and a little Flora. They came to us in Provence, and we left their pretty little bodies there among the roses." The sisters sat folded in each other's arms, their souls wandering about among memories, when Mr. Blumenthal returned from his long ramble with the children. Then, of course, there was a scene of exclamations and embraces. Little Lila was shy, and soon ran away to take refuge in Mamita's chamber; but Rosen Blumen was full of wonder and delight that such a grand, beautiful lady was the Aunt Rosa of whom she had heard so much. "Mamita Lila has stayed away all this time, out of regard to our privacy," said Flora; "but now I am going to bring her." She soon returned, arm in arm with Mrs. Delano. Mr. Blumenthal took her hand respectfully, as she entered, and said: "This is our dear benefactress, our best earthly friend." "My guardian angel, my darling Mamita," added Flora. Mrs. King eagerly stepped forward, and folded her in her arms, saying, in a voice half stifled with emotion, "Thank God and you for all this happiness." While they were speaking together, Flora held a whispered consultation with her husband, who soon went forth in search of Mr. King, with strict injunctions to say merely that an unexpected pleasure awaited him. He hastened to obey the summons, wondering what it could mean. There was no need of introducing him to his new-found relative. The moment he entered the room, he exclaimed, "Why, Floracita!" "So you knew me?" she said, clasping his hand warmly. "To be sure I did," he answered. "You are the same little fairy that danced in the floral parlor." "O, I'm a sober matron now," said she, with a comic attempt to look demure about the mouth, while her eyes were laughing. "Here is my daughter Rosa; and I have a tall lad, who bears two thirds of your regal name." The happy group were loath to separate, though it was only to meet again in the evening at Mr. King's lodgings on Round Hill. There, memories and feelings, that tried in vain to express themselves fully in words, found eloquent utterance in music. Day after day, and evening after evening, the sisters met, with a hunger of the heart that could not be satisfied. Their husbands and children, meanwhile, became mutually attached. Rosen Blumen, richly colored with her tropical ancestry and her vigorous health, looked upon her more ethereal cousin Eulalia as a sort of angel, and seemed to worship her as such. Sometimes she accompanied her sweet, bird-like voice with the guitar; sometimes they sang duets together; and sometimes one played on the piano, while the other danced with Lila, whose tiny feet kept time to the music, true as an echo. Not unfrequently, the pretty little creature was called upon to dance a _pas seul_; for she had improvised a dance for herself to the tune of Yankee Doodle, and it was very amusing to see how emphatically she stamped the rhythm. While the young people amused themselves thus, Flora often brought forward her collection of drawings, which Rosa called the portfolio of memories. There was the little fountain in their father's garden, the lonely cottage on the island, the skeleton of the dead pine tree, with the moon peeping through its streamers of moss, and Thistle with his panniers full of flowers. Among the variety of foreign scenes, Mrs. King particularly admired the dancing peasants from Frascati. "Ah," said Flora, "I see them now, just as they looked when we passed them on our beautiful drive to Albano. It was the first really merry day I had had for a long time. I was just beginning to learn to enjoy myself without you. It was very selfish of me, dear Rosa, but I was forgetful of you, that day. And, only to think of it! if it had not been for that unlucky apparition of Mr. Fitzgerald, I should have gone to the opera and seen you as Norma." "Very likely we should both have fainted," rejoined Rosa, "and then the manager would have refused to let La Campaneo try her luck again. But what is this, Floracita?" "That is a group on Monte Pincio," she replied. "I sketched it when I was shut up in my room, the day before you came out in the opera." "I do believe it is Madame and the Signor and I," responded Rosa. "The figures and the dresses are exactly the same; and I remember we went to Monte Pincio that morning, on my return from rehearsal." "What a stupid donkey I was, not to know you were so near!" said Flora. "I should have thought my fingers would have told me while I was drawing it." "Ah," exclaimed Rosa, "here is Tulee!" Her eyes moistened while she gazed upon it. "Poor Tulee!" said she, "how she cared for me, and comforted me, during those dark and dreadful days! If it hadn't been for her and Chloe, I could never have lived through that trouble. When I began to recover, she told me how Chloe held my hand hour after hour, and prayed over me without ceasing. I believe she prayed me up out of the grave. She said our Mamita appeared to her once, and told her she was my guardian angel; but if it had really been our Mamita, I think she would have told her to tell me you were alive, Mignonne. When Alfred and I went South, just before we came here, we tried to find Tom and Chloe. We intend to go to New Bedford soon to see them. A glimpse of their good-natured black faces would give me more pleasure than all the richly dressed ladies I saw at Mrs. Green's great party." "Very likely you'll hear Tom preach when you go to New Bedford," rejoined Flora, "for he is a Methodist minister now; and Chloe, they say, is powerful in prayer at the meetings. I often smile when I think about the manner of her coming away. It was so funny that my quiet, refined Mamita Lila should all at once become a kidnapper. But here is Rosen Blumen. Well, what now, Mignonne?" "Papa says Lila is very sleepy, and we ought to be going home," replied the young damsel. "Then we will kiss good night, _sistita mia_?" said Mrs. Blumenthal; "and you will bring Eulalia to us to-morrow." On their return home, Mr. Bright called to them over the garden fence. "I've just had a letter from your neighbor, Mrs. Fitzgerald," said he. "She wants to know whether we can accommodate her, and her father, and her son with lodgings this summer. I'm mighty glad we can say we've let all our rooms; for that old Mr. Bell treats mechanics as if he thought they all had the small-pox, and he was afraid o' catching it. So different from you, Mr. Blumenthal, and Mr. King! You ain't afraid to take hold of a rough hand without a glove on. How is Mrs. King? Hope she's coming to-morrow. If the thrushes and bobolinks could sing human music, and put human feeling into it, her voice would beat 'em all. How romantic that you should come here to Joe Bright's to find your sister, that you thought was dead." When they had courteously answered his inquiries, he repeated a wish he had often expressed, that somebody would write a story about it. If he had been aware of all their antecedents, he would perhaps have written one himself; but he only knew that the handsome sisters were orphans, separated in youth, and led by a singular combination of circumstances to suppose each other dead. CHAPTER XXIX. When the sisters were alone together, the next day after dinner, Flora said, "Rosa, dear, does it pain you very much to hear about Mr. Fitzgerald?" "No; that wound has healed," she replied. "It is merely a sad memory now." "Mrs. Bright was nursery governess in his family before her marriage," rejoined Flora. "I suppose you have heard that he disappeared mysteriously. I think she may know something about it, and I have been intending to ask her; but your sudden appearance, and the quantity of things we have had to say to each other, have driven it out of my head. Do you object to my asking her to come in and tell us something about her experiences?" "I should be unwilling to have her know we were ever acquainted with Mr. Fitzgerald," responded Mrs. King. "So should I," said Flora. "It will be a sufficient reason for my curiosity that Mrs. Fitzgerald is our acquaintance and neighbor." And she went out to ask her hostess to come and sit with them. After some general conversation, Flora said: "You know Mrs. Fitzgerald is our neighbor in Boston. I have some curiosity to know what were your experiences in her family." "Mrs. Fitzgerald was always very polite to me," replied Mrs. Bright; "and personally I had no occasion to find fault with Mr. Fitzgerald, though I think the Yankee schoolma'am was rather a bore to him. The South is a beautiful part of the country. I used to think the sea-island, where they spent most of the summer, was as beautiful as Paradise before the fall; but I never felt at home there. I didn't like the state of things. It's my theory that everybody ought to help in doing the work of the world. There's a great deal to be done, ladies, and it don't seem right that some backs should be broken with labor, while others have the spine complaint for want of exercise. It didn't agree with my independent New England habits to be waited upon so much. A negro woman named Venus took care of my room. The first night I slept at the plantation, it annoyed me to see her kneel down to take off my stockings and shoes. I told her she might go, for I could undress myself. She seemed surprised; and I think her conclusion was that I was no lady. But all the negroes liked me. They had got the idea, somehow, that Northern people were their friends, and were doing something to set them free." "Then they generally wanted their freedom, did they?" inquired Flora. "To be sure they did," rejoined Mrs. Bright. "Did you ever hear of anybody that liked being a slave?" Mrs. King asked whether Mr. Fitzgerald was a hard master. "I don't think he was," said their hostess. "I have known him to do very generous and kind things for his servants. But early habits had made him indolent and selfish, and he left the overseer to do as he liked. Besides, though he was a pleasant gentleman when sober, he was violent when he was intoxicated; and he had become much addicted to intemperance before I went there. They said he had been a very handsome man; but he was red and bloated when I knew him. He had a dissipated circle of acquaintances, who used to meet at his house in Savannah, and gamble with cards till late into the night; and the liquor they drank often made them very boisterous and quarrelsome. Mrs. Fitzgerald never made any remark, in my presence, about these doings; but I am sure they troubled her, for I often heard her walking her chamber long after she had retired for the night. Indeed, they made such an uproar, that it was difficult to sleep till they were gone. Sometimes, after they had broken up, I heard them talking on the piazza; and their oaths and obscene jests were shocking to hear; yet if I met any of them the next day, they appeared like courtly gentlemen. When they were intoxicated, niggers and Abolitionists seemed always to haunt their imaginations. I remember one night in particular. I judged by their conversation that they had been reading in a Northern newspaper some discussion about allowing slaveholders to partake of the sacrament. Their talk was a strange tipsy jumble. If Mr. Bright had heard it, he would give you a comical account of it. As they went stumbling down the steps, some were singing and some were swearing. I heard one of them bawl out, 'God damn their souls to all eternity, they're going to exclude us from the communion-table.' When I first told the story to Mr. Bright, I said d---- their souls; but he said that was all a sham, for everybody knew what d---- stood for, and it was just like showing an ass's face to avoid speaking his name. So I have spoken the word right out plain, just as I heard it. It was shocking talk to hear, and you may think it very improper to repeat it, ladies; but I have told it to give you an idea of the state of things in the midst of which I found myself." Mrs. King listened in sad silence. The Mr. Fitzgerald of this description was so unlike the elegant young gentleman who had won her girlish love, that she could not recognize him as the same person. "Did Mr. Fitzgerald die before you left?" inquired Flora. "I don't know when or how he died," replied Mrs. Bright; "but I have my suspicions. Out of regard to Mrs. Fitzgerald, I have never mentioned them to any one but my husband; and if I name them to you, ladies, I trust you will consider it strictly confidential." They promised, and she resumed. "I never pried into the secrets of the family, but I could not help learning something about them, partly from my own observation, and inferences drawn therefrom, and partly from the conversation of Venus, my talkative waiting-maid. She told me that her master married a Spanish lady, the most beautiful lady that ever walked the earth; and that he conveyed her away secretly somewhere after he married the milk-face, as she called Mrs. Fitzgerald. Venus was still good-looking when I knew her. From her frequent remarks I judge that, when she was young, her master thought her extremely pretty; and she frequently assured me that he was a great judge 'ob we far sex.' She had a handsome mulatto daughter, whose features greatly resembled his; and she said there was good reason for it. I used to imagine Mrs. Fitzgerald thought so too; for she always seemed to owe this handsome Nelly a grudge. Mr. Fitzgerald had a body-servant named Jim, who was so genteel that I always called him 'Dandy Jim o' Caroline.' Jim and Nelly were in love with each other; but their master, for reasons of his own, forbade their meeting together. "Finding that Nelly tried to elude his vigilance, he sold Jim to a New Orleans trader, and the poor girl almost cried her handsome eyes out. A day or two after he was sold, Mr. Fitzgerald and his lady went to Beaufort on a visit, and took their little son and daughter with them. The walls of my sleeping-room were to be repaired, and I was told to occupy their chamber during their absence. The evening after they went away, I sat up rather late reading, and when I retired the servants were all asleep. As I sat before the looking-glass, arranging my hair for the night, I happened to glance toward the reflection of the bed, which showed plainly in the mirror; and I distinctly saw a dark eye peeping through an opening in the curtains. My heart was in my throat, I assure you; but I had the presence of mind not to cry out or to jump up. I continued combing my hair, occasionally glancing toward the eye. If it be one of the negroes, thought I, he surely cannot wish to injure _me_, for they all know I am friendly to them. I tried to collect all my faculties, to determine what it was best to do. I reflected that, if I alarmed the servants, he might be driven to attack me in self-defence. I began talking aloud to myself, leisurely taking off my cuffs and collar as I did so, and laying my breastpin and watch upon the table. 'I wish Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald were not going to stay so long at Beaufort,' said I. 'It is lonesome here, and I don't feel at home in this chamber. I sha'n't sleep if I go to bed; so I think I'll read a little longer. 'I looked round on the table and chairs, and added: 'There, now! I've left my book down stairs, and must go for it.' I went down to the parlor and locked myself in. A few minutes afterward I saw a dark figure steal across the piazza; and, unless the moonlight deceived me, it was Dandy Jim. I wondered at it, because I thought he was on his way to New Orleans. Of course, there was no sleep for me that night. When the household were all astir, I went to the chamber again. My watch and breastpin, which I had left on purpose, were still lying on the table. It was evident that robbery had not been the object. I did not mention the adventure to any one. I pitied Jim, and if he had escaped, I had no mind to be the means of his recapture. Whatever harm he had intended, he had not done it, and there was no probability that he would loiter about in that vicinity. I had reason to be glad of my silence; for the next day an agent from the slave-trader arrived, saying that Jim had escaped, and that they thought he might be lurking near where his wife was. When Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald returned, they questioned Nelly, but she averred that she had not seen Jim, or heard from him since he was sold. Mr. Fitzgerald went away on horseback that afternoon. The horse came back in the evening with an empty saddle, and he never returned. The next morning Nelly was missing, and she was never found. I thought it right to be silent about my adventure. To have done otherwise might have produced mischievous results to Jim and Nelly, and could do their master no good. I searched the woods in every direction, but I never came upon any trace of Mr. Fitzgerald, except the marks of footsteps near the sea, before the rising of the tide. I had made arrangements to return to the North about that time; but Mrs. Fitzgerald's second son was seized with fever, and I stayed with her till he was dead and buried. Then we all came to Boston together. About a year after, her little daughter, who had been my pupil, died." "Poor Mrs. Fitzgerald!" said Flora. "I have heard her allude to her lost children, but I had no idea she had suffered so much." "She did suffer," replied Mrs. Bright, "though not so deeply as some natures would have suffered in the same circumstances. Her present situation is far from being enviable. Her father is a hard, grasping man, and he was greatly vexed that her splendid marriage turned out to be such a failure. It must be very mortifying to her to depend upon him mainly for the support of herself and son. I pitied her, and I pitied Mr. Fitzgerald too. He was selfish and dissipated, because he was brought up with plenty of money, and slaves to obey everything he chose to order. That is enough to spoil any man." Rosa had listened with downcast eyes, but now she looked up earnestly and said, "That is a very kind judgment, Mrs. Bright, and I thank you for the lesson." "It is a just judgment," replied their sensible hostess. "I often tell Mr. Bright we cannot be too thankful that we were brought up to wait upon ourselves and earn our own living. You will please to excuse me now, ladies, for it is time to prepare tea." As she closed the door, Rosa pressed her sister's hand, and sighed as she said, "O, this is dreadful!" "Dreadful indeed," rejoined Flora. "To think of him as he was when I used to make you blush by singing, '_Petit blanc! mon bon frère_!' and then to think what an end he came to!" The sisters sat in silence for some time, thinking with moistened eyes of all that had been kind and pleasant in the man who had done them so much wrong. CHAPTER XXX. IF young Fitzgerald had not been strongly inclined to spend the summer in Northampton, he would have been urged to it by his worldly-minded mother and grandfather, who were disposed to make any effort to place him in the vicinity of Eulalia King. They took possession of lodgings on Round Hill in June; and though very few weeks intervened before the college vacation, the time seemed so long to Gerald, that he impatiently counted the days. Twice he took the journey for a short visit before he was established as an inmate of his grandfather's household. Alfred Blumenthal had a vacation at the same time, and the young people of the three families were together almost continually. Songs and glees enlivened their evenings, and nearly every day there were boating excursions, or rides on horseback, in which Mr. and Mrs. King and Mr. and Mrs. Blumenthal invariably joined. No familiarity could stale the ever fresh charm of the scenery. The beautiful river, softly flowing in sunlight through richly cultivated meadows, always seemed to Mr. Blumenthal like the visible music of Mendelssohn. Mr. King, who had been in Germany, was strongly reminded of the Rhine and the Black Forest, while looking on that wide level expanse of verdure, with its broad band of sparkling silver, framed in with thick dark woods along the river-range of mountains. The younger persons of the party more especially enjoyed watching Mill River rushing to meet the Connecticut, like an impatient boy let loose for the holidays, shouting, and laughing, and leaping, on his way homeward. Mrs. Delano particularly liked to see, from the summit of Mount Holyoke, the handsome villages, lying so still in the distance, giving no sign of all the passions, energies, and sorrows that were seething, struggling, and aching there; and the great stretch of meadows, diversified with long, unfenced rows of stately Indian corn, rich with luxuriant foliage of glossy green, alternating with broad bands of yellow grain, swayed by the breeze like rippling waves of the sea. These regular lines of variegated culture, seen from such a height, seemed like handsome striped calico, which earth had put on for her working-days, mindful that the richly wooded hills were looking down upon her picturesque attire. There was something peculiarly congenial to the thoughtful soul of the cultured lady in the quiet pastoral beauty of the extensive scene; and still more in the sense of serene elevation above the whole, seeing it all dwindle into small proportions, as the wisdom of age calmly surveys the remote panorama of life. These riding parties attracted great attention as they passed through the streets; for all had heard the rumor of their wealth, and all were struck by the unusual amount of personal beauty, and the distinguished style of dress. At that time, the Empress Eugenie had issued her imperial decree that all the world should shine in "barbaric gold,"--a fashion by no means distasteful to the splendor-loving sisters. Long sprays of Scotch laburnum mingled their golden bells with the dark tresses of Eulalia and Rosen Blumen; a cluster of golden wheat mixed its shining threads with Flora's black curls; and a long, soft feather, like "the raven down of darkness," dusted with gold, drooped over the edge of Mrs. King's riding-cap, fastened to its band by a golden star. Even Mrs. Fitzgerald so far changed her livery of the moon as to wear golden buds mixed with cerulean flowers. Mrs. Delano looked cool as evening among them in her small gray bonnet, with a few violets half hidden in silver leaves. Old Mr. Bell not unfrequently joined in these excursions. His white hair, and long silky white beard, formed a picturesque variety in the group; while all recognized at a glance the thoroughbred aristocrat in his haughty bearing, his stern mouth, his cold, turquoise eyes, and the clenching expression of his hand. Mrs. King seemed to have produced upon him the effect Gerald had predicted. No youthful gallant could have been more assiduous at her bridle-rein, and he seemed to envy his grandson every smile he obtained from her beautiful lips. Both he and Mrs. Fitzgerald viewed with obvious satisfaction the growing intimacy between that young gentleman and Eulalia. "Capital match for Gerald, eh?" said Mr. Bell to his daughter. "They say King's good for three millions at least,--some say four." "And Eulalia is such a lovely, gentle girl!" rejoined Mrs. Fitzgerald. "I'm very fond of her, and she seems fond of me; though of course that's on account of my handsome son." "Yes, she's a lovely girl," replied the old gentleman; "and Gerald will be a lucky dog if he wins her. But her beauty isn't to be compared to her mother's. If I were Emperor of France, and she were a widow, I know who would have a chance to become Empress." But though Mrs. King lived in such an atmosphere of love, and was the object of so much admiration, with ample means for indulging her benevolence and her tastes, she was evidently far from being happy. Flora observed it, and often queried with her husband what could be the reason. One day she spoke to Mr. King of the entire absence of gayety in her sister, and he said he feared young Mr. Fitzgerald painfully reminded her of her lost son. Flora reflected upon this answer without being satisfied with it. "It doesn't seem natural," said she to her husband. "She parted from that baby when he was but a few weeks old, and he has been dead nearly twenty years. She has Eulalia to love, and a noble husband, who worships the very ground she treads on. It don't seem natural. I wonder whether she has a cancer or some other secret disease." She redoubled her tenderness, and exerted all her powers of mimicry to amuse her sister. The young folks screamed with laughter to see her perform the shuffling dances of the negroes, or to hear her accompany their singing with imitations of the growling contra-fagotto, or the squeaking fife. In vain she filled the room with mocking-birds, or showed off the accomplishments of the parrot, or dressed herself in a cap with a great shaking bow, like Madame Guirlande's, or scolded in vociferous Italian, like Signor Pimentero. The utmost these efforts could elicit from her sister was a faint, vanishing smile. Mr. King noticed all this, and was pained to observe that his wife's sadness increased daily. He would not himself have chosen young Fitzgerald as a suitor for his daughter, fearing he might resemble his father in character as he did in person; but he was willing to promote their acquaintance, because the young man seemed to be a favorite with his lady, and he thought that as a son-in-law he might supply the loss of her first-born. But, in their rides and other excursions, he was surprised to observe that Mrs. King assiduously tried to withdraw Mr. Fitzgerald from her daughter, and attach him to herself. Her attentions generally proved too flattering to be resisted; but if the young man, yielding to attractions more suited to his age, soon returned to Eulalia, there was an unmistakable expression of pain on her mother's face. Mr. King was puzzled and pained by this conduct. Entire confidence had hitherto existed between them. Why had she become so reserved? Was the fire of first-love still smouldering in her soul, and did a delicate consideration for him lead her to conceal it? He could not believe it, she had so often repeated that to love the unworthy was a thing impossible for her. Sometimes another thought crossed his mind and gave him exquisite torture, though he repelled it instantly: "Could it possibly be that his modest and dignified wife was in love with this stripling, who was of an age suitable for her daughter?" Whatever this mysterious cloud might be that cast its cold shadow across the sunshine of his home, he felt that he could not endure its presence. He resolved to seek an explanation with his wife, and to propose an immediate return to Europe, if either of his conjectures should prove true. Returning from a solitary walk, during which these ideas had been revolving in his mind, he found her in their chamber kneeling by the bedside, sobbing violently. With the utmost tenderness he inquired what had grieved her. She answered with a wild exclamation, "O Alfred, this _must_ be stopped!" "_What_ must be stopped, my dear?" said he. "Gerald Fitzgerald _must_ not court our daughter," she replied. "I thought it would please you, dearest," rejoined he. "The young man has always seemed to be a favorite of yours. I should not have selected him for our Eulalia, for fear the qualities of his father might develop themselves in him; but you must remember that he has not been educated among slaves. I think we can trust to that to make a great difference in his character." She groaned aloud, and sobbed out: "It _must_ be stopped. It will kill me." He sat down by her side, took her hand, and said very gravely: "Rosa, you have often told me I was your best friend. Why then do you not confide to me what it is that troubles you?" "O, I cannot! I cannot!" she exclaimed. "I am a guilty wretch." And there came a fresh outburst of sobs, which she stifled by keeping her face hidden in the bedclothes. "Rosa," said he, still more gravely, "you _must_ tell me the meaning of this strange conduct. If an unworthy passion has taken possession of you, it is your duty to try to conquer it for your own sake, for my sake, for our daughter's sake. If you will confide in me, I will not judge you harshly. I will return to Europe with you, and help you to cure yourself. Tell me frankly, Rosa, do you love this young man?" She looked up suddenly, and, seeing the extreme sadness of his face, she exclaimed: "O Alfred, if you have thought _that_, I _must_ tell you all. I do love Gerald; but it is because he is my own son." "Your son!" he exclaimed, springing up, with the feeling that a great load was lifted from his heart. He raised her to his bosom, and kissed her tearful face again and again. The relief was so sudden, that for an instant he forgot the strangeness of her declaration. But coming to his senses immediately, he inquired, "How can it be that your son passes for Mrs. Fitzgerald's son? And if it be so, why did you not tell me of it?" "I ought to have told you when I consented to marry you," she replied. "But your protecting love was so precious to me, that I had not the courage to tell you anything that would diminish your esteem for me. Forgive me, dearest. It is the only wrong I have ever done you. But I will tell you all now; and if it changes your love for me, I must try to bear it, as a just punishment for the wrong I have done. You know how Mr. Fitzgerald deserted me, and how I was stricken down when I discovered that I was his slave. My soul almost parted from my body during the long illness that followed. When I came to my senses, I humbled myself to entreat Mr. Fitzgerald to emancipate me, for the sake of our unborn child. He promised to do it, but he did not. I was a mere wreck when my babe was born, and I had the feeling that I should soon die. I loved the helpless little thing; and every time I looked at him, it gave me a pang to think that he was born a slave. I sent again and again for papers of manumission, but they never came. I don't know whether it was mere negligence on the part of Mr. Fitzgerald, or whether he meant to punish me for my coldness toward him after I discovered how he had deceived me. I was weak in body, and much humbled in spirit, after that long illness. I felt no resentment toward him. I forgave him, and pitied his young wife. The only thing that bound me to life was my child. I wanted to recover my strength, that I might carry him to some part of the world where slavery could not reach him. I was in that state, when Madame sent Mr. Duroy to tell me Mr. Fitzgerald was in debt, and had sold me to that odious Mr. Bruteman, whom he had always represented to me as the filthiest soul alive. I think that incredible cruelty and that horrible danger made me insane. My soul was in a terrible tempest of hatred and revenge. If Mr. Fitzgerald had appeared before me, I should have stabbed him. I never had such feelings before nor since. Unfortunately Chloe had come to the cottage that day, with Mrs. Fitzgerald's babe, and he was lying asleep by the side of mine. I had wild thoughts of killing both the babies, and then killing myself. I had actually risen in search of a weapon, but I heard my faithful Tulee coming to look upon me, to see that all was well, and I lay down again and pretended to be asleep. While I waited for her to cease watching over me, that frightful mood passed away. Thank God, I was saved from committing such horrible deeds. But I was still half frantic with misery and fear. A wild, dark storm was raging in my soul. I looked at the two babes, and thought how one was born to be indulged and honored, while the other was born a slave, liable to be sold by his unfeeling father or by his father's creditors. Mine was only a week the oldest, and was no larger than his brother. They were so exactly alike that I could distinguish them only by their dress. I exchanged the dresses, Alfred; and while I did it, I laughed to think that, if Mr. Fitzgerald should capture me and the little one, and make us over to Mr. Bruteman, he would sell the child of his Lily Bell. It was not like me to have such feelings. I hope I was insane. Do you think I was?" He pressed her to his heart as he replied, "You surely had suffering enough to drive you wild, dearest; and I do suppose your reason was unsettled by intensity of anguish." She looked at him anxiously, as she asked, "Then it does not make you love me less?" "No, darling," he replied; "for I am sure it was not my own gentle Rosa who had such feelings." "O, how I thank you, dear one, for judging me so charitably," said she. "I hope it was temporary insanity; and always when I think it over, it seems to me it must have been. I fell asleep smiling over the revenge I had taken, and I slept long and heavily. When I woke, my first wish was to change the dresses back again; but Chloe had gone to the plantation with my babe, and Mr. Duroy hurried me on board the boat before sunrise. I told no one what I had done; but it filled me with remorse then, and has troubled me ever since. I resolved to atone for it, as far as I could, by taking the tenderest care of the little changeling, and trying to educate him as well as his own mother could have done. It was that which gave me strength to work so hard for musical distinction; and that motive stimulated me to appear as an opera-singer, though the publicity was distasteful to me. When I heard that the poor little creature was dead, I was tormented with self-reproach, and I was all the more unhappy because I could tell no one of my trouble. Then you came to console and strengthen me with your blessed love, and I grew cheerful again. If the changeling had been living at the time you asked me to marry you, I should have told you all; but the poor little creature was dead, and there seemed to be no necessity of confessing the wrong I had done. It was a selfish feeling. I couldn't bear the thought of diminishing the love that was so precious to my wounded heart. I have now told you all, dear husband." "Your excuse for concealment is very precious to my own heart," he replied. "But I regret you did not tell me while we were in Europe; for then I would not have returned to the United States till I was quite sure all obstacles were removed. You know I never formed the project until I knew Mr. Fitzgerald was dead." "The American gentleman who informed you of his death led me into a mistake, which has proved disastrous," rejoined she. "He said that Mrs. Fitzgerald lost her husband and son about the same time. I was not aware of the existence of a second son, and therefore I supposed that my first-born had died. I knew that you wanted to spend your old age in your native country, and that you were particularly desirous to have Eulalia marry in New England. The dread I had of meeting my child as the son of another, and seeming to him a stranger, was removed by his death; and though I shed tears in secret, a load was lifted from my heart. But the old story of avenging Furies following the criminal wheresoever he goes seems verified in my case. On the day of Mrs. Green's ball, I heard two gentlemen in the Revere House talking about Mr. Bell; and one of them said to the other that Mrs. Fitzgerald's second son and her daughter had died, and that her oldest son was sole heir to Mr. Bell's property. My first impulse was to tell you all; but because I had so long concealed my fault, it was all the more difficult to confess it then. You had so generously overlooked many disagreeable circumstances connected with my history, that I found it extremely painful to add this miserable entanglement to the list. Still, I foresaw that it must be done, and I resolved to do it; but I was cowardly, and wanted to put off the evil day. You may remember, perhaps, that at the last moment I objected to attending that ball; but you thought it would be rude to disappoint Mrs. Green, merely because I felt out of spirits. I went, not dreaming of seeing my son there. I had not looked upon him since the little black, silky head drooped on my arm while I exchanged the dresses. You may partly imagine what I suffered. And now he and Eulalia are getting in love with each other; and I know not what is to be done. When you came in, I was praying for strength to seek your counsel. What _can_ we do, dear? It will be a great disappointment for you to return to Europe, now that you have refitted your father's house, and made all your arrangements to spend the remainder of our days here." "I would do it willingly," he replied, "if I thought it would avail to separate Gerald and Eulalia. But a voyage to Europe is nothing now-a-days, to people of their property. I believe he loves the dear girl; and if he did not, my reputed millions would prevent his grandfather and his mother from allowing him to lose sight of her. If we were to build a castle on the top of Mount Himalaya, they would scale it, you may depend. I see no other remedy than to tell Gerald that Eulalia is his sister." "O, I cannot tell him!" exclaimed she. "It would be so dreadful to have my son hate me! And he _would_ hate me; for I can see that he is very proud." In very kind and serious tones he replied: "You know, dear Rosa, that you expressed a wish the other day to go to the Catholic church in which your mother worshipped, because you thought confession and penance would be a comfort. You have wisely chosen me for your confessor, and if I recommend penance I trust you will think it best to follow my advice. I see how difficult it would be to tell all your own and your mother's story to so young a man as Gerald, and he your own son. I will tell him; and I need not assure you that you will have a loving advocate to plead your cause with him. But his mother must know why he relinquishes Eulalia, when he has had so much reason to think himself in favor both with her and her parents. Gerald might tell her the mere external facts; but she could appreciate and understand them much better if told, as they would be told, by a delicate and loving woman, who had suffered the wrongs that drove her to madness, and who repented bitterly of the fault she had committed. I think you ought to make a full confession to Mrs. Fitzgerald; and having done that, we ought to do whatever she chooses to prescribe." "It will be a severe penance," she rejoined; "but I will do whatever you think is right. If I could have all the suffering, I would not murmur. But Gerald will suffer and Eulalia will suffer. And for some weeks I have made you unhappy. How sad you look, dear." "I am a very happy man, Rosa, compared with what I was before you told me this strange story. But I am very serious, because I want to be sure of doing what is right in these difficult premises. As for Gerald and Eulalia, their acquaintance has been very short, and I don't think they have spoken of love to each other. Their extreme youth is also a favorable circumstance. Rochefoucault says, 'Absence extinguishes small passions, and increases great ones.' My own experience proved the truth of one part of the maxim; but perhaps Gerald is of a more volatile temperament, and will realize the other portion." "And do you still love me as well as you ever did?" she asked. He folded her more closely as he whispered, "I do, darling." And for some minutes she wept in silence on his generous breast. CHAPTER XXXI. That evening young Fitzgerald was closeted two or three hours with Mr. King. Though the disclosure was made with the utmost delicacy and caution, the young man was startled and shocked; for he inherited pride from both his parents, and he had been educated in the prejudices of his grandfather. At first he flushed with indignation, and refused to believe he was so disgraced. "I don't see that you are disgraced, my young friend," replied Mr. King. "The world might indeed so misjudge, because it is accustomed to look only on externals; but there is no need that the world should know anything about it. And as for your own estimate of yourself, you were Mr. Fitzgerald the gentleman before you knew this singular story, and you are Mr. Fitzgerald the gentleman still." "I am not so much of a philosopher," rejoined the young man. "I shall not find it easy to endure the double stain of illegitimacy and alliance with the colored race." Mr. King regarded him with a friendly smile, as he answered: "Perhaps this experience, which you find so disagreeable, may educate you to more wisdom than the schools have done. It may teach you the great lesson of looking beneath the surface into the reality of things, my son. Legally you are illegitimate; but morally you are not so. Your mother believed herself married to your father, and through all the vicissitudes of her life she has proved herself a modest, pure, and noble woman. During twenty years of intimate acquaintance, I have never known her to indulge an unworthy thought, or do a dishonorable action, except that of substituting you for Mr. Fitzgerald's legal heir. And if I have at all succeeded in impressing upon your mind the frantic agony of her soul, desolate and shockingly abused as she was, I think you will agree with me in considering that an excusable offence; especially as she would have repaired the wrong a few hours later, if it had been in her power. With regard to an alliance with the colored race, I think it would be a more legitimate source of pride to have descended from that truly great man, Toussaint L'Ouverture, who was a full-blooded African, than from that unprincipled filibuster called William the Conqueror, or from any of his band of robbers, who transmitted titles of nobility to their posterity. That is the way I have learned to read history, my young friend, in the plain sunlight of truth, unchanged by looking at it through the deceptive colored glasses of conventional prejudice. Only yesterday you would have felt honored to claim my highly accomplished and noble-minded wife as a near relative. She is as highly accomplished and noble-minded a lady to-day as she was yesterday. The only difference is, that to-day you are aware her grandmother had a dark complexion. No human being can be really stained by anything apart from his own character; but if there were any blot resting upon you, it would come from your father. We should remember, however, that He who made man can alone justly estimate man's temptations. For myself, I believe that Mr. Fitzgerald's sins were largely attributable to the system of slavery under which he had the misfortune to be educated. He loved pleasure, he was rich, and he had irresponsible power over many of his fellow-beings, whom law and public opinion alike deprived of protection. Without judging him harshly, let his career be a warning to you to resist the first enticements to evil; and, as one means of doing so, let me advise you never to place yourself in that state of society which had such a malign influence upon him." "Give me time to think," rejoined the young man. "This has come upon me so suddenly that I feel stunned." "That I can easily imagine," replied his friend. "But I wish you to understand distinctly, that it depends entirely upon Mrs. Fitzgerald and yourself to decide what is to be done in relation to this perplexing affair. We are ready to do anything you wish, or to take any position you prescribe for us. You may prefer to pass in society merely as my young friend, but you are my step-son, you know; and should you at any time of your life need my services, you may rely upon me as an affectionate father." That word brought cherished hopes to Gerald's mind, and he sighed as he answered, "I thank you." "Whatever outward inconveniences may arise from this state of things," resumed Mr. King, "we prefer to have them fall upon ourselves. It is of course desirable that you and my daughter should not meet at present. Your vacation has nearly expired, and perhaps you will deem it prudent to return a little sooner than you intended. We shall remain here till late in the autumn; and then, if circumstances render it necessary, we will remove Eulalia to Cuba, or elsewhere, for the winter. Try to bear this disappointment bravely, my son. As soon as you feel sufficiently calm, I would advise you to seek an interview with your mother. Her heart yearns for you, and the longer your meeting is deferred, the more embarrassing it will be." While this conversation was going on in the parlor, the two mothers of the young man were talking confidentially up stairs. The intense curiosity which Mrs. Fitzgerald had formerly felt was at once renewed when Mrs. King said, "Do you remember having heard any one singing about the house and garden at Magnolia Lawn, the first evening you spent there?" "Indeed I do," she replied; "and when I first heard you in Rome, I repeatedly said your voice was precisely like that singer's." "You might well be reminded of it," responded Mrs. King, "for I was the person you heard at Magnolia Lawn, and these are the eyes that peeped at you through the lattice of the veranda." "But why were you there? And why did you keep yourself invisible?" inquired Mrs. Fitzgerald. Rosa hesitated a moment, embarrassed how to choose words to convey the unwelcome facts. "My dear lady," said she, "we have both had very sad experiences. On my side, they have been healed by time; and I trust it is the same with you. Will it pain you too much to hear something disparaging to the memory of your deceased husband?" Mrs. Fitzgerald colored very deeply, and remained silent. "Nothing but an imperious necessity would induce me to say what I am about to say," continued Mrs. King; "not only because I am very reluctant to wound your feelings, but because the recital is humiliating and painful to myself. When I peeped at you in your bridal attire, I believed myself to be Mr. Fitzgerald's wife. Our marriage had been kept strictly private, he always assuring me that it was only for a time. But you need not look so alarmed. I was not his wife. I learned the next morning that I had been deceived by a sham ceremony. And even if it had been genuine, the marriage would not have been valid by the laws of Louisiana, where it was performed; though I did not know that fact at the time. No marriage with a slave is valid in that State. My mother was a quadroon slave, and by the law that 'a child follows the condition of the mother,' I also became a slave." "_You_ a slave!" exclaimed Mrs. Fitzgerald, with unfeigned astonishment. "That is incredible. That goes beyond any of the stories Abolitionists make up to keep the country in agitation." "Judging by my own experience," rejoined Mrs. King, "I should say that the most fertile imagination could invent nothing more strange and romantic than many of the incidents which grow out of slavery." She then went on to repeat her story in detail; not accusing Mr. Fitzgerald more than was absolutely necessary to explain the agonized and frantic state of mind in which she had changed the children. Mrs. Fitzgerald listened with increasing agitation as she went on; and when it came to that avowal, she burst out with the passionate exclamation: "Then Gerald is not my son! And I love him so!" Mrs. King took her hand and pressed it gently as she said: "You can love him still, dear lady, and he will love you. Doubtless you will always seem to him like his own mother. If he takes an aversion to me, it will give me acute pain; but I shall try to bear it meekly, as a part of the punishment my fault deserves." "If you don't intend to take him from me, what was the use of telling me this dreadful story?" impatiently asked Mrs. Fitzgerald. "I felt compelled to do it on Eulalia's account," responded Mrs. King. "Ah, yes!" sighed the lady. "How disappointed he will be, poor fellow!" After a brief pause, she added, vehemently: "But whatever you may say, he is _my_ son. I never will give him up. He has slept in my arms. I have sung him to sleep. I taught him all his little hymns and songs. He loves me; and I will never consent to take a second place in his affections." "You shall not be asked to do so, dear lady," meekly replied Mrs. King. "I will, as in duty bound, take any place you choose to assign me." Somewhat disarmed by this humility, Mrs. Fitzgerald said, in a softened tone: "I pity you, Mrs. King. You have had a great deal of trouble, and this is a very trying situation you are in. But it would break my heart to give up Gerald. And then you must see, of course, what an embarrassing position it would place me in before the world." "I see no reason why the world should know anything about it," rejoined Mrs. King. "For Gerald's sake, as well as our own, it is very desirable that the secret should be kept between ourselves." "You may safely trust my pride for that," she replied. "Do you think your father ought to be included in our confidence," inquired Mrs. King. "No indeed," she replied, hastily. "He never can bear to hear my poor husband mentioned. Besides, he has had the gout a good deal lately, and is more irritable than usual." As she rose to go, Mrs. King said: "Then, with the exception of Eulalia, everything remains outwardly as it was. Can you forgive me? I do believe I was insane with misery; and you don't know how I have been haunted with remorse." "You must have suffered terribly," rejoined Mrs. Fitzgerald, evading a direct answer to the question. "But we had better not talk any more about it now. I am bewildered, and don't know what to think. Only one thing is fixed in my mind: Gerald is _my_ son." They parted politely, but with coldness on Mrs. Fitzgerald's side. There had arisen in her mind a double dislike toward Mrs. King, as the first love of her husband, and as the mother of the elegant young man who was to her an object of pride as well as fondness. But her chagrin was not without compensation. Mrs. King's superior wealth and beauty had been felt by her as somewhat overshadowing; and the mortifying circumstances she had now discovered in her history seemed, in her imagination, to bring her down below a level with herself. She and Gerald sat up late into the night, talking over this strange disclosure. She was rather jealous of the compassion he expressed for Mrs. King, and of his admiration for her manners and character; though they mutually declared, again and again, that they could realize no change whatever in their relation to each other. The wise words of Mr. King had not been without their effect on Gerald. The tumult of emotions gradually subsided; and he began to realize that these external accidents made no essential change in himself. The next morning he requested an interview with Mrs. King, and was received alone. When he entered, she cast upon him a hesitating, beseeching look; but when he said, "My mother!" she flew into his arms, and wept upon his neck. "Then you do not hate me?" she said, in a voice choked with emotion, "You are not ashamed to call me mother?" "It was only yesterday," he replied, "that I thought with pride and joy of the possibility that I might some day call you by that dear name. If I had heard these particulars without knowing you, they might have repelled me. But I have admired you from the first moment; I have lately been learning to love you; and I am familiar with the thought of being your son." She raised her expressive eyes to his with such a look of love, that he could not refrain from giving her a filial kiss and pressing her warmly to his heart. "I was so afraid you would regard me with dislike," said she. "You can understand now why it made me so faint to think of singing '_M'odi! Ah, m'odi_!' with you at Mrs. Green's party. How could I have borne your tones of anguish when you discovered that you were connected with the Borgias? And how could I have helped falling on your neck when you sang '_Madre mia_'? But I must not forget that the mother who tended your childhood has the best claim to your affection," she added mournfully. "I love her, and always shall love her. It cannot be otherwise," rejoined he. "It has been the pleasant habit of so many years. But ought I not to consider myself a lucky fellow to have two such mothers? I don't know how I am to distinguish you. I must call you Rose-mother and Lily-mother, I believe." She smiled as he spoke, and she said, "Then it has not made you so _very_ unhappy to know that you are my son?" His countenance changed as he replied: "My only unhappiness is the loss of Eulalia. That disappointment I must bear as I can." "You are both very young," rejoined she; "and perhaps you may see another--" "I don't want to hear about that now," he exclaimed impetuously, moving hastily toward the window, against which he leaned for a moment. When he turned, he saw that his mother was weeping; and he stooped to kiss her forehead, with tender apologies for his abruptness. "Thank God," she said, "for these brief moments of happiness with my son." "Yes, they must be brief," he replied. "I must go away and stay away. But I shall always think of you with affection, and cherish the deepest sympathy for your wrongs and sufferings." Again she folded him in her arms, and they kissed and blessed each other at parting. She gazed after him wistfully till he was out of sight. "Alas!" murmured she, "he cannot be a son to me, and I cannot be a mother to him." She recalled the lonely, sad hours when she embroidered his baby clothes, with none but Tulee to sympathize with her. She remembered how the little black silky head looked as she first fondled him on her arm; and the tears began to flow like rain. But she roused in a few moments, saying to herself: "This is all wrong and selfish. I ought to be glad that he loves his Lily-mother, that he can live with her, and that her heart will not be made desolate by my fault. O Father of mercies! this is hard to bear. Help me to bear it as I ought!" She bowed her head in silence for a while; then, rising up, she said: "Have I not my lovely Eulalia? Poor child! I must be very tender with her in this trial of her young heart." She saw there was need to be very tender, when a farewell card was sent the next day, with a bouquet of delicate flowers from Gerald Fitzgerald. CHAPTER XXXII. The next morning after these conversations, Mrs. Blumenthal, who was as yet unconscious of the secret they had revealed, was singing in the garden, while she gathered some flowers for her vases. Mr. Bright, who was cutting up weeds, stopped and listened, keeping time on the handle of his hoe. When Flora came up to him, she glanced at the motion of his fingers and smiled. "Can't help it, ma'am," said he. "When I hear your voice, it's as much as ever I can do to keep from dancing; but if I should do that, I should shock my neighbor the Deacon. Did you see the stage stop there, last night? They've got visitors from Carolina,--his daughter, and her husband and children. I reckon I stirred him up yesterday. He came to my shop to pay for some shoeing he'd had done. So I invited him to attend our anti-slavery meeting to-morrow evening. He took it as an insult, and said he didn't need to be instructed by such sort of men as spoke at our meetings. 'I know some of us are what they call mudsills down South,' said I; 'but it might do you good to go and hear 'em, Deacon. When a man's lamp's out, it's better to light it by the kitchen fire than to go blundering about in the dark, hitting himself against everything.' He said we should find it very convenient if we had slaves here; for Northern women were mere beasts of burden. I told him that was better than to be beasts of prey. I thought afterward I wasn't very polite. I don't mean to go headlong against other folks' prejudices; but the fact is, a man never knows with what impetus he _is_ going till he comes up against a post. I like to see a man firm as a rock in his opinions. I have a sort of a respect for a _rock_, even if it _is_ a little mossy. But when I come across a _post_, I like to give it a shaking, to find out whether it's rotten at the foundation. As to things in general, I calculate to be an obliging neighbor; but I shall keep a lookout on these Carolina folks. If they've brought any blacks with 'em, I shall let 'em know what the laws of Massachusetts are; and then they may take their freedom or not, just as they choose." "That's right," replied Mrs. Blumenthal; "and when you and the Deacon have another encounter, I hope I shall be near enough to hear it." As she walked away, tying up her bouquet with a spear of striped grass, she heard him whistling the tune she had been singing. When she returned to the parlor, she seated herself near the open window, with a handkerchief, on which she was embroidering Mrs. Delano's initials. Mr. Bright's remarks had somewhat excited her curiosity, and from time to time she glanced toward Deacon Stillham's grounds. A hawthorn hedge, neatly clipped, separated the two gardens; but here and there the foliage had died away and left small open spaces. All at once, a pretty little curly head appeared at one of these leafy lunettes, and an infantile voice called out, "You're a Bob-o-lith-o-nitht!" "Do come here, Mamita Lila, and see this little darling," said Flora, laughing. For a moment she was invisible. Then the cherub face came peeping out again; and this time the little mouth was laughing, when it repeated, "You're a Bob-o-lith-o-nitht." "Isn't it amusing to hear such an infant trying to abuse us with a big mouthful of a word, to which she attaches no meaning?" said Mrs. Delano. Flora beckoned with her hand, and called out, "Come in and see the Bobolithonithts, darling." The little creature laughed and ran away. At that moment, a bright turban was seen moving along above the bushes. Then a black face became visible. Flora sprang up with a quick cry, and rushed out of the room, upsetting her basket, and leaving balls and thimble rolling about the floor. Placing her foot on a stump, she leaped over the hedge like an opera-dancer, and the next moment she had the negro woman in her arms, exclaiming: "Bless you, Tulee! You _are_ alive, after all!" The black woman was startled and bewildered for an instant; then she held her off at arm's length, and looked at her with astonishment, saying: "Bless the Lord! Is it you, Missy Flory? or is it a sperit? Well now, _is_ it you, little one?" "Yes, Tulee; it is I," she replied. "The same Missy Flory that used to plague your life out with her tricks." The colored woman hugged and kissed, and hugged and kissed, and laughed and cried; ever and anon exclaiming, "Bless the Lord!" Meanwhile, the playful cherub was peeping at Joe Bright through another hole in the hedge, all unconscious how pretty her little fair face looked in its frame of green leaves, but delighted with her own sauciness, as she repeated, "You're a Bob-o-lith-o-nitht! you're a Bob-o-lith-o-nitht!" When he tried to kiss her, she scampered away, but soon reappeared again to renew the fun. While this by-play was going on, a white servant came through the Deacon's grounds, and said to Tulee, "Mrs. Robbem wants you to come to her immediately, and bring Laura." "I must go now, darling," said Tulee, clasping Flora's hand with a warm pressure. "Come again quickly," said Flora. "As soon as I can," she replied, and hurried away with her little charge. When Mr. Bright offered his hand to help Mrs. Blumenthal over the hedge, he burst into a hearty laugh. "Wasn't it funny," said he, "to hear that baby calling us Bob-o-lith-o-nithts? They begin education early down South. Before the summer is out she'll be talking about the cuth o' Ham, and telling the story of Onethimuth. But they've found a mare's nest now, Mrs. Blumenthal. The Deacon will be writing to his Carolina friends how the Massachusetts ladies hug and kiss niggers." Flora smiled as she answered: "I suppose it must seem strange to them, Mr. Bright. But the fact is, that black woman tended me when I was a child; and I haven't seen her for twenty years." As soon as she entered the house, she explained the scene to Mrs. Delano, and then said to her daughter: "Now, Rosen Blumen, you may leave your drawing and go to Aunt Rosa, and tell her I want to see her for something special, and she must come as soon as possible. Don't tell her anything more. You may stay and spend the day with Eulalia, if you like." "How many mysteries and surprises we have," observed Mrs. Delano. "A dozen novels might be made out of your adventures." The hasty summons found Mrs. King still melancholy with the thought that her newly found son could be no more to her than a shadow. Glad to have her thoughts turned in another direction, she sent Rosen Blumen to her cousin, and immediately prepared to join her sister. Flora, who was watching for her, ran out to the gate to meet her, and before she entered the house announced that Tulee was alive. The little that was known was soon communicated, and they watched with the greatest anxiety for the reappearance of Tulee. But the bright turban was seen no more during the forenoon; and throughout the afternoon no one but the Deacon and his gardener were visible about the grounds. The hours of waiting were spent by the sisters and Mrs. Delano in a full explanation of the secret history of Gerald Fitzgerald, and Mrs. King's consequent depression of spirits. The evening wore away without any tidings from Tulee. Between nine and ten o'clock they heard the voice of the Deacon loud in prayer. Joe Bright, who was passing the open window, stopped to say: "He means his neighbors shall hear him, anyhow. I reckon he thinks it's a good investment for character. He's a cute manager, the Deacon is; and a quickster, too, according to his own account; for he told me when he made up his mind to have religion, he wasn't half an hour about it. I'd a mind to tell him I should think slave-trading religion was a job done by contract, knocked up in a hurry." "Mr. Bright," said Flora, in a low voice, "if you see that colored woman, I wish you would speak to her, and show her the way in." The sisters sat talking over their affairs with their husbands, in low tones, listening anxiously meanwhile to every sound. Mr. and Mrs. King were just saying they thought it was best to return home, when Mr. Bright opened the door and Tulee walked in. Of course, there was a general exclaiming and embracing. There was no need of introducing the husbands, for Tulee remembered them both. As soon as she could take breath, she said: "I've had _such_ a time to get here! I've been trying all day, and I couldn't get a chance, they kept such watch of me. At last, when they was all abed and asleep, I crept down stairs softly, and come out of the back door, and locked it after me." "Come right up stairs with me," said Rosa. "I want to speak to you." As soon as they were alone, she said, "Tulee, where is the baby?" "Don't know no more than the dead what's become of the poor little picaninny," she replied. "After ye went away, Missy Duroy's cousin, who was a sea-captain, brought his baby with a black nurse to board there, because his wife had died. I remember how ye looked at me when ye said, 'Take good care of the poor little baby.' And I did try to take good care of him. I toted him about a bit out doors whenever I could get a chance. One day, just as I was going back into the house, a gentleman o'horseback turned and looked at me. I didn't think anything about it then; but the next day, he come to the house, and he said I was Mr. Royal's slave, and that Mr. Fitzgerald bought me. He wanted to know where ye was; and when I told him ye'd gone over the sea with Madame and the Signor, he cursed and swore, and said he'd been cheated. When he went away, Missis Duroy said it was Mr. Bruteman. I didn't think there was much to be 'fraid of, 'cause ye'd got away safe, and I had free papers, and the picaninny was too small to be sold. But I remembered ye was always anxious about his being a slave, and I was a little uneasy. One day when the sea-captain came to see his baby, he was marking an anchor on his own arm with a needle and some sort of black stuff; and he said 't would never come out. I thought if they should carry off yer picaninny, it would be more easy to find him again if he was marked. I told the captain I had heard ye call him Gerald; and he said he would mark G.F. on his arm. The poor little thing worried in his sleep while he was doing it, and Missis Duroy scolded at me for hurting him. The next week Massa Duroy was taken with yellow-fever; and then Missis Duroy was taken, and then the captain's baby and the black nurse. I was frighted, and tried to keep the picaninny out doors all I could. One day, when I'd gone a bit from the house, two men grabbed us and put us in a cart. When I screamed, they beat me, and swore at me for a runaway nigger. When I said I was free, they beat me more, and told me to shut up. They put us in the calaboose; and when I told 'em the picaninny belonged to a white lady, they laughed and said there was a great many white niggers. Mr. Bruteman come to see us, and he said we was his niggers. When I showed him my free paper, he said 't want good for anything, and tore it to pieces. O Missy Rosy, that was a dreadful dark time. The jailer's wife didn't seem so hard-hearted as the rest. I showed her the mark on the picaninny's arm, and gave her one of the little shirts ye embroidered; and I told her if they sold me away from him, a white lady would send for him. They did sell me, Missy Rosy. Mr. Robbem, a Caroliny slave-trader bought me, and he's my massa now. I don't know what they did with the picaninny. I didn't know how to write, and I didn't know where ye was. I was always hoping ye would come for me some time; and at last I thought ye must be dead." "Poor Tulee," said Rosa. "They wrote that Mr. and Mrs. Duroy and the black woman and the white baby all died of yellow-fever; and we didn't know there was any other black woman there. I've sent to New Orleans, and I've been there; and many a cry I've had, because we couldn't find you. But your troubles are all over now. You shall come and live with us." "But I'm Mr. Robbem's slave," replied Tulee. "No, you are not," answered Rosa. "You became free the moment they brought you to Massachusetts." "Is it really so?" said Tulee, brightening up in look and tone. Then, with a sudden sadness, she added: "I've got three chil'ren in Carolina. They've sold two on 'em; but they've left me my little Benny, eight years old. They wouldn't have brought me here, if they hadn't known Benny would pull me back." "We'll buy your children," said Rosa. "Bless ye, Missy Rosy!" she exclaimed. "Ye's got the same kind heart ye always had. How glad I am to see ye all so happy!" "O Tulee!" groaned Rosa, "I can never be happy till that poor little baby is found. I've no doubt that wicked Bruteman sold him." She covered her face with her hands, and the tears trickled through her fingers. "The Lord comfort ye!" said Tulee, "I did all I could for yer poor little picaninny." "I know you did, Tulee," she replied. "But I am _so_ sorry Madame didn't take you with us! When she told me she had left you, I was afraid something bad would happen; and I would have gone back for you if I could. But it is too late to talk any more now. Mr. King is waiting for me to go home. Why can't you go with us to-night?" "I must go back," rejoined Tulee. "I've got the key with me, and I left the picaninny asleep in my bed. I'll come again to-morrow night, if I can." "Don't say if you can, Tulee," replied Mrs. King. "Remember you are not a slave here. You can walk away at mid-day, and tell them you are going to live with us." "They'd lock me up and send me back to Caroliny, if I told 'em so," said Tulee. "But I'll come, Missy Rosy." Rosa kissed the dark cheek she had so often kissed when they were children together, and they parted for the night. The next day and the next night passed without a visit from Tulee. Mr. and Mrs. Bright, who entered into the affair with the liveliest interest, expressed the opinion that she had been spirited away and sent South. The sisters began to entertain a similar fear; and it was decided that their husbands should call with them the following morning, to have a talk with Mr. and Mrs. Robbem. But not long after breakfast, Tulee stole into the back door with the cherub in her arms. "O Missy Flory," said she, "I tried to get here last night. But Missis Robbem takes a heap o' care o' me." She said this with a mischievous smile. "When we was at the Astor House, she locked up my clothes in her room, 'cause New York was such a dreadful wicked place, she was 'fraid they'd be stole; and she never let me out o' her sight, for fear the colored waiters in the hotel would be impudent to me. Last night she sent me away up into the cupola to sleep, 'cause she said I could have more room there. And when I'd got the picaninny asleep, and was watching for a chance to steal away, she come all the way up there very softly, and said she'd brought me some hot drink, 'cause I didn't seem to be well. Then she begun to advise me not to go near the next house. She told me Abolitionists was very bad people; that they pretended to be great friends to colored folks, but all they wanted was to steal 'em and sell 'em to the West Indies. I told her I didn't know nothing 'bout Abolitionists; that the lady I was hugging and kissing was a New Orleans lady that I used to wait upon when we was picaninnies. She said if you had the feelings Southern ladies ought to have, you wouldn't be boarding with Abolitionists. When she went down stairs I didn't dare to come here, for fear she'd come up again with some more hot drink. This morning she told me to walk up street with the picaninny; and she watched me till I was out o' sight. But I went round and round and got over a fence, and come through Massa Bright's barn." Mr. and Mrs. King came in as she was speaking; and she turned to them, saying anxiously, "Do you think, Massa, if I don't go back with 'em, they'll let me have my chil'ren?" "Don't call me Massa," replied Mr. King, "I dislike the sound of it. Speak to me as other people do. I have no doubt we shall manage it so that you will have your children. I will lead home this pretty little Tot, and tell them you are going to stay with us." With bonbons and funny talk he gained the favor of Tot, so that she consented to walk with him. Tulee often applied her apron to her eyes, as she watched the little creature holding by his finger, and stepping along in childish fashion, turning her toes inward. When she disappeared through the Deacon's front door, she sat down and cried outright. "I love that little picaninny," sobbed she. "I've tended her ever since she was born; and I love her. She'll cry for Tulee. But I does want to be free, and I does want to live with ye, Missy Rosy and Missy Flory." Mrs. Robbem met Mr. King as soon as he entered her father's door, and said in a tone of stern surprise, "Where is my servant, sir?" He bowed and answered, "If you will allow me to walk in for a few moments, I will explain my errand." As soon as they were seated he said: "I came to inform you that Tulee does not wish to go back to Carolina; and that by the laws of Massachusetts she has a perfect right to remain here." "She's an ungrateful wench!" exclaimed Mrs. Robbem. "She's always been treated kindly, and she wouldn't have thought of taking such a step, if she hadn't been put up to it by meddlesome Abolitionists, who are always interfering with gentlemen's servants." "The simple fact is," rejoined Mr. King, "Tulee used to be the playmate and attendant of my wife when both of them were children. They lived together many years, and are strongly attached to each other." "If your wife is a Southern lady," replied Mrs. Robbem, "she ought to be above such a mean Yankee trick as stealing my servant from me." Her husband entered at that moment, and the visitor rose and bowed as he said, "Mr. Robbem, I presume." He lowered his head somewhat stiffly in reply; and his wife hastened to say, "The Abolitionists have been decoying Tulee away from us." Mr. King repeated the explanation he had already made. "I thought the wench had more feeling," replied Mr. Robbem. "She left children in Carolina. But the fact is, niggers have no more feeling for their young than so many pigs." "I judge differently," rejoined Mr. King; "and my principal motive for calling was to speak to you about those children. I wish to purchase them for Tulee." "She shall never have them, sir!" exclaimed the slave-trader, fiercely. "And as for you Abolitionists, all I wish is that we had you down South." "Differences of opinion must be allowed in a free country," replied Mr. King. "I consider slavery a bad institution, injurious to the South, and to the whole country. But I did not come here to discuss that subject. I simply wish to make a plain business statement to you. Tulee chooses to take her freedom, and any court in Massachusetts will decide that she has a right to take it. But, out of gratitude for services she has rendered my wife, I am willing to make you gratuitous compensation, provided you will enable me to buy all her children. Will you name your terms now, or shall I call again?". "She shall never have her children," repeated Mr. Robbem; "she has nobody but herself and the Abolitionists to blame for it." "I will, however, call again, after you have thought of it more calmly," said Mr. King. "Good morning, sir; good morning, madam." His salutations were silently returned with cold, stiff bows. A second and third attempt was made with no better success. Tulee grew very uneasy. "They'll sell my Benny," said she. "Ye see they ain't got any heart, 'cause they's used to selling picaninnies." "What, does this Mr. Robbem carry on the Deacon's old business?" inquired Mr. Bright. "Yes, Massa," replied Tulee. "Two years ago, Massa Stillham come down to Caroliny to spend the winter, and he was round in the slave-pen as brisk as Massa Robbem, counting the niggers, and telling how many dollars they ought to sell for. He had a dreadful bad fever while he was down there, and I nursed him. He was out of his head half the time, and he was calling out: 'Going! going! How much for this likely nigger? Stop that wench's squalling for her brat! Carry the brat off!' It was dreadful to hear him." "I suppose he calculated upon going to heaven if he died," rejoined Mr. Bright; "and if he'd gone into the kingdom with such words in his mouth, it would have been a heavenly song for the four-and-twenty elders to accompany with their golden harps." "They'll sell my Benny," groaned Tulee; "and then I shall never see him again." "I have no doubt Mr. King will obtain your children," replied Mr. Bright; "and you should remember that, if you go back South, just as likely as not they will sell him where you will never see him or hear from him." "I know it, Massa, I know it," answered she. "I am not your master," rejoined he. "I allow no man to call me master, and certainly not any woman; though I don't belong to the chivalry." His prediction proved true. The Deacon and his son-in-law held frequent consultations. "This Mr. King is rich as Croesus," said the Deacon; "and if he thinks his wife owes a debt to Tulee, he'll be willing to give a round sum for her children. I reckon you can make a better bargain with him than you could in the New Orleans market." "Do you suppose he'd give five thousand dollars for the young niggers?" inquired the trader. "Try him," said the Deacon. The final result was that the sum was deposited by Mr. King, to be paid over whenever Tulee's children made their appearance; and in due time they all arrived. Tulee was full of joy and gratitude; but Mr. Bright always maintained it was a sin and a shame to pay slave-traders so much for what never belonged to them. Of course there were endless questions to be asked and answered between the sisters and their faithful servant; but all she could tell threw no further light on the destiny of the little changeling whom she supposed to be Rosa's own child. In the course of these private conversations, it came out that she herself had suffered, as all women must suffer, who have the feelings of human beings, and the treatment of animals. But her own humble little episode of love and separation, of sorrow and shame, was whispered only to Missy Rosy and Missy Flory. CHAPTER XXXIII. The probability that the lost child was alive and in slavery was a very serious complication of existing difficulties. Thinking it prudent to prepare Gerald's mind for any contingencies that might occur, Mr. King proceeded immediately to Boston to have a conference with him. The young man received the news with unexpected composure. "It will annoy Lily-mother very much," said he, "and on that account I regret it; but so far as I am myself concerned, it would in some respects be a relief to me to get out of the false position in which I find myself. Grandfather Bell has always grumbled about the expense I have been to him in consequence of my father's loss of fortune, and of course that adds to the unpleasantness of feeling that I am practising a fraud upon him. He is just now peculiarly vexed with me for leaving Northampton so suddenly. He considers it an unaccountable caprice of mine, and reproaches me with letting Eulalia slip through my fingers, as he expresses it. Of course, he has no idea how it cuts me. This state of things is producing a great change in my views. My prevailing wish now is to obtain an independent position by my own exertions, and thus be free to become familiar with my new self. At present, I feel as if there were two of me, and that one was an impostor." "I heartily approve of your wish to rely upon your own resources," replied Mr. King; "and I will gladly assist you to accomplish it. I have already said you should be to me as a son, and I stand by my word; but I advise you, as I would an own son, to devote yourself assiduously to some business, profession, or art. Never be a gentleman of leisure. It is the worst possible calling a man can have. Nothing but stagnation of faculties and weariness of soul comes of it. But we will talk about _your_ plans hereafter. The urgent business of the present moment is to obtain some clew to your missing brother. My conscientious wife will suffer continual anxiety till he is found. I must go to New Orleans and seek out Mr. Bruteman, to ascertain whether he has sold him." "Bruteman!" exclaimed the young man, with sudden interest. "Was he the one who seized that negro woman and the child?" "Yes," rejoined Mr. King. "But why does that excite your interest?" "I am almost ashamed to tell you," replied Gerald. "But you know I was educated in the prejudices of my father and grandfather. It was natural that I should be proud of being the son of a slaveholder, that I should despise the colored race, and consider abolition a very vulgar fanaticism. But the recent discovery that I was myself born a slave has put me upon my thoughts, and made me a little uneasy about a transaction in which I was concerned. The afternoon preceding Mrs. Green's splendid ball, where I first saw my beautiful Rose-mother, two fugitive slaves arrived here in one of grandfather's ships called 'The King Cotton.' Mr. Bruteman telegraphed to grandfather about them, and the next morning he sent me to tell Captain Kane to send the slaves down to the islands in the harbor, and keep them under guard till a vessel passed that would take them back to New Orleans. I did his errand, without bestowing upon the subjects of it any more thought or care than I should have done upon two bales of cotton. At parting, Captain Kane said to me, 'By George, Mr. Fitzgerald, one of these fellows looks so much like you, that, if you were a little tanned by exposure to the sun, I shouldn't know you apart.' 'That's flattering,' replied I, 'to be compared to a negro.' And I hurried away, being impatient to make an early call upon your lady at the Revere House. I don't suppose I should ever have thought of it again, if your present conversation had not brought it to my mind." "Do you know whether Mr. Bruteman sold those slaves after they were sent back?" inquired Mr. King. "There is one fact connected with the affair which I will tell you, if you promise not to mention it," replied the young man. "The Abolitionists annoyed grandfather a good deal about those runaways, and he is nervously sensitive lest they should get hold of it, and publish it in their papers." Having received the desired promise, he went on to say: "Those slaves were mortgaged to grandfather, and he sent orders to have them immediately sold. I presume Mr. Bruteman managed the transaction, for they were his slaves; but I don't know whether he reported the name of the purchaser. He died two months ago, leaving his affairs a good deal involved; and I heard that some distant connections in Mississippi were his heirs." "Where can I find Captain Kane?" inquired Mr. King. "He sailed for Calcutta a fortnight ago," rejoined Gerald. "Then there is no other resource but to go to New Orleans, as soon as the weather will permit," was the reply. "I honor your zeal," said the young man. "I wish my own record was clean on the subject. Since I have taken the case home to myself, I have felt that it was mean and wrong to send back fugitives from slavery; but it becomes painful, when I think of the possibility of having helped to send back my own brother,--and one, too, whom I have supplanted in his birthright." * * * * * When Mr. King returned to Northampton, the information he had obtained sent a new pang to the heart of his wife. "Then he _is_ a slave!" she exclaimed. "And while the poor fellow was being bound and sent back to slavery, I was dancing and receiving homage. Verily the Furies do pursue me. Do you think it is necessary to tell Mrs. Fitzgerald of this?" "In a reverse of cases, I think you would feel that you ought to be informed of everything," he replied. "But I will save you from that portion of the pain. It was most fitting that a woman should make the first part of the disclosure; but this new light on the subject can be as well revealed by myself." "Always kind and considerate," she said. "This news will be peculiarly annoying to her, and perhaps she will receive it better from you than from me; for I can see that I have lost her favor. But you have taught me that it is of more consequence to _deserve_ favor than to _have_ it; and I shall do my utmost to deserve a kindly estimate from her." "I confess I am somewhat puzzled by this tangle," rejoined her husband. "But where there is both the will and the means to repair a wrong, it will be strange if a way cannot be found." "I would like to sell my diamonds, and all my other expensive ornaments, to buy that young man," said she. "That you can do, if it will be any gratification to you," he replied; "but the few thousands I have invested in jewels for you would go but little way toward the full remuneration I intend to make, if he can be found. We will send the young people out of the way this evening, and lay the case before a family council of the elders. I should like to consult Blumenthal. I have never known a man whose natural instincts were so true as his; and his entire freedom from conventional prejudices reminds me of my good father. I have great reliance also on Mrs. Delano's delicate perceptions and quiet good sense. And our lively little Flora, though she jumps to her conclusions, always jumps in a straight line, and usually hits the point." As soon as the council was convened, and the subject introduced, Mrs. Blumenthal exclaimed: "Why, Florimond, those slaves in 'The King Cotton' were the ones you and Mr. Goldwin tried so hard to help them find." "Yes," rejoined he; "I caught a hasty glimpse of one of the poor fellows just as they were seizing him with the cry of 'Stop thief!' and his Italian look reminded me so forcibly of the danger Flora was once in, that I was extremely troubled about him after I heard he was a slave. As I recall him to my mind, I do think he resembled young Fitzgerald. Mr. Percival might perhaps throw some light on the subject; for he was unwearied in his efforts to rescue those fugitives. He already knows Flora's history." "I should like to have you go to Boston with me and introduce me to him," said Mr. King. "That I will do," answered Blumenthal. "I think both Mr. Bell and Mrs. Fitzgerald would prefer to have it all sink into unquestioned oblivion; but that does not change our duty with regard to the poor fellow." "Do you think they ought to be informed of the present circumstances?" inquired Mr. King. "If I were in their position, I should think I ought to know all the particulars," replied he; "and the golden rule is as good as it is simple." "Mrs. Fitzgerald has great dread of her father's knowing anything about it," responded Rosa; "and I have an earnest desire to spare her pain as far as possible. It seems as if she had a right to judge in the premises." Mrs. Delano took Mr. Blumenthal's view of the subject, and it was decided to leave that point for further consideration. Flora suggested that some difficulties might be removed by at once informing Eulalia that Gerald was her brother. But Mrs. Delano answered: "Some difficulties might be avoided for ourselves by that process; but the good of the young people is a paramount consideration. You know none of them are aware of all the antecedents in their family history, and it seems to me best that they should not know them till their characters are fully formed. I should have no objection to telling them of their colored ancestry, if it did not involve a knowledge of laws and customs and experiences growing out of slavery, which might, at this early age, prove unsettling to their principles. Anything that mystifies moral perceptions is not so easily removed from youthful minds as breath is wiped from a mirror." "I have that feeling very deeply fixed with regard to our Eulalia," observed Mr. King; "and I really see no need of agitating their young, unconscious minds with subjects they are too inexperienced to understand. I will have a talk with Mrs. Fitzgerald, and then proceed to Boston." Mrs. Fitzgerald received the announcement with much less equanimity than she had manifested on a former occasion. Though habitually polite, she said very abruptly: "I was in hopes I should never be troubled any more with this vulgar subject. Since Mrs. King saw fit to change the children, let her take care of the one she has chosen. Of course, it would be very disagreeable to me to have a son who had been brought up among slaves. If I wished to make his acquaintance, I could not do it without exciting a great deal of remark; and there has already been too much talk about my husband's affairs. But I have no wish to see him. I have educated a son to my own liking, and everybody says he is an elegant young man. If you would cease from telling me that there is a stain in his blood, I should never be reminded of it." "We thought it right to inform you of everything," rejoined Mr. King, "and leave you to decide what was to be done." "Then, once for all," said she, "please leave Gerald and me in peace; and do what you choose about the other one. We have had sufficient annoyance already; and I never wish to hear the subject mentioned again." "I accept your decision," replied Mr. King. "If the unfortunate young man can be found, I will educate him and establish him in business, and do the same for him in all respects that you would have done if he had been your acknowledged heir." "And keep him at a distance from me," said the perturbed lady; "for if he resembles Gerald so strongly, it would of course give rise to unpleasant inquiries and remarks." The gentleman bowed, wished her good morning, and departed, thinking what he had heard was a strange commentary on natural instincts. Mr. Percival was of course greatly surprised and excited when he learned the relation which one of the fugitives in "The King Cotton" bore to Mr. Bell. "We hear a good deal about poetical justice," said he; "but one rarely sees it meted out in this world. The hardness of the old merchant when Mr. Jackson and I called upon him was a thing to be remembered. He indorsed, with warm approbation, the declaration of the reverend gentleman who professed his willingness to send his mother or brother into slavery, if the laws of the United States required it." "If our friend Mr. Bright was with us, he would say the Lord took him at his word," rejoined Mr. Blumenthal, smiling. An earnest discussion ensued concerning the possibilities of the case, and several days were spent in active investigation. But all the additional light obtained was from a sailor, who had been one of the boat's crew that conveyed the fugitives to the islands in the harbor; and all he could tell was that he heard them call each other George and Henry. When he was shown a colored photograph, which Gerald had just had taken for his Rose-mother, he at once said that was the one named George. "This poor fellow must be rescued," said Mr. King, after they returned from their unsatisfactory conference with the sailor. "Mr. Bell may know who purchased him, and a conversation with him seems to be the only alternative." "Judging by my own experience, your task is not to be envied," rejoined Mr. Percival. "He will be in a tremendous rage. But perhaps the lesson will do him good. I remember Francis Jackson said at the time, that if his dark-complexioned grandson should be sent into slavery, it might bring him to a realizing sense of the state of things he was doing his utmost to encourage." The undertaking did indeed seem more formidable to Mr. King than anything he had yet encountered; but true to his sense of duty he resolved to go bravely through with it. CHAPTER XXXIV. The old merchant received Mr. King with marked politeness; for though he suspected him of anti-slavery proclivities, and despised him for that weakness, he had great respect for a man whose name was as good as gold, and who was the father of such an eligible match as Eulalia. After some discursive conversation, Mr. King said, "I am desirous to tell you a short story, if you will have patience to listen to it." "Certainly, sir," replied the old gentleman. His visitor accordingly began by telling of Mr. Royal's having formed one of those quadroon alliances so common in New Orleans; of his having died insolvent; and of his two handsome octoroon daughters having been claimed as slaves by his creditors. "What the deuce do you suppose I care about his octoroon daughters?" interrupted Mr. Bell, impatiently. "I wasn't one of his creditors." "Perhaps you will take some interest in it," rejoined Mr. King, "when I tell you that the eldest of them was married to Mr. Gerald Fitzgerald of Savannah, and that she is still living." "Do you mean the Mr. Fitzgerald who married my daughter Lily?" inquired he. "I do mean him," was the response. "It's false," vociferated Mr. Bell, growing almost purple in the face. "No, sir, it is not false," replied Mr. King. "But you need not be so much excited. The first marriage did not render the second illegal; first, because a sham ceremony was performed to deceive the inexperienced girl; and secondly, because, according to the laws of the South, any marriage with a slave, however sanctified by religious forms, is utterly void in law." "I consider such a law a very wise provision," replied the merchant. "It is necessary to prevent the inferior race from being put on an equality with their superiors. The negroes were made to be servants, sir. _You_ may be an advocate for amalgamation, but I am not." "I would simply ask you to observe that the law you so much approve is not a preventive of amalgamation. Mr. Fitzgerald married the daughter of the quadroon. The only effect of the law was to deprive her of a legal right to his support and protection, and to prevent her son from receiving any share of his father's property. By another Southern law, that 'the child shall follow the condition of the mother,' her son became a slave." "Well, sir, what interest do you suppose I can take in all this?" interrupted the merchant. "It's nothing to me, sir. The South is competent to make her own laws." Mr. King begged his attention a little longer. He then proceeded to tell how Mr. Fitzgerald had treated the octoroon, at the time of his marriage with Miss Bell; that he had subsequently sold her to a very base man, in payment of a debt; that she, terrified and bewildered by the prospect of such a fate, had, in a moment of frantic revenge, changed her babe for his daughter's; and that consequently the Gerald he had been educating as his grandson was in fact the son of the octoroon, and born a slave. "Really, sir," said Mr. Bell, with a satirical smile, "that story might sell for something to a writer of sensation novels; but I should hardly have expected to hear it from a sensible gentleman like yourself. Pray, on whose testimony do you expect me to believe such an improbable fiction?" "On that of the mother herself," replied Mr. King. With a very contemptuous curl of his lip, Mr. Bell answered: "And you really suppose, do you, that I can be induced to disinherit my grandson on the testimony of a colored woman? Not I, sir. Thank God, I am not infected with this negro mania." "But you have not asked who the woman is," rejoined Mr. King; "and without knowing that, you cannot judge candidly of the value of her testimony." "I don't ask, because I don't care," replied the merchant. "The negroes are a lying set, sir; and I am no Abolitionist, that I should go about retailing their lies." Mr. King looked at him an instant, and then answered, very calmly: "The mother of that babe, whose word you treat so contemptuously, is Mrs. King, my beloved and honored wife." The old merchant was startled from his propriety; and, forgetful of the gout in his feet, he sprung from his chair, exclaiming, "The Devil!" Mr. King, without noticing the abrupt exclamation, went on to relate in detail the manner of his first introduction to Miss Royal, his compassion for her subsequent misfortunes, his many reasons for believing her a pure and noble woman, and the circumstances which finally led to their marriage. He expressed his conviction that the children had been changed in a fit of temporary insanity, and dwelt much on his wife's exceeding anxiety to atone for the wrong, as far as possible. "I was ignorant of the circumstance," said he, "until the increasing attraction between Gerald and Eulalia made an avowal necessary. It gives me great pain to tell you all this; but I thought that, under a reverse of circumstances, I should myself prefer to know the facts. I am desirous to do my utmost to repair the mischief done by a deserted and friendless woman, at a moment when she was crazed by distress and terror; a woman, too, whose character I have abundant reason to love and honor. If you choose to disinherit Gerald, I will provide for his future as if he were my own son; and I will repay with interest all the expense you have incurred for him. I hope that this affair may be kept secret from the world, and that we may amicably settle it, in such a way that no one will be materially injured." Somewhat mollified by this proposal, the old gentleman inquired in a milder tone, "And where is the young man who you say is my daughter's son?" "Until very recently he was supposed to be dead," rejoined Mr. King; "and unfortunately that circumstance led my wife to think there was no need of speaking to me concerning this affair at the time of our marriage. But we now have reason to think he may be living; and that is why I have particularly felt it my duty to make this unpleasant revelation." After repeating Tulee's story, he said, "You probably have not forgotten that last winter two slaves escaped to Boston in your ship 'The King Cotton'?" The old merchant started as if he had been shot. "Try not to be agitated," said Mr. King. "If we keep calm, and assist each other, we may perhaps extricate ourselves from this disagreeable dilemma, without any very disastrous results. I have but one reason for thinking it possible there may be some connection between the lost babe and one of the slaves whom you sent back to his claimant. The two babes were very nearly of an age, and so much alike that the exchange passed unnoticed; and the captain of 'The King Cotton' told Gerald that the eldest of those slaves resembled him so much that he should not know them apart." Mr. Bell covered his face and uttered a deep groan. Such distress in an old man powerfully excited Mr. King's sympathy; and moving near to him, he placed his hand on his and said: "Don't be so much troubled, sir. This is a bad affair, but I think it can be so managed as to do no very serious harm. My motive in coming to you at this time is to ascertain whether you can furnish me with any clew to that young man. I will myself go in search of him, and I will take him to Europe and have him educated in a manner suitable to his condition, as your descendant and the heir of your property." The drawn expression of the old merchant's mouth was something painful to witness. It seemed as if every nerve was pulled to its utmost tension by the excitement in his soul. He obviously had to make a strong effort to speak when he said, "Do you suppose, sir, that a merchant of my standing is going to leave his property to negroes?" "You forget that this young man is pure Anglo-Saxon," replied Mr. King. "I tell you, sir," rejoined Mr. Bell, "that the mulatto who was with him was his wife; and if he is proved to be my grandson, I'll never see him, nor have anything to do with him, unless he gives her up; not if you educate him with the Prince Royal of France or England. A pretty dilemma you have placed me in, sir. My property, it seems, must either go to Gerald, who you say has negro blood in his veins, or to this other fellow, who is a slave with a negro wife." "But she could be educated in Europe also," pleaded Mr. King; "and I could establish him permanently in lucrative business abroad. By this arrangement--" "Go to the Devil with your arrangements!" interrupted the merchant, losing all command of himself. "If you expect to arrange a pack of mulatto heirs for _me_, you are mistaken, sir." He rose up and struck his chair upon the floor with a vengeance, and his face was purple with rage, as he vociferated: "I'll have legal redress for this, sir. I'll expose your wife, sir. I'll lay my damages at a million, sir." Mr. King bowed and said, "I will see you again when you are more calm." As he went out, he heard Mr. Bell striding across the room and thrashing the furniture about. "Poor old gentleman!" thought he. "I hope I shall succeed in convincing him how little I value money in comparison with righting this wrong, as far as possible. Alas! it would never have taken place had there not been a great antecedent wrong; and that again grew out of the monstrous evil of slavery." He had said to the old merchant, "I will see you again when you are calmer." And when he saw him again, he was indeed calm, for he had died suddenly, of a fit produced by violent excitement. CHAPTER XXXV. A few weeks after the funeral of Mr. Bell, Gerald wrote the following letter to Mr. King:-- "My honored and dear Friend,--Lily-mother has decided to go to Europe this fall, that I may have certain educational advantages which she has planned for me. That is the only reason she assigns; but she is evidently nervous about your investigations, and I think a wish to be out of the country for the present has had some effect in producing this decision. I have not sought to influence her concerning this, or the other important point you wot of. My desire is to conform to her wishes, and promote her happiness in any way she chooses. This it is my duty as well as my pleasure to do. She intends to remain in Europe a year, perhaps longer. I wish very much to see you all; and Eulalia might well consider me a very impolite acquaintance, if I should go without saying good by. If you do not return to Boston before we sail, I will, with your permission, make a short call upon you in Northampton. I thank Rose-mother for her likeness. It will be very precious to me. I wish you would add your own and another; for wherever my lot may be cast, you three will always be among my dearest memories." "I am glad of this arrangement," said Mr. King. "At their age, I hope a year of separation will prove sufficient." The Rose-mother covered the wound in her heart, and answered, "Yes, it is best." But the constrained tone of the letter pained her, and excited her mind to that most unsatisfactory of all occupations, the thinking over what might have been. She had visions of her first-born son, as he lay by her side a few hours before Chloe carried him away from her sight; and then there rose before her the fair face of that other son, whose pretty little body was passing into the roses of Provence. Both of them had gone out of her life. Of one she received no tidings from the mysterious world of spirits; while the other was walking within her vision, as a shadow, the reality of which was intangible. Mr. King returned to Boston with his family in season for Gerald to make the proposed call before he sailed. There was a little heightening of color when he and Eulalia met, but he had drilled himself to perform the part of a polite acquaintance; and as she thought she had been rather negligently treated of late, she was cased in the armor of maidenly reserve. Both Mr. and Mrs. King felt it to be an arduous duty to call on Mrs. Fitzgerald. That lady, though she respected their conscientiousness, could not help disliking them. They had disturbed her relations with Gerald, by suggesting the idea of another claim upon his affections; and they had offended her pride by introducing the vulgar phantom of a slave son to haunt her imagination. She was continually jealous of Mrs. King; so jealous, that Gerald never ventured to show her the likeness of his Rose-mother. But though the discerning eyes of Mr. and Mrs. King read this in the very excess of her polite demonstrations, other visitors who were present when they called supposed them to be her dearest friends, and envied her the distinguished intimacy. Such formal attempts at intercourse only increased the cravings of Rosa's heart, and Mr. King requested Gerald to grant her a private interview. Inexpressibly precious were these few stolen moments, when she could venture to call him son, and hear him call her mother. He brought her an enamelled locket containing some of his hair, inscribed with the word "Gerald"; and she told him that to the day of her death she would always wear it next her heart. He opened a small morocco case, on the velvet lining of which lay a lily of delicate silver filigree. "Here is a little souvenir for Eulalia," said he. Her eyes moistened as she replied, "I fear it would not be prudent, my son." He averted his face as he answered: "Then give it to her in my mother's name. It will be pleasant to me to think that my sister is wearing it." * * * * * A few days after Gerald had sailed for Europe, Mr. King started for New Orleans, taking with him his wife and daughter. An auctioneer was found, who said he had sold to a gentleman in Natchez a runaway slave named Bob Bruteman, who strongly resembled the likeness of Gerald. They proceeded to Natchez and had an interview with the purchaser, who recognized a likeness between his slave Bob and the picture of Gerald. He said he had made a bad bargain of it, for the fellow was intelligent and artful, and had escaped from him two months ago. In answer to his queries, Mr. King stated that, if Bob was the one he supposed, he was a white man, and had friends who wished to redeem him; but as the master had obtained no clew to the runaway, he could of course give none. So their long journey produced no result, except the satisfaction of thinking that the object of their interest had escaped from slavery. It had been their intention to spend the coldest months at the South, but a volcano had flared up all of a sudden at Harper's Ferry, and boiling lava was rolling all over the land. Every Northern man who visited the South was eyed suspiciously, as a possible emissary of John Brown; and the fact that Mr. King was seeking to redeem a runaway slave was far from increasing confidence in him. Finding that silence was unsatisfactory, and that he must either indorse slavery or be liable to perpetual provocations to quarrel, he wrote to Mr. Blumenthal to have their house in readiness for their return; an arrangement which Flora and her children hailed with merry shouts and clapping of hands. When they arrived, they found their house as warm as June, with Flora and her family there to receive them, backed by a small army of servants, consisting of Tulee, with her tall son and daughter, and little Benny, and Tom and Chloe; all of whom had places provided for them, either in the household or in Mr. King's commercial establishment. Their tropical exuberance of welcome made him smile. When the hearty hand-shakings were over, he said to his wife, as they passed into the parlor, "It really seemed as if we were landing on the coast of Guinea with a cargo of beads." "O Alfred," rejoined she, "I am so grateful to you for employing them all! You don't know, and never _can_ know, how I feel toward these dusky friends; for you never had them watch over you, day after day, and night after night, patiently and tenderly leading you up from the valley of the shadow of death." He pressed her hand affectionately, and said, "Inasmuch as they did it for you, darling, they did it for me." This sentiment was wrought into their daily deportment to their servants; and the result was an harmonious relation between employer and employed, which it was beautiful to witness. But there are skeletons hidden away in the happiest households. Mrs. King had hers, and Tom and Chloe had theirs. The death of Mr. Bell and the absence of Mrs. Fitzgerald left no one in Boston who would be likely to recognize them; but they knew that the Fugitive Slave Act was still in force, and though they relied upon Mr. King's generosity in case of emergency, they had an uncomfortable feeling of not being free. It was not so with Tulee. She had got beyond Mount Pisgah into the Canaan of freedom; and her happiness was unalloyed. Mr. King, though kind and liberal to all, regarded her with especial favor, on account of old associations. The golden hoops had been taken from her ears when she was in the calaboose; but he had presented her with another pair, for he liked to have her look as she did when she opened for him that door in New Orleans, which had proved an entrance to the temple and palace of his life. She felt herself to be a sort of prime minister in the small kingdom, and began to deport herself as one having authority. No empress ever had more satisfaction in a royal heir than she had in watching her Benny trudging to school, with his spelling-book slung over his shoulder, in a green satchel Mrs. King had made for him. The stylishness of the establishment was also a great source of pride to her; and she often remarked in the kitchen that she had always said gold was none too good for Missy Rosy to walk upon. Apart from this consideration, she herself had an Oriental delight in things that were lustrous and gayly colored. Tom had learned to read quite fluently, and was accustomed to edify his household companions with chapters from the Bible on Sunday evenings. The descriptions of King Solomon's splendor made a lively impression on Tulee's mind. When she dusted the spacious parlors, she looked admiringly at the large mirrors, the gilded circles of gas lights, and the great pictures framed in crimson and gold, and thought that the Temple of Solomon could not have been more grand. She could scarcely believe Mrs. Delano was wealthy. "She's a beautiful lady," said she to Flora; "but if she's got plenty o' money, what makes her dress so innocent and dull? There's Missy Rosy now, when _she_'s dressed for company, she looks like the Queen of Shebee." One morning Tulee awoke to look out upon a scene entirely new to her Southern eyes, and far surpassing anything she had imagined of the splendor of Solomon's Temple. On the evening previous, the air had been full of mist, which, as it grew colder, had settled on the trees of the Common, covering every little twig with a panoply of ice. A very light snow had fallen softly during the night, and sprinkled the ice with a feathery fleece. The trees, in this delicate white vesture, standing up against a dark blue sky, looked like the glorified spirits of trees. Here and there, the sun touched them, and dropped a shower of diamonds. Tulee gazed a moment in delighted astonishment, and ran to call Chloe, who exclaimed, "They looks like great white angels, and Ise feared they'll fly away 'fore Missis gits up." Tulee was very impatient for the sound of Mrs. King's bell, and as soon as the first tinkle was heard she rushed into her dressing-room, exclaiming, "O, do come to the window, Missy Rosy! Sure this is silver land." Rosa was no less surprised when she looked out upon that wonderful vision of the earth, in its transfigured raiment of snow-glory. "Why, Tulee," said she, "it is diamond land. I've seen splendid fairy scenes in the theatres of Paris, but never anything so brilliant as this." "I used to think the woods down South, all covered with jess'mines, was the beautifullest thing," responded Tulee; "but, Lors, Missy Rosy, this is as much handsomer as Solomon's Temple was handsomer than a meetin'-house." But neither the indoor nor the outdoor splendor, nor all the personal comforts they enjoyed, made this favored band of colored people forgetful of the brethren they had left in bondage. Every word about John Brown was sought for and read with avidity. When he was first taken captive, Chloe said: "The angel that let Peter out o' prison ha'n't growed old an' hard o' hearing. If we prays loud enough, he'll go and open the doors for old John Brown." Certainly, it was not for want of the colored people's praying loud and long enough, that the prisoner was not supernaturally delivered. They did not relinquish the hope till the 2d of December: and when that sad day arrived, they assembled in their meeting-house to watch and pray. All was silent, except now and then an occasional groan, till the hands of the clock pointed to the moment of the martyr's exit from this world. Then Tom poured forth his soul in a mighty voice of prayer, ending with the agonized entreaty, "O Lord, thou hast taken away our Moses. Raise us up a Joshua!" And all cried, "Amen!" Chloe, who had faith that could walk the stormiest waves, spoke words of fervent cheer to the weeping congregation. "I tell ye they ha'n't killed old John Brown," said she; "'cause they _couldn't_ kill him. The angel that opened the prison doors for Peter has let him out, and sent him abroad in a different way from what we 'spected; that's all." CHAPTER XXXVI. Through the following year, the political sky grew ever darker with impending clouds, crinkled with lightning, and vocal with growlings of approaching thunder. The North continued to make servile concessions, which history will blush to record; but they proved unavailing. The arrogance of slaveholders grew by what it fed on. Though a conscientious wish to avoid civil war mingled largely with the selfishness of trade, and the heartless gambling of politicians, all was alike interpreted by them as signs of Northern cowardice. At last, the Sumter gun was heard booming through the gathering storm. Instantly, the air was full of starry banners, and Northern pavements resounded with the tramp of horse and the rolling of artillery wagons. A thrill of patriotic enthusiasm kindled the souls of men. No more sending back of slaves. All our cities became at once cities of refuge; for men had risen above the letter of the Constitution into the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. Gerald and his Lily-mother arrived in New York to find the social atmosphere all aglow. Under its exciting influence, he wrote to Mr. King:-- "Yesterday, I informed you of our arrival; and now I write to tell you that they are forming a regiment here to march to the defence of Washington, and I have joined it. Lily-mother was unwilling at first. But a fine set of fellows are joining,--all first-class young gentlemen. I told Lily-mother she would be ashamed to have me loiter behind the sons of her acquaintance, and that Mr. Seward said it was only an affair of sixty days. So she has consented. I enclose a letter to Rose-mother, to ask her blessing on my enterprise, which I am quite sure I shall have, together with your own." Thus, with the unreflecting exhilaration of youth, Gerald went forth to the war, as light of heart as if he had been joining a boat-race or a hunting excursion; so little did he comprehend that ferocious system of despotism which was fastening its fangs on free institutions with the death-grapple of a bloodhound. For the next two months, his letters, though hurried, were frequent, and always cheerful; mostly filled with trifling gossipings about camp-life, and affectionate remembrances to those he had left behind. At last, Mr. King received one of graver import, which ran thus:-- "I have met with a strange adventure. A number of us were on picket duty, with orders to keep a sharp lookout. We went pacing back and forth on our allotted ground, now passing under the shadow of trees, now coming out into the moonlight. I walked very erect, feeling myself every inch a soldier. Sometimes I cast scrutinizing glances into groups of shrubbery, and sometimes I gazed absently on the sparkling Potomac, while memory was retracing the events of my life, and recalling the dear ones connected with them. Just as I reached a large tree which formed the boundary of my prescribed course, the next sentinel, whose walk began where mine ended, approached the same tree, and before he turned again we met face to face for an instant. I started, and I confess to a momentary feeling of superstition; for I thought I had seen myself; and that, you know, is said to be a warning of approaching death. He could not have seen me very plainly, for I was in shadow, while he for an instant was clearly revealed by the moonlight. Anxious to be sure whether I had seen a vision or a reality, when I again approached the tree I waited for him; and a second time I saw such a likeness of myself as I never saw excepting in the mirror. He turned quickly, and marched away with military promptitude and precision. I watched him for a moment, as his erect figure alternately dipped into shadow and emerged into light. I need not tell you what I was thinking of while I looked; for you can easily conjecture. The third time we met, I said, 'What is your name?' He replied, 'George Falkner,' and marched away. I write on a drumhead, in a hurry. As soon as I can obtain a talk with this duplicate of myself, I will write to you again. But I shall not mention my adventure to Lily-mother. It would only make her unhappy." Another letter, which arrived a week after, contained merely the following paragraph on the subject that interested them most:-- "We soldiers cannot command our own movements or our time. I have been able to see G.F. but once, and then our interview was brief. He seemed very reserved about himself. He says he came from New York; but his speech is Southern. He talks about 'toting' things, and says he 'disremembers,' I shall try to gain his confidence, and perhaps I shall be able to draw him out." A fortnight later he wrote:-- "I have learned from G.F. that the first thing he remembers of himself is living with an old negress, about ten miles from New Orleans, with eight other children, of various shades, but none so white as himself. He judges he was about nine years old when he was carried to New Orleans, and let out by a rich man named Bruteman to a hotel-keeper, to black boots, do errands, &c. One of the children that the old negress brought up with him was a mulatto named Henriet. The boys called her Hen, he said. He used to 'tote' her about when she was a baby, and afterward they used to roll in the mud, and make mud-pies together. When Hen was twelve years old, she was let out to work in the same hotel where he was. Soon afterward, Mr. Bruteman put him out to learn the carpenter's trade, and he soon became expert at it. But though he earned five or six dollars a week, and finally nine or ten, he never received any portion of it; except that now and then Mr. Bruteman, when he counted his wages, gave him a fip. I never thought of _this_ side of the question when I used to hear grandfather talk about the rights of slaveholders; but I feel now, if this had been my own case, I should have thought it confounded hard. He and Hen were very young when they first begun to talk about being married; but he couldn't bear the thoughts of bringing up a family to be slaves, and they watched for an opportunity to run away. After several plans which proved abortive, they went boldly on board 'The King Cotton,' he as a white gentleman, and she disguised as his boy servant. You know how that attempt resulted. He says they were kept two days, with hands and feet tied, on an island that was nothing but rock. They suffered with cold, though one of the sailors, who seemed kind-hearted, covered them with blankets and overcoats. He probably did not like the business of guarding slaves; for one night he whispered to G.F., 'Can't you swim?' But George was very little used to the water, and Hen couldn't swim at all. Besides, he said, the sailors had loaded guns, and some of them would have fired upon them, if they had heard them plunge; and even if by a miracle they had gained the shore, he thought they would be seized and sent back again, just as they were in Boston. "You may judge how I felt, while I listened to this. I wanted to ask his forgiveness, and give him all my money, and my watch, and my ring, and everything. After they were carried back, Hen was sold to the hotel-keeper for six hundred dollars, and he was sold to a man in Natchez for fifteen hundred. After a while, he escaped in a woman's dress, contrived to open a communication with Hen, and succeeded in carrying her off to New York. There he changed his woman's dress, and his slave name of Bob Bruteman, and called himself George Falkner. When I asked him why he chose that name, he rolled up his sleeve and showed me G.F. marked on his arm. He said he didn't know who put them there, but he supposed they were the initials of his name. He is evidently impressed by our great resemblance. If he asks me directly whether I can conjecture anything about his origin, I hardly know how it will be best to answer. Do write how much or how little I ought to say. Feeling unsafe in the city of New York, and being destitute of money, he applied to the Abolitionists for advice. They sent him to New Rochelle, where he let himself to a Quaker, called Friend Joseph Houseman, of whom he hired a small hut. There, Hen, whom he now calls Henriet, takes in washing and ironing, and there a babe has been born to them. When the war broke out he enlisted; partly because he thought it would help him to pay off some old scores with slaveholders, and partly because a set of rowdies in the village of New Rochelle said he was a white man, and threatened to mob him for living with a nigger wife. While they were in New York city, he and Henriet were regularly married by a colored minister. He said he did it because he hated slavery and couldn't bear to live as slaves did. I heard him read a few lines from a newspaper, and he read them pretty well. He says a little boy, son of the carpenter of whom he learned his trade, gave him some instruction, and he bought a spelling-book for himself. He showed me some beef-bones, on which he practises writing with a pencil. When he told me how hard he had tried to get what little learning he had, it made me ashamed to think how many cakes and toys I received as a reward for studying my spelling-book. He is teaching an old negro, who waits upon the soldiers. It is funny to see how hard the poor old fellow tries, and to hear what strange work he makes of it. It must be 'that stolen waters are sweet,' or slaves would never take so much more pains than I was ever willing to take to learn to spell out the Bible. Sometimes I help G.F. with his old pupil; and I should like to have Mrs. Blumenthal make a sketch of us, as I sit on the grass in the shade of some tree, helping the old negro hammer his syllables together. My New York companions laugh at me sometimes; but I have gained great favor with G.F. by this proceeding. He is such an ingenious fellow, that he is always in demand to make or mend something. When I see how skilful he is with tools, I envy him. I begin to realize what you once told me, and which did not please me much at the time, that being a fine gentleman is the poorest calling a man can devote himself to. "I have written this long letter under difficulties, and at various times. I have omitted many particulars, which I will try to remember in my next. Enclosed is a note for Rose-mother. I hold you all in most affectionate remembrance." Soon after the reception of this letter, news came of the defeat at Bull Run, followed by tidings that Gerald was among the slain. Mr. King immediately waited upon Mrs. Fitzgerald to offer any services that he could render, and it was agreed that he should forthwith proceed to Washington with her cousin, Mr. Green. They returned with a long wooden box, on which was inscribed Gerald's name and regiment. It was encased in black walnut without being opened, for those who loved him dreaded to see him, marred as he was by battle. It was carried to Stone Chapel, where a multitude collected to pay the last honors to the youthful soldier. A sheathed sword was laid across the coffin, on which Mrs. Fitzgerald placed a laurel wreath. Just above it, Mrs. King deposited a wreath of white roses, in the centre of which Eulalia timidly laid a white lily. A long procession followed it to Mount Auburn, with a band playing Beethoven's Funeral March. Episcopal services were performed at the grave, which friends and relatives filled with flowers; and there, by the side of Mr. Bell, the beautiful young man was hidden away from human sight. Mr. King's carriage had followed next to Mrs. Fitzgerald's; a circumstance which the public explained by a report that the deceased was to have married his daughter. Mrs. Fitzgerald felt flattered to have it so understood, and she never contradicted it. After her great disappointment in her husband, and the loss of her other children, all the affection she was capable of feeling had centred in Gerald. But hers was not a deep nature, and the world held great sway over it. She suffered acutely when she first heard of her loss; but she found no small degree of soothing compensation in the praises bestowed on her young hero, in the pomp of his funeral, and the general understanding that he was betrothed to the daughter of the quatro-millionnaire. The depth of Mrs. King's sorrow was known only to Him who made the heart. She endeavored to conceal it as far as possible, for she felt it to be wrong to cast a shadow over the home of her husband and daughter. Gerald's likeness was placed in her chamber, where she saw it with the first morning light; but what were her reveries while she gazed upon it was told to no one. Custom, as well as sincere sympathy, made it necessary for her to make a visit of condolence to Mrs. Fitzgerald. But she merely took her hand, pressed it gently, and said, "May God comfort you." "May God comfort you, also," replied Mrs. Fitzgerald, returning the pressure; and from that time henceforth the name of Gerald was never mentioned between them. After the funeral it was noticed that Alfred Blumenthal appeared abstracted, as if continually occupied with grave thoughts. One day, as he stood leaning against the window, gazing on the stars and stripes that floated across the street, he turned suddenly and exclaimed: "It is wrong to be staying here. I ought to be fighting for that flag. I _must_ supply poor Gerald's place." Mrs. Delano, who had been watching him anxiously, rose up and clasped him round the neck, with stronger emotion than he had ever seen her manifest. "_Must_ you go, my son?" she said. He laid his hand very gently on her head as he replied: "Dearest Mamita, you always taught me to obey the voice of duty; and surely it is a duty to help in rescuing Liberty from the bloody jaws of this dragon Slavery." She lingered an instant on his breast then, raising her tearful face, she silently pressed his hand, while she looked into those kind and honest eyes, that so strongly reminded her of eyes closed long ago. "You are right, my son," murmured she; "and may God give you strength." Turning from her to hide the swelling of his own heart, Alfred saw his mother sobbing on his father's bosom. "Dearest mamma," said he, "Heaven knows it is hard for me. Do not make it harder." "It takes the manhood out of him to see you weep, darling," said Mr. Blumenthal. "Be a brave little woman, and cheerfully give your dearest and best for the country." She wiped her eyes, and, fervently kissing Alfred's hand, replied, "I will. May God bless you, my dear, my only son!" His father clasped the other hand, and said, with forced calmness: "You are right, Alfred. God bless you! And now, dear Flora, let us consecrate our young hero's resolution by singing the Battle Song of Korner." She seated herself at the piano, and Mrs. Delano joined in with her weak but very sweet voice, while they sang, "Father! I call on thee." But when they came to the last verse, the voices choked, and the piano became silent. Rosen Blumen and Lila came in and found them all weeping; and when their brother pressed them in his arms and whispered to them the cause of all this sorrow, they cried as if their hearts were breaking. Then their mother summoned all her resolution, and became a comforter. While their father talked to them of the nobility and beauty of self-sacrifice, she kissed them and soothed them with hopeful words. Then, turning to Mrs. Delano, she tenderly caressed her faded hair, while she said: "Dearest Mamita, I trust God will restore to us our precious boy. I will paint his picture as St. George slaying the dragon, and you shall hang it in your chamber, in memory of what he said to you." Alfred, unable to control his emotions, hid himself in the privacy of his own chamber. He struck his hand wildly against his forehead, exclaiming, "O my country, great is the sacrifice I make for thee!" Then, kneeling by the bed where he had had so many peaceful slumbers, and dreamed so many pleasant dreams, he prayed fervently that God would give him strength according to his need. And so he went forth from his happy home, self-consecrated to the cause of freedom. The women now had but one absorbing interest and occupation. All were eager for news from the army, and all were busy working for the soldiers. CHAPTER XXXVII. When Mr. King returned from his mournful journey to Washington, he said to his wife: "I saw George Falkner, and was pleased with him. His resemblance to poor Gerald is wonderful. I could see no difference, except a firmer expression of the mouth, which I suppose is owing to his determined efforts to escape from slavery. Of course, he has not Gerald's gracefulness; but his bearing seemed manly, and there was no obvious stamp of vulgarity upon him. It struck me that his transformation into a gentleman would be an easy process. I was glad our interview was a hurried one, and necessarily taken up with details about Gerald's death. It seems he carried him off in his own arms when he was wounded, and that he did his utmost to stanch the blood. Gerald never spoke after the bullet struck him, though he pressed his hand, and appeared to try to say something. When he opened his vest to dress the wound, he found this." Rosa looked at it, groaned out, "Poor Gerald!" and covered her face. It was the photograph of Eulalia, with the upper part shot away. Both remained for some time with their heads bowed in silence. After a while, Mr. King resumed: "In answer to Mr. Green's inquiries concerning the mutilated picture, I replied that it was a likeness of my daughter; and he answered that he had heard a marriage was thought of between them. I was glad he happened to say that, for it will make it seem natural to George that I should take a lively interest in him on Gerald's account. The funeral, and Alfred's departure for the army, have left me little time to arrange my thoughts on that subject. But I have now formed definite plans, that I propose we should this evening talk over at Blumenthal's." When the sisters met, and the girls had gone to another room to talk over their lessons, and imagine what Alfred was then doing, Mr. King began to speak of George Falkner. Rosa said: "My first wish is to go to New Rochelle and bring home Henriet. She ought to be educated in a degree somewhat suitable to her husband's prospects. I will teach her to read and write, and give her lessons on the piano." "I think that would prove too much for your finely attuned musical nerves," rejoined her husband. "Do you suppose you are going to make _all_ the sacrifices?" responded she, smiling. "It isn't at all like you to wish to engross everything to yourself." "Rosa has a predilection for penance," remarked Flora; "and if she listens daily to a beginner knocking the scales up hill and down hill, I think it will answer instead of walking to Jerusalem with peas in her shoes." "Before I mention my plans, I should like to hear your view of the subject, Blumenthal," said Mr. King. His brother-in-law replied: "I think Rosa is right about taking charge of Henriet and educating her. But it seems to me the worst thing you could do for her or her husband would be to let them know that they have a claim to riches. Sudden wealth is apt to turn the heads of much older people than they are; and having been brought up as slaves, their danger would be greatly increased. If Henriet could be employed to sew for you, she might be gratified with easy work and generous wages, while you watched over her morals, and furnished her with opportunities to improve her mind. If George survives the war, some employment with a comfortable salary might be provided for him, with a promise to advance him according to his industry and general good habits. How does that strike you, Mamita?" "I agree perfectly with you," rejoined Mrs. Delano. "I think it would be far more prudent to have their characters formed by habits of exertion and self-reliance, before they are informed that they are rich." "It gratifies me to have my own judgment thus confirmed," said Mr. King. "You have given the outlines of a plan I had already formed. But this judicious process must not, of course, deprive the young man of a single cent that is due to him. You are aware that Mr. Bell left fifty thousand dollars to his grandson, to be paid when he was twenty-two years of age. I have already invested that sum for George, and placed it in the care of Mr. Percival, with directions that the interest shall be added to it from that date. The remainder of Mr. Bell's property, with the exception of some legacies, was unreservedly left to his daughter. I have taken some pains to ascertain the amount, and I shall add a codicil to my will leaving an equal sum to George. If I survive Mrs. Fitzgerald, the interest on it will date from her decease; and I shall take the best legal advice as to the means of securing her property from any claims, by George or his heirs, after they are informed of the whole story, as they will be whenever Mrs. Fitzgerald dies." "You are rightly named Royal King," rejoined Mr. Blumenthal, "you do things in such princely style." "In a style better than that of most royal kings," replied he, "for it is simply that of an honest man. If this entanglement had never happened, I should have done as much for Gerald; and let me do what I will, Eulalia will have more money than is good for her. Besides, I rather expect this arrangement will prove a benefit to myself. I intend to employ the young man as one of my agents in Europe; and if he shows as much enterprise and perseverance in business as he did in escaping from slavery, he will prove an excellent partner for me when increasing years diminish my own energies. I would gladly adopt him, and have him live with us; but I doubt whether such a great and sudden change of condition would prove salutary, and his having a colored wife would put obstructions in his way entirely beyond our power to remove. But the strongest objection to it is, that such an arrangement would greatly annoy Mrs. Fitzgerald, whose happiness we are bound to consult in every possible way." "Has she been informed that the young man is found?" inquired Mrs. Delano. "No," replied Mr. King. "It occurred very near the time of Gerald's death; and we deem it unkind to disturb her mind about it for some months to come." * * * * * The next week, Mr. and Mrs. King started for New York, and thence proceeded to New Rochelle. Following the directions they had received, they hired a carriage at the steamboat-landing, to convey them to a farm-house a few miles distant. As they approached the designated place, they saw a slender man, in drab-colored clothes, lowering a bucket into the well. Mr. King alighted, and inquired, "Is this Mr. Houseman's farm, sir?" "My name is Joseph Houseman," replied the Quaker. "I am usually called Friend Joseph." Mr. King returned to the carriage, and saying, "This is the place," he assisted his lady to alight. Returning to the farmer, he said: "We have come to ask you about a young colored woman, named Henriet Falkner. Her husband rendered service to a dear young friend of ours in the army, and we would be glad to repay the obligation by kindness to her." "Walk in," said the Quaker. He showed them into a neat, plainly furnished parlor. "Where art thou from?" he inquired. "From Boston," was the reply. "What is thy name?" "Mr. King." "All men are called Mister," rejoined the Quaker. "What is thy given name?" "My name is Alfred Royal King; and this is my wife, Rosa King." "Hast thou brought a letter from the woman's husband?" inquired Friend Joseph. "No," replied Mr. King. "I saw George Falkner in Washington, a fortnight ago, when I went to seek the body of our young friend; but I did not then think of coming here. If you doubt me, you can write to William Lloyd Garrison or Wendell Phillips, and inquire of them whether Alfred R. King is capable of deceiving." "I like thy countenance, Friend Alfred, and I think thou art honest," rejoined the Quaker; "but where colored people are concerned, I have known very polite and fair-spoken men to tell falsehoods." Mr. King smiled as he answered: "I commend your caution, Friend Joseph. I see how it is. You suspect we may be slaveholders in disguise. But slaveholders are just now too busy seeking to destroy this Republic to have any time to hunt fugitives; and when they have more leisure, my opinion is they will find that occupation gone." "I should have more hope of that," replied the farmer, "if there was not so much pro-slavery here at the North. And thee knows that the generals of the United States are continually sending back fugitive slaves to bleed under the lash of their taskmasters." "I honor your scruples, Friend Joseph," responded Mr. King; "and that they may be completely removed, we will wait at the Metropolitan in New York until you have received letters from Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips. And lest you should think I may have assumed the name of another, I will give you these to enclose in your letter." He opened his pocket-book and took out two photographs. "I shall ask to have them sent back to me," replied the farmer; "for I should like to keep a likeness of thee and thy Rosa. They will be pleasant to look upon. As soon as I receive an answer, Friend Alfred, I will call upon thee at the Metropolitan." "We shall be pleased to see you, Friend Joseph," said Rosa, with one of her sweetest smiles, which penetrated the Quaker's soul, as sunshine does the receptive earth. Yet, when the carriage had rolled away, he harnessed his sleek horses to the wagon, and conveyed Henriet and her babe to the house of a Friend at White Plains, till he ascertained whether these stylish-looking strangers were what they professed to be. A few days afterward, Friend Joseph called at the Metropolitan. When he inquired for the wealthy Bostonian, the waiter stared at his plain dress, and said, "Your card, sir." "I have no card," replied the farmer. "Tell him Friend Joseph wishes to see him." The waiter returned, saying, "Walk this way, sir," and showed him into the elegant reception-room. As he sat there, another servant, passing through, looked at him, and said, "All gentlemen take off their hats in this room, sir." "That may be," quietly replied the Quaker; "but all _men_ do not, for thee sees I keep mine on." The entrance of Mr. King, and his cordial salutation, made an impression on the waiters' minds; and when Friend Joseph departed, they opened the door very obsequiously. The result of the conference was that Mr. and Mrs. King returned to Boston with Henriet and her little one. Tulee had proved in many ways that her discretion might be trusted; and it was deemed wisest to tell her the whole story of the babe, who had been carried to the calaboose with her when Mr. Bruteman's agent seized her. This confidence secured her as a firm friend and ally of Henriet, while her devoted attachment to Mrs. King rendered her secrecy certain. When black Chloe saw the newcomer learning to play on the piano, she was somewhat jealous because the same privilege had not been offered to her children. "I didn't know Missy Rosy tought thar war sech a mighty difference 'tween black an' brown," said she. "I don't see nothin' so drefful pooty in dat ar molasses color." "Now ye shut up," rejoined Tulee. "Missy Rosy knows what she's 'bout. Ye see Mr. Fitzgerald was in love with Missy Eulaly; an' Henret's husban' took care o' him when he was dying. Mr. King is going to send him 'cross the water on some gran' business, to pay him for 't; and Missy Rosy wants his wife to be 'spectable out there 'mong strangers." Henriet proved good-natured and unassuming, and, with occasional patronage from Tulee, she was generally able to keep her little boat in smooth water. When she had been there a few months Mr. King enclosed to Mrs. Fitzgerald the letters Gerald had written about George; and a few days afterward he called to explain fully what he had done, and what he intended to do. That lady's dislike for her rival was much diminished since there was no Gerald to excite her jealousy of divided affection. There was some perturbation in her manner, but she received her visitor with great politeness; and when he had finished his statement she said: "I have great respect for your motives and your conduct; and I am satisfied to leave everything to your good judgment and kind feelings. I have but one request to make. It is that this young man may never know he is my son." "Your wishes shall be respected," replied Mr. King. "But he so strongly resembles Gerald, that, if you should ever visit Europe again, you might perhaps like to see him, if you only recognized him as a relative of your husband." The lady's face flushed as she answered promptly: "No, sir. I shall never recognize any person as a relative who has a colored wife. Much as I loved Gerald, I would never have seen him again if he had formed such an alliance; not even if his wife were the most beautiful and accomplished creature that ever walked the earth." "You are treading rather closely upon _me_, Mrs. Fitzgerald," rejoined Mr. King, smiling. The lady seemed embarrassed, and said she had forgotten Mrs. King's origin. "Your son's wife is not so far removed from a colored ancestry as mine is," rejoined Mr. King; "but I think you would soon forget her origin, also, if you were in a country where others did not think of it. I believe our American prejudice against color is one of what Carlyle calls 'the phantom dynasties.'" "It may be so," she replied coldly; "but I do not wish to be convinced of it." And Mr. King bowed good morning. A week or two after this interview, Mrs. Fitzgerald called upon Mrs. King; for, after all, she felt a certain sort of attraction in the secret history that existed between them; and she was unwilling to have the world suppose her acquaintance had been dropped by so distinguished a lady. By inadvertence of the servant at the door, she was shown into the parlor while Henriet was there, with her child on the floor, receiving directions concerning some muslin flounces she was embroidering. Upon the entrance of a visitor, she turned to take up her infant and depart. But Mrs. King said, "Leave little Hetty here, Mrs. Falkner, till you bring my basket for me to select the floss you need." Hetty, being thus left alone, scrambled up, and toddled toward Mrs. King, as if accustomed to an affectionate reception. The black curls that clustered round her yellow face shook, as her uncertain steps hastened to a place of refuge; and when she leaned against her friend's lap, a pretty smile quivered on her coral lips, and lighted up her large dark eyes. Mrs. Fitzgerald looked at her with a strange mixture of feelings. "Don't you think she's a pretty little creature?" asked Mrs. King. "She might be pretty if the yellow could be washed off," replied Mrs. Fitzgerald. "Her cheeks are nearly the color of your hair," rejoined Mrs. King; "and I always thought that beautiful." Mrs. Fitzgerald glanced at the mirror, and sighed as she said: "Ah, yes. My hair used to be thought very pretty when I was young; but I can see that it begins to fade." When Henriet returned and took the child, she looked at her very curiously. She was thinking to herself, "What _would_ my father say?" But she asked no questions, and made no remark. She had joined a circle of ladies who were sewing and knitting for the soldiers; and after some talk about the difficulty she had found in learning to knit socks, and how fashionable it was for everybody to knit now, she rose to take leave. CHAPTER XXXVIII. The months passed on, and brought ever-recurring demands for more soldiers. Mr. King watched the progress of the struggle with the deepest anxiety. One day, when he had seen a new regiment depart for the South, he returned home in a still more serious mood than was now habitual to him. After supper, he opened the Evening Transcript, and read for a while. Then turning to his wife, who sat near him knitting for the army, he said, "Dear Rosabella, during all the happy years that I have been your husband, you have never failed to encourage me in every good impulse, and I trust you will strengthen me now." With a trembling dread of what was coming, she asked, "What is it, dear Alfred." "Rosa, this Republic _must_ be saved," replied he, with solemn emphasis. "It is the day-star of hope to the toiling masses of the world, and it _must_ not go out in darkness. It is not enough for me to help with money. I ought to go and sustain our soldiers by cheering words and a brave example. It fills me with shame and indignation when I think that all this peril has been brought upon us by that foul system which came so near making a wreck of _you_, my precious one, as it has wrecked thousands of pure and gentle souls. I foresee that this war is destined, by mere force of circumstances, to rid the Republic of that deadly incubus. Rosa, are you not willing to give me up for the safety of the country, and the freedom of your mother's race?" She tried to speak, but utterance failed her. After a struggle with herself, she said: "Do you realize how hard is a soldier's life? You will break down under it, dear Alfred; for you have been educated in ease and luxury." "My education is not finished," replied he, smiling, as he looked round on the elegant and luxurious apartment. "What are all these comforts and splendors compared with the rescue of my country, and the redemption of an oppressed race? What is my life, compared with the life of this Republic? Say, dearest, that you will give me willingly to this righteous cause." "Far rather would I give my own life," she said. "But I will never seek to trammel your conscience, Alfred." They spoke together tenderly of the past, and hopefully of the future; and then they knelt and prayed together. Some time was necessarily spent in making arrangements for the comfort and safety of the family during his absence; and when those were completed, he also went forth to rescue Liberty from the jaws of the devouring dragon. When he bade farewell to Flora's family, he said: "Look after my precious ones, Blumenthal; and if I never return, see to it that Percival carries out all my plans with regard to George Falkner." Eight or ten weeks later, Alfred Blumenthal was lying in a hospital at Washington, dangerously wounded and burning with fever. His father and mother and Mrs. Delano immediately went to him; and the women remained until the trembling balance between life and death was determined in his favor. The soldier's life, which he at first dreaded, had become familiar to him, and he found a terrible sort of excitement in its chances and dangers. Mrs. Delano sighed to observe that the gentle expression of his countenance, so like the Alfred of her memory, was changing to a sterner manhood. It was harder than the first parting to send him forth again into the fiery hail of battle; but they put strong constraint upon themselves, and tried to perform bravely their part in the great drama. That visit to his suffering but uncomplaining son made a strong impression on the mind of Mr. Blumenthal. He became abstracted and restless. One evening, as he sat leaning his head on his hand, Flora said, "What are you thinking of, Florimond?" He answered: "I am thinking, dear, of the agony I suffered when I hadn't money to save you from the auction-block; and I am thinking how the same accursed system is striving to perpetuate and extend itself. The Republic has need of all her sons to stop its ravages; and I feel guilty in staying here, while our Alfred is so heroically offering up his young life in the cause of freedom." "I have dreaded this," she said. "I have seen for days that it was coming. But, O Florimond, it is hard." She hid her face in his bosom, and he felt her heart beat violently, while he talked concerning the dangers and duties of the time. Mrs. Delano bowed her head over the soldier's sock she was knitting, and tears dropped on it while she listened to them. The weight that lay so heavily upon their souls was suddenly lifted up for a time by the entrance of Joe Bright. He came in with a radiant face, and, bowing all round, said, "I've come to bid you good by; I'm going to defend the old flag." He lifted up his voice and sang, "'Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave!" Flora went to the piano, and accompanied him with instrument and voice. Her husband soon struck in; and Rosen Blumen and Lila left their lessons to perform their part in the spirit-stirring strain. When they had sung the last line, Mr. Bright, without pausing to take breath, struck into "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," and they followed his lead. He put on all his steam when he came to the verse, "By our country's woes and pains, By our sons in servile chains, We will drain our dearest veins, But they _shall_ be free!" He emphasized the word _shall_, and brought his clenched hand down upon the table so forcibly, that the shade over the gas-light shook. In the midst of it, Mrs. Delano stole out of the room. She had a great respect and liking for Mr. Bright, but he was sometimes rather too demonstrative to suit her taste. He was too much carried away with enthusiasm to notice her noiseless retreat, and he went on to the conclusion of his song with unabated energy. All earnestness is magnetic. Mr. and Mrs. Blumenthal, and even the children, caught his spirit. When the song ended, Mr. Blumenthal drew a long breath, and said: "One needs strong lungs to accompany you, Mr. Bright. You sang that like the tramp of a regiment." "And you blazed away like an explosion of artillery," rejoined he. "The fact is," replied Blumenthal. "the war spirit pervades the air, and I've caught it. I'm going to join the army." "Are you?" exclaimed Mr. Bright, seizing his hand with so tight a grip that it made him wince. "I hope you'll be my captain." Mr. Blumenthal rubbed his hand, and smiled as he said, "I pity the Rebel that you get hold of, Mr. Bright." "Ask your pardon. Ask your pardon," rejoined he. "But speaking of the tramp of a regiment, here it goes!" And he struck up "John Brown's Hallelujah." They put their souls into it in such a manner, that the spirit of the brave old martyr seemed marching all through it. When it came to a conclusion, Mr. Bright remarked: "Only to think how that incendiary song is sung in Boston streets, and in the parlors too, when only little more than a year ago a great mob was yelling after Wendell Phillips, for speaking on the anniversary of John Brown's execution. I said then the fools would get enough of slavery before they'd done with it; and I reckon they're beginning to find it out, not only the rowdies, but the nabobs that set 'em on. War ain't a blessing, but it's a mighty great teacher; that's a fact. No wonder the slavites hated Phillips. He aims sure and hits hard. No use in trying to pass off shams upon _him_. If you bring him anything that ain't real mahogany, his blows'll be sure to make the veneering fly. But I'm staying too long. I only looked in to tell you I was going." He glanced round for Mrs. Delano, and added: "I'm afraid I sung too loud for that quiet lady. The fact is, I'm full of fight." "That's what the times demand," replied Mr. Blumenthal. They bade him "Good night," and smiled at each other to hear his strong voice, as it receded in the distance, still singing, "His soul is marching on." "Now I will go to Mamita," said Flora. "Her gentle spirit suffers in these days. This morning, when she saw a company of soldiers marching by, and heard the boys hurrahing, she said to me so piteously, 'O Flora, these are wild times.' Poor Mamita! she's like a dove in a tornado." "_You_ seemed to be strong as an eagle while you were singing," responded her husband. "I felt like a drenched humming-bird when Mr. Bright came in," rejoined she; "but he and the music together lifted me up into the blue, as your Germans say." "And from that height can you say to me, 'Obey the call of duty, Florimond'?" She put her little hand in his and answered, "I can. May God protect us all!" Then, turning to her children, she said: "I am going to bring Mamita; and presently, when I go away to be alone with papa a little while, I want you to do everything to make the evening pleasant for Mamita. You know she likes to hear you sing, 'Now Phoebus sinketh in the west.'" "And I will play that Nocturne of Mendelssohn's that she likes so much," replied Rosen Blumen. "She says I play it almost as well as Aunt Rosa." "And she likes to hear me sing, 'Once on a time there was a king,'" said Lila. "She says she heard _you_ singing it in the woods a long time ago, when she hadn't anybody to call her Mamita." "Very well, my children," replied their mother. "Do everything you can to make Mamita happy; for there will never be such another Mamita." * * * * * During the anxious months that followed Mr. Blumenthal's departure, the sisters and their families were almost daily at the rooms of the Sanitary Commission, sewing, packing, or writing. Henriet had become expert with the sewing-machine, and was very efficient help; and even Tulee, though far from skilful with her needle, contrived to make dozens of hospital slippers, which it was the pride of her heart to deliver to the ladies of the Commission. Chloe added her quota of socks, often elephantine in shape, and sometimes oddly decorated with red tops and toes; but with a blessing for "the boys in blue" running through all the threads. There is no need to say how eagerly they watched for letters, and what a relief it was to recognize the writing of beloved hands, feeling each time that it might be the last. Mr. King kept up occasional correspondence with the officers of George Falkner's company, and sent from time to time favorable reports of his bravery and good habits. Henriet received frequent letters from him, imperfectly spelled, but full of love and loyalty. Two years after Mr. King left his happy home, he was brought back with a Colonel's shoulder-strap, but with his right leg gone, and his right arm in a sling. When the first joy of reunion had expressed itself in caresses and affectionate words, he said to Rosa, "You see what a cripple you have for a husband." "I make the same reply the English girl did to Commodore Barclay," she replied; "'You're dear as ever to me, so long as there's body enough to hold the soul,'" Eulalia wept tears of joy on her father's neck, while Flora, and Rosen Blumen, and Lila clasped their arms round him, and Tulee stood peeping in at the door, waiting for her turn to welcome the hero home. "Flora, you see my dancing days are over," said the Colonel. "Never mind, I'll do your dancing," she replied. "Rosen Blumen, play uncle's favorite waltz." She passed her arm round Eulalia, and for a few moments they revolved round the room to the circling music. She had so long been called the life of the family, that she tried to keep up her claim to the title. But her present mirthfulness was assumed; and it was contrary to her nature to act a part. She kissed her hand to her brother-in-law, and smiled as she whirled out of the room; but she ran up stairs and pressed the tears back, as she murmured to herself, "Ah, if I could only be sure Florimond and Alfred would come back, even mutilated as he is!" CHAPTER XXXIX. Another year brought with it what was supposed to be peace, and the army was disbanded. Husband and son returned alive and well, and Flora was her young self again. In the exuberance of her joy she seemed more juvenile than her girls; jumping from husband to son and from son to husband, kissing them and calling them all manner of pet names; embracing Mrs. Delano at intervals, and exclaiming, "O Mamita, here we are all together again! I wish my arms were long enough to hug you all at once." "I thank God, my child, for your sake and for my own," replied Mrs. Delano. She looked at Alfred, as she spoke, and the affectionate glance he returned filled her heart with a deep and quiet joy. The stern shadow of war vanished from his face in the sunshine of home, and she recognized the same gentle expression that had been photographed on her memory long years ago. When the family from Beacon Street came, a few minutes later, with welcomes and congratulations, Alfred bestowed a different sort of glance on his cousin Eulalia, and they both blushed; as young people often do, without knowing the reason why. Rosen Blumen and Lila had been studying with her the language of their father's country; and when the general fervor had somewhat abated, the girls manifested some disposition to show off the accomplishment. "Do hear them calling Alfred _Mein lieber bruder_," said Flora to her husband, "while Rosa and I are sprinkling them all with pet names in French and Spanish. What a polyglot family we are! as _cher papa_ used to say. But, Florimond, did you notice anything peculiar in the meeting between Alfred and Eulalia?" "I thought I did," he replied. "How will Brother King like it?" she asked. "He thinks very highly of Alfred; but you know he has a theory against the marriage of cousins." "So have I," answered Blumenthal; "but nations and races have been pretty thoroughly mixed up in the ancestry of our children. What with African and French, Spanish, American, and German, I think the dangers of too close relationship are safely diminished." "They are a good-looking set, between you and I," said Flora; "though they _are_ oddly mixed up. See Eulalia, with her great blue eyes, and her dark eyebrows and eyelashes. Rosen Blumen looks just like a handsome Italian girl. No one would think Lila Blumen was her sister, with her German blue eyes, and that fine frizzle of curly light hair. Your great-grandmother gave her the flax, and I suppose mine did the frizzling." This side conversation was interrupted by Mr. King's saying: "Blumenthal, you haven't asked for news concerning Mrs. Fitzgerald. You know Mr. Green has been a widower for some time. Report says that he finds in her company great consolation for the death of her cousin." "That's what I call a capital arrangement," said Flora; "and I didn't mean any joke about their money, either. Won't they sympathize grandly? Won't she be in her element? Top notch. No end to balls and parties; and a coat of arms on the coach." "The news made me very glad," observed Rosa; "for the thought of her loneliness always cast a shadow over my happiness." "Even _they_ have grown a little during the war," rejoined Mr. King. "Nabob Green, as they call him, did actually contribute money for the raising of colored regiments. He so far abated his prejudice as to be willing that negroes should have the honor of being shot in his stead; and Mrs. Fitzgerald agreed with him. That was a considerable advance, you must admit." They went on for some time talking over news, public and private; not omitting the prospects of Tom's children, and the progress of Tulee's. But such family chats are like the showers of manna, delicious as they fall, but incapable of preservation. The first evening the families met at the house in Beacon Street, Mr. Blumenthal expressed a wish to see Henriet, and she was summoned. The improvement in her appearance impressed him greatly. Having lived three years with kindly and judicious friends, who never reminded her, directly or indirectly, that she was a black sheep in the social flock, her faculties had developed freely and naturally; and belonging to an imitative race, she readily adopted the language and manners of those around her. Her features were not handsome, with the exception of her dark, liquid-looking eyes; and her black hair was too crisp to make a soft shading for her brown forehead. But there was a winning expression of gentleness in her countenance, and a pleasing degree of modest ease in her demeanor. A map, which she had copied very neatly, was exhibited, and a manuscript book of poems, of her own selection, written very correctly, in a fine flowing hand. "Really, this is encouraging," said Mr. Blumenthal, as she left the room. "If half a century of just treatment and free schools can bring them all up to this level, our battles will not be in vain, and we shall deserve to rank among the best benefactors of the country; to say nothing of a corresponding improvement in the white population." "Thitherward is Providence leading us," replied Mr. King. "Not unto us, but unto God, be all the glory. We were all of us working for better than we knew." * * * * * Mr. King had written to George Falkner, to inform him of a situation he had in store for him at Marseilles, and to request a previous meeting in New York, as soon as he could obtain his discharge from the army; being in this, as in all other arrangements, delicately careful to avoid giving annoyance to Mrs. Fitzgerald. In talking this over with his wife, he said: "I consider it a duty to go to Marseilles with him. It will give us a chance to become acquainted with each other; it will shield him from possible impertinences on the passage, on Henriet's account; and it will be an advantage to him to be introduced as my friend to the American Consul, and some commercial gentlemen of my acquaintance." "I am to go with you, am I not?" asked Rosa. "I am curious to see this young man, from whom I parted, so unconscious of all the strange future, when he was a baby in Tulee's arms." "I think you had better not go, dear," he replied; "though the loss of your company will deprive me of a great pleasure. Eulalia would naturally wish to go with us; and as she knows nothing of George's private history, it would be unwise to excite her curiosity by introducing her to such a striking likeness of Gerald. But she might stay with Rosen Blumen while you go to New York and remain with me till the vessel sails. If I meet with no accidents, I shall return in three months; for I go merely to give George a fair start, though, when there, I shall have an eye to some other business, and take a run to Italy to look in upon our good old friends, Madame and the Signor." The journey to New York was made at the appointed time, in company with Henriet and her little one. George had risen to the rank of lieutenant in the army, and had acquired a military bearing that considerably increased the manliness of his appearance. He was browned by exposure to sun and wind; but he so strongly resembled her handsome Gerald, that Rosa longed to clasp him to her heart. His wife's appearance evidently took him by surprise. "How you have changed!" he exclaimed. "What a lady you are! I can hardly believe this is the little Hen I used to make mud pies with." She laughed as she answered: "You are changed, too. If I have improved, it is owing to these kind friends. Only think of it, George, though Mrs. King is such a handsome and grand lady, she always called me Mrs. Falkner." Mrs. King made several appropriate parting presents to Henriet and little Hetty. To George she gave a gold watch, and a very beautiful colored photograph of Gerald, in a morocco case, as a souvenir of their brief friendship in the army. Mr. King availed himself of every hour of the voyage to gain the confidence of the young man, and to instil some salutary lessons into his very receptive mind. After they had become well acquainted, he said: "I have made an estimate of what I think it will be necessary for you to spend for rent, food, and clothing; also of what I think it would be wise for you to spend in improving your education, and for occasional amusements. I have not done this in the spirit of dictation, my young friend, but merely with the wish of helping you by my greater experience of life. It is important that you should learn to write a good commercial hand, and also acquire, as soon as possible, a very thorough knowledge of the French language. For these you should employ the best teachers that can be found. Your wife can help you in many ways. She has learned to spell correctly, to read with fluency and expression, and to play quite well on the piano. You will find it very profitable to read good books aloud to each other. I advise you not to go to places of amusement oftener than once a fortnight, and always to choose such places as will be suitable and pleasant for your wife. I like that young men in my employ should never taste intoxicating drinks, or use tobacco in any form. Both those habits are expensive, and I have long ago abjured them as injurious to health." The young man bowed, and replied, "I will do as you wish in all respects, sir; I should be very ungrateful if I did not." "I shall give you eight hundred dollars for the first year," resumed Mr. King; "and shall increase your salary year by year, according to your conduct and capabilities. If you are industrious, temperate, and economical, there is no reason why you should not become a rich man in time; and it will be wise for you to educate yourself, your wife, and your children, with a view to the station you will have it in your power to acquire. If you do your best, you may rely upon my influence and my fatherly interest to help you all I can." The young man colored, and, after a little embarrassed hesitation, said: "You spoke of a fatherly interest, sir; and that reminds me that I never had a father. May I ask whether you know anything about my parents?" Mr. King had anticipated the possibility of such a question, and he replied: "I will tell you who your father was, if you will give a solemn promise never to ask a single question about your mother. On that subject I have given a pledge of secrecy which it would be dishonorable for me to break. Only this much I will say, that neither of your parents was related to me in any degree, or connected with me in any way." The young man answered, that he was of course very desirous to know his whole history, but would be glad to obtain any information, and was willing to give the required promise, which he would most religiously keep. Mr. King then went on to say: "Your father was Mr. Gerald Fitzgerald, a planter in Georgia. You have a right to his name, and I will so introduce you to my friends, if you wish it. He inherited a handsome fortune, but lost it all by gambling and other forms of dissipation. He had several children by various mothers. You and the Gerald with whom you became acquainted were brothers by the father's side. You are unmixed white; but you were left in the care of a negro nurse, and one of your father's creditors seized you both, and sold you into slavery. Until a few months before you were acquainted with Gerald, it was supposed that you died in infancy; and for that reason no efforts were made to redeem you. Circumstances which I am not at liberty to explain led to the discovery that you were living, and that Gerald had learned your history as a slave. I feel the strongest sympathy with your misfortunes, and cherish a lively gratitude for your kindness to my young friend Gerald. All that I have told you is truth; and if it were in my power, I would most gladly tell you the _whole_ truth." The young man listened with the deepest interest; and, having expressed his thanks, said he should prefer to be called by his father's name; for he thought he should feel more like a man to bear a name to which he knew that he had a right. * * * * * When Mr. King again returned to his Boston home, as soon as the first eager salutations were over, he exclaimed: "How the room is decorated with vines and flowers! It reminds me of that dear floral parlor in New Orleans." "Didn't you telegraph that you were coming? And is it not your birthday?" inquired his wife. He kissed her, and said: "Well, Rosabella, I think you may now have a tranquil mind; for I believe things have been so arranged that no one is very seriously injured by that act of frenzy which has caused you so much suffering. George will not be deprived of any of his pecuniary rights; and he is in a fair way to become more of a man than he would have been if he had been brought up in luxury. He and Henriet are as happy in their prospects as two mortals well can be. Gerald enjoyed his short life; and was more bewildered than troubled by the discovery that he had two mothers. Eulalia was a tender, romantic memory to him; and such, I think, he has become to our child. I don't believe Mrs. Fitzgerald suffered much more than annoyance. Gerald was always the same to her as a son; and if he had been really so, he would probably have gone to the war, and have run the same chance of being killed." "Ah, Alfred," she replied, "I should never have found my way out of that wretched entanglement if it had not been for you. You have really acted toward me the part of Divine Providence. It makes me ashamed that I have not been able to do anything in atonement for my own fault, except the pain I suffered in giving up my Gerald to his Lily-mother. When I think how that poor babe became enslaved by my act, I long to sell my diamonds, and use the money to build school-houses for the freedmen." "Those diamonds seem to trouble you, dearest," rejoined he, smiling. "I have no objection to your selling them. You become them, and they become you; but I think school-houses will shine as brighter jewels in the better world." Here Flora came in with all her tribe; and when the welcomes were over, her first inquiries were for Madame and the Signor. "They are well," replied Mr. King, "and they seem to be as contented as tabbies on a Wilton rug. They show signs of age, of course. The Signor has done being peppery, and Madame's energy has visibly abated; but her mind is as lively as ever. I wish I could remember half the stories she repeated about the merry pranks of your childhood. She asked a great many questions about _Jolie Manon_; and she laughed till she cried while she described, in dramatic style, how you crazed the poor bird with imitations, till she called you _Joli petit diable_" "How I wish I had known mamma then! How funny she must have been!" exclaimed Lila. "I think you have heard some performances of hers that were equally funny," rejoined Mrs. Delano. "I used to be entertained with a variety of them; especially when we were in Italy. If any of the _pifferari_ went by, she would imitate the drone of their bagpipes in a manner irresistibly comic. And if she saw a peasant-girl dancing, she forthwith went through the performance to the life." "Yes, Mamita," responded Flora; "and you know I fancied myself a great musical composer in those days,--a sort of feminine Mozart; but the _qui vive_ was always the key I composed in." "I used to think the fairies helped you about that, as well as other things," replied Mrs. Delano. "I think the fairies help her now," said Mr. Blumenthal; "and well they may, for she is of their kith and kin." This playful trifling was interrupted by the sound of the folding-doors rolling apart; and in the brilliantly lighted adjoining room a tableau became visible, in honor of the birthday. Under festoons of the American flag, surmounted by the eagle, stood Eulalia, in ribbons of red, white, and blue, with a circle of stars round her head. One hand upheld the shield of the Union, and in the other the scales of Justice were evenly poised. By her side stood Rosen Blumen, holding in one hand a gilded pole surmounted by a liberty-cap, while her other hand rested protectingly on the head of Tulee's Benny, who was kneeling and looking upward in thanksgiving. Scarcely had the vision appeared before Joe Bright's voice was heard leading invisible singers through the tune "Hail to the Chief," which Alfred Blumenthal accompanied with a piano. As they sang the last line the striped festoons fell and veiled the tableau. Then Mr. Bright, who had returned a captain, appeared with his company, consisting of Tom and Chloe with their children, and Tulee with her children, singing a parody composed by himself, of which the chorus was:-- "Blow ye the trumpet abroad o'er the sea, Columbia has triumphed, the negro is free! Praise to the God of our fathers! 'twas He, Jehovah, that triumphed, Columbia, through thee." To increase the effect, the director of ceremonies had added a flourish of trumpets behind the scenes. Then the colored band came forward, hand in hand, and sang together, with a will, Whittier's immortal "Boat Song":-- "We own de hoe, we own de plough, We own de hands dat hold; We sell de pig, we sell de cow; But nebber _chile_ be sold. De yam will grow, de cotton blow, We'll hab de rice an' corn: O, nebber you fear, if nebber you hear De driver blow his horn!" All the family, of all ages and colors, then joined in singing "The Star-spangled Banner"; and when Mr. King had shaken hands with them all, they adjourned to the breakfast-room, where refreshments were plentifully provided. At last Mr. Bright said: "I don't want to bid you good night, friends; but I must. I don't generally like to go among Boston folks. Just look at the trees on the Common. They're dying because they've rolled the surface of the ground so smooth. That's just the way in Boston, I reckon. They take so much pains to make the surface smooth, that it kills the roots o' things. But when I come here, or go to Mrs. Blumenthal's, I feel as if the roots o' things wa'n't killed. Good night, friends. I haven't enjoyed myself so well since I found Old Hundred and Yankee Doodle in the Harmolinks." The sound of his whistling died away in the streets; the young people went off to talk over their festival; the colored troop retired to rest; and the elders of the two families sat together in the stillness, holding sweet converse concerning the many strange experiences that had been so richly crowned with blessings. A new surprise awaited them, prepared by the good taste of Mr. Blumenthal. A German Liederkrantz in the hall closed the ceremonies of the night with Mendelssohn's "Song of Praise." 
472	----	THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS BY CHARLES W. CHESNUTT CONTENTS I A STRANGER FROM SOUTH CAROLINA II AN EVENING VISIT III THE OLD JUDGE IV DOWN THE RIVER V THE TOURNAMENT VI THE QUEEN OF LOVE AND BEAUTY VII 'MID NEW SURROUNDINGS VIII THE COURTSHIP IX DOUBTS AND FEARS X THE DREAM XI A LETTER AND A JOURNEY XII TRYON GOES TO PATESVILLE XIII AN INJUDICIOUS PAYMENT XIV A LOYAL FRIEND XV MINE OWN PEOPLE XVI THE BOTTOM FALLS OUT XVII TWO LETTERS XVIII UNDER THE OLD REGIME XIX GOD MADE US ALL XX DIGGING UP ROOTS XXI A GILDED OPPORTUNITY XXII IMPERATIVE BUSINESS XXIII THE GUEST OF HONOR XXIV SWING YOUR PARTNERS XXV BALANCE ALL XXVI THE SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE WOODS XXVII AN INTERESTING ACQUAINTANCE XXVIII THE LOST KNIFE XXIX PLATO EARNS HALF A DOLLAR XXX AN UNUSUAL HONOR XXXI IN DEEP WATERS XXXII THE POWER OF LOVE XXXIII A MULE AND A CART THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS I A STRANGER FROM SOUTH CAROLINA Time touches all things with destroying hand; and if he seem now and then to bestow the bloom of youth, the sap of spring, it is but a brief mockery, to be surely and swiftly followed by the wrinkles of old age, the dry leaves and bare branches of winter. And yet there are places where Time seems to linger lovingly long after youth has departed, and to which he seems loath to bring the evil day. Who has not known some even-tempered old man or woman who seemed to have drunk of the fountain of youth? Who has not seen somewhere an old town that, having long since ceased to grow, yet held its own without perceptible decline? Some such trite reflection--as apposite to the subject as most random reflections are--passed through the mind of a young man who came out of the front door of the Patesville Hotel about nine o'clock one fine morning in spring, a few years after the Civil War, and started down Front Street toward the market-house. Arriving at the town late the previous evening, he had been driven up from the steamboat in a carriage, from which he had been able to distinguish only the shadowy outlines of the houses along the street; so that this morning walk was his first opportunity to see the town by daylight. He was dressed in a suit of linen duck--the day was warm--a panama straw hat, and patent leather shoes. In appearance he was tall, dark, with straight, black, lustrous hair, and very clean-cut, high-bred features. When he paused by the clerk's desk on his way out, to light his cigar, the day clerk, who had just come on duty, glanced at the register and read the last entry:-- "'JOHN WARWICK, CLARENCE, SOUTH CAROLINA.' "One of the South Ca'lina bigbugs, I reckon--probably in cotton, or turpentine." The gentleman from South Carolina, walking down the street, glanced about him with an eager look, in which curiosity and affection were mingled with a touch of bitterness. He saw little that was not familiar, or that he had not seen in his dreams a hundred times during the past ten years. There had been some changes, it is true, some melancholy changes, but scarcely anything by way of addition or improvement to counterbalance them. Here and there blackened and dismantled walls marked the place where handsome buildings once had stood, for Sherman's march to the sea had left its mark upon the town. The stores were mostly of brick, two stories high, joining one another after the manner of cities. Some of the names on the signs were familiar; others, including a number of Jewish names, were quite unknown to him. A two minutes' walk brought Warwick--the name he had registered under, and as we shall call him--to the market-house, the central feature of Patesville, from both the commercial and the picturesque points of view. Standing foursquare in the heart of the town, at the intersection of the two main streets, a "jog" at each street corner left around the market-house a little public square, which at this hour was well occupied by carts and wagons from the country and empty drays awaiting hire. Warwick was unable to perceive much change in the market-house. Perhaps the surface of the red brick, long unpainted, had scaled off a little more here and there. There might have been a slight accretion of the moss and lichen on the shingled roof. But the tall tower, with its four-faced clock, rose as majestically and uncompromisingly as though the land had never been subjugated. Was it so irreconcilable, Warwick wondered, as still to peal out the curfew bell, which at nine o'clock at night had clamorously warned all negroes, slave or free, that it was unlawful for them to be abroad after that hour, under penalty of imprisonment or whipping? Was the old constable, whose chief business it had been to ring the bell, still alive and exercising the functions of his office, and had age lessened or increased the number of times that obliging citizens performed this duty for him during his temporary absences in the company of convivial spirits? A few moments later, Warwick saw a colored policeman in the old constable's place--a stronger reminder than even the burned buildings that war had left its mark upon the old town, with which Time had dealt so tenderly. The lower story of the market-house was open on all four of its sides to the public square. Warwick passed through one of the wide brick arches and traversed the building with a leisurely step. He looked in vain into the stalls for the butcher who had sold fresh meat twice a week, on market days, and he felt a genuine thrill of pleasure when he recognized the red bandana turban of old Aunt Lyddy, the ancient negro woman who had sold him gingerbread and fried fish, and told him weird tales of witchcraft and conjuration, in the old days when, as an idle boy, he had loafed about the market-house. He did not speak to her, however, or give her any sign of recognition. He threw a glance toward a certain corner where steps led to the town hall above. On this stairway he had once seen a manacled free negro shot while being taken upstairs for examination under a criminal charge. Warwick recalled vividly how the shot had rung out. He could see again the livid look of terror on the victim's face, the gathering crowd, the resulting confusion. The murderer, he recalled, had been tried and sentenced to imprisonment for life, but was pardoned by a merciful governor after serving a year of his sentence. As Warwick was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, he could not foresee that, thirty years later, even this would seem an excessive punishment for so slight a misdemeanor. Leaving the market-house, Warwick turned to the left, and kept on his course until he reached the next corner. After another turn to the right, a dozen paces brought him in front of a small weather-beaten frame building, from which projected a wooden sign-board bearing the inscription:-- ARCHIBALD STRAIGHT, LAWYER. He turned the knob, but the door was locked. Retracing his steps past a vacant lot, the young man entered a shop where a colored man was employed in varnishing a coffin, which stood on two trestles in the middle of the floor. Not at all impressed by the melancholy suggestiveness of his task, he was whistling a lively air with great gusto. Upon Warwick's entrance this effusion came to a sudden end, and the coffin-maker assumed an air of professional gravity. "Good-mawnin', suh," he said, lifting his cap politely. "Good-morning," answered Warwick. "Can you tell me anything about Judge Straight's office hours?" "De ole jedge has be'n a little onreg'lar sence de wah, suh; but he gin'ally gits roun' 'bout ten o'clock er so. He's be'n kin' er feeble fer de las' few yeahs. An' I reckon," continued the undertaker solemnly, his glance unconsciously seeking a row of fine caskets standing against the wall,--"I reckon he'll soon be goin' de way er all de earth. 'Man dat is bawn er 'oman hath but a sho't time ter lib, an' is full er mis'ry. He cometh up an' is cut down lack as a flower.' 'De days er his life is three-sco' an' ten'--an' de ole jedge is libbed mo' d'n dat, suh, by five yeahs, ter say de leas'." "'Death,'" quoted Warwick, with whose mood the undertaker's remarks were in tune, "'is the penalty that all must pay for the crime of living.'" "Dat 's a fac', suh, dat 's a fac'; so dey mus'--so dey mus'. An' den all de dead has ter be buried. An' we does ou' sheer of it, suh, we does ou' sheer. We conduc's de obs'quies er all de bes' w'ite folks er de town, suh." Warwick left the undertaker's shop and retraced his steps until he had passed the lawyer's office, toward which he threw an affectionate glance. A few rods farther led him past the old black Presbyterian church, with its square tower, embowered in a stately grove; past the Catholic church, with its many crosses, and a painted wooden figure of St. James in a recess beneath the gable; and past the old Jefferson House, once the leading hotel of the town, in front of which political meetings had been held, and political speeches made, and political hard cider drunk, in the days of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." The street down which Warwick had come intersected Front Street at a sharp angle in front of the old hotel, forming a sort of flatiron block at the junction, known as Liberty Point,--perhaps because slave auctions were sometimes held there in the good old days. Just before Warwick reached Liberty Point, a young woman came down Front Street from the direction of the market-house. When their paths converged, Warwick kept on down Front Street behind her, it having been already his intention to walk in this direction. Warwick's first glance had revealed the fact that the young woman was strikingly handsome, with a stately beauty seldom encountered. As he walked along behind her at a measured distance, he could not help noting the details that made up this pleasing impression, for his mind was singularly alive to beauty, in whatever embodiment. The girl's figure, he perceived, was admirably proportioned; she was evidently at the period when the angles of childhood were rounding into the promising curves of adolescence. Her abundant hair, of a dark and glossy brown, was neatly plaited and coiled above an ivory column that rose straight from a pair of gently sloping shoulders, clearly outlined beneath the light muslin frock that covered them. He could see that she was tastefully, though not richly, dressed, and that she walked with an elastic step that revealed a light heart and the vigor of perfect health. Her face, of course, he could not analyze, since he had caught only the one brief but convincing glimpse of it. The young woman kept on down Front Street, Warwick maintaining his distance a few rods behind her. They passed a factory, a warehouse or two, and then, leaving the brick pavement, walked along on mother earth, under a leafy arcade of spreading oaks and elms. Their way led now through a residential portion of the town, which, as they advanced, gradually declined from staid respectability to poverty, open and unabashed. Warwick observed, as they passed through the respectable quarter, that few people who met the girl greeted her, and that some others whom she passed at gates or doorways gave her no sign of recognition; from which he inferred that she was possibly a visitor in the town and not well acquainted. Their walk had continued not more than ten minutes when they crossed a creek by a wooden bridge and came to a row of mean houses standing flush with the street. At the door of one, an old black woman had stooped to lift a large basket, piled high with laundered clothes. The girl, as she passed, seized one end of the basket and helped the old woman to raise it to her head, where it rested solidly on the cushion of her head-kerchief. During this interlude, Warwick, though he had slackened his pace measurably, had so nearly closed the gap between himself and them as to hear the old woman say, with the dulcet negro intonation:-- "T'anky', honey; de Lawd gwine bless you sho'. You wuz alluz a good gal, and de Lawd love eve'ybody w'at he'p de po' ole nigger. You gwine ter hab good luck all yo' bawn days." "I hope you're a true prophet, Aunt Zilphy," laughed the girl in response. The sound of her voice gave Warwick a thrill. It was soft and sweet and clear--quite in harmony with her appearance. That it had a faint suggestiveness of the old woman's accent he hardly noticed, for the current Southern speech, including his own, was rarely without a touch of it. The corruption of the white people's speech was one element--only one--of the negro's unconscious revenge for his own debasement. The houses they passed now grew scattering, and the quarter of the town more neglected. Warwick felt himself wondering where the girl might be going in a neighborhood so uninviting. When she stopped to pull a half-naked negro child out of a mudhole and set him upon his feet, he thought she might be some young lady from the upper part of the town, bound on some errand of mercy, or going, perhaps, to visit an old servant or look for a new one. Once she threw a backward glance at Warwick, thus enabling him to catch a second glimpse of a singularly pretty face. Perhaps the young woman found his presence in the neighborhood as unaccountable as he had deemed hers; for, finding his glance fixed upon her, she quickened her pace with an air of startled timidity. "A woman with such a figure," thought Warwick, "ought to be able to face the world with the confidence of Phryne confronting her judges." By this time Warwick was conscious that something more than mere grace or beauty had attracted him with increasing force toward this young woman. A suggestion, at first faint and elusive, of something familiar, had grown stronger when he heard her voice, and became more and more pronounced with each rod of their advance; and when she stopped finally before a gate, and, opening it, went into a yard shut off from the street by a row of dwarf cedars, Warwick had already discounted in some measure the surprise he would have felt at seeing her enter there had he not walked down Front Street behind her. There was still sufficient unexpectedness about the act, however, to give him a decided thrill of pleasure. "It must be Rena," he murmured. "Who could have dreamed that she would blossom out like that? It must surely be Rena!" He walked slowly past the gate and peered through a narrow gap in the cedar hedge. The girl was moving along a sanded walk, toward a gray, unpainted house, with a steep roof, broken by dormer windows. The trace of timidity he had observed in her had given place to the more assured bearing of one who is upon his own ground. The garden walks were bordered by long rows of jonquils, pinks, and carnations, inclosing clumps of fragrant shrubs, lilies, and roses already in bloom. Toward the middle of the garden stood two fine magnolia-trees, with heavy, dark green, glistening leaves, while nearer the house two mighty elms shaded a wide piazza, at one end of which a honeysuckle vine, and at the other a Virginia creeper, running over a wooden lattice, furnished additional shade and seclusion. On dark or wintry days, the aspect of this garden must have been extremely sombre and depressing, and it might well have seemed a fit place to hide some guilty or disgraceful secret. But on the bright morning when Warwick stood looking through the cedars, it seemed, with its green frame and canopy and its bright carpet of flowers, an ideal retreat from the fierce sunshine and the sultry heat of the approaching summer. The girl stooped to pluck a rose, and as she bent over it, her profile was clearly outlined. She held the flower to her face with a long-drawn inhalation, then went up the steps, crossed the piazza, opened the door without knocking, and entered the house with the air of one thoroughly at home. "Yes," said the young man to himself, "it's Rena, sure enough." The house stood on a corner, around which the cedar hedge turned, continuing along the side of the garden until it reached the line of the front of the house. The piazza to a rear wing, at right angles to the front of the house, was open to inspection from the side street, which, to judge from its deserted look, seemed to be but little used. Turning into this street and walking leisurely past the back yard, which was only slightly screened from the street by a china-tree, Warwick perceived the young woman standing on the piazza, facing an elderly woman, who sat in a large rocking-chair, plying a pair of knitting-needles on a half-finished stocking. Warwick's walk led him within three feet of the side gate, which he felt an almost irresistible impulse to enter. Every detail of the house and garden was familiar; a thousand cords of memory and affection drew him thither; but a stronger counter-motive prevailed. With a great effort he restrained himself, and after a momentary pause, walked slowly on past the house, with a backward glance, which he turned away when he saw that it was observed. Warwick's attention had been so fully absorbed by the house behind the cedars and the women there, that he had scarcely noticed, on the other side of the neglected by-street, two men working by a large open window, in a low, rude building with a clapboarded roof, directly opposite the back piazza occupied by the two women. Both the men were busily engaged in shaping barrel-staves, each wielding a sharp-edged drawing-knife on a piece of seasoned oak clasped tightly in a wooden vise. "I jes' wonder who dat man is, an' w'at he 's doin' on dis street," observed the younger of the two, with a suspicious air. He had noticed the gentleman's involuntary pause and his interest in the opposite house, and had stopped work for a moment to watch the stranger as he went on down the street. "Nev' min' 'bout dat man," said the elder one. "You 'ten' ter yo' wuk an' finish dat bairl-stave. You spen's enti'ely too much er yo' time stretchin' yo' neck atter other people. An' you need n' 'sturb yo'se'f 'bout dem folks 'cross de street, fer dey ain't yo' kin', an' you're wastin' yo' time both'in' yo' min' wid 'em, er wid folks w'at comes on de street on account of 'em. Look sha'p now, boy, er you'll git dat stave trim' too much." The younger man resumed his work, but still found time to throw a slanting glance out of the window. The gentleman, he perceived, stood for a moment on the rotting bridge across the old canal, and then walked slowly ahead until he turned to the right into Back Street, a few rods farther on. II AN EVENING VISIT Toward evening of the same day, Warwick took his way down Front Street in the gathering dusk. By the time night had spread its mantle over the earth, he had reached the gate by which he had seen the girl of his morning walk enter the cedar-bordered garden. He stopped at the gate and glanced toward the house, which seemed dark and silent and deserted. "It's more than likely," he thought, "that they are in the kitchen. I reckon I'd better try the back door." But as he drew cautiously near the corner, he saw a man's figure outlined in the yellow light streaming from the open door of a small house between Front Street and the cooper shop. Wishing, for reasons of his own, to avoid observation, Warwick did not turn the corner, but walked on down Front Street until he reached a point from which he could see, at a long angle, a ray of light proceeding from the kitchen window of the house behind the cedars. "They are there," he muttered with a sigh of relief, for he had feared they might be away. "I suspect I'll have to go to the front door, after all. No one can see me through the trees." He retraced his steps to the front gate, which he essayed to open. There was apparently some defect in the latch, for it refused to work. Warwick remembered the trick, and with a slight sense of amusement, pushed his foot under the gate and gave it a hitch to the left, after which it opened readily enough. He walked softly up the sanded path, tiptoed up the steps and across the piazza, and rapped at the front door, not too loudly, lest this too might attract the attention of the man across the street. There was no response to his rap. He put his ear to the door and heard voices within, and the muffled sound of footsteps. After a moment he rapped again, a little louder than before. There was an instant cessation of the sounds within. He rapped a third time, to satisfy any lingering doubt in the minds of those who he felt sure were listening in some trepidation. A moment later a ray of light streamed through the keyhole. "Who's there?" a woman's voice inquired somewhat sharply. "A gentleman," answered Warwick, not holding it yet time to reveal himself. "Does Mis' Molly Walden live here?" "Yes," was the guarded answer. "I'm Mis' Walden. What's yo'r business?" "I have a message to you from your son John." A key clicked in the lock. The door opened, and the elder of the two women Warwick had seen upon the piazza stood in the doorway, peering curiously and with signs of great excitement into the face of the stranger. "You 've got a message from my son, you say?" she asked with tremulous agitation. "Is he sick, or in trouble?" "No. He's well and doing well, and sends his love to you, and hopes you've not forgotten him." "Fergot him? No, God knows I ain't fergot him! But come in, sir, an' tell me somethin' mo' about him." Warwick went in, and as the woman closed the door after him, he threw a glance round the room. On the wall, over the mantelpiece, hung a steel engraving of General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans, and, on the opposite wall, a framed fashion-plate from "Godey's Lady's Book." In the middle of the room an octagonal centre-table with a single leg, terminating in three sprawling feet, held a collection of curiously shaped sea-shells. There was a great haircloth sofa, somewhat the worse for wear, and a well-filled bookcase. The screen standing before the fireplace was covered with Confederate bank-notes of various denominations and designs, in which the heads of Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders were conspicuous. "Imperious Caesar, dead, and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away," murmured the young man, as his eye fell upon this specimen of decorative art. The woman showed her visitor to a seat. She then sat down facing him and looked at him closely. "When did you last see my son?" she asked. "I've never met your son," he replied. Her face fell. "Then the message comes through you from somebody else?" "No, directly from your son." She scanned his face with a puzzled look. This bearded young gentleman, who spoke so politely and was dressed so well, surely--no, it could not be! and yet-- Warwick was smiling at her through a mist of tears. An electric spark of sympathy flashed between them. They rose as if moved by one impulse, and were clasped in each other's arms. "John, my John! It IS John!" "Mother--my dear old mother!" "I didn't think," she sobbed, "that I'd ever see you again." He smoothed her hair and kissed her. "And are you glad to see me, mother?" "Am I glad to see you? It's like the dead comin' to life. I thought I'd lost you forever, John, my son, my darlin' boy!" she answered, hugging him strenuously. "I couldn't live without seeing you, mother," he said. He meant it, too, or thought he did, although he had not seen her for ten years. "You've grown so tall, John, and are such a fine gentleman! And you ARE a gentleman now, John, ain't you--sure enough? Nobody knows the old story?" "Well, mother, I've taken a man's chance in life, and have tried to make the most of it; and I haven't felt under any obligation to spoil it by raking up old stories that are best forgotten. There are the dear old books: have they been read since I went away?" "No, honey, there's be'n nobody to read 'em, excep' Rena, an' she don't take to books quite like you did. But I've kep' 'em dusted clean, an' kep' the moths an' the bugs out; for I hoped you'd come back some day, an' knowed you'd like to find 'em all in their places, jus' like you left 'em." "That's mighty nice of you, mother. You could have done no more if you had loved them for themselves. But where is Rena? I saw her on the street to-day, but she didn't know me from Adam; nor did I guess it was she until she opened the gate and came into the yard." "I've be'n so glad to see you that I'd fergot about her," answered the mother. "Rena, oh, Rena!" The girl was not far away; she had been standing in the next room, listening intently to every word of the conversation, and only kept from coming in by a certain constraint that made a brother whom she had not met for so many years seem almost as much a stranger as if he had not been connected with her by any tie. "Yes, mamma," she answered, coming forward. "Rena, child, here's yo'r brother John, who's come back to see us. Tell 'im howdy." As she came forward, Warwick rose, put his arm around her waist, drew her toward him, and kissed her affectionately, to her evident embarrassment. She was a tall girl, but he towered above her in quite a protecting fashion; and she thought with a thrill how fine it would be to have such a brother as this in the town all the time. How proud she would be, if she could but walk up the street with such a brother by her side! She could then hold up her head before all the world, oblivious to the glance of pity or contempt. She felt a very pronounced respect for this tall gentleman who held her blushing face between his hands and looked steadily into her eyes. "You're the little sister I used to read stories to, and whom I promised to come and see some day. Do you remember how you cried when I went away?" "It seems but yesterday," she answered. "I've still got the dime you gave me." He kissed her again, and then drew her down beside him on the sofa, where he sat enthroned between the two loving and excited women. No king could have received more sincere or delighted homage. He was a man, come into a household of women,--a man of whom they were proud, and to whom they looked up with fond reverence. For he was not only a son,--a brother--but he represented to them the world from which circumstances had shut them out, and to which distance lent even more than its usual enchantment; and they felt nearer to this far-off world because of the glory which Warwick reflected from it. "You're a very pretty girl," said Warwick, regarding his sister thoughtfully. "I followed you down Front Street this morning, and scarcely took my eyes off you all the way; and yet I didn't know you, and scarcely saw your face. You improve on acquaintance; to-night, I find you handsomer still." "Now, John," said his mother, expostulating mildly, "you'll spile her, if you don't min'." The girl was beaming with gratified vanity. What woman would not find such praise sweet from almost any source, and how much more so from this great man, who, from his exalted station in the world, must surely know the things whereof he spoke! She believed every word of it; she knew it very well indeed, but wished to hear it repeated and itemized and emphasized. "No, he won't, mamma," she asserted, "for he's flattering me. He talks as if I was some rich young lady, who lives on the Hill,"--the Hill was the aristocratic portion of the town,--"instead of a poor." "Instead of a poor young girl, who has the hill to climb," replied her brother, smoothing her hair with his hand. Her hair was long and smooth and glossy, with a wave like the ripple of a summer breeze upon the surface of still water. It was the girl's great pride, and had been sedulously cared for. "What lovely hair! It has just the wave that yours lacks, mother." "Yes," was the regretful reply, "I've never be'n able to git that wave out. But her hair's be'n took good care of, an' there ain't nary gal in town that's got any finer." "Don't worry about the wave, mother. It's just the fashionable ripple, and becomes her immensely. I think my little Albert favors his Aunt Rena somewhat." "Your little Albert!" they cried. "You've got a child?" "Oh, yes," he replied calmly, "a very fine baby boy." They began to purr in proud contentment at this information, and made minute inquiries about the age and weight and eyes and nose and other important details of this precious infant. They inquired more coldly about the child's mother, of whom they spoke with greater warmth when they learned that she was dead. They hung breathless on Warwick's words as he related briefly the story of his life since he had left, years before, the house behind the cedars--how with a stout heart and an abounding hope he had gone out into a seemingly hostile world, and made fortune stand and deliver. His story had for the women the charm of an escape from captivity, with all the thrill of a pirate's tale. With the whole world before him, he had remained in the South, the land of his fathers, where, he conceived, he had an inalienable birthright. By some good chance he had escaped military service in the Confederate army, and, in default of older and more experienced men, had undertaken, during the rebellion, the management of a large estate, which had been left in the hands of women and slaves. He had filled the place so acceptably, and employed his leisure to such advantage, that at the close of the war he found himself--he was modest enough to think, too, in default of a better man--the husband of the orphan daughter of the gentleman who had owned the plantation, and who had lost his life upon the battlefield. Warwick's wife was of good family, and in a more settled condition of society it would not have been easy for a young man of no visible antecedents to win her hand. A year or two later, he had taken the oath of allegiance, and had been admitted to the South Carolina bar. Rich in his wife's right, he had been able to practice his profession upon a high plane, without the worry of sordid cares, and with marked success for one of his age. "I suppose," he concluded, "that I have got along at the bar, as elsewhere, owing to the lack of better men. Many of the good lawyers were killed in the war, and most of the remainder were disqualified; while I had the advantage of being alive, and of never having been in arms against the government. People had to have lawyers, and they gave me their business in preference to the carpet-baggers. Fortune, you know, favors the available man." His mother drank in with parted lips and glistening eyes the story of his adventures and the record of his successes. As Rena listened, the narrow walls that hemmed her in seemed to draw closer and closer, as though they must crush her. Her brother watched her keenly. He had been talking not only to inform the women, but with a deeper purpose, conceived since his morning walk, and deepened as he had followed, during his narrative, the changing expression of Rena's face and noted her intense interest in his story, her pride in his successes, and the occasional wistful look that indexed her self-pity so completely. "An' I s'pose you're happy, John?" asked his mother. "Well, mother, happiness is a relative term, and depends, I imagine, upon how nearly we think we get what we think we want. I have had my chance and haven't thrown it away, and I suppose I ought to be happy. But then, I have lost my wife, whom I loved very dearly, and who loved me just as much, and I'm troubled about my child." "Why?" they demanded. "Is there anything the matter with him?" "No, not exactly. He's well enough, as babies go, and has a good enough nurse, as nurses go. But the nurse is ignorant, and not always careful. A child needs some woman of its own blood to love it and look after it intelligently." Mis' Molly's eyes were filled with tearful yearning. She would have given all the world to warm her son's child upon her bosom; but she knew this could not be. "Did your wife leave any kin?" she asked with an effort. "No near kin; she was an only child." "You'll be gettin' married again," suggested his mother. "No," he replied; "I think not." Warwick was still reading his sister's face, and saw the spark of hope that gleamed in her expressive eye. "If I had some relation of my own that I could take into the house with me," he said reflectively, "the child might be healthier and happier, and I should be much more at ease about him." The mother looked from son to daughter with a dawning apprehension and a sudden pallor. When she saw the yearning in Rena's eyes, she threw herself at her son's feet. "Oh, John," she cried despairingly, "don't take her away from me! Don't take her, John, darlin', for it'd break my heart to lose her!" Rena's arms were round her mother's neck, and Rena's voice was sounding in her ears. "There, there, mamma! Never mind! I won't leave you, mamma--dear old mamma! Your Rena'll stay with you always, and never, never leave you." John smoothed his mother's hair with a comforting touch, patted her withered cheek soothingly, lifted her tenderly to her place by his side, and put his arm about her. "You love your children, mother?" "They're all I've got," she sobbed, "an' they cos' me all I had. When the las' one's gone, I'll want to go too, for I'll be all alone in the world. Don't take Rena, John; for if you do, I'll never see her again, an' I can't bear to think of it. How would you like to lose yo'r one child?" "Well, well, mother, we'll say no more about it. And now tell me all about yourself, and about the neighbors, and how you got through the war, and who's dead and who's married--and everything." The change of subject restored in some degree Mis' Molly's equanimity, and with returning calmness came a sense of other responsibilities. "Good gracious, Rena!" she exclaimed. "John 's be'n in the house an hour, and ain't had nothin' to eat yet! Go in the kitchen an' spread a clean tablecloth, an' git out that 'tater pone, an' a pitcher o' that las' kag o' persimmon beer, an' let John take a bite an' a sip." Warwick smiled at the mention of these homely dainties. "I thought of your sweet-potato pone at the hotel to-day, when I was at dinner, and wondered if you'd have some in the house. There was never any like yours; and I've forgotten the taste of persimmon beer entirely." Rena left the room to carry out her hospitable commission. Warwick, taking advantage of her absence, returned after a while to the former subject. "Of course, mother," he said calmly, "I wouldn't think of taking Rena away against your wishes. A mother's claim upon her child is a high and holy one. Of course she will have no chance here, where our story is known. The war has wrought great changes, has put the bottom rail on top, and all that--but it hasn't wiped THAT out. Nothing but death can remove that stain, if it does not follow us even beyond the grave. Here she must forever be--nobody! With me she might have got out into the world; with her beauty she might have made a good marriage; and, if I mistake not, she has sense as well as beauty." "Yes," sighed the mother, "she's got good sense. She ain't as quick as you was, an' don't read as many books, but she's keerful an' painstakin', an' always tries to do what's right. She's be'n thinkin' about goin' away somewhere an' tryin' to git a school to teach, er somethin', sence the Yankees have started 'em everywhere for po' white folks an' niggers too. But I don't like fer her to go too fur." "With such beauty and brains," continued Warwick, "she could leave this town and make a place for herself. The place is already made. She has only to step into my carriage--after perhaps a little preparation--and ride up the hill which I have had to climb so painfully. It would be a great pleasure to me to see her at the top. But of course it is impossible--a mere idle dream. YOUR claim comes first; her duty chains her here." "It would be so lonely without her," murmured the mother weakly, "an' I love her so--my las' one!" "No doubt--no doubt," returned Warwick, with a sympathetic sigh; "of course you love her. It's not to be thought of for a moment. It's a pity that she couldn't have a chance here--but how could she! I had thought she might marry a gentleman, but I dare say she'll do as well as the rest of her friends--as well as Mary B., for instance, who married--Homer Pettifoot, did you say? Or maybe Billy Oxendine might do for her. As long as she has never known any better, she'll probably be as well satisfied as though she married a rich man, and lived in a fine house, and kept a carriage and servants, and moved with the best in the land." The tortured mother could endure no more. The one thing she desired above all others was her daughter's happiness. Her own life had not been governed by the highest standards, but about her love for her beautiful daughter there was no taint of selfishness. The life her son had described had been to her always the ideal but unattainable life. Circumstances, some beyond her control, and others for which she was herself in a measure responsible, had put it forever and inconceivably beyond her reach. It had been conquered by her son. It beckoned to her daughter. The comparison of this free and noble life with the sordid existence of those around her broke down the last barrier of opposition. "O Lord!" she moaned, "what shall I do with out her? It'll be lonely, John--so lonely!" "You'll have your home, mother," said Warwick tenderly, accepting the implied surrender. "You'll have your friends and relatives, and the knowledge that your children are happy. I'll let you hear from us often, and no doubt you can see Rena now and then. But you must let her go, mother,--it would be a sin against her to refuse." "She may go," replied the mother brokenly. "I'll not stand in her way--I've got sins enough to answer for already." Warwick watched her pityingly. He had stirred her feelings to unwonted depths, and his sympathy went out to her. If she had sinned, she had been more sinned against than sinning, and it was not his part to judge her. He had yielded to a sentimental weakness in deciding upon this trip to Patesville. A matter of business had brought him within a day's journey of the town, and an over-mastering impulse had compelled him to seek the mother who had given him birth and the old town where he had spent the earlier years of his life. No one would have acknowledged sooner than he the folly of this visit. Men who have elected to govern their lives by principles of abstract right and reason, which happen, perhaps, to be at variance with what society considers equally right and reasonable, should, for fear of complications, be careful about descending from the lofty heights of logic to the common level of impulse and affection. Many years before, Warwick, when a lad of eighteen, had shaken the dust of the town from his feet, and with it, he fondly thought, the blight of his inheritance, and had achieved elsewhere a worthy career. But during all these years of absence he had cherished a tender feeling for his mother, and now again found himself in her house, amid the familiar surroundings of his childhood. His visit had brought joy to his mother's heart, and was now to bring its shrouded companion, sorrow. His mother had lived her life, for good or ill. A wider door was open to his sister--her mother must not bar the entrance. "She may go," the mother repeated sadly, drying her tears. "I'll give her up for her good." "The table 's ready, mamma," said Rena, coming to the door. The lunch was spread in the kitchen, a large unplastered room at the rear, with a wide fireplace at one end. Only yesterday, it seemed to Warwick, he had sprawled upon the hearth, turning sweet potatoes before the fire, or roasting groundpeas in the ashes; or, more often, reading, by the light of a blazing pine-knot or lump of resin, some volume from the bookcase in the hall. From Bulwer's novel, he had read the story of Warwick the Kingmaker, and upon leaving home had chosen it for his own. He was a new man, but he had the blood of an old race, and he would select for his own one of its worthy names. Overhead loomed the same smoky beams, decorated with what might have been, from all appearances, the same bunches of dried herbs, the same strings of onions and red peppers. Over in the same corner stood the same spinning-wheel, and through the open door of an adjoining room he saw the old loom, where in childhood he had more than once thrown the shuttle. The kitchen was different from the stately dining-room of the old colonial mansion where he now lived; but it was homelike, and it was familiar. The sight of it moved his heart, and he felt for the moment a sort of a blind anger against the fate which made it necessary that he should visit the home of his childhood, if at all, like a thief in the night. But he realized, after a moment, that the thought was pure sentiment, and that one who had gained so much ought not to complain if he must give up a little. He who would climb the heights of life must leave even the pleasantest valleys behind. "Rena," asked her mother, "how'd you like to go an' pay yo'r brother John a visit? I guess I might spare you for a little while." The girl's eyes lighted up. She would not have gone if her mother had wished her to stay, but she would always have regarded this as the lost opportunity of her life. "Are you sure you don't care, mamma?" she asked, hoping and yet doubting. "Oh, I'll manage to git along somehow or other. You can go an' stay till you git homesick, an' then John'll let you come back home." But Mis' Molly believed that she would never come back, except, like her brother, under cover of the night. She must lose her daughter as well as her son, and this should be the penance for her sin. That her children must expiate as well the sins of their fathers, who had sinned so lightly, after the manner of men, neither she nor they could foresee, since they could not read the future. The next boat by which Warwick could take his sister away left early in the morning of the next day but one. He went back to his hotel with the understanding that the morrow should be devoted to getting Rena ready for her departure, and that Warwick would visit the household again the following evening; for, as has been intimated, there were several reasons why there should be no open relations between the fine gentleman at the hotel and the women in the house behind the cedars, who, while superior in blood and breeding to the people of the neighborhood in which they lived, were yet under the shadow of some cloud which clearly shut them out from the better society of the town. Almost any resident could have given one or more of these reasons, of which any one would have been sufficient to most of them; and to some of them Warwick's mere presence in the town would have seemed a bold and daring thing. III THE OLD JUDGE On the morning following the visit to his mother, Warwick visited the old judge's office. The judge was not in, but the door stood open, and Warwick entered to await his return. There had been fewer changes in the office, where he had spent many, many hours, than in the town itself. The dust was a little thicker, the papers in the pigeon-holes of the walnut desk were a little yellower, the cobwebs in the corners a little more aggressive. The flies droned as drowsily and the murmur of the brook below was just as audible. Warwick stood at the rear window and looked out over a familiar view. Directly across the creek, on the low ground beyond, might be seen the dilapidated stone foundation of the house where once had lived Flora Macdonald, the Jacobite refugee, the most romantic character of North Carolina history. Old Judge Straight had had a tree cut away from the creek-side opposite his window, so that this historic ruin might be visible from his office; for the judge could trace the ties of blood that connected him collaterally with this famous personage. His pamphlet on Flora Macdonald, printed for private circulation, was highly prized by those of his friends who were fortunate enough to obtain a copy. To the left of the window a placid mill-pond spread its wide expanse, and to the right the creek disappeared under a canopy of overhanging trees. A footstep sounded in the doorway, and Warwick, turning, faced the old judge. Time had left greater marks upon the lawyer than upon his office. His hair was whiter, his stoop more pronounced; when he spoke to Warwick, his voice had some of the shrillness of old age; and in his hand, upon which the veins stood out prominently, a decided tremor was perceptible. "Good-morning, Judge Straight," said the young man, removing his hat with the graceful Southern deference of the young for the old. "Good-morning, sir," replied the judge with equal courtesy. "You don't remember me, I imagine," suggested Warwick. "Your face seems familiar," returned the judge cautiously, "but I cannot for the moment recall your name. I shall be glad to have you refresh my memory." "I was John Walden, sir, when you knew me." The judge's face still gave no answering light of recognition. "Your old office-boy," continued the younger man. "Ah, indeed, so you were!" rejoined the judge warmly, extending his hand with great cordiality, and inspecting Warwick more closely through his spectacles. "Let me see--you went away a few years before the war, wasn't it?" "Yes, sir, to South Carolina." "Yes, yes, I remember now! I had been thinking it was to the North. So many things have happened since then, that it taxes an old man's memory to keep track of them all. Well, well! and how have you been getting along?" Warwick told his story in outline, much as he had given it to his mother and sister, and the judge seemed very much interested. "And you married into a good family?" he asked. "Yes, sir." "And have children?" "One." "And you are visiting your mother?" "Not exactly. I have seen her, but I am stopping at a hotel." "H'm! Are you staying long?" "I leave to-morrow." "It's well enough. I wouldn't stay too long. The people of a small town are inquisitive about strangers, and some of them have long memories. I remember we went over the law, which was in your favor; but custom is stronger than law--in these matters custom IS law. It was a great pity that your father did not make a will. Well, my boy, I wish you continued good luck; I imagined you would make your way." Warwick went away, and the old judge sat for a moment absorbed in reflection. "Right and wrong," he mused, "must be eternal verities, but our standards for measuring them vary with our latitude and our epoch. We make our customs lightly; once made, like our sins, they grip us in bands of steel; we become the creatures of our creations. By one standard my old office-boy should never have been born. Yet he is a son of Adam, and came into existence in the way ordained by God from the beginning of the world. In equity he would seem to be entitled to his chance in life; it might have been wiser, though, for him to seek it farther afield than South Carolina. It was too near home, even though the laws were with him." IV DOWN THE RIVER Neither mother nor daughter slept a great deal during the night of Warwick's first visit. Mis' Molly anointed her sacrifice with tears and cried herself to sleep. Rena's emotions were more conflicting; she was sorry to leave her mother, but glad to go with her brother. The mere journey she was about to make was a great event for the two women to contemplate, to say nothing of the golden vision that lay beyond, for neither of them had ever been out of the town or its vicinity. The next day was devoted to preparations for the journey. Rena's slender wardrobe was made ready and packed in a large valise. Towards sunset, Mis' Molly took off her apron, put on her slat-bonnet,--she was ever the pink of neatness,--picked her way across the street, which was muddy from a rain during the day, traversed the foot-bridge that spanned the ditch in front of the cooper shop, and spoke first to the elder of the two men working there. "Good-evenin', Peter." "Good-evenin', ma'm," responded the man briefly, and not relaxing at all the energy with which he was trimming a barrel-stave. Mis' Molly then accosted the younger workman, a dark-brown young man, small in stature, but with a well-shaped head, an expressive forehead, and features indicative of kindness, intelligence, humor, and imagination. "Frank," she asked, "can I git you to do somethin' fer me soon in the mo'nin'?" "Yas 'm, I reckon so," replied the young man, resting his hatchet on the chopping-block. "W'at is it, Mis' Molly?" "My daughter 's goin' away on the boat, an' I 'lowed you would n' min' totin' her kyarpet-bag down to the w'arf, onless you'd ruther haul it down on yo'r kyart. It ain't very heavy. Of co'se I'll pay you fer yo'r trouble." "Thank y', ma'm," he replied. He knew that she would not pay him, for the simple reason that he would not accept pay for such a service. "Is she gwine fur?" he asked, with a sorrowful look, which he could not entirely disguise. "As fur as Wilmin'ton an' beyon'. She'll be visitin' her brother John, who lives in--another State, an' wants her to come an' see him." "Yas 'm, I'll come. I won' need de kyart--I'll tote de bag. 'Bout w'at time shill I come over?" "Well, 'long 'bout seven o'clock or half pas'. She's goin' on the Old North State, an' it leaves at eight." Frank stood looking after Mis' Molly as she picked her way across the street, until he was recalled to his duty by a sharp word from his father. "'Ten' ter yo' wuk, boy, 'ten' ter yo' wuk. You 're wastin' yo' time--wastin' yo' time!" Yes, he was wasting his time. The beautiful young girl across the street could never be anything to him. But he had saved her life once, and had dreamed that he might render her again some signal service that might win her friendship, and convince her of his humble devotion. For Frank was not proud. A smile, which Peter would have regarded as condescending to a free man, who, since the war, was as good as anybody else; a kind word, which Peter would have considered offensively patronizing; a piece of Mis' Molly's famous potato pone from Rena's hands,--a bone to a dog, Peter called it once;--were ample rewards for the thousand and one small services Frank had rendered the two women who lived in the house behind the cedars. Frank went over in the morning a little ahead of the appointed time, and waited on the back piazza until his services were required. "You ain't gwine ter be gone long, is you, Miss Rena?" he inquired, when Rena came out dressed for the journey in her best frock, with broad white collar and cuffs. Rena did not know. She had been asking herself the same question. All sorts of vague dreams had floated through her mind during the last few hours, as to what the future might bring forth. But she detected the anxious note in Frank's voice, and had no wish to give this faithful friend of the family unnecessary pain. "Oh, no, Frank, I reckon not. I'm supposed to be just going on a short visit. My brother has lost his wife, and wishes me to come and stay with him awhile, and look after his little boy." "I'm feared you'll lack it better dere, Miss Rena," replied Frank sorrowfully, dropping his mask of unconcern, "an' den you won't come back, an' none er yo' frien's won't never see you no mo'." "You don't think, Frank," asked Rena severely, "that I would leave my mother and my home and all my friends, and NEVER come back again?" "Why, no 'ndeed," interposed Mis' Molly wistfully, as she hovered around her daughter, giving her hair or her gown a touch here and there; "she'll be so homesick in a month that she'll be willin' to walk home." "You would n' never hafter do dat, Miss Rena," returned Frank, with a disconsolate smile. "Ef you ever wanter come home, an' can't git back no other way, jes' let ME know, an' I'll take my mule an' my kyart an' fetch you back, ef it's from de een' er de worl'." "Thank you, Frank, I believe you would," said the girl kindly. "You're a true friend, Frank, and I'll not forget you while I'm gone." The idea of her beautiful daughter riding home from the end of the world with Frank, in a cart, behind a one-eyed mule, struck Mis' Molly as the height of the ridiculous--she was in a state of excitement where tears or laughter would have come with equal ease--and she turned away to hide her merriment. Her daughter was going to live in a fine house, and marry a rich man, and ride in her carriage. Of course a negro would drive the carriage, but that was different from riding with one in a cart. When it was time to go, Mis' Molly and Rena set out on foot for the river, which was only a short distance away. Frank followed with the valise. There was no gathering of friends to see Rena off, as might have been the case under different circumstances. Her departure had some of the characteristics of a secret flight; it was as important that her destination should not be known, as it had been that her brother should conceal his presence in the town. Mis' Molly and Rena remained on the bank until the steamer announced, with a raucous whistle, its readiness to depart. Warwick was seen for a moment on the upper deck, from which he greeted them with a smile and a slight nod. He had bidden his mother an affectionate farewell the evening before. Rena gave her hand to Frank. "Good-by, Frank," she said, with a kind smile; "I hope you and mamma will be good friends while I'm gone." The whistle blew a second warning blast, and the deck hands prepared to draw in the gang-plank. Rena flew into her mother's arms, and then, breaking away, hurried on board and retired to her state-room, from which she did not emerge during the journey. The window-blinds were closed, darkening the room, and the stewardess who came to ask if she should bring her some dinner could not see her face distinctly, but perceived enough to make her surmise that the young lady had been weeping. "Po' chile," murmured the sympathetic colored woman, "I reckon some er her folks is dead, er her sweetheart 's gone back on her, er e'se she's had some kin' er bad luck er 'nuther. W'ite folks has deir troubles jes' ez well ez black folks, an' sometimes feels 'em mo', 'cause dey ain't ez use' ter 'em." Mis' Molly went back in sadness to the lonely house behind the cedars, henceforth to be peopled for her with only the memory of those she had loved. She had paid with her heart's blood another installment on the Shylock's bond exacted by society for her own happiness of the past and her children's prospects for the future. The journey down the sluggish river to the seaboard in the flat-bottomed, stern-wheel steamer lasted all day and most of the night. During the first half-day, the boat grounded now and then upon a sand-bank, and the half-naked negro deck-hands toiled with ropes and poles to release it. Several times before Rena fell asleep that night, the steamer would tie up at a landing, and by the light of huge pine torches she watched the boat hands send the yellow turpentine barrels down the steep bank in a long string, or pass cord-wood on board from hand to hand. The excited negroes, their white teeth and eyeballs glistening in the surrounding darkness to which their faces formed no relief; the white officers in brown linen, shouting, swearing, and gesticulating; the yellow, flickering torchlight over all,--made up a scene of which the weird interest would have appealed to a more blase traveler than this girl upon her first journey. During the day, Warwick had taken his meals in the dining-room, with the captain and the other cabin passengers. It was learned that he was a South Carolina lawyer, and not a carpet-bagger. Such credentials were unimpeachable, and the passengers found him a very agreeable traveling companion. Apparently sound on the subject of negroes, Yankees, and the righteousness of the lost cause, he yet discussed these themes in a lofty and impersonal manner that gave his words greater weight than if he had seemed warped by a personal grievance. His attitude, in fact, piqued the curiosity of one or two of the passengers. "Did your people lose any niggers?" asked one of them. "My father owned a hundred," he replied grandly. Their respect for his views was doubled. It is easy to moralize about the misfortunes of others, and to find good in the evil that they suffer;--only a true philosopher could speak thus lightly of his own losses. When the steamer tied up at the wharf at Wilmington, in the early morning, the young lawyer and a veiled lady passenger drove in the same carriage to a hotel. After they had breakfasted in a private room, Warwick explained to his sister the plan he had formed for her future. Henceforth she must be known as Miss Warwick, dropping the old name with the old life. He would place her for a year in a boarding-school at Charleston, after which she would take her place as the mistress of his house. Having imparted this information, he took his sister for a drive through the town. There for the first time Rena saw great ships, which, her brother told her, sailed across the mighty ocean to distant lands, whose flags he pointed out drooping lazily at the mast-heads. The business portion of the town had "an ancient and fishlike smell," and most of the trade seemed to be in cotton and naval stores and products of the sea. The wharves were piled high with cotton bales, and there were acres of barrels of resin and pitch and tar and spirits of turpentine. The market, a long, low, wooden structure, in the middle of the principal street, was filled with a mass of people of all shades, from blue-black to Saxon blonde, gabbling and gesticulating over piles of oysters and clams and freshly caught fish of varied hue. By ten o'clock the sun was beating down so fiercely that the glitter of the white, sandy streets dazzled and pained the eyes unaccustomed to it, and Rena was glad to be driven back to the hotel. The travelers left together on an early afternoon train. Thus for the time being was severed the last tie that bound Rena to her narrow past, and for some time to come the places and the people who had known her once were to know her no more. Some few weeks later, Mis' Molly called upon old Judge Straight with reference to the taxes on her property. "Your son came in to see me the other day," he remarked. "He seems to have got along." "Oh, yes, judge, he's done fine, John has; an' he's took his sister away with him." "Ah!" exclaimed the judge. Then after a pause he added, "I hope she may do as well." "Thank you, sir," she said, with a curtsy, as she rose to go. "We've always knowed that you were our friend and wished us well." The judge looked after her as she walked away. Her bearing had a touch of timidity, a shade of affectation, and yet a certain pathetic dignity. "It is a pity," he murmured, with a sigh, "that men cannot select their mothers. My young friend John has builded, whether wisely or not, very well; but he has come back into the old life and carried away a part of it, and I fear that this addition will weaken the structure." V THE TOURNAMENT The annual tournament of the Clarence Social Club was about to begin. The county fairground, where all was in readiness, sparkled with the youth and beauty of the town, standing here and there under the trees in animated groups, or moving toward the seats from which the pageant might be witnessed. A quarter of a mile of the race track, to right and left of the judges' stand, had been laid off for the lists. Opposite the grand stand, which occupied a considerable part of this distance, a dozen uprights had been erected at measured intervals. Projecting several feet over the track from each of these uprights was an iron crossbar, from which an iron hook depended. Between the uprights stout posts were planted, of such a height that their tops could be easily reached by a swinging sword-cut from a mounted rider passing upon the track. The influence of Walter Scott was strong upon the old South. The South before the war was essentially feudal, and Scott's novels of chivalry appealed forcefully to the feudal heart. During the month preceding the Clarence tournament, the local bookseller had closed out his entire stock of "Ivanhoe," consisting of five copies, and had taken orders for seven copies more. The tournament scene in this popular novel furnished the model after which these bloodless imitations of the ancient passages-at-arms were conducted, with such variations as were required to adapt them to a different age and civilization. The best people gradually filled the grand stand, while the poorer white and colored folks found seats outside, upon what would now be known as the "bleachers," or stood alongside the lists. The knights, masquerading in fanciful costumes, in which bright-colored garments, gilt paper, and cardboard took the place of knightly harness, were mounted on spirited horses. Most of them were gathered at one end of the lists, while others practiced their steeds upon the unoccupied portion of the race track. The judges entered the grand stand, and one of them, after looking at his watch, gave a signal. Immediately a herald, wearing a bright yellow sash, blew a loud blast upon a bugle, and, big with the importance of his office, galloped wildly down the lists. An attendant on horseback busied himself hanging upon each of the pendent hooks an iron ring, of some two inches in diameter, while another, on foot, placed on top of each of the shorter posts a wooden ball some four inches through. "It's my first tournament," observed a lady near the front of the grand stand, leaning over and addressing John Warwick, who was seated in the second row, in company with a very handsome girl. "It is somewhat different from Ashby-de-la-Zouch." "It is the renaissance of chivalry, Mrs. Newberry," replied the young lawyer, "and, like any other renaissance, it must adapt itself to new times and circumstances. For instance, when we build a Greek portico, having no Pentelic marble near at hand, we use a pine-tree, one of nature's columns, which Grecian art at its best could only copy and idealize. Our knights are not weighted down with heavy armor, but much more appropriately attired, for a day like this, in costumes that recall the picturesqueness, without the discomfort, of the old knightly harness. For an iron-headed lance we use a wooden substitute, with which we transfix rings instead of hearts; while our trusty blades hew their way through wooden blocks instead of through flesh and blood. It is a South Carolina renaissance which has points of advantage over the tournaments of the olden time." "I'm afraid, Mr. Warwick," said the lady, "that you're the least bit heretical about our chivalry--or else you're a little too deep for me." "The last would be impossible, Mrs. Newberry; and I'm sure our chivalry has proved its valor on many a hard-fought field. The spirit of a thing, after all, is what counts; and what is lacking here? We have the lists, the knights, the prancing steeds, the trial of strength and skill. If our knights do not run the physical risks of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, they have all the mental stimulus. Wounded vanity will take the place of wounded limbs, and there will be broken hopes in lieu of broken heads. How many hearts in yonder group of gallant horsemen beat high with hope! How many possible Queens of Love and Beauty are in this group of fair faces that surround us!" The lady was about to reply, when the bugle sounded again, and the herald dashed swiftly back upon his prancing steed to the waiting group of riders. The horsemen formed three abreast, and rode down the lists in orderly array. As they passed the grand stand, each was conscious of the battery of bright eyes turned upon him, and each gave by his bearing some idea of his ability to stand fire from such weapons. One horse pranced proudly, another caracoled with grace. One rider fidgeted nervously, another trembled and looked the other way. Each horseman carried in his hand a long wooden lance and wore at his side a cavalry sabre, of which there were plenty to be had since the war, at small expense. Several left the ranks and drew up momentarily beside the grand stand, where they took from fair hands a glove or a flower, which was pinned upon the rider's breast or fastened upon his hat--a ribbon or a veil, which was tied about the lance like a pennon, but far enough from the point not to interfere with the usefulness of the weapon. As the troop passed the lower end of the grand stand, a horse, excited by the crowd, became somewhat unmanageable, and in the effort to curb him, the rider dropped his lance. The prancing animal reared, brought one of his hoofs down upon the fallen lance with considerable force, and sent a broken piece of it flying over the railing opposite the grand stand, into the middle of a group of spectators standing there. The flying fragment was dodged by those who saw it coming, but brought up with a resounding thwack against the head of a colored man in the second row, who stood watching the grand stand with an eager and curious gaze. He rubbed his head ruefully, and made a good-natured response to the chaffing of his neighbors, who, seeing no great harm done, made witty and original remarks about the advantage of being black upon occasions where one's skull was exposed to danger. Finding that the blow had drawn blood, the young man took out a red bandana handkerchief and tied it around his head, meantime letting his eye roam over the faces in the grand stand, as though in search of some one that he expected or hoped to find there. The knights, having reached the end of the lists, now turned and rode back in open order, with such skillful horsemanship as to evoke a storm of applause from the spectators. The ladies in the grand stand waved their handkerchiefs vigorously, and the men clapped their hands. The beautiful girl seated by Warwick's side accidentally let a little square of white lace-trimmed linen slip from her hand. It fluttered lightly over the railing, and, buoyed up by the air, settled slowly toward the lists. A young rider in the approaching rear rank saw the handkerchief fall, and darting swiftly forward, caught it on the point of his lance ere it touched the ground. He drew up his horse and made a movement as though to extend the handkerchief toward the lady, who was blushing profusely at the attention she had attracted by her carelessness. The rider hesitated a moment, glanced interrogatively at Warwick, and receiving a smile in return, tied the handkerchief around the middle of his lance and quickly rejoined his comrades at the head of the lists. The young man with the bandage round his head, on the benches across the lists, had forced his way to the front row and was leaning against the railing. His restless eye was attracted by the falling handkerchief, and his face, hitherto anxious, suddenly lit up with animation. "Yas, suh, yas, suh, it's her!" he muttered softly. "It's Miss Rena, sho's you bawn. She looked lack a' angel befo', but now, up dere 'mongs' all dem rich, fine folks, she looks lack a whole flock er angels. Dey ain' one er dem ladies w'at could hol' a candle ter her. I wonder w'at dat man's gwine ter do wid her handkercher? I s'pose he's her gent'eman now. I wonder ef she'd know me er speak ter me ef she seed me? I reckon she would, spite er her gittin' up so in de worl'; fer she wuz alluz good ter ev'ybody, an' dat let even ME in," he concluded with a sigh. "Who is the lady, Tryon?" asked one of the young men, addressing the knight who had taken the handkerchief. "A Miss Warwick," replied the knight pleasantly, "Miss Rowena Warwick, the lawyer's sister." "I didn't know he had a sister," rejoined the first speaker. "I envy you your lady. There are six Rebeccas and eight Rowenas of my own acquaintance in the grand stand, but she throws them all into the shade. She hasn't been here long, surely; I haven't seen her before." "She has been away at school; she came only last night," returned the knight of the crimson sash, briefly. He was already beginning to feel a proprietary interest in the lady whose token he wore, and did not care to discuss her with a casual acquaintance. The herald sounded the charge. A rider darted out from the group and galloped over the course. As he passed under each ring, he tried to catch it on the point of his lance,--a feat which made the management of the horse with the left hand necessary, and required a true eye and a steady arm. The rider captured three of the twelve rings, knocked three others off the hooks, and left six undisturbed. Turning at the end of the lists, he took the lance with the reins in the left hand and drew his sword with the right. He then rode back over the course, cutting at the wooden balls upon the posts. Of these he clove one in twain, to use the parlance of chivalry, and knocked two others off their supports. His performance was greeted with a liberal measure of applause, for which he bowed in smiling acknowledgment as he took his place among the riders. Again the herald's call sounded, and the tourney went forward. Rider after rider, with varying skill, essayed his fortune with lance and sword. Some took a liberal proportion of the rings; others merely knocked them over the boundaries, where they were collected by agile little negro boys and handed back to the attendants. A balking horse caused the spectators much amusement and his rider no little chagrin. The lady who had dropped the handkerchief kept her eye upon the knight who had bound it round his lance. "Who is he, John?" she asked the gentleman beside her. "That, my dear Rowena, is my good friend and client, George Tryon, of North Carolina. If he had been a stranger, I should have said that he took a liberty; but as things stand, we ought to regard it as a compliment. The incident is quite in accord with the customs of chivalry. If George were but masked and you were veiled, we should have a romantic situation,--you the mysterious damsel in distress, he the unknown champion. The parallel, my dear, might not be so hard to draw, even as things are. But look, it is his turn now; I'll wager that he makes a good run." "I'll take you up on that, Mr. Warwick," said Mrs. Newberry from behind, who seemed to have a very keen ear for whatever Warwick said. Rena's eyes were fastened on her knight, so that she might lose no single one of his movements. As he rode down the lists, more than one woman found him pleasant to look upon. He was a tall, fair young man, with gray eyes, and a frank, open face. He wore a slight mustache, and when he smiled, showed a set of white and even teeth. He was mounted on a very handsome and spirited bay mare, was clad in a picturesque costume, of which velvet knee-breeches and a crimson scarf were the most conspicuous features, and displayed a marked skill in horsemanship. At the blast of the bugle his horse started forward, and, after the first few rods, settled into an even gallop. Tryon's lance, held truly and at the right angle, captured the first ring, then the second and third. His coolness and steadiness seemed not at all disturbed by the applause which followed, and one by one the remaining rings slipped over the point of his lance, until at the end he had taken every one of the twelve. Holding the lance with its booty of captured rings in his left hand, together with the bridle rein, he drew his sabre with the right and rode back over the course. His horse moved like clockwork, his eye was true and his hand steady. Three of the wooden balls fell from the posts, split fairly in the middle, while from the fourth he sliced off a goodly piece and left the remainder standing in its place. This performance, by far the best up to this point, and barely escaping perfection, elicited a storm of applause. The rider was not so well known to the townspeople as some of the other participants, and his name passed from mouth to mouth in answer to numerous inquiries. The girl whose token he had worn also became an object of renewed interest, because of the result to her in case the knight should prove victor in the contest, of which there could now scarcely be a doubt; for but three riders remained, and it was very improbable that any one of them would excel the last. Wagers for the remainder of the tourney stood anywhere from five, and even from ten to one, in favor of the knight of the crimson sash, and when the last course had been run, his backers were jubilant. No one of those following him had displayed anything like equal skill. The herald now blew his bugle and declared the tournament closed. The judges put their heads together for a moment. The bugle sounded again, and the herald announced in a loud voice that Sir George Tryon, having taken the greatest number of rings and split the largest number of balls, was proclaimed victor in the tournament and entitled to the flowery chaplet of victory. Tryon, having bowed repeatedly in response to the liberal applause, advanced to the judges' stand and received the trophy from the hands of the chief judge, who exhorted him to wear the garland worthily, and to yield it only to a better man. "It will be your privilege, Sir George," announced the judge, "as the chief reward of your valor, to select from the assembled beauty of Clarence the lady whom you wish to honor, to whom we will all do homage as the Queen of Love and Beauty." Tryon took the wreath and bowed his thanks. Then placing the trophy on the point of his lance, he spoke earnestly for a moment to the herald, and rode past the grand stand, from which there was another outburst of applause. Returning upon his tracks, the knight of the crimson sash paused before the group where Warwick and his sister sat, and lowered the wreath thrice before the lady whose token he had won. "Oyez! Oyez!" cried the herald; "Sir George Tryon, the victor in the tournament, has chosen Miss Rowena Warwick as the Queen of Love and Beauty, and she will be crowned at the feast to-night and receive the devoirs of all true knights." The fair-ground was soon covered with scattered groups of the spectators of the tournament. In one group a vanquished knight explained in elaborate detail why it was that he had failed to win the wreath. More than one young woman wondered why some one of the home young men could not have taken the honors, or, if the stranger must win them, why he could not have selected some belle of the town as Queen of Love and Beauty instead of this upstart girl who had blown into the town over night, as one might say. Warwick and his sister, standing under a spreading elm, held a little court of their own. A dozen gentlemen and several ladies had sought an introduction before Tryon came up. "I suppose John would have a right to call me out, Miss Warwick," said Tryon, when he had been formally introduced and had shaken hands with Warwick's sister, "for taking liberties with the property and name of a lady to whom I had not had an introduction; but I know John so well that you seemed like an old acquaintance; and when I saw you, and recalled your name, which your brother had mentioned more than once, I felt instinctively that you ought to be the queen. I entered my name only yesterday, merely to swell the number and make the occasion more interesting. These fellows have been practicing for a month, and I had no hope of winning. I should have been satisfied, indeed, if I hadn't made myself ridiculous; but when you dropped your handkerchief, I felt a sudden inspiration; and as soon as I had tied it upon my lance, victory perched upon my saddle-bow, guided my lance and sword, and rings and balls went down before me like chaff before the wind. Oh, it was a great inspiration, Miss Warwick!" Rena, for it was our Patesville acquaintance fresh from boarding-school, colored deeply at this frank and fervid flattery, and could only murmur an inarticulate reply. Her year of instruction, while distinctly improving her mind and manners, had scarcely prepared her for so sudden an elevation into a grade of society to which she had hitherto been a stranger. She was not without a certain courage, however, and her brother, who remained at her side, helped her over the most difficult situations. "We'll forgive you, George," replied Warwick, "if you'll come home to luncheon with us." "I'm mighty sorry--awfully sorry," returned Tryon, with evident regret, "but I have another engagement, which I can scarcely break, even by the command of royalty. At what time shall I call for Miss Warwick this evening? I believe that privilege is mine, along with the other honors and rewards of victory,--unless she is bound to some one else." "She is entirely free," replied Warwick. "Come as early as you like, and I'll talk to you until she's ready." Tryon bowed himself away, and after a number of gentlemen and a few ladies had paid their respects to the Queen of Love and Beauty, and received an introduction to her, Warwick signaled to the servant who had his carriage in charge, and was soon driving homeward with his sister. No one of the party noticed a young negro, with a handkerchief bound around his head, who followed them until the carriage turned into the gate and swept up the wide drive that led to Warwick's doorstep. "Well, Rena," said Warwick, when they found themselves alone, "you have arrived. Your debut into society is a little more spectacular than I should have wished, but we must rise to the occasion and make the most of it. You are winning the first fruits of your opportunity. You are the most envied woman in Clarence at this particular moment, and, unless I am mistaken, will be the most admired at the ball to-night." VI THE QUEEN OF LOVE AND BEAUTY Shortly after luncheon, Rena had a visitor in the person of Mrs. Newberry, a vivacious young widow of the town, who proffered her services to instruct Rena in the etiquette of the annual ball. "Now, my dear," said Mrs. Newberry, "the first thing to do is to get your coronation robe ready. It simply means a gown with a long train. You have a lovely white waist. Get right into my buggy, and we'll go down town to get the cloth, take it over to Mrs. Marshall's, and have her run you up a skirt this afternoon." Rena placed herself unreservedly in the hands of Mrs. Newberry, who introduced her to the best dressmaker of the town, a woman of much experience in such affairs, who improvised during the afternoon a gown suited to the occasion. Mrs. Marshall had made more than a dozen ball dresses during the preceding month; being a wise woman and understanding her business thoroughly, she had made each one of them so that with a few additional touches it might serve for the Queen of Love and Beauty. This was her first direct order for the specific garment. Tryon escorted Rena to the ball, which was held in the principal public hall of the town, and attended by all the best people. The champion still wore the costume of the morning, in place of evening dress, save that long stockings and dancing-pumps had taken the place of riding-boots. Rena went through the ordeal very creditably. Her shyness was palpable, but it was saved from awkwardness by her native grace and good sense. She made up in modesty what she lacked in aplomb. Her months in school had not eradicated a certain self-consciousness born of her secret. The brain-cells never lose the impressions of youth, and Rena's Patesville life was not far enough removed to have lost its distinctness of outline. Of the two, the present was more of a dream, the past was the more vivid reality. At school she had learned something from books and not a little from observation. She had been able to compare herself with other girls, and to see wherein she excelled or fell short of them. With a sincere desire for improvement, and a wish to please her brother and do him credit, she had sought to make the most of her opportunities. Building upon a foundation of innate taste and intelligence, she had acquired much of the self-possession which comes from a knowledge of correct standards of deportment. She had moreover learned without difficulty, for it suited her disposition, to keep silence when she could not speak to advantage. A certain necessary reticence about the past added strength to a natural reserve. Thus equipped, she held her own very well in the somewhat trying ordeal of the ball, at which the fiction of queenship and the attendant ceremonies, which were pretty and graceful, made her the most conspicuous figure. Few of those who watched her move with easy grace through the measures of the dance could have guessed how nearly her heart was in her mouth during much of the time. "You're doing splendidly, my dear," said Mrs. Newberry, who had constituted herself Rena's chaperone. "I trust your Gracious Majesty is pleased with the homage of your devoted subjects," said Tryon, who spent much of his time by her side and kept up the character of knight in his speech and manner. "Very much," replied the Queen of Love and Beauty, with a somewhat tired smile. It was pleasant, but she would be glad, she thought, when it was all over. "Keep up your courage," whispered her brother. "You are not only queen, but the belle of the ball. I am proud of you. A dozen women here would give a year off the latter end of life to be in your shoes to-night." Rena felt immensely relieved when the hour arrived at which she could take her departure, which was to be the signal for the breaking-up of the ball. She was driven home in Tryon's carriage, her brother accompanying them. The night was warm, and the drive homeward under the starlight, in the open carriage, had a soothing effect upon Rena's excited nerves. The calm restfulness of the night, the cool blue depths of the unclouded sky, the solemn croaking of the frogs in a distant swamp, were much more in harmony with her nature than the crowded brilliancy of the ball-room. She closed her eyes, and, leaning back in the carriage, thought of her mother, who she wished might have seen her daughter this night. A momentary pang of homesickness pierced her tender heart, and she furtively wiped away the tears that came into her eyes. "Good-night, fair Queen!" exclaimed Tryon, breaking into her reverie as the carriage rolled up to the doorstep, "and let your loyal subject kiss your hand in token of his fealty. May your Majesty never abdicate her throne, and may she ever count me her humble servant and devoted knight." "And now, sister," said Warwick, when Tryon had been driven away, "now that the masquerade is over, let us to sleep, and to-morrow take up the serious business of life. Your day has been a glorious success!" He put his arm around her and gave her a kiss and a brotherly hug. "It is a dream," she murmured sleepily, "only a dream. I am Cinderella before the clock has struck. Good-night, dear John." "Good-night, Rowena." VII 'MID NEW SURROUNDINGS Warwick's residence was situated in the outskirts of the town. It was a fine old plantation house, built in colonial times, with a stately colonnade, wide verandas, and long windows with Venetian blinds. It was painted white, and stood back several rods from the street, in a charming setting of palmettoes, magnolias, and flowering shrubs. Rena had always thought her mother's house large, but now it seemed cramped and narrow, in comparison with this roomy mansion. The furniture was old-fashioned and massive. The great brass andirons on the wide hearth stood like sentinels proclaiming and guarding the dignity of the family. The spreading antlers on the wall testified to a mighty hunter in some past generation. The portraits of Warwick's wife's ancestors--high featured, proud men and women, dressed in the fashions of a bygone age--looked down from tarnished gilt frames. It was all very novel to her, and very impressive. When she ate off china, with silver knives and forks that had come down as heirlooms, escaping somehow the ravages and exigencies of the war time,--Warwick told her afterwards how he had buried them out of reach of friend or foe,--she thought that her brother must be wealthy, and she felt very proud of him and of her opportunity. The servants, of whom there were several in the house, treated her with a deference to which her eight months in school had only partly accustomed her. At school she had been one of many to be served, and had herself been held to obedience. Here, for the first time in her life, she was mistress, and tasted the sweets of power. The household consisted of her brother and herself, a cook, a coachman, a nurse, and her brother's little son Albert. The child, with a fine instinct, had put out his puny arms to Rena at first sight, and she had clasped the little man to her bosom with a motherly caress. She had always loved weak creatures. Kittens and puppies had ever found a welcome and a meal at Rena's hands, only to be chased away by Mis' Molly, who had had a wider experience. No shiftless poor white, no half-witted or hungry negro, had ever gone unfed from Mis' Molly's kitchen door if Rena were there to hear his plaint. Little Albert was pale and sickly when she came, but soon bloomed again in the sunshine of her care, and was happy only in her presence. Warwick found pleasure in their growing love for each other, and was glad to perceive that the child formed a living link to connect her with his home. "Dat chile sutt'nly do lub Miss Rena, an' dat's a fac', sho 's you bawn," remarked 'Lissa the cook to Mimy the nurse one day. "You'll get yo' nose put out er j'int, ef you don't min'." "I ain't frettin', honey," laughed the nurse good-naturedly. She was not at all jealous. She had the same wages as before, and her labors were materially lightened by the aunt's attention to the child. This gave Mimy much more time to flirt with Tom the coachman. It was a source of much gratification to Warwick that his sister seemed to adapt herself so easily to the new conditions. Her graceful movements, the quiet elegance with which she wore even the simplest gown, the easy authoritativeness with which she directed the servants, were to him proofs of superior quality, and he felt correspondingly proud of her. His feeling for her was something more than brotherly love,--he was quite conscious that there were degrees in brotherly love, and that if she had been homely or stupid, he would never have disturbed her in the stagnant life of the house behind the cedars. There had come to him from some source, down the stream of time, a rill of the Greek sense of proportion, of fitness, of beauty, which is indeed but proportion embodied, the perfect adaptation of means to ends. He had perceived, more clearly than she could have appreciated it at that time, the undeveloped elements of discord between Rena and her former life. He had imagined her lending grace and charm to his own household. Still another motive, a purely psychological one, had more or less consciously influenced him. He had no fear that the family secret would ever be discovered,--he had taken his precautions too thoroughly, he thought, for that; and yet he could not but feel, at times, that if peradventure--it was a conceivable hypothesis--it should become known, his fine social position would collapse like a house of cards. Because of this knowledge, which the world around him did not possess, he had felt now and then a certain sense of loneliness; and there was a measure of relief in having about him one who knew his past, and yet whose knowledge, because of their common interest, would not interfere with his present or jeopardize his future. For he had always been, in a figurative sense, a naturalized foreigner in the world of wide opportunity, and Rena was one of his old compatriots, whom he was glad to welcome into the populous loneliness of his adopted country. VIII THE COURTSHIP In a few weeks the echoes of the tournament died away, and Rena's life settled down into a pleasant routine, which she found much more comfortable than her recent spectacular prominence. Her queenship, while not entirely forgiven by the ladies of the town, had gained for her a temporary social prominence. Among her own sex, Mrs. Newberry proved a warm and enthusiastic friend. Rumor whispered that the lively young widow would not be unwilling to console Warwick in the loneliness of the old colonial mansion, to which his sister was a most excellent medium of approach. Whether this was true or not it is unnecessary to inquire, for it is no part of this story, except as perhaps indicating why Mrs. Newberry played the part of the female friend, without whom no woman is ever launched successfully in a small and conservative society. Her brother's standing gave her the right of social entry; the tournament opened wide the door, and Mrs. Newberry performed the ceremony of introduction. Rena had many visitors during the month following the tournament, and might have made her choice from among a dozen suitors; but among them all, her knight of the handkerchief found most favor. George Tryon had come to Clarence a few months before upon business connected with the settlement of his grandfather's estate. A rather complicated litigation had grown up around the affair, various phases of which had kept Tryon almost constantly in the town. He had placed matters in Warwick's hands, and had formed a decided friendship for his attorney, for whom he felt a frank admiration. Tryon was only twenty-three, and his friend's additional five years, supplemented by a certain professional gravity, commanded a great deal of respect from the younger man. When Tryon had known Warwick for a week, he had been ready to swear by him. Indeed, Warwick was a man for whom most people formed a liking at first sight. To this power of attraction he owed most of his success--first with Judge Straight, of Patesville, then with the lawyer whose office he had entered at Clarence, with the woman who became his wife, and with the clients for whom he transacted business. Tryon would have maintained against all comers that Warwick was the finest fellow in the world. When he met Warwick's sister, the foundation for admiration had already been laid. If Rena had proved to be a maiden lady of uncertain age and doubtful personal attractiveness, Tryon would probably have found in her a most excellent lady, worthy of all respect and esteem, and would have treated her with profound deference and sedulous courtesy. When she proved to be a young and handsome woman, of the type that he admired most, he was capable of any degree of infatuation. His mother had for a long time wanted him to marry the orphan daughter of an old friend, a vivacious blonde, who worshiped him. He had felt friendly towards her, but had shrunk from matrimony. He did not want her badly enough to give up his freedom. The war had interfered with his education, and though fairly well instructed, he had never attended college. In his own opinion, he ought to see something of the world, and have his youthful fling. Later on, when he got ready to settle down, if Blanche were still in the humor, they might marry, and sink to the humdrum level of other old married people. The fact that Blanche Leary was visiting his mother during his unexpectedly long absence had not operated at all to hasten his return to North Carolina. He had been having a very good time at Clarence, and, at the distance of several hundred miles, was safe for the time being from any immediate danger of marriage. With Rena's advent, however, he had seen life through different glasses. His heart had thrilled at first sight of this tall girl, with the ivory complexion, the rippling brown hair, and the inscrutable eyes. When he became better acquainted with her, he liked to think that her thoughts centred mainly in himself; and in this he was not far wrong. He discovered that she had a short upper lip, and what seemed to him an eminently kissable mouth. After he had dined twice at Warwick's, subsequently to the tournament,--his lucky choice of Rena had put him at once upon a household footing with the family,--his views of marriage changed entirely. It now seemed to him the duty, as well as the high and holy privilege of a young man, to marry and manfully to pay his debt to society. When in Rena's presence, he could not imagine how he had ever contemplated the possibility of marriage with Blanche Leary,--she was utterly, entirely, and hopelessly unsuited to him. For a fair man of vivacious temperament, this stately dark girl was the ideal mate. Even his mother would admit this, if she could only see Rena. To win this beautiful girl for his wife would be a worthy task. He had crowned her Queen of Love and Beauty; since then she had ascended the throne of his heart. He would make her queen of his home and mistress of his life. To Rena this brief month's courtship came as a new education. Not only had this fair young man crowned her queen, and honored her above all the ladies in town; but since then he had waited assiduously upon her, had spoken softly to her, had looked at her with shining eyes, and had sought to be alone with her. The time soon came when to touch his hand in greeting sent a thrill through her frame,--a time when she listened for his footstep and was happy in his presence. He had been bold enough at the tournament; he had since become somewhat bashful and constrained. He must be in love, she thought, and wondered how soon he would speak. If it were so sweet to walk with him in the garden, or along the shaded streets, to sit with him, to feel the touch of his hand, what happiness would it not be to hear him say that he loved her--to bear his name, to live with him always. To be thus loved and honored by this handsome young man,--she could hardly believe it possible. He would never speak--he would discover her secret and withdraw. She turned pale at the thought,--ah, God! something would happen,--it was too good to be true. The Prince would never try on the glass slipper. Tryon first told his love for Rena one summer evening on their way home from church. They were walking in the moonlight along the quiet street, which, but for their presence, seemed quite deserted. "Miss Warwick--Rowena," he said, clasping with his right hand the hand that rested on his left arm, "I love you! Do you--love me?" To Rena this simple avowal came with much greater force than a more formal declaration could have had. It appealed to her own simple nature. Indeed, few women at such a moment criticise the form in which the most fateful words of life--but one--are spoken. Words, while pleasant, are really superfluous. Her whispered "Yes" spoke volumes. They walked on past the house, along the country road into which the street soon merged. When they returned, an hour later, they found Warwick seated on the piazza, in a rocking-chair, smoking a fragrant cigar. "Well, children," he observed with mock severity, "you are late in getting home from church. The sermon must have been extremely long." "We have been attending an after-meeting," replied Tryon joyfully, "and have been discussing an old text, 'Little children, love one another,' and its corollary, 'It is not good for man to live alone.' John, I am the happiest man alive. Your sister has promised to marry me. I should like to shake my brother's hand." Never does one feel so strongly the universal brotherhood of man as when one loves some other fellow's sister. Warwick sprang from his chair and clasped Tryon's extended hand with real emotion. He knew of no man whom he would have preferred to Tryon as a husband for his sister. "My dear George--my dear sister," he exclaimed, "I am very, very glad. I wish you every happiness. My sister is the most fortunate of women." "And I am the luckiest of men," cried Tryon. "I wish you every happiness," repeated Warwick; adding, with a touch of solemnity, as a certain thought, never far distant, occurred to him, "I hope that neither of you may ever regret your choice." Thus placed upon the footing of an accepted lover, Tryon's visits to the house became more frequent. He wished to fix a time for the marriage, but at this point Rena developed a strange reluctance. "Can we not love each other for a while?" she asked. "To be engaged is a pleasure that comes but once; it would be a pity to cut it too short." "It is a pleasure that I would cheerfully dispense with," he replied, "for the certainty of possession. I want you all to myself, and all the time. Things might happen. If I should die, for instance, before I married you"-- "Oh, don't suppose such awful things," she cried, putting her hand over his mouth. He held it there and kissed it until she pulled it away. "I should consider," he resumed, completing the sentence, "that my life had been a failure." "If I should die," she murmured, "I should die happy in the knowledge that you had loved me." "In three weeks," he went on, "I shall have finished my business in Clarence, and there will be but one thing to keep me here. When shall it be? I must take you home with me." "I will let you know," she replied, with a troubled sigh, "in a week from to-day." "I'll call your attention to the subject every day in the mean time," he asserted. "I shouldn't like you to forget it." Rena's shrinking from the irrevocable step of marriage was due to a simple and yet complex cause. Stated baldly, it was the consciousness of her secret; the complexity arose out of the various ways in which it seemed to bear upon her future. Our lives are so bound up with those of our fellow men that the slightest departure from the beaten path involves a multiplicity of small adjustments. It had not been difficult for Rena to conform her speech, her manners, and in a measure her modes of thought, to those of the people around her; but when this readjustment went beyond mere externals and concerned the vital issues of life, the secret that oppressed her took on a more serious aspect, with tragic possibilities. A discursive imagination was not one of her characteristics, or the danger of a marriage of which perfect frankness was not a condition might well have presented itself before her heart had become involved. Under the influence of doubt and fear acting upon love, the invisible bar to happiness glowed with a lambent flame that threatened dire disaster. "Would he have loved me at all," she asked herself, "if he had known the story of my past? Or, having loved me, could he blame me now for what I cannot help?" There were two shoals in the channel of her life, upon either of which her happiness might go to shipwreck. Since leaving the house behind the cedars, where she had been brought into the world without her own knowledge or consent, and had first drawn the breath of life by the involuntary contraction of certain muscles, Rena had learned, in a short time, many things; but she was yet to learn that the innocent suffer with the guilty, and feel the punishment the more keenly because unmerited. She had yet to learn that the old Mosaic formula, "The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children," was graven more indelibly upon the heart of the race than upon the tables of Sinai. But would her lover still love her, if he knew all? She had read some of the novels in the bookcase in her mother's hall, and others at boarding-school. She had read that love was a conqueror, that neither life nor death, nor creed nor caste, could stay his triumphant course. Her secret was no legal bar to their union. If Rena could forget the secret, and Tryon should never know it, it would be no obstacle to their happiness. But Rena felt, with a sinking of the heart, that happiness was not a matter of law or of fact, but lay entirely within the domain of sentiment. We are happy when we think ourselves happy, and with a strange perversity we often differ from others with regard to what should constitute our happiness. Rena's secret was the worm in the bud, the skeleton in the closet. "He says that he loves me. He DOES love me. Would he love me, if he knew?" She stood before an oval mirror brought from France by one of Warwick's wife's ancestors, and regarded her image with a coldly critical eye. She was as little vain as any of her sex who are endowed with beauty. She tried to place herself, in thus passing upon her own claims to consideration, in the hostile attitude of society toward her hidden disability. There was no mark upon her brow to brand her as less pure, less innocent, less desirable, less worthy to be loved, than these proud women of the past who had admired themselves in this old mirror. "I think a man might love me for myself," she murmured pathetically, "and if he loved me truly, that he would marry me. If he would not marry me, then it would be because he didn't love me. I'll tell George my secret. If he leaves me, then he does not love me." But this resolution vanished into thin air before it was fully formulated. The secret was not hers alone; it involved her brother's position, to whom she owed everything, and in less degree the future of her little nephew, whom she had learned to love so well. She had the choice of but two courses of action, to marry Tryon or to dismiss him. The thought that she might lose him made him seem only more dear; to think that he might leave her made her sick at heart. In one week she was bound to give him an answer; he was more likely to ask for it at their next meeting. IX DOUBTS AND FEARS Rena's heart was too heavy with these misgivings for her to keep them to herself. On the morning after the conversation with Tryon in which she had promised him an answer within a week, she went into her brother's study, where he usually spent an hour after breakfast before going to his office. He looked up amiably from the book before him and read trouble in her face. "Well, Rena, dear," he asked with a smile, "what's the matter? Is there anything you want--money, or what? I should like to have Aladdin's lamp--though I'd hardly need it--that you might have no wish unsatisfied." He had found her very backward in asking for things that she needed. Generous with his means, he thought nothing too good for her. Her success had gratified his pride, and justified his course in taking her under his protection. "Thank you, John. You give me already more than I need. It is something else, John. George wants me to say when I will marry him. I am afraid to marry him, without telling him. If he should find out afterwards, he might cast me off, or cease to love me. If he did not know it, I should be forever thinking of what he would do if he SHOULD find it out; or, if I should die without his having learned it, I should not rest easy in my grave for thinking of what he would have done if he HAD found it out." Warwick's smile gave place to a grave expression at this somewhat comprehensive statement. He rose and closed the door carefully, lest some one of the servants might overhear the conversation. More liberally endowed than Rena with imagination, and not without a vein of sentiment, he had nevertheless a practical side that outweighed them both. With him, the problem that oppressed his sister had been in the main a matter of argument, of self-conviction. Once persuaded that he had certain rights, or ought to have them, by virtue of the laws of nature, in defiance of the customs of mankind, he had promptly sought to enjoy them. This he had been able to do by simply concealing his antecedents and making the most of his opportunities, with no troublesome qualms of conscience whatever. But he had already perceived, in their brief intercourse, that Rena's emotions, while less easily stirred, touched a deeper note than his, and dwelt upon it with greater intensity than if they had been spread over the larger field to which a more ready sympathy would have supplied so many points of access;--hers was a deep and silent current flowing between the narrow walls of a self-contained life, his the spreading river that ran through a pleasant landscape. Warwick's imagination, however, enabled him to put himself in touch with her mood and recognize its bearings upon her conduct. He would have preferred her taking the practical point of view, to bring her round to which he perceived would be a matter of diplomacy. "How long have these weighty thoughts been troubling your small head?" he asked with assumed lightness. "Since he asked me last night to name our wedding day." "My dear child," continued Warwick, "you take too tragic a view of life. Marriage is a reciprocal arrangement, by which the contracting parties give love for love, care for keeping, faith for faith. It is a matter of the future, not of the past. What a poor soul it is that has not some secret chamber, sacred to itself; where one can file away the things others have no right to know, as well as things that one himself would fain forget! We are under no moral obligation to inflict upon others the history of our past mistakes, our wayward thoughts, our secret sins, our desperate hopes, or our heartbreaking disappointments. Still less are we bound to bring out from this secret chamber the dusty record of our ancestry. 'Let the dead past bury its dead.' George Tryon loves you for yourself alone; it is not your ancestors that he seeks to marry." "But would he marry me if he knew?" she persisted. Warwick paused for reflection. He would have preferred to argue the question in a general way, but felt the necessity of satisfying her scruples, as far as might be. He had liked Tryon from the very beginning of their acquaintance. In all their intercourse, which had been very close for several months, he had been impressed by the young man's sunny temper, his straightforwardness, his intellectual honesty. Tryon's deference to Warwick as the elder man had very naturally proved an attraction. Whether this friendship would have stood the test of utter frankness about his own past was a merely academic speculation with which Warwick did not trouble himself. With his sister the question had evidently become a matter of conscience,--a difficult subject with which to deal in a person of Rena's temperament. "My dear sister," he replied, "why should he know? We haven't asked him for his pedigree; we don't care to know it. If he cares for ours, he should ask for it, and it would then be time enough to raise the question. You love him, I imagine, and wish to make him happy?" It is the highest wish of the woman who loves. The enamored man seeks his own happiness; the loving woman finds no sacrifice too great for the loved one. The fiction of chivalry made man serve woman; the fact of human nature makes woman happiest when serving where she loves. "Yes, oh, yes," Rena exclaimed with fervor, clasping her hands unconsciously. "I'm afraid he'd be unhappy if he knew, and it would make me miserable to think him unhappy." "Well, then," said Warwick, "suppose we should tell him our secret and put ourselves in his power, and that he should then conclude that he couldn't marry you? Do you imagine he would be any happier than he is now, or than if he should never know?" Ah, no! she could not think so. One could not tear love out of one's heart without pain and suffering. There was a knock at the door. Warwick opened it to the nurse, who stood with little Albert in her arms. "Please, suh," said the girl, with a curtsy, "de baby 's be'n oryin' an' frettin' fer Miss Rena, an' I 'lowed she mought want me ter fetch 'im, ef it wouldn't 'sturb her." "Give me the darling," exclaimed Rena, coming forward and taking the child from the nurse. "It wants its auntie. Come to its auntie, bless its little heart!" Little Albert crowed with pleasure and put up his pretty mouth for a kiss. Warwick found the sight a pleasant one. If he could but quiet his sister's troublesome scruples, he might erelong see her fondling beautiful children of her own. Even if Rena were willing to risk her happiness, and he to endanger his position, by a quixotic frankness, the future of his child must not be compromised. "You wouldn't want to make George unhappy," Warwick resumed when the nurse retired. "Very well; would you not be willing, for his sake, to keep a secret--your secret and mine, and that of the innocent child in your arms? Would you involve all of us in difficulties merely to secure your own peace of mind? Doesn't such a course seem just the least bit selfish? Think the matter over from that point of view, and we'll speak of it later in the day. I shall be with George all the morning, and I may be able, by a little management, to find out his views on the subject of birth and family, and all that. Some men are very liberal, and love is a great leveler. I'll sound him, at any rate." He kissed the baby and left Rena to her own reflections, to which his presentation of the case had given a new turn. It had never before occurred to her to regard silence in the light of self-sacrifice. It had seemed a sort of sin; her brother's argument made of it a virtue. It was not the first time, nor the last, that right and wrong had been a matter of view-point. Tryon himself furnished the opening for Warwick's proposed examination. The younger man could not long remain silent upon the subject uppermost in his mind. "I am anxious, John," he said, "to have Rowena name the happiest day of my life--our wedding day. When the trial in Edgecombe County is finished, I shall have no further business here, and shall be ready to leave for home. I should like to take my bride with me, and surprise my mother." Mothers, thought Warwick, are likely to prove inquisitive about their sons' wives, especially when taken unawares in matters of such importance. This seemed a good time to test the liberality of Tryon's views, and to put forward a shield for his sister's protection. "Are you sure, George, that your mother will find the surprise agreeable when you bring home a bride of whom you know so little and your mother nothing at all?" Tryon had felt that it would be best to surprise his mother. She would need only to see Rena to approve of her, but she was so far prejudiced in favor of Blanche Leary that it would be wisest to present the argument after having announced the irrevocable conclusion. Rena herself would be a complete justification for the accomplished deed. "I think you ought to know, George," continued Warwick, without waiting for a reply to his question, "that my sister and I are not of an old family, or a rich family, or a distinguished family; that she can bring you nothing but herself; that we have no connections of which you could boast, and no relatives to whom we should be glad to introduce you. You must take us for ourselves alone--we are new people." "My dear John," replied the young man warmly, "there is a great deal of nonsense about families. If a man is noble and brave and strong, if a woman is beautiful and good and true, what matters it about his or her ancestry? If an old family can give them these things, then it is valuable; if they possess them without it, then of what use is it, except as a source of empty pride, which they would be better without? If all new families were like yours, there would be no advantage in belonging to an old one. All I care to know of Rowena's family is that she is your sister; and you'll pardon me, old fellow, if I add that she hardly needs even you,--she carries the stamp of her descent upon her face and in her heart." "It makes me glad to hear you speak in that way," returned Warwick, delighted by the young man's breadth and earnestness. "Oh, I mean every word of it," replied Tryon. "Ancestors, indeed, for Rowena! I will tell you a family secret, John, to prove how little I care for ancestors. My maternal great-great-grandfather, a hundred and fifty years ago, was hanged, drawn, and quartered for stealing cattle across the Scottish border. How is that for a pedigree? Behold in me the lineal descendant of a felon!" Warwick felt much relieved at this avowal. His own statement had not touched the vital point involved; it had been at the best but a half-truth; but Tryon's magnanimity would doubtless protect Rena from any close inquiry concerning her past. It even occurred to Warwick for a moment that he might safely disclose the secret to Tryon; but an appreciation of certain facts of history and certain traits of human nature constrained him to put the momentary thought aside. It was a great relief, however, to imagine that Tryon might think lightly of this thing that he need never know. "Well, Rena," he said to his sister when he went home at noon: "I've sounded George." "What did he say?" she asked eagerly. "I told him we were people of no family, and that we had no relatives that we were proud of. He said he loved you for yourself, and would never ask you about your ancestry." "Oh, I am so glad!" exclaimed Rena joyfully. This report left her very happy for about three hours, or until she began to analyze carefully her brother's account of what had been said. Warwick's statement had not been specific,--he had not told Tryon THE thing. George's reply, in turn, had been a mere generality. The concrete fact that oppressed her remained unrevealed, and her doubt was still unsatisfied. Rena was occupied with this thought when her lover next came to see her. Tryon came up the sanded walk from the gate and spoke pleasantly to the nurse, a good-looking yellow girl who was seated on the front steps, playing with little Albert. He took the boy from her arms, and she went to call Miss Warwick. Rena came out, followed by the nurse, who offered to take the child. "Never mind, Mimy, leave him with me," said Tryon. The nurse walked discreetly over into the garden, remaining within call, but beyond the hearing of conversation in an ordinary tone. "Rena, darling," said her lover, "when shall it be? Surely you won't ask me to wait a week. Why, that's a lifetime!" Rena was struck by a brilliant idea. She would test her lover. Love was a very powerful force; she had found it the greatest, grandest, sweetest thing in the world. Tryon had said that he loved her; he had said scarcely anything else for several weeks, surely nothing else worth remembering. She would test his love by a hypothetical question. "You say you love me," she said, glancing at him with a sad thoughtfulness in her large dark eyes. "How much do you love me?" "I love you all one can love. True love has no degrees; it is all or nothing!" "Would you love me," she asked, with an air of coquetry that masked her concern, pointing toward the girl in the shrubbery, "if I were Albert's nurse yonder?" "If you were Albert's nurse," he replied, with a joyous laugh, "he would have to find another within a week, for within a week we should be married." The answer seemed to fit the question, but in fact, Tryon's mind and Rena's did not meet. That two intelligent persons should each attach a different meaning to so simple a form of words as Rena's question was the best ground for her misgiving with regard to the marriage. But love blinded her. She was anxious to be convinced. She interpreted the meaning of his speech by her own thought and by the ardor of his glance, and was satisfied with the answer. "And now, darling," pleaded Tryon, "will you not fix the day that shall make me happy? I shall be ready to go away in three weeks. Will you go with me?" "Yes," she answered, in a tumult of joy. She would never need to tell him her secret now. It would make no difference with him, so far as she was concerned; and she had no right to reveal her brother's secret. She was willing to bury the past in forgetfulness, now that she knew it would have no interest for her lover. X THE DREAM The marriage was fixed for the thirtieth of the month, immediately after which Tryon and his bride were to set out for North Carolina. Warwick would have liked it much if Tryon had lived in South Carolina; but the location of his North Carolina home was at some distance from Patesville, with which it had no connection by steam or rail, and indeed lay altogether out of the line of travel to Patesville. Rena had no acquaintance with people of social standing in North Carolina; and with the added maturity and charm due to her improved opportunities, it was unlikely that any former resident of Patesville who might casually meet her would see in the elegant young matron from South Carolina more than a passing resemblance to a poor girl who had once lived in an obscure part of the old town. It would of course be necessary for Rena to keep away from Patesville; save for her mother's sake, she would hardly be tempted to go back. On the twentieth of the month, Warwick set out with Tryon for the county seat of the adjoining county, to try one of the lawsuits which had required Tryon's presence in South Carolina for so long a time. Their destination was a day's drive from Clarence, behind a good horse, and the trial was expected to last a week. "This week will seem like a year," said Tryon ruefully, the evening before their departure, "but I'll write every day, and shall expect a letter as often." "The mail goes only twice a week, George," replied Rena. "Then I shall have three letters in each mail." Warwick and Tryon were to set out in the cool of the morning, after an early breakfast. Rena was up at daybreak that she might preside at the breakfast-table and bid the travelers good-by. "John," said Rena to her brother in the morning, "I dreamed last night that mother was ill." "Dreams, you know, Rena," answered Warwick lightly, "go by contraries. Yours undoubtedly signifies that our mother, God bless her simple soul! is at the present moment enjoying her usual perfect health. She was never sick in her life." For a few months after leaving Patesville with her brother, Rena had suffered tortures of homesickness; those who have felt it know the pang. The severance of old ties had been abrupt and complete. At the school where her brother had taken her, there had been nothing to relieve the strangeness of her surroundings--no schoolmate from her own town, no relative or friend of the family near by. Even the compensation of human sympathy was in a measure denied her, for Rena was too fresh from her prison-house to doubt that sympathy would fail before the revelation of the secret the consciousness of which oppressed her at that time like a nightmare. It was not strange that Rena, thus isolated, should have been prostrated by homesickness for several weeks after leaving Patesville. When the paroxysm had passed, there followed a dull pain, which gradually subsided into a resignation as profound, in its way, as had been her longing for home. She loved, she suffered, with a quiet intensity of which her outward demeanor gave no adequate expression. From some ancestral source she had derived a strain of the passive fatalism by which alone one can submit uncomplainingly to the inevitable. By the same token, when once a thing had been decided, it became with her a finality, which only some extraordinary stress of emotion could disturb. She had acquiesced in her brother's plan; for her there was no withdrawing; her homesickness was an incidental thing which must be endured, as patiently as might be, until time should have brought a measure of relief. Warwick had made provision for an occasional letter from Patesville, by leaving with his mother a number of envelopes directed to his address. She could have her letters written, inclose them in these envelopes, and deposit them in the post-office with her own hand. Thus the place of Warwick's residence would remain within her own knowledge, and his secret would not be placed at the mercy of any wandering Patesvillian who might perchance go to that part of South Carolina. By this simple means Rena had kept as closely in touch with her mother as Warwick had considered prudent; any closer intercourse was not consistent with their present station in life. The night after Warwick and Tryon had ridden away, Rena dreamed again that her mother was ill. Better taught people than she, in regions more enlightened than the South Carolina of that epoch, are disturbed at times by dreams. Mis' Molly had a profound faith in them. If God, in ancient times, had spoken to men in visions of the night, what easier way could there be for Him to convey his meaning to people of all ages? Science, which has shattered many an idol and destroyed many a delusion, has made but slight inroads upon the shadowy realm of dreams. For Mis' Molly, to whom science would have meant nothing and psychology would have been a meaningless term, the land of dreams was carefully mapped and bounded. Each dream had some special significance, or was at least susceptible of classification under some significant head. Dreams, as a general rule, went by contraries; but a dream three times repeated was a certain portent of the thing defined. Rena's few years of schooling at Patesville and her months at Charleston had scarcely disturbed these hoary superstitions which lurk in the dim corners of the brain. No lady in Clarence, perhaps, would have remained undisturbed by a vivid dream, three times repeated, of some event bearing materially upon her own life. The first repetition of a dream was decisive of nothing, for two dreams meant no more than one. The power of the second lay in the suspense, the uncertainty, to which it gave rise. Two doubled the chance of a third. The day following this second dream was an anxious one for Rena. She could not for an instant dismiss her mother from her thoughts, which were filled too with a certain self-reproach. She had left her mother alone; if her mother were really ill, there was no one at home to tend her with loving care. This feeling grew in force, until by nightfall Rena had become very unhappy, and went to bed with the most dismal forebodings. In this state of mind, it is not surprising that she now dreamed that her mother was lying at the point of death, and that she cried out with heart-rending pathos:-- "Rena, my darlin', why did you forsake yo'r pore old mother? Come back to me, honey; I'll die ef I don't see you soon." The stress of subconscious emotion engendered by the dream was powerful enough to wake Rena, and her mother's utterance seemed to come to her with the force of a fateful warning and a great reproach. Her mother was sick and needed her, and would die if she did not come. She felt that she must see her mother,--it would be almost like murder to remain away from her under such circumstances. After breakfast she went into the business part of the town and inquired at what time a train would leave that would take her toward Patesville. Since she had come away from the town, a railroad had been opened by which the long river voyage might be avoided, and, making allowance for slow trains and irregular connections, the town of Patesville could be reached by an all-rail route in about twelve hours. Calling at the post-office for the family mail, she found there a letter from her mother, which she tore open in great excitement. It was written in an unpracticed hand and badly spelled, and was in effect as follows:-- MY DEAR DAUGHTER,--I take my pen in hand to let you know that I am not very well. I have had a kind of misery in my side for two weeks, with palpitations of the heart, and I have been in bed for three days. I'm feeling mighty poorly, but Dr. Green says that I'll get over it in a few days. Old Aunt Zilphy is staying with me, and looking after things tolerably well. I hope this will find you and John enjoying good health. Give my love to John, and I hope the Lord will bless him and you too. Cousin Billy Oxendine has had a rising on his neck, and has had to have it lanced. Mary B. has another young one, a boy this time. Old man Tom Johnson was killed last week while trying to whip black Jim Brown, who lived down on the Wilmington Road. Jim has run away. There has been a big freshet in the river, and it looked at one time as if the new bridge would be washed away. Frank comes over every day or two and asks about you. He says to tell you that he don't believe you are coming back any more, but you are to remember him, and that foolishness he said about bringing you back from the end of the world with his mule and cart. He's very good to me, and brings over shavings and kindling-wood, and made me a new well-bucket for nothing. It's a comfort to talk to him about you, though I haven't told him where you are living. I hope this will find you and John both well, and doing well. I should like to see you, but if it's the Lord's will that I shouldn't, I shall be thankful anyway that you have done what was the best for yourselves and your children, and that I have given you up for your own good. Your affectionate mother, MARY WALDEN. Rena shed tears over this simple letter, which, to her excited imagination, merely confirmed the warning of her dream. At the date of its writing her mother had been sick in bed, with the symptoms of a serious illness. She had no nurse but a purblind old woman. Three days of progressive illness had evidently been quite sufficient to reduce her parent to the condition indicated by the third dream. The thought that her mother might die without the presence of any one who loved her pierced Rena's heart like a knife and lent wings to her feet. She wished for the enchanted horse of which her brother had read to her so many years before on the front piazza of the house behind the cedars, that she might fly through the air to her dying mother's side. She determined to go at once to Patesville. Returning home, she wrote a letter to Warwick inclosing their mother's letter, and stating that she had dreamed an alarming dream for three nights in succession; that she had left the house in charge of the servants and gone to Patesville; and that she would return as soon as her mother was out of danger. To her lover she wrote that she had been called away to visit a sick-bed, and would return very soon, perhaps by the time he got back to Clarence. These letters Rena posted on her way to the train, which she took at five o'clock in the afternoon. This would bring her to Patesville early in the morning of the following day. XI A LETTER AND A JOURNEY War has been called the court of last resort. A lawsuit may with equal aptness be compared to a battle--the parallel might be drawn very closely all along the line. First we have the casus belli, the cause of action; then the various protocols and proclamations and general orders, by way of pleas, demurrers, and motions; then the preliminary skirmishes at the trial table; and then the final struggle, in which might is quite as likely to prevail as right, victory most often resting with the strongest battalions, and truth and justice not seldom overborne by the weight of odds upon the other side. The lawsuit which Warwick and Tryon had gone to try did not, however, reach this ultimate stage, but, after a three days' engagement, resulted in a treaty of peace. The case was compromised and settled, and Tryon and Warwick set out on their homeward drive. They stopped at a farm-house at noon, and while at table saw the stage-coach from the town they had just left, bound for their own destination. In the mail-bag under the driver's seat were Rena's two letters; they had been delivered at the town in the morning, and immediately remailed to Clarence, in accordance with orders left at the post-office the evening before. Tryon and Warwick drove leisurely homeward through the pines, all unconscious of the fateful squares of white paper moving along the road a few miles before them, which a mother's yearning and a daughter's love had thrown, like the apple of discord, into the narrow circle of their happiness. They reached Clarence at four o'clock. Warwick got down from the buggy at his office. Tryon drove on to his hotel, to make a hasty toilet before visiting his sweetheart. Warwick glanced at his mail, tore open the envelope addressed in his sister's handwriting, and read the contents with something like dismay. She had gone away on the eve of her wedding, her lover knew not where, to be gone no one knew how long, on a mission which could not be frankly disclosed. A dim foreboding of disaster flashed across his mind. He thrust the letter into his pocket, with others yet unopened, and started toward his home. Reaching the gate, he paused a moment and then walked on past the house. Tryon would probably be there in a few minutes, and he did not care to meet him without first having had the opportunity for some moments of reflection. He must fix upon some line of action in this emergency. Meanwhile Tryon had reached his hotel and opened his mail. The letter from Rena was read first, with profound disappointment. He had really made concessions in the settlement of that lawsuit--had yielded several hundred dollars of his just dues, in order that he might get back to Rena three days earlier. Now he must cool his heels in idleness for at least three days before she would return. It was annoying, to say the least. He wished to know where she had gone, that he might follow her and stay near her until she should be ready to come back. He might ask Warwick--no, she might have had some good reason for not having mentioned her destination. She had probably gone to visit some of the poor relations of whom her brother had spoken so frankly, and she would doubtless prefer that he should not see her amid any surroundings but the best. Indeed, he did not know that he would himself care to endanger, by suggestive comparisons, the fine aureole of superiority that surrounded her. She represented in her adorable person and her pure heart the finest flower of the finest race that God had ever made--the supreme effort of creative power, than which there could be no finer. The flower would soon be his; why should he care to dig up the soil in which it grew? Tryon went on opening his letters. There were several bills and circulars, and then a letter from his mother, of which he broke the seal:-- MY DEAREST GEORGE,--This leaves us well. Blanche is still with me, and we are impatiently awaiting your return. In your absence she seems almost like a daughter to me. She joins me in the hope that your lawsuits are progressing favorably, and that you will be with us soon. . . . On your way home, if it does not keep you away from us too long, would it not be well for you to come by way of Patesville, and find out whether there is any prospect of our being able to collect our claim against old Mr. Duncan McSwayne's estate? You must have taken the papers with you, along with the rest, for I do not find them here. Things ought to be settled enough now for people to realize on some of their securities. Your grandfather always believed the note was good, and meant to try to collect it, but the war interfered. He said to me, before he died, that if the note was ever collected, he would use the money to buy a wedding present for your wife. Poor father! he is dead and gone to heaven; but I am sure that even there he would be happier if he knew the note was paid and the money used as he intended. If you go to Patesville, call on my cousin, Dr. Ed. Green, and tell him who you are. Give him my love. I haven't seen him for twenty years. He used to be very fond of the ladies, a very gallant man. He can direct you to a good lawyer, no doubt. Hoping to see you soon, Your loving mother, ELIZABETH TRYON. P. S. Blanche joins me in love to you. This affectionate and motherly letter did not give Tryon unalloyed satisfaction. He was glad to hear that his mother was well, but he had hoped that Blanche Leary might have finished her visit by this time. The reasonable inference from the letter was that Blanche meant to await his return. Her presence would spoil the fine romantic flavor of the surprise he had planned for his mother; it would never do to expose his bride to an unannounced meeting with the woman whom he had tacitly rejected. There would be one advantage in such a meeting: the comparison of the two women would be so much in Rena's favor that his mother could not hesitate for a moment between them. The situation, however, would have elements of constraint, and he did not care to expose either Rena or Blanche to any disagreeable contingency. It would be better to take his wife on a wedding trip, and notify his mother, before he returned home, of his marriage. In the extremely improbable case that she should disapprove his choice after having seen his wife, the ice would at least have been broken before his arrival at home. "By Jove!" he exclaimed suddenly, striking his knee with his hand, "why shouldn't I run up to Patesville while Rena's gone? I can leave here at five o'clock, and get there some time to-morrow morning. I can transact my business during the day, and get back the day after to-morrow; for Rena might return ahead of time, just as we did, and I shall want to be here when she comes; I'd rather wait a year for a legal opinion on a doubtful old note than to lose one day with my love. The train goes in twenty minutes. My bag is already packed. I'll just drop a line to George and tell him where I've gone." He put Rena's letter into his breast pocket, and turning to his trunk, took from it a handful of papers relating to the claim in reference to which he was going to Patesville. These he thrust into the same pocket with Rena's letter; he wished to read both letter and papers while on the train. It would be a pleasure merely to hold the letter before his eyes and look at the lines traced by her hand. The papers he wished to study, for the more practical purpose of examining into the merits of his claim against the estate of Duncan McSwayne. When Warwick reached home, he inquired if Mr. Tryon had called. "No, suh," answered the nurse, to whom he had put the question; "he ain't be'n here yet, suh." Warwick was surprised and much disturbed. "De baby 's be'n cryin' for Miss Rena," suggested the nurse, "an' I s'pec' he'd like to see you, suh. Shall I fetch 'im?" "Yes, bring him to me." He took the child in his arms and went out upon the piazza. Several porch pillows lay invitingly near. He pushed them toward the steps with his foot, sat down upon one, and placed little Albert upon another. He was scarcely seated when a messenger from the hotel came up the walk from the gate and handed him a note. At the same moment he heard the long shriek of the afternoon train leaving the station on the opposite side of the town. He tore the envelope open anxiously, read the note, smiled a sickly smile, and clenched the paper in his hand unconsciously. There was nothing he could do. The train had gone; there was no telegraph to Patesville, and no letter could leave Clarence for twenty-four hours. The best laid schemes go wrong at times--the stanchest ships are sometimes wrecked, or skirt the breakers perilously. Life is a sea, full of strange currents and uncharted reefs--whoever leaves the traveled path must run the danger of destruction. Warwick was a lawyer, however, and accustomed to balance probabilities. "He may easily be in Patesville a day or two without meeting her. She will spend most of her time at mother's bedside, and he will be occupied with his own affairs." If Tryon should meet her--well, he was very much in love, and he had spoken very nobly of birth and blood. Warwick would have preferred, nevertheless, that Tryon's theories should not be put to this particular test. Rena's scruples had so far been successfully combated; the question would be opened again, and the situation unnecessarily complicated, if Tryon should meet Rena in Patesville. "Will he or will he not?" he asked himself. He took a coin from his pocket and spun it upon the floor. "Heads, he sees her; tails, he does not." The coin spun swiftly and steadily, leaving upon the eye the impression of a revolving sphere. Little Albert, left for a moment to his own devices, had crept behind his father and was watching the whirling disk with great pleasure. He felt that he would like to possess this interesting object. The coin began to move more slowly, and was wabbling to its fall, when the child stretched forth his chubby fist and caught it ere it touched the floor. XII TRYON GOES TO PATESVILLE Tryon arrived in the early morning and put up at the Patesville Hotel, a very comfortable inn. After a bath, breakfast, and a visit to the barbershop, he inquired of the hotel clerk the way to the office of Dr. Green, his mother's cousin. "On the corner, sir," answered the clerk, "by the market-house, just over the drugstore. The doctor drove past here only half an hour ago. You'll probably catch him in his office." Tryon found the office without difficulty. He climbed the stair, but found no one in except a young colored man seated in the outer office, who rose promptly as Tryon entered. "No, suh," replied the man to Tryon's question, "he ain't hyuh now. He's gone out to see a patient, suh, but he'll be back soon. Won't you set down in de private office an' wait fer 'im, suh?" Tryon had not slept well during his journey, and felt somewhat fatigued. Through the open door of the next room he saw an inviting armchair, with a window at one side, and upon the other a table strewn with papers and magazines. "Yes," he answered, "I'll wait." He entered the private office, sank into the armchair, and looked out of the window upon the square below. The view was mildly interesting. The old brick market-house with the tower was quite picturesque. On a wagon-scale at one end the public weighmaster was weighing a load of hay. In the booths under the wide arches several old negro women were frying fish on little charcoal stoves--the odor would have been appetizing to one who had not breakfasted. On the shady side stood half a dozen two-wheeled carts, loaded with lightwood and drawn by diminutive steers, or superannuated army mules branded on the flank with the cabalistic letters "C. S. A.," which represented a vanished dream, or "U. S. A.," which, as any negro about the market-house would have borne witness, signified a very concrete fact. Now and then a lady or gentleman passed with leisurely step--no one ever hurried in Patesville--or some poor white sandhiller slouched listlessly along toward store or bar-room. Tryon mechanically counted the slabs of gingerbread on the nearest market-stall, and calculated the cubical contents of several of the meagre loads of wood. Having exhausted the view, he turned to the table at his elbow and picked up a medical journal, in which he read first an account of a marvelous surgical operation. Turning the leaves idly, he came upon an article by a Southern writer, upon the perennial race problem that has vexed the country for a century. The writer maintained that owing to a special tendency of the negro blood, however diluted, to revert to the African type, any future amalgamation of the white and black races, which foolish and wicked Northern negrophiles predicted as the ultimate result of the new conditions confronting the South, would therefore be an ethnological impossibility; for the smallest trace of negro blood would inevitably drag down the superior race to the level of the inferior, and reduce the fair Southland, already devastated by the hand of the invader, to the frightful level of Hayti, the awful example of negro incapacity. To forefend their beloved land, now doubly sanctified by the blood of her devoted sons who had fallen in the struggle to maintain her liberties and preserve her property, it behooved every true Southron to stand firm against the abhorrent tide of radicalism, to maintain the supremacy and purity of his all-pervading, all-conquering race, and to resist by every available means the threatened domination of an inferior and degraded people, who were set to rule hereditary freemen ere they had themselves scarce ceased to be slaves. When Tryon had finished the article, which seemed to him a well-considered argument, albeit a trifle bombastic, he threw the book upon the table. Finding the armchair wonderfully comfortable, and feeling the fatigue of his journey, he yielded to a drowsy impulse, leaned his head on the cushioned back of the chair, and fell asleep. According to the habit of youth, he dreamed, and pursuant to his own individual habit, he dreamed of Rena. They were walking in the moonlight, along the quiet road in front of her brother's house. The air was redolent with the perfume of flowers. His arm was around her waist. He had asked her if she loved him, and was awaiting her answer in tremulous but confident expectation. She opened her lips to speak. The sound that came from them seemed to be:-- "Is Dr. Green in? No? Ask him, when he comes back, please, to call at our house as soon as he can." Tryon was in that state of somnolence in which one may dream and yet be aware that one is dreaming,--the state where one, during a dream, dreams that one pinches one's self to be sure that one is not dreaming. He was therefore aware of a ringing quality about the words he had just heard that did not comport with the shadowy converse of a dream--an incongruity in the remark, too, which marred the harmony of the vision. The shock was sufficient to disturb Tryon's slumber, and he struggled slowly back to consciousness. When fully awake, he thought he heard a light footfall descending the stairs. "Was there some one here?" he inquired of the attendant in the outer office, who was visible through the open door. "Yas, suh," replied the boy, "a young cullud 'oman wuz in jes' now, axin' fer de doctuh." Tryon felt a momentary touch of annoyance that a negro woman should have intruded herself into his dream at its most interesting point. Nevertheless, the voice had been so real, his imagination had reproduced with such exactness the dulcet tones so dear to him, that he turned his head involuntarily and looked out of the window. He could just see the flutter of a woman's skirt disappearing around the corner. A moment later the doctor came bustling in,--a plump, rosy man of fifty or more, with a frank, open countenance and an air of genial good nature. Such a doctor, Tryon fancied, ought to enjoy a wide popularity. His mere presence would suggest life and hope and healthfulness. "My dear boy," exclaimed the doctor cordially, after Tryon had introduced himself, "I'm delighted to meet you--or any one of the old blood. Your mother and I were sweethearts, long ago, when we both wore pinafores, and went to see our grandfather at Christmas; and I met her more than once, and paid her more than one compliment, after she had grown to be a fine young woman. You're like her! too, but not quite so handsome--you've more of what I suppose to be the Tryon favor, though I never met your father. So one of old Duncan McSwayne's notes went so far as that? Well, well, I don't know where you won't find them. One of them turned up here the other day from New York. "The man you want to see," he added later in the conversation, "is old Judge Straight. He's getting somewhat stiff in the joints, but he knows more law, and more about the McSwayne estate, than any other two lawyers in town. If anybody can collect your claim, Judge Straight can. I'll send my boy Dave over to his office. Dave," he called to his attendant, "run over to Judge Straight's office and see if he's there. "There was a freshet here a few weeks ago," he want on, when the colored man had departed, "and they had to open the flood-gates and let the water out of the mill pond, for if the dam had broken, as it did twenty years ago, it would have washed the pillars from under the judge's office and let it down in the creek, and"-- "Jedge Straight ain't in de office jes' now, suh," reported the doctor's man Dave, from the head of the stairs. "Did you ask when he'd be back?" "No, suh, you didn't tell me ter, suh." "Well, now, go back and inquire. "The niggers," he explained to Tryon, "are getting mighty trifling since they've been freed. Before the war, that boy would have been around there and back before you could say Jack Robinson; now, the lazy rascal takes his time just like a white man." Dave returned more promptly than from his first trip. "Jedge Straight's dere now, suh," he said. "He's done come in." "I'll take you right around and introduce you," said the doctor, running on pleasantly, like a babbling brook. "I don't know whether the judge ever met your mother or not, but he knows a gentleman when he sees one, and will be glad to meet you and look after your affair. See to the patients, Dave, and say I'll be back shortly, and don't forget any messages left for me. Look sharp, now! You know your failing!" They found Judge Straight in his office. He was seated by the rear window, and had fallen into a gentle doze--the air of Patesville was conducive to slumber. A visitor from some bustling city might have rubbed his eyes, on any but a market-day, and imagined the whole town asleep--that the people were somnambulists and did not know it. The judge, an old hand, roused himself so skillfully, at the sound of approaching footsteps, that his visitors could not guess but that he had been wide awake. He shook hands with the doctor, and acknowledged the introduction to Tryon with a rare old-fashioned courtesy, which the young man thought a very charming survival of the manners of a past and happier age. "No," replied the judge, in answer to a question by Dr. Green, "I never met his mother; I was a generation ahead of her. I was at school with her father, however, fifty years ago--fifty years ago! No doubt that seems to you a long time, young gentleman?" "It is a long time, sir," replied Tryon. "I must live more than twice as long as I have in order to cover it." "A long time, and a troubled time," sighed the judge. "I could wish that I might see this unhappy land at peace with itself before I die. Things are in a sad tangle; I can't see the way out. But the worst enemy has been slain, in spite of us. We are well rid of slavery." "But the negro we still have with us," remarked the doctor, "for here comes my man Dave. What is it, Dave?" he asked sharply, as the negro stuck his head in at the door. "Doctuh Green," he said, "I fuhgot ter tell you, suh, dat dat young 'oman wuz at de office agin jes' befo' you come in, an' said fer you to go right down an' see her mammy ez soon ez you could." "Ah, yes, and you've just remembered it! I'm afraid you're entirely too forgetful for a doctor's office. You forgot about old Mrs. Latimer, the other day, and when I got there she had almost choked to death. Now get back to the office, and remember, the next time you forget anything, I'll hire another boy; remember that! That boy's head," he remarked to his companions, after Dave had gone, "reminds me of nothing so much as a dried gourd, with a handful of cowpeas rattling around it, in lieu of gray matter. An old woman out in Redbank got a fishbone in her throat, the other day, and nearly choked to death before I got there. A white woman, sir, came very near losing her life because of a lazy, trifling negro!" "I should think you would discharge him, sir," suggested Tryon. "What would be the use?" rejoined the doctor. "All negroes are alike, except that now and then there's a pretty woman along the border-line. Take this patient of mine, for instance,--I'll call on her after dinner, her case is not serious,--thirty years ago she would have made any man turn his head to look at her. You know who I mean, don't you, judge?" "Yes. I think so," said the judge promptly. "I've transacted a little business for her now and then." "I don't know whether you've seen the daughter or not--I'm sure you haven't for the past year or so, for she's been away. But she's in town now, and, by Jove, the girl is really beautiful. And I'm a judge of beauty. Do you remember my wife thirty years ago, judge?" "She was a very handsome woman, Ed," replied the other judicially. "If I had been twenty years younger, I should have cut you out." "You mean you would have tried. But as I was saying, this girl is a beauty; I reckon we might guess where she got some of it, eh, Judge? Human nature is human nature, but it's a d--d shame that a man should beget a child like that and leave it to live the life open for a negro. If she had been born white, the young fellows would be tumbling over one another to get her. Her mother would have to look after her pretty closely as things are, if she stayed here; but she disappeared mysteriously a year or two ago, and has been at the North, I'm told, passing for white. She'll probably marry a Yankee; he won't know any better, and it will serve him right--she's only too white for them. She has a very striking figure, something on the Greek order, stately and slow-moving. She has the manners of a lady, too--a beautiful woman, if she is a nigger!" "I quite agree with you, Ed," remarked the judge dryly, "that the mother had better look closely after the daughter." "Ah, no, judge," replied the other, with a flattered smile, "my admiration for beauty is purely abstract. Twenty-five years ago, when I was younger"-- "When you were young," corrected the judge. "When you and I were younger," continued the doctor ingeniously,--"twenty-five years ago, I could not have answered for myself. But I would advise the girl to stay at the North, if she can. She's certainly out of place around here." Tryon found the subject a little tiresome, and the doctor's enthusiasm not at all contagious. He could not possibly have been interested in a colored girl, under any circumstances, and he was engaged to be married to the most beautiful white woman on earth. To mention a negro woman in the same room where he was thinking of Rena seemed little short of profanation. His friend the doctor was a jovial fellow, but it was surely doubtful taste to refer to his wife in such a conversation. He was very glad when the doctor dropped the subject and permitted him to go more into detail about the matter which formed his business in Patesville. He took out of his pocket the papers concerning the McSwayne claim and laid them on the judge's desk. "You'll find everything there, sir,--the note, the contract, and some correspondence that will give you the hang of the thing. Will you be able to look over them to-day? I should like," he added a little nervously, "to go back to-morrow." "What!" exclaimed Dr. Green vivaciously, "insult our town by staying only one day? It won't be long enough to get acquainted with our young ladies. Patesville girls are famous for their beauty. But perhaps there's a loadstone in South Carolina to draw you back? Ah, you change color! To my mind there's nothing finer than the ingenuous blush of youth. But we'll spare you if you'll answer one question--is it serious?" "I'm to be married in two weeks, sir," answered Tryon. The statement sounded very pleasant, in spite of the slight embarrassment caused by the inquiry. "Good boy!" rejoined the doctor, taking his arm familiarly--they were both standing now. "You ought to have married a Patesville girl, but you people down towards the eastern counties seldom come this way, and we are evidently too late to catch you." "I'll look your papers over this morning," said the judge, "and when I come from dinner will stop at the court house and examine the records and see whether there's anything we can get hold of. If you'll drop in around three or four o'clock, I may be able to give you an opinion." "Now, George," exclaimed the doctor, "we'll go back to the office for a spell, and then I'll take you home with me to luncheon." Tryon hesitated. "Oh, you must come! Mrs. Green would never forgive me if I didn't bring you. Strangers are rare birds in our society, and when they come we make them welcome. Our enemies may overturn our institutions, and try to put the bottom rail on top, but they cannot destroy our Southern hospitality. There are so many carpet-baggers and other social vermin creeping into the South, with the Yankees trying to force the niggers on us, that it's a genuine pleasure to get acquainted with another real Southern gentleman, whom one can invite into one's house without fear of contamination, and before whom one can express his feelings freely and be sure of perfect sympathy." XIII AN INJUDICIOUS PAYMENT When Judge Straight's visitors had departed, he took up the papers which had been laid loosely on the table as they were taken out of Tryon's breast-pocket, and commenced their perusal. There was a note for five hundred dollars, many years overdue, but not yet outlawed by lapse of time; a contract covering the transaction out of which the note had grown; and several letters and copies of letters modifying the terms of the contract. The judge had glanced over most of the papers, and was getting well into the merits of the case, when he unfolded a letter which read as follows:-- MY DEAREST GEORGE,--I am going away for about a week, to visit the bedside of an old friend, who is very ill, and may not live. Do not be alarmed about me, for I shall very likely be back by the time you are. Yours lovingly, ROWENA WARWICK. The judge was unable to connect this letter with the transaction which formed the subject of his examination. Age had dimmed his perceptions somewhat, and it was not until he had finished the letter, and read it over again, and noted the signature at the bottom a second time, that he perceived that the writing was in a woman's hand, that the ink was comparatively fresh, and that the letter was dated only a couple of days before. While he still held the sheet in his hand, it dawned upon him slowly that he held also one of the links in a chain of possible tragedy which he himself, he became uncomfortably aware, had had a hand in forging. "It is the Walden woman's daughter, as sure as fate! Her name is Rena. Her brother goes by the name of Warwick. She has come to visit her sick mother. My young client, Green's relation, is her lover--is engaged to marry her--is in town, and is likely to meet her!" The judge was so absorbed in the situation thus suggested that he laid the papers down and pondered for a moment the curious problem involved. He was quite aware that two races had not dwelt together, side by side, for nearly three hundred years, without mingling their blood in greater or less degree; he was old enough, and had seen curious things enough, to know that in this mingling the current had not always flowed in one direction. Certain old decisions with which he was familiar; old scandals that had crept along obscure channels; old facts that had come to the knowledge of an old practitioner, who held in the hollow of his hand the honor of more than one family, made him know that there was dark blood among the white people--not a great deal, and that very much diluted, and, so long as it was sedulously concealed or vigorously denied, or lost in the mists of tradition, or ascribed to a foreign or an aboriginal strain, having no perceptible effect upon the racial type. Such people were, for the most part, merely on the ragged edge of the white world, seldom rising above the level of overseers, or slave-catchers, or sheriff's officers, who could usually be relied upon to resent the drop of black blood that tainted them, and with the zeal of the proselyte to visit their hatred of it upon the unfortunate blacks that fell into their hands. One curse of negro slavery was, and one part of its baleful heritage is, that it poisoned the fountains of human sympathy. Under a system where men might sell their own children without social reprobation or loss of prestige, it was not surprising that some of them should hate their distant cousins. There were not in Patesville half a dozen persons capable of thinking Judge Straight's thoughts upon the question before him, and perhaps not another who would have adopted the course he now pursued toward this anomalous family in the house behind the cedars. "Well, here we are again, as the clown in the circus remarks," murmured the judge. "Ten years ago, in a moment of sentimental weakness and of quixotic loyalty to the memory of an old friend,--who, by the way, had not cared enough for his own children to take them away from the South, as he might have done, or to provide for them handsomely, as he perhaps meant to do,--I violated the traditions of my class and stepped from the beaten path to help the misbegotten son of my old friend out of the slough of despond, in which he had learned, in some strange way, that he was floundering. Ten years later, the ghost of my good deed returns to haunt me, and makes me doubt whether I have wrought more evil than good. I wonder," he mused, "if he will find her out?" The judge was a man of imagination; he had read many books and had personally outlived some prejudices. He let his mind run on the various phases of the situation. "If he found her out, would he by any possibility marry her?" "It is not likely," he answered himself. "If he made the discovery here, the facts would probably leak out in the town. It is something that a man might do in secret, but only a hero or a fool would do openly." The judge sighed as he contemplated another possibility. He had lived for seventy years under the old regime. The young man was a gentleman--so had been the girl's father. Conditions were changed, but human nature was the same. Would the young man's love turn to disgust and repulsion, or would it merely sink from the level of worship to that of desire? Would the girl, denied marriage, accept anything less? Her mother had,--but conditions were changed. Yes, conditions were changed, so far as the girl was concerned; there was a possible future for her under the new order of things; but white people had not changed their opinion of the negroes, except for the worse. The general belief was that they were just as inferior as before, and had, moreover, been spoiled by a disgusting assumption of equality, driven into their thick skulls by Yankee malignity bent upon humiliating a proud though vanquished foe. If the judge had had sons and daughters of his own, he might not have done what he now proceeded to do. But the old man's attitude toward society was chiefly that of an observer, and the narrow stream of sentiment left in his heart chose to flow toward the weaker party in this unequal conflict,--a young woman fighting for love and opportunity against the ranked forces of society, against immemorial tradition, against pride of family and of race. "It may be the unwisest thing I ever did," he said to himself, turning to his desk and taking up a quill pen, "and may result in more harm than good; but I was always from childhood in sympathy with the under dog. There is certainly as much reason in my helping the girl as the boy, for being a woman, she is less able to help herself." He dipped his pen into the ink and wrote the following lines:-- MADAM,--If you value your daughter's happiness, keep her at home for the next day or two. This note he dried by sprinkling it with sand from a box near at hand, signed with his own name, and, with a fine courtesy, addressed to "Mrs. Molly Walden." Having first carefully sealed it in an envelope, he stepped to the open door, and spied, playing marbles on the street near by, a group of negro boys, one of whom the judge called by name. "Here, Billy," he said, handing the boy the note, "take this to Mis' Molly Walden. Do you know where she lives--down on Front Street, in the house behind the cedars?" "Yas, suh, I knows de place." "Make haste, now. When you come back and tell me what she says, I'll give you ten cents. On second thoughts, I shall be gone to lunch, so here's your money," he added, handing the lad the bit of soiled paper by which the United States government acknowledged its indebtedness to the bearer in the sum of ten cents. Just here, however, the judge made his mistake. Very few mortals can spare the spring of hope, the motive force of expectation. The boy kept the note in his hand, winked at his companions, who had gathered as near as their awe of the judge would permit, and started down the street. As soon as the judge had disappeared, Billy beckoned to his friends, who speedily overtook him. When the party turned the corner of Front Street and were safely out of sight of Judge Straight's office, the capitalist entered the grocery store and invested his unearned increment in gingerbread. When the ensuing saturnalia was over, Billy finished the game of marbles which the judge had interrupted, and then set out to execute his commission. He had nearly reached his objective point when he met upon the street a young white lady, whom he did not know, and for whom, the path being narrow at that point, he stepped out into the gutter. He reached the house behind the cedars, went round to the back door, and handed the envelope to Mis' Molly, who was seated on the rear piazza, propped up by pillows in a comfortable rocking-chair. "Laws-a-massy!" she exclaimed weakly, "what is it?" "It's a lettuh, ma'm," answered the boy, whose expanding nostrils had caught a pleasant odor from the kitchen, and who was therefore in no hurry to go away. "Who's it fur?" she asked. "It's fuh you, ma'm," replied the lad. "An' who's it from?" she inquired, turning the envelope over and over, and examining it with the impotent curiosity of one who cannot read. "F'm ole Jedge Straight, ma'm. He tole me ter fetch it ter you. Is you got a roasted 'tater you could gimme, ma'm?" "Shorely, chile. I'll have Aunt Zilphy fetch you a piece of 'tater pone, if you'll hol' on a minute." She called to Aunt Zilphy, who soon came hobbling out of the kitchen with a large square of the delicacy,--a flat cake made of mashed sweet potatoes, mixed with beaten eggs, sweetened and flavored to suit the taste, and baked in a Dutch oven upon the open hearth. The boy took the gratuity, thanked her, and turned to go. Mis' Molly was still scanning the superscription of the letter. "I wonder," she murmured, "what old Judge Straight can be writin' to me about. Oh, boy!" "Yas 'm," answered the messenger, looking back. "Can you read writin'?" "No 'm." "All right. Never mind." She laid the letter carefully on the chimney-piece of the kitchen. "I reckon it's somethin' mo' 'bout the taxes," she thought, "or maybe somebody wants to buy one er my lots. Rena'll be back terreckly, an' she kin read it an' find out. I'm glad my child'en have be'n to school. They never could have got where they are now if they hadn't." XIV A LOYAL FRIEND Mention has been made of certain addressed envelopes which John Warwick, on the occasion of his visit to Patesville, had left with his illiterate mother, by the use of which she might communicate with her children from time to time. On one occasion, Mis' Molly, having had a letter written, took one of these envelopes from the chest where she kept her most valued possessions, and was about to inclose the letter when some one knocked at the back door. She laid the envelope and letter on a table in her bedroom, and went to answer the knock. The wind, blowing across the room through the open windows, picked up the envelope and bore it into the street. Mis' Molly, on her return, missed it, looked for it, and being unable to find it, took another envelope. An hour or two later another gust of wind lifted the bit of paper from the ground and carried it into the open door of the cooper shop. Frank picked it up, and observing that it was clean and unused, read the superscription. In his conversations with Mis' Molly, which were often about Rena,--the subject uppermost in both their minds,--he had noted the mystery maintained by Mis' Molly about her daughter's whereabouts, and had often wondered where she might be. Frank was an intelligent fellow, and could put this and that together. The envelope was addressed to a place in South Carolina. He was aware, from some casual remark of Mis' Molly's, that Rena had gone to live in South Carolina. Her son's name was John--that he had changed his last name was more than likely. Frank was not long in reaching the conclusion that Rena was to be found near the town named on the envelope, which he carefully preserved for future reference. For a whole year Frank had yearned for a smile or a kind word from the only woman in the world. Peter, his father, had rallied him somewhat upon his moodiness after Rena's departure. "Now 's de time, boy, fer you ter be lookin' roun' fer some nice gal er yo' own color, w'at'll 'preciate you, an' won't be 'shamed er you. You're wastin' time, boy, wastin' time, shootin' at a mark outer yo' range." But Frank said nothing in reply, and afterwards the old man, who was not without discernment, respected his son's mood and was silent in turn; while Frank fed his memory with his imagination, and by their joint aid kept hope alive. Later an opportunity to see her presented itself. Business in the cooper shop was dull. A barrel factory had been opened in the town, and had well-nigh paralyzed the cooper's trade. The best mechanic could hardly compete with a machine. One man could now easily do the work of Peter's shop. An agent appeared in town seeking laborers for one of the railroads which the newly organized carpet-bag governments were promoting. Upon inquiry Frank learned that their destination was near the town of Clarence, South Carolina. He promptly engaged himself for the service, and was soon at work in the neighborhood of Warwick's home. There he was employed steadily until a certain holiday, upon which a grand tournament was advertised to take place in a neighboring town. Work was suspended, and foremen and laborers attended the festivities. Frank had surmised that Rena would be present on such an occasion. He had more than guessed, too, that she must be looked for among the white people rather than among the black. Hence the interest with which he had scanned the grand stand. The result has already been recounted. He had recognized her sweet face; he had seen her enthroned among the proudest and best. He had witnessed and gloried in her triumph. He had seen her cheek flushed with pleasure, her eyes lit up with smiles. He had followed her carriage, had made the acquaintance of Mimy the nurse, and had learned all about the family. When finally he left the neighborhood to return to Patesville, he had learned of Tryon's attentions, and had heard the servants' gossip with reference to the marriage, of which they knew the details long before the principals had approached the main fact. Frank went away without having received one smile or heard one word from Rena; but he had seen her: she was happy; he was content in the knowledge of her happiness. She was doubtless secure in the belief that her secret was unknown. Why should he, by revealing his presence, sow the seeds of doubt or distrust in the garden of her happiness? He sacrificed the deepest longing of a faithful heart, and went back to the cooper shop lest perchance she might accidentally come upon him some day and suffer the shock which he had sedulously spared her. "I would n' want ter skeer her," he mused, "er make her feel bad, an' dat's w'at I'd mos' lackly do ef she seed me. She'll be better off wid me out'n de road. She'll marry dat rich w'ite gent'eman,--he won't never know de diffe'nce,--an' be a w'ite lady, ez she would 'a' be'n, ef some ole witch had n' changed her in her cradle. But maybe some time she'll 'member de little nigger w'at use' ter nuss her w'en she woz a chile, an' fished her out'n de ole canal, an' would 'a' died fer her ef it would 'a' done any good." Very generously too, and with a fine delicacy, he said nothing to Mis' Molly of his having seen her daughter, lest she might be disquieted by the knowledge that he shared the family secret,--no great mystery now, this pitiful secret, but more far-reaching in its consequences than any blood-curdling crime. The taint of black blood was the unpardonable sin, from the unmerited penalty of which there was no escape except by concealment. If there be a dainty reader of this tale who scorns a lie, and who writes the story of his life upon his sleeve for all the world to read, let him uncurl his scornful lip and come down from the pedestal of superior morality, to which assured position and wide opportunity have lifted him, and put himself in the place of Rena and her brother, upon whom God had lavished his best gifts, and from whom society would have withheld all that made these gifts valuable. To undertake what they tried to do required great courage. Had they possessed the sneaking, cringing, treacherous character traditionally ascribed to people of mixed blood--the character which the blessed institutions of a free slave-holding republic had been well adapted to foster among them; had they been selfish enough to sacrifice to their ambition the mother who gave them birth, society would have been placated or humbugged, and the voyage of their life might have been one of unbroken smoothness. When Rena came back unexpectedly at the behest of her dream, Frank heard again the music of her voice, felt the joy of her presence and the benison of her smile. There was, however, a subtle difference in her bearing. Her words were not less kind, but they seemed to come from a remoter source. She was kind, as the sun is warm or the rain refreshing; she was especially kind to Frank, because he had been good to her mother. If Frank felt the difference in her attitude, he ascribed it to the fact that she had been white, and had taken on something of the white attitude toward the negro; and Frank, with an equal unconsciousness, clothed her with the attributes of the superior race. Only her drop of black blood, he conceived, gave him the right to feel toward her as he would never have felt without it; and if Rena guessed her faithful devotee's secret, the same reason saved his worship from presumption. A smile and a kind word were little enough to pay for a life's devotion. On the third day of Rena's presence in Patesville, Frank was driving up Front Street in the early afternoon, when he nearly fell off his cart in astonishment as he saw seated in Dr. Green's buggy, which was standing in front of the Patesville Hotel, the young gentleman who had won the prize at the tournament, and who, as he had learned, was to marry Rena. Frank was quite certain that she did not know of Tryon's presence in the town. Frank had been over to Mis' Molly's in the morning, and had offered his services to the sick woman, who had rapidly become convalescent upon her daughter's return. Mis' Molly had spoken of some camphor that she needed. Frank had volunteered to get it. Rena had thanked him, and had spoken of going to the drugstore during the afternoon. It was her intention to leave Patesville on the following day. "Ef dat man sees her in dis town," said Frank to himself, "dere'll be trouble. She don't know HE'S here, an' I'll bet he don't know SHE'S here." Then Frank was assailed by a very strong temptation. If, as he surmised, the joint presence of the two lovers in Patesville was a mere coincidence, a meeting between them would probably result in the discovery of Rena's secret. "If she's found out," argued the tempter, "she'll come back to her mother, and you can see her every day." But Frank's love was not of the selfish kind. He put temptation aside, and applied the whip to the back of his mule with a vigor that astonished the animal and moved him to unwonted activity. In an unusually short space of time he drew up before Mis' Molly's back gate, sprang from the cart, and ran up to Mis' Molly on the porch. "Is Miss Rena here?" he demanded breathlessly. "No, Frank; she went up town 'bout an hour ago to see the doctor an' git me some camphor gum." Frank uttered a groan, rushed from the house, sprang into the cart, and goaded the terrified mule into a gallop that carried him back to the market house in half the time it had taken him to reach Mis' Molly's. "I wonder what in the worl 's the matter with Frank," mused Mis' Molly, in vague alarm. "Ef he hadn't be'n in such a hurry, I'd 'a' axed him to read Judge Straight's letter. But Rena'll be home soon." When Frank reached the doctor's office, he saw Tryon seated in the doctor's buggy, which was standing by the window of the drugstore. Frank ran upstairs and asked the doctor's man if Miss Walden had been there. "Yas," replied Dave, "she wuz here a little w'ile ago, an' said she wuz gwine downstairs ter de drugsto'. I would n' be s'prise' ef you'd fin' her dere now." XV MINE OWN PEOPLE The drive by which Dr. Green took Tryon to his own house led up Front Street about a mile, to the most aristocratic portion of the town, situated on the hill known as Haymount, or, more briefly, "The Hill." The Hill had lost some of its former glory, however, for the blight of a four years' war was everywhere. After reaching the top of this wooded eminence, the road skirted for some little distance the brow of the hill. Below them lay the picturesque old town, a mass of vivid green, dotted here and there with gray roofs that rose above the tree-tops. Two long ribbons of streets stretched away from the Hill to the faint red line that marked the high bluff beyond the river at the farther side of the town. The market-house tower and the slender spires of half a dozen churches were sharply outlined against the green background. The face of the clock was visible, but the hours could have been read only by eyes of phenomenal sharpness. Around them stretched ruined walls, dismantled towers, and crumbling earthworks--footprints of the god of war, one of whose temples had crowned this height. For many years before the rebellion a Federal arsenal had been located at Patesville. Seized by the state troops upon the secession of North Carolina, it had been held by the Confederates until the approach of Sherman's victorious army, whereupon it was evacuated and partially destroyed. The work of destruction begun by the retreating garrison was completed by the conquerors, and now only ruined walls and broken cannon remained of what had once been the chief ornament and pride of Patesville. The front of Dr. Green's spacious brick house, which occupied an ideally picturesque site, was overgrown by a network of clinging vines, contrasting most agreeably with the mellow red background. A low brick wall, also overrun with creepers, separated the premises from the street and shut in a well-kept flower garden, in which Tryon, who knew something of plants, noticed many rare and beautiful specimens. Mrs. Green greeted Tryon cordially. He did not have the doctor's memory with which to fill out the lady's cheeks or restore the lustre of her hair or the sparkle of her eyes, and thereby justify her husband's claim to be a judge of beauty; but her kind-hearted hospitality was obvious, and might have made even a plain woman seem handsome. She and her two fair daughters, to whom Tryon was duly presented, looked with much favor upon their handsome young kinsman; for among the people of Patesville, perhaps by virtue of the prevalence of Scottish blood, the ties of blood were cherished as things of value, and never forgotten except in case of the unworthy--an exception, by the way, which one need hardly go so far to seek. The Patesville people were not exceptional in the weaknesses and meannesses which are common to all mankind, but for some of the finer social qualities they were conspicuously above the average. Kindness, hospitality, loyalty, a chivalrous deference to women,--all these things might be found in large measure by those who saw Patesville with the eyes of its best citizens, and accepted their standards of politics, religion, manners, and morals. The doctor, after the introductions, excused himself for a moment. Mrs. Green soon left Tryon with the young ladies and went to look after luncheon. Her first errand, however, was to find the doctor. "Is he well off, Ed?" she asked her husband. "Lots of land, and plenty of money, if he is ever able to collect it. He has inherited two estates." "He's a good-looking fellow," she mused. "Is he married?" "There you go again," replied her husband, shaking his forefinger at her in mock reproach. "To a woman with marriageable daughters all roads lead to matrimony, the centre of a woman's universe. All men must be sized up by their matrimonial availability. No, he isn't married." "That's nice," she rejoined reflectively. "I think we ought to ask him to stay with us while he is in town, don't you?" "He's not married," rejoined the doctor slyly, "but the next best thing--he's engaged." "Come to think of it," said the lady, "I'm afraid we wouldn't have the room to spare, and the girls would hardly have time to entertain him. But we'll have him up several times. I like his looks. I wish you had sent me word he was coming; I'd have had a better luncheon." "Make him a salad," rejoined the doctor, "and get out a bottle of the best claret. Thank God, the Yankees didn't get into my wine cellar! The young man must be treated with genuine Southern hospitality,--even if he were a Mormon and married ten times over." "Indeed, he would not, Ed,--the idea! I'm ashamed of you. Hurry back to the parlor and talk to him. The girls may want to primp a little before luncheon; we don't have a young man every day." "Beauty unadorned," replied the doctor, "is adorned the most. My profession qualifies me to speak upon the subject. They are the two handsomest young women in Patesville, and the daughters of the most beautiful"-- "Don't you dare to say the word," interrupted Mrs. Green, with placid good nature. "I shall never grow old while I am living with a big boy like you. But I must go and make the salad." At dinner the conversation ran on the family connections and their varying fortunes in the late war. Some had died upon the battlefield, and slept in unknown graves; some had been financially ruined by their faith in the "lost cause," having invested their all in the securities of the Confederate Government. Few had anything left but land, and land without slaves to work it was a drug in the market. "I was offered a thousand acres, the other day, at twenty-five cents an acre," remarked the doctor. "The owner is so land-poor that he can't pay the taxes. They have taken our negroes and our liberties. It may be better for our grandchildren that the negroes are free, but it's confoundedly hard on us to take them without paying for them. They may exalt our slaves over us temporarily, but they have not broken our spirit, and cannot take away our superiority of blood and breeding. In time we shall regain control. The negro is an inferior creature; God has marked him with the badge of servitude, and has adjusted his intellect to a servile condition. We will not long submit to his domination. I give you a toast, sir: The Anglo-Saxon race: may it remain forever, as now, the head and front of creation, never yielding its rights, and ready always to die, if need be, in defense of its liberties!" "With all my heart, sir," replied Tryon, who felt in this company a thrill of that pleasure which accompanies conscious superiority,--"with all my heart, sir, if the ladies will permit me." "We will join you," they replied. The toast was drunk with great enthusiasm. "And now, my dear George," exclaimed the doctor, "to change one good subject for another, tell us who is the favored lady?" "A Miss Rowena Warwick, sir," replied Tryon, vividly conscious of four pairs of eyes fixed upon him, but, apart from the momentary embarrassment, welcoming the subject as the one he would most like to speak upon. "A good, strong old English name," observed the doctor. "The heroine of 'Ivanhoe'!" exclaimed Miss Harriet. "Warwick the Kingmaker!" said Miss Mary. "Is she tall and fair, and dignified and stately?" "She is tall, dark rather than fair, and full of tender grace and sweet humility." "She should have been named Rebecca instead of Rowena," rejoined Miss Mary, who was well up in her Scott. "Tell us something about her people," asked Mrs. Green,--to which inquiry the young ladies looked assent. In this meeting of the elect of his own class and kin Warwick felt a certain strong illumination upon the value of birth and blood. Finding Rena among people of the best social standing, the subsequent intimation that she was a girl of no family had seemed a small matter to one so much in love. Nevertheless, in his present company he felt a decided satisfaction in being able to present for his future wife a clean bill of social health. "Her brother is the most prominent lawyer of Clarence. They live in a fine old family mansion, and are among the best people of the town." "Quite right, my boy," assented the doctor. "None but the best are good enough for the best. You must bring her to Patesville some day. But bless my life!" he exclaimed, looking at his watch, "I must be going. Will you stay with the ladies awhile, or go back down town with me?" "I think I had better go with you, sir. I shall have to see Judge Straight." "Very well. But you must come back to supper, and we'll have a few friends in to meet you. You must see some of the best people." The doctor's buggy was waiting at the gate. As they were passing the hotel on their drive down town, the clerk came out to the curbstone and called to the doctor. "There's a man here, doctor, who's been taken suddenly ill. Can you come in a minute?" "I suppose I'll have to. Will you wait for me here, George, or will you drive down to the office? I can walk the rest of the way." "I think I'll wait here, doctor," answered Tryon. "I'll step up to my room a moment. I'll be back by the time you're ready." It was while they were standing before the hotel, before alighting from the buggy, that Frank Fowler, passing on his cart, saw Tryon and set out as fast as he could to warn Mis' Molly and her daughter of his presence in the town. Tryon went up to his room, returned after a while, and resumed his seat in the buggy, where he waited fifteen minutes longer before the doctor was ready. When they drew up in front of the office, the doctor's man Dave was standing in the doorway, looking up the street with an anxious expression, as though struggling hard to keep something upon his mind. "Anything wanted, Dave?" asked the doctor. "Dat young 'oman's be'n heah ag'in, suh, an' wants ter see you bad. She's in de drugstore dere now, suh. Bless Gawd!" he added to himself fervently, "I 'membered dat. Dis yer recommemb'ance er mine is gwine ter git me inter trouble ef I don' look out, an' dat's a fac', sho'." The doctor sprang from the buggy with an agility remarkable in a man of sixty. "Just keep your seat, George," he said to Tryon, "until I have spoken to the young woman, and then we'll go across to Straight's. Or, if you'll drive along a little farther, you can see the girl through the window. She's worth the trouble, if you like a pretty face." Tryon liked one pretty face; moreover, tinted beauty had never appealed to him. More to show a proper regard for what interested the doctor than from any curiosity of his own, he drove forward a few feet, until the side of the buggy was opposite the drugstore window, and then looked in. Between the colored glass bottles in the window he could see a young woman, a tall and slender girl, like a lily on its stem. She stood talking with the doctor, who held his hat in his hand with as much deference as though she were the proudest dame in town. Her face was partly turned away from the window, but as Tryon's eye fell upon her, he gave a great start. Surely, no two women could be so much alike. The height, the graceful droop of the shoulders, the swan-like poise of the head, the well-turned little ear,--surely, no two women could have them all identical! But, pshaw! the notion was absurd, it was merely the reflex influence of his morning's dream. She moved slightly; it was Rena's movement. Surely he knew the gown, and the style of hair-dressing! She rested her hand lightly on the back of a chair. The ring that glittered on her finger could be none other than his own. The doctor bowed. The girl nodded in response, and, turning, left the store. Tryon leaned forward from the buggy-seat and kept his eye fixed on the figure that moved across the floor of the drugstore. As she came out, she turned her face casually toward the buggy, and there could no longer be any doubt as to her identity. When Rena's eyes fell upon the young man in the buggy, she saw a face as pale as death, with starting eyes, in which love, which once had reigned there, had now given place to astonishment and horror. She stood a moment as if turned to stone. One appealing glance she gave,--a look that might have softened adamant. When she saw that it brought no answering sign of love or sorrow or regret, the color faded from her cheek, the light from her eye, and she fell fainting to the ground. XVI THE BOTTOM FALLS OUT The first effect of Tryon's discovery was, figuratively speaking, to knock the bottom out of things for him. It was much as if a boat on which he had been floating smoothly down the stream of pleasure had sunk suddenly and left him struggling in deep waters. The full realization of the truth, which followed speedily, had for the moment reversed his mental attitude toward her, and love and yearning had given place to anger and disgust. His agitation could hardly have escaped notice had not the doctor's attention, and that of the crowd that quickly gathered, been absorbed by the young woman who had fallen. During the time occupied in carrying her into the drugstore, restoring her to consciousness, and sending her home in a carriage, Tryon had time to recover in some degree his self-possession. When Rena had been taken home, he slipped away for a long walk, after which he called at Judge Straight's office and received the judge's report upon the matter presented. Judge Straight had found the claim, in his opinion, a good one; he had discovered property from which, in case the claim were allowed, the amount might be realized. The judge, who had already been informed of the incident at the drugstore, observed Tryon's preoccupation and guessed shrewdly at its cause, but gave no sign. Tryon left the matter of the note unreservedly in the lawyer's hands, with instructions to communicate to him any further developments. Returning to the doctor's office, Tryon listened to that genial gentleman's comments on the accident, his own concern in which he, by a great effort, was able to conceal. The doctor insisted upon his returning to the Hill for supper. Tryon pleaded illness. The doctor was solicitous, felt his pulse, examined his tongue, pronounced him feverish, and prescribed a sedative. Tryon sought refuge in his room at the hotel, from which he did not emerge again until morning. His emotions were varied and stormy. At first he could see nothing but the fraud of which he had been made the victim. A negro girl had been foisted upon him for a white woman, and he had almost committed the unpardonable sin against his race of marrying her. Such a step, he felt, would have been criminal at any time; it would have been the most odious treachery at this epoch, when his people had been subjugated and humiliated by the Northern invaders, who had preached negro equality and abolished the wholesome laws decreeing the separation of the races. But no Southerner who loved his poor, downtrodden country, or his race, the proud Anglo-Saxon race which traced the clear stream of its blood to the cavaliers of England, could tolerate the idea that even in distant generations that unsullied current could be polluted by the blood of slaves. The very thought was an insult to the white people of the South. For Tryon's liberality, of which he had spoken so nobly and so sincerely, had been confined unconsciously, and as a matter of course, within the boundaries of his own race. The Southern mind, in discussing abstract questions relative to humanity, makes always, consciously or unconsciously, the mental reservation that the conclusions reached do not apply to the negro, unless they can be made to harmonize with the customs of the country. But reasoning thus was not without effect upon a mind by nature reasonable above the average. Tryon's race impulse and social prejudice had carried him too far, and the swing of the mental pendulum brought his thoughts rapidly back in the opposite direction. Tossing uneasily on the bed, where he had thrown himself down without undressing, the air of the room oppressed him, and he threw open the window. The cool night air calmed his throbbing pulses. The moonlight, streaming through the window, flooded the room with a soft light, in which he seemed to see Rena standing before him, as she had appeared that afternoon, gazing at him with eyes that implored charity and forgiveness. He burst into tears,--bitter tears, that strained his heartstrings. He was only a youth. She was his first love, and he had lost her forever. She was worse than dead to him; for if he had seen her lying in her shroud before him, he could at least have cherished her memory; now, even this consolation was denied him. The town clock--which so long as it was wound up regularly recked nothing of love or hate, joy or sorrow--solemnly tolled out the hour of midnight and sounded the knell of his lost love. Lost she was, as though she had never been, as she had indeed had no right to be. He resolutely determined to banish her image from his mind. See her again he could not; it would be painful to them both; it could be productive of no good to either. He had felt the power and charm of love, and no ordinary shook could have loosened its hold; but this catastrophe, which had so rudely swept away the groundwork of his passion, had stirred into new life all the slumbering pride of race and ancestry which characterized his caste. How much of this sensitive superiority was essential and how much accidental; how much of it was due to the ever-suggested comparison with a servile race; how much of it was ignorance and self-conceit; to what extent the boasted purity of his race would have been contaminated by the fair woman whose image filled his memory,--of these things he never thought. He was not influenced by sordid considerations; he would have denied that his course was controlled by any narrow prudence. If Rena had been white, pure white (for in his creed there was no compromise), he would have braved any danger for her sake. Had she been merely of illegitimate birth, he would have overlooked the bar sinister. Had her people been simply poor and of low estate, he would have brushed aside mere worldly considerations, and would have bravely sacrificed convention for love; for his liberality was not a mere form of words. But the one objection which he could not overlook was, unhappily, the one that applied to the only woman who had as yet moved his heart. He tried to be angry with her, but after the first hour he found it impossible. He was a man of too much imagination not to be able to put himself, in some measure at least, in her place,--to perceive that for her the step which had placed her in Tryon's world was the working out of nature's great law of self-preservation, for which he could not blame her. But for the sheerest accident,--no, rather, but for a providential interference,--he would have married her, and might have gone to the grave unconscious that she was other than she seemed. The clock struck the hour of two. With a shiver he closed the window, undressed by the moonlight, drew down the shade, and went to bed. He fell into an unquiet slumber, and dreamed again of Rena. He must learn to control his waking thoughts; his dreams could not be curbed. In that realm Rena's image was for many a day to remain supreme. He dreamed of her sweet smile, her soft touch, her gentle voice. In all her fair young beauty she stood before him, and then by some hellish magic she was slowly transformed into a hideous black hag. With agonized eyes he watched her beautiful tresses become mere wisps of coarse wool, wrapped round with dingy cotton strings; he saw her clear eyes grow bloodshot, her ivory teeth turn to unwholesome fangs. With a shudder he awoke, to find the cold gray dawn of a rainy day stealing through the window. He rose, dressed himself, went down to breakfast, then entered the writing-room and penned a letter which, after reading it over, he tore into small pieces and threw into the waste basket. A second shared the same fate. Giving up the task, he left the hotel and walked down to Dr. Green's office. "Is the doctor in?" he asked of the colored attendant. "No, suh," replied the man; "he's gone ter see de young cullud gal w'at fainted w'en de doctah was wid you yistiddy." Tryon sat down at the doctor's desk and hastily scrawled a note, stating that business compelled his immediate departure. He thanked the doctor for courtesies extended, and left his regards for the ladies. Returning to the hotel, he paid his bill and took a hack for the wharf, from which a boat was due to leave at nine o'clock. As the hack drove down Front Street, Tryon noted idly the houses that lined the street. When he reached the sordid district in the lower part of the town, there was nothing to attract his attention until the carriage came abreast of a row of cedar-trees, beyond which could be seen the upper part of a large house with dormer windows. Before the gate stood a horse and buggy, which Tryon thought he recognized as Dr. Green's. He leaned forward and addressed the driver. "Can you tell me who lives there?" Tryon asked, pointing to the house. "A callud 'oman, suh," the man replied, touching his hat. "Mis' Molly Walden an' her daughter Rena." The vivid impression he received of this house, and the spectre that rose before him of a pale, broken-hearted girl within its gray walls, weeping for a lost lover and a vanished dream of happiness, did not argue well for Tryon's future peace of mind. Rena's image was not to be easily expelled from his heart; for the laws of nature are higher and more potent than merely human institutions, and upon anything like a fair field are likely to win in the long ran. XVII TWO LETTERS Warwick awaited events with some calmness and some philosophy,--he could hardly have had the one without the other; and it required much philosophy to make him wait a week in patience for information upon a subject in which he was so vitally interested. The delay pointed to disaster. Bad news being expected, delay at least put off the evil day. At the end of the week he received two letters,--one addressed in his own hand writing and postmarked Patesville, N. C.; the other in the handwriting of George Tryon. He opened the Patesville letter, which ran as follows:-- MY DEAR SON,--Frank is writing this letter for me. I am not well, but, thank the Lord, I am better than I was. Rena has had a heap of trouble on account of me and my sickness. If I could of dreamt that I was going to do so much harm, I would of died and gone to meet my God without writing one word to spoil my girl's chances in life; but I didn't know what was going to happen, and I hope the Lord will forgive me. Frank knows all about it, and so I am having him write this letter for me, as Rena is not well enough yet. Frank has been very good to me and to Rena. He was down to your place and saw Rena there, and never said a word about it to nobody, not even to me, because he didn't want to do Rena no harm. Frank is the best friend I have got in town, because he does so much for me and don't want nothing in return. (He tells me not to put this in about him, but I want you to know it.) And now about Rena. She come to see me, and I got better right away, for it was longing for her as much as anything else that made me sick, and I was mighty mizzable. When she had been here three days and was going back next day, she went up town to see the doctor for me, and while she was up there she fainted and fell down in the street, and Dr. Green sent her home in his buggy and come down to see her. He couldn't tell what was the matter with her, but she has been sick ever since and out of her head some of the time, and keeps on calling on somebody by the name of George, which was the young white man she told me she was going to marry. It seems he was in town the day Rena was took sick, for Frank saw him up street and run all the way down here to tell me, so that she could keep out of his way, while she was still up town waiting for the doctor and getting me some camphor gum for my camphor bottle. Old Judge Straight must have knowed something about it, for he sent me a note to keep Rena in the house, but the little boy he sent it by didn't bring it till Rena was already gone up town, and, as I couldn't read, of course I didn't know what it said. Dr. Green heard Rena running on while she was out of her head, and I reckon he must have suspicioned something, for he looked kind of queer and went away without saying nothing. Frank says she met this man on the street, and when he found out she wasn't white, he said or done something that broke her heart and she fainted and fell down. I am writing you this letter because I know you will be worrying about Rena not coming back. If it wasn't for Frank, I hardly know how I could write to you. Frank is not going to say nothing about Rena's passing for white and meeting this man, and neither am I; and I don't suppose Judge Straight will say nothing, because he is our good friend; and Dr. Green won't say nothing about it, because Frank says Dr. Green's cook Nancy says this young man named George stopped with him and was some cousin or relation to the family, and they wouldn't want people to know that any of their kin was thinking about marrying a colored girl, and the white folks have all been mad since J. B. Thompson married his black housekeeper when she got religion and wouldn't live with him no more. All the rest of the connection are well. I have just been in to see how Rena is. She is feeling some better, I think, and says give you her love and she will write you a letter in a few days, as soon as she is well enough. She bust out crying while she was talking, but I reckon that is better than being out of her head. I hope this may find you well, and that this man of Rena's won't say nor do nothing down there to hurt you. He has not wrote to Rena nor sent her no word. I reckon he is very mad. Your affectionate mother, MARY WALDEN. This letter, while confirming Warwick's fears, relieved his suspense. He at least knew the worst, unless there should be something still more disturbing in Tryon's letter, which he now proceeded to open, and which ran as follows:-- JOHN WARWICK, ESQ. Dear Sir,--When I inform you, as you are doubtless informed ere the receipt of this, that I saw your sister in Patesville last week and learned the nature of those antecedents of yours and hers at which you hinted so obscurely in a recent conversation, you will not be surprised to learn that I take this opportunity of renouncing any pretensions to Miss Warwick's hand, and request you to convey this message to her, since it was through you that I formed her acquaintance. I think perhaps that few white men would deem it necessary to make an explanation under the circumstances, and I do not know that I need say more than that no one, considering where and how I met your sister, would have dreamed of even the possibility of what I have learned. I might with justice reproach you for trifling with the most sacred feelings of a man's heart; but I realize the hardship of your position and hers, and can make allowances. I would never have sought to know this thing; I would doubtless have been happier had I gone through life without finding it out; but having the knowledge, I cannot ignore it, as you must understand perfectly well. I regret that she should be distressed or disappointed,--she has not suffered alone. I need scarcely assure you that I shall say nothing about this affair, and that I shall keep your secret as though it were my own. Personally, I shall never be able to think of you as other than a white man, as you may gather from the tone of this letter; and while I cannot marry your sister, I wish her every happiness, and remain, Yours very truly, GEORGE TRYON. Warwick could not know that this formal epistle was the last of a dozen that Tryon had written and destroyed during the week since the meeting in Patesville,--hot, blistering letters, cold, cutting letters, scornful, crushing letters. Though none of them was sent, except this last, they had furnished a safety-valve for his emotions, and had left him in a state of mind that permitted him to write the foregoing. And now, while Rena is recovering from her illness, and Tryon from his love, and while Fate is shuffling the cards for another deal, a few words may be said about the past life of the people who lived in the rear of the flower garden, in the quaint old house beyond the cedars, and how their lives were mingled with those of the men and women around them and others that were gone. For connected with our kind we must be; if not by our virtues, then by our vices,--if not by our services, at least by our needs. XVIII UNDER THE OLD REGIME For many years before the civil war there had lived, in the old house behind the cedars, a free colored woman who went by the name of Molly Walden--her rightful name, for her parents were free-born and legally married. She was a tall woman, straight as an arrow. Her complexion in youth was of an old ivory tint, which at the period of this story, time had darkened measurably. Her black eyes, now faded, had once sparkled with the fire of youth. High cheek-bones, straight black hair, and a certain dignified reposefulness of manner pointed to an aboriginal descent. Tradition gave her to the negro race. Doubtless she had a strain of each, with white blood very visibly predominating over both. In Louisiana or the West Indies she would have been called a quadroon, or more loosely, a creole; in North Carolina, where fine distinctions were not the rule in matters of color, she was sufficiently differentiated when described as a bright mulatto. Molly's free birth carried with it certain advantages, even in the South before the war. Though degraded from its high estate, and shorn of its choicest attributes, the word "freedom" had nevertheless a cheerful sound, and described a condition that left even to colored people who could claim it some liberty of movement and some control of their own persons. They were not citizens, yet they were not slaves. No negro, save in books, ever refused freedom; many of them ran frightful risks to achieve it. Molly's parents were of the class, more numerous in North Carolina than elsewhere, known as "old issue free negroes," which took its rise in the misty colonial period, when race lines were not so closely drawn, and the population of North Carolina comprised many Indians, runaway negroes, and indentured white servants from the seaboard plantations, who mingled their blood with great freedom and small formality. Free colored people in North Carolina exercised the right of suffrage as late as 1835, and some of them, in spite of galling restrictions, attained to a considerable degree of prosperity, and dreamed of a still brighter future, when the growing tyranny of the slave power crushed their hopes and crowded the free people back upon the black mass just beneath them. Mis' Molly's father had been at one time a man of some means. In an evil hour, with an overweening confidence in his fellow men, he indorsed a note for a white man who, in a moment of financial hardship, clapped his colored neighbor on the back and called him brother. Not poverty, but wealth, is the most potent leveler. In due time the indorser was called upon to meet the maturing obligation. This was the beginning of a series of financial difficulties which speedily involved him in ruin. He died prematurely, a disappointed and disheartened man, leaving his family in dire poverty. His widow and surviving children lived on for a little while at the house he had owned, just outside of the town, on one of the main traveled roads. By the wayside, near the house, there was a famous deep well. The slim, barefoot girl, with sparkling eyes and voluminous hair, who played about the yard and sometimes handed water in a gourd to travelers, did not long escape critical observation. A gentleman drove by one day, stopped at the well, smiled upon the girl, and said kind words. He came again, more than once, and soon, while scarcely more than a child in years, Molly was living in her own house, hers by deed of gift, for her protector was rich and liberal. Her mother nevermore knew want. Her poor relations could always find a meal in Molly's kitchen. She did not flaunt her prosperity in the world's face; she hid it discreetly behind the cedar screen. Those who wished could know of it, for there were few secrets in Patesville; those who chose could as easily ignore it. There were few to trouble themselves about the secluded life of an obscure woman of a class which had no recognized place in the social economy. She worshiped the ground upon which her lord walked, was humbly grateful for his protection, and quite as faithful as the forbidden marriage vow could possibly have made her. She led her life in material peace and comfort, and with a certain amount of dignity. Of her false relation to society she was not without some vague conception; but the moral point involved was so confused with other questions growing out--of slavery and caste as to cause her, as a rule, but little uneasiness; and only now and then, in the moments of deeper feeling that come sometimes to all who live and love, did there break through the mists of ignorance and prejudice surrounding her a flash of light by which she saw, so far as she was capable of seeing, her true position, which in the clear light of truth no special pleading could entirely justify. For she was free, she had not the slave's excuse. With every inducement to do evil and few incentives to do well, and hence entitled to charitable judgment, she yet had freedom of choice, and therefore could not wholly escape blame. Let it be said, in further extenuation, that no other woman lived in neglect or sorrow because of her. She robbed no one else. For what life gave her she returned an equivalent; and what she did not pay, her children settled to the last farthing. Several years before the war, when Mis' Molly's daughter Rena was a few years old, death had suddenly removed the source of their prosperity. The household was not left entirely destitute. Mis' Molly owned her home, and had a store of gold pieces in the chest beneath her bed. A small piece of real estate stood in the name of each of the children, the income from which contributed to their maintenance. Larger expectations were dependent upon the discovery of a promised will, which never came to light. Mis' Molly wore black for several years after this bereavement, until the teacher and the preacher, following close upon the heels of military occupation, suggested to the colored people new standards of life and character, in the light of which Mis' Molly laid her mourning sadly and shamefacedly aside. She had eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. After the war she formed the habit of church-going, and might have been seen now and then, with her daughter, in a retired corner of the gallery of the white Episcopal church. Upon the ground floor was a certain pew which could be seen from her seat, where once had sat a gentleman whose pleasures had not interfered with the practice of his religion. She might have had a better seat in a church where a Northern missionary would have preached a sermon better suited to her comprehension and her moral needs, but she preferred the other. She was not white, alas! she was shut out from this seeming paradise; but she liked to see the distant glow of the celestial city, and to recall the days when she had basked in its radiance. She did not sympathize greatly with the new era opened up for the emancipated slaves; she had no ideal love of liberty; she was no broader and no more altruistic than the white people around her, to whom she had always looked up; and she sighed for the old days, because to her they had been the good days. Now, not only was her king dead, but the shield of his memory protected her no longer. Molly had lost one child, and his grave was visible from the kitchen window, under a small clump of cedars in the rear of the two-acre lot. For even in the towns many a household had its private cemetery in those old days when the living were close to the dead, and ghosts were not the mere chimeras of a sick imagination, but real though unsubstantial entities, of which it was almost disgraceful not to have seen one or two. Had not the Witch of Endor called up the shade of Samuel the prophet? Had not the spirit of Mis' Molly's dead son appeared to her, as well as the ghostly presence of another she had loved? In 1855, Mis' Molly's remaining son had grown into a tall, slender lad of fifteen, with his father's patrician features and his mother's Indian hair, and no external sign to mark him off from the white boys on the street. He soon came to know, however, that there was a difference. He was informed one day that he was black. He denied the proposition and thrashed the child who made it. The scene was repeated the next day, with a variation,--he was himself thrashed by a larger boy. When he had been beaten five or six times, he ceased to argue the point, though to himself he never admitted the charge. His playmates might call him black; the mirror proved that God, the Father of all, had made him white; and God, he had been taught, made no mistakes,--having made him white, He must have meant him to be white. In the "hall" or parlor of his mother's house stood a quaintly carved black walnut bookcase, containing a small but remarkable collection of books, which had at one time been used, in his hours of retreat and relaxation from business and politics, by the distinguished gentleman who did not give his name to Mis' Molly's children,--to whom it would have been a valuable heritage, could they have had the right to bear it. Among the books were a volume of Fielding's complete works, in fine print, set in double columns; a set of Bulwer's novels; a collection of everything that Walter Scott--the literary idol of the South--had ever written; Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, cheek by jowl with the history of the virtuous Clarissa Harlowe; the Spectator and Tristram Shandy, Robinson Crusoe and the Arabian Nights. On these secluded shelves Roderick Random, Don Quixote, and Gil Blas for a long time ceased their wanderings, the Pilgrim's Progress was suspended, Milton's mighty harmonies were dumb, and Shakespeare reigned over a silent kingdom. An illustrated Bible, with a wonderful Apocrypha, was flanked on one side by Volney's Ruins of Empire and on the other by Paine's Age of Reason, for the collector of the books had been a man of catholic taste as well as of inquiring mind, and no one who could have criticised his reading ever penetrated behind the cedar hedge. A history of the French Revolution consorted amiably with a homespun chronicle of North Carolina, rich in biographical notices of distinguished citizens and inscriptions from their tombstones, upon reading which one might well wonder why North Carolina had not long ago eclipsed the rest of the world in wealth, wisdom, glory, and renown. On almost every page of this monumental work could be found the most ardent panegyrics of liberty, side by side with the slavery statistics of the State,--an incongruity of which the learned author was deliciously unconscious. When John Walden was yet a small boy, he had learned all that could be taught by the faded mulatto teacher in the long, shiny black frock coat, whom local public opinion permitted to teach a handful of free colored children for a pittance barely enough to keep soul and body together. When the boy had learned to read, he discovered the library, which for several years had been without a reader, and found in it the portal of a new world, peopled with strange and marvelous beings. Lying prone upon the floor of the shaded front piazza, behind the fragrant garden, he followed the fortunes of Tom Jones and Sophia; he wept over the fate of Eugene Aram; he penetrated with Richard the Lion-heart into Saladin's tent, with Gil Blas into the robbers' cave; he flew through the air on the magic carpet or the enchanted horse, or tied with Sindbad to the roc's leg. Sometimes he read or repeated the simpler stories to his little sister, sitting wide-eyed by his side. When he had read all the books,--indeed, long before he had read them all,--he too had tasted of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge: contentment took its flight, and happiness lay far beyond the sphere where he was born. The blood of his white fathers, the heirs of the ages, cried out for its own, and after the manner of that blood set about getting the object of its desire. Near the corner of Mackenzie Street, just one block north of the Patesville market-house, there had stood for many years before the war, on the verge of the steep bank of Beaver Creek, a small frame office building, the front of which was level with the street, while the rear rested on long brick pillars founded on the solid rock at the edge of the brawling stream below. Here, for nearly half a century, Archibald Straight had transacted legal business for the best people of Northumberland County. Full many a lawsuit had he won, lost, or settled; many a spendthrift had he saved from ruin, and not a few families from disgrace. Several times honored by election to the bench, he had so dispensed justice tempered with mercy as to win the hearts of all good citizens, and especially those of the poor, the oppressed, and the socially disinherited. The rights of the humblest negro, few as they might be, were as sacred to him as those of the proudest aristocrat, and he had sentenced a man to be hanged for the murder of his own slave. An old-fashioned man, tall and spare of figure and bowed somewhat with age, he was always correctly clad in a long frock coat of broadcloth, with a high collar and a black stock. Courtly in address to his social equals (superiors he had none), he was kind and considerate to those beneath him. He owned a few domestic servants, no one of whom had ever felt the weight of his hand, and for whose ultimate freedom he had provided in his will. In the long-drawn-out slavery agitation he had taken a keen interest, rather as observer than as participant. As the heat of controversy increased, his lack of zeal for the peculiar institution led to his defeat for the bench by a more active partisan. His was too just a mind not to perceive the arguments on both sides; but, on the whole, he had stood by the ancient landmarks, content to let events drift to a conclusion he did not expect to see; the institutions of his fathers would probably last his lifetime. One day Judge Straight was sitting in his office reading a recently published pamphlet,--presenting an elaborate pro-slavery argument, based upon the hopeless intellectual inferiority of the negro, and the physical and moral degeneration of mulattoes, who combined the worst qualities of their two ancestral races,--when a barefooted boy walked into the office, straw hat in hand, came boldly up to the desk at which the old judge was sitting, and said as the judge looked up through his gold-rimmed glasses,-- "Sir, I want to be a lawyer!" "God bless me!" exclaimed the judge. "It is a singular desire, from a singular source, and expressed in a singular way. Who the devil are you, sir, that wish so strange a thing as to become a lawyer--everybody's servant?" "And everybody's master, sir," replied the lad stoutly. "That is a matter of opinion, and open to argument," rejoined the judge, amused and secretly flattered by this tribute to his profession, "though there may be a grain of truth in what you say. But what is your name, Mr. Would-be-lawyer?" "John Walden, sir," answered the lad. "John Walden?--Walden?" mused the judge. "What Walden can that be? Do you belong in town?" "Yes, sir." "Humph! I can't imagine who you are. It's plain that you are a lad of good blood, and yet I don't know whose son you can be. What is your father's name?" The lad hesitated, and flushed crimson. The old gentleman noted his hesitation. "It is a wise son," he thought, "that knows his own father. He is a bright lad, and will have this question put to him more than once. I'll see how he will answer it." The boy maintained an awkward silence, while the old judge eyed him keenly. "My father's dead," he said at length, in a low voice. "I'm Mis' Molly Walden's son." He had expected, of course, to tell who he was, if asked, but had not foreseen just the form of the inquiry; and while he had thought more of his race than of his illegitimate birth, he realized at this moment as never before that this question too would be always with him. As put now by Judge Straight, it made him wince. He had not read his father's books for nothing. "God bless my soul!" exclaimed the judge in genuine surprise at this answer; "and you want to be a lawyer!" The situation was so much worse than he had suspected that even an old practitioner, case-hardened by years of life at the trial table and on the bench, was startled for a moment into a comical sort of consternation, so apparent that a lad less stout-hearted would have weakened and fled at the sight of it. "Yes, sir. Why not?" responded the boy, trembling a little at the knees, but stoutly holding his ground. "He wants to be a lawyer, and he asks me why not!" muttered the judge, speaking apparently to himself. He rose from his chair, walked across the room, and threw open a window. The cool morning air brought with it the babbling of the stream below and the murmur of the mill near by. He glanced across the creek to the ruined foundation of an old house on the low ground beyond the creek. Turning from the window, he looked back at the boy, who had remained standing between him and the door. At that moment another lad came along the street and stopped opposite the open doorway. The presence of the two boys in connection with the book he had been reading suggested a comparison. The judge knew the lad outside as the son of a leading merchant of the town. The merchant and his wife were both of old families which had lived in the community for several generations, and whose blood was presumably of the purest strain; yet the boy was sallow, with amorphous features, thin shanks, and stooping shoulders. The youth standing in the judge's office, on the contrary, was straight, shapely, and well-grown. His eye was clear, and he kept it fixed on the old gentleman with a look in which there was nothing of cringing. He was no darker than many a white boy bronzed by the Southern sun; his hair and eyes were black, and his features of the high-bred, clean-cut order that marks the patrician type the world over. What struck the judge most forcibly, however, was the lad's resemblance to an old friend and companion and client. He recalled a certain conversation with this old friend, who had said to him one day: "Archie, I'm coming in to have you draw my will. There are some children for whom I would like to make ample provision. I can't give them anything else, but money will make them free of the world." The judge's friend had died suddenly before carrying out this good intention. The judge had taken occasion to suggest the existence of these children, and their father's intentions concerning them, to the distant relatives who had inherited his friend's large estate. They had chosen to take offense at the suggestion. One had thought it in shocking bad taste; another considered any mention of such a subject an insult to his cousin's memory. A third had said, with flashing eyes, that the woman and her children had already robbed the estate of enough; that it was a pity the little niggers were not slaves--that they would have added measurably to the value of the property. Judge Straight's manner indicated some disapproval of their attitude, and the settlement of the estate was placed in other hands than his. Now, this son, with his father's face and his father's voice, stood before his father's friend, demanding entrance to the golden gate of opportunity, which society barred to all who bore the blood of the despised race. As he kept on looking at the boy, who began at length to grow somewhat embarrassed under this keen scrutiny, the judge's mind reverted to certain laws and judicial decisions that he had looked up once or twice in his lifetime. Even the law, the instrument by which tyranny riveted the chains upon its victims, had revolted now and then against the senseless and unnatural prejudice by which a race ascribing its superiority to right of blood permitted a mere suspicion of servile blood to outweigh a vast preponderance of its own. "Why, indeed, should he not be a lawyer, or anything else that a man might be, if it be in him?" asked the judge, speaking rather to himself than to the boy. "Sit down," he ordered, pointing to a chair on the other side of the room. That he should ask a colored lad to be seated in his presence was of itself enough to stamp the judge as eccentric. "You want to be a lawyer," he went on, adjusting his spectacles. "You are aware, of course, that you are a negro?" "I am white," replied the lad, turning back his sleeve and holding out his arm, "and I am free, as all my people were before me." The old lawyer shook his head, and fixed his eyes upon the lad with a slightly quizzical smile. "You are black." he said, "and you are not free. You cannot travel without your papers; you cannot secure accommodations at an inn; you could not vote, if you were of age; you cannot be out after nine o'clock without a permit. If a white man struck you, you could not return the blow, and you could not testify against him in a court of justice. You are black, my lad, and you are not free. Did you ever hear of the Dred Scott decision, delivered by the great, wise, and learned Judge Taney?" "No, sir," answered the boy. "It is too long to read," rejoined the judge, taking up the pamphlet he had laid down upon the lad's entrance, "but it says in substance, as quoted by this author, that negroes are beings 'of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; in fact, so inferior that they have no rights which the white man is bound to respect, and that the negro may justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.' That is the law of this nation, and that is the reason why you cannot be a lawyer." "It may all be true," replied the boy, "but it don't apply to me. It says 'the negro.' A negro is black; I am white, and not black." "Black as ink, my lad," returned the lawyer, shaking his head. "'One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,' says the poet. Somewhere, sometime, you had a black ancestor. One drop of black blood makes the whole man black." "Why shouldn't it be the other way, if the white blood is so much superior?" inquired the lad. "Because it is more convenient as it is--and more profitable." "It is not right," maintained the lad. "God bless me!" exclaimed the old gentleman, "he is invading the field of ethics! He will be questioning the righteousness of slavery next! I'm afraid you wouldn't make a good lawyer, in any event. Lawyers go by the laws--they abide by the accomplished fact; to them, whatever is, is right. The laws do not permit men of color to practice law, and public sentiment would not allow one of them to study it." "I had thought," said the lad, "that I might pass for white. There are white people darker than I am." "Ah, well, that is another matter; but"-- The judge stopped for a moment, struck by the absurdity of his arguing such a question with a mulatto boy. He really must be falling into premature dotage. The proper thing would be to rebuke the lad for his presumption and advise him to learn to take care of horses, or make boots, or lay bricks. But again he saw his old friend in the lad's face, and again he looked in vain for any sign of negro blood. The least earmark would have turned the scale, but he could not find it. "That is another matter," he repeated. "Here you have started as black, and must remain so. But if you wish to move away, and sink your past into oblivion, the case might be different. Let us see what the law is; you might not need it if you went far enough, but it is well enough to be within it--liberty is sweeter when founded securely on the law." He took down a volume bound in legal calf and glanced through it. "The color line is drawn in North Carolina at four generations removed from the negro; there have been judicial decisions to that effect. I imagine that would cover your case. But let us see what South Carolina may say about it," he continued, taking another book. "I think the law is even more liberal there. Ah, this is the place:-- "'The term mulatto,'" he read, "'is not invariably applicable to every admixture of African blood with the European, nor is one having all the features of a white to be ranked with the degraded class designated by the laws of this State as persons of color, because of some remote taint of the negro race. Juries would probably be justified in holding a person to be white in whom the admixture of African blood did not exceed one eighth. And even where color or feature are doubtful, it is a question for the jury to decide by reputation, by reception into society, and by their exercise of the privileges of the white man, as well as by admixture of blood.'" "Then I need not be black?" the boy cried, with sparkling eyes. "No," replied the lawyer, "you need not be black, away from Patesville. You have the somewhat unusual privilege, it seems, of choosing between two races, and if you are a lad of spirit, as I think you are, it will not take you long to make your choice. As you have all the features of a white man, you would, at least in South Carolina, have simply to assume the place and exercise the privileges of a white man. You might, of course, do the same thing anywhere, as long as no one knew your origin. But the matter has been adjudicated there in several cases, and on the whole I think South Carolina is the place for you. They're more liberal there, perhaps because they have many more blacks than whites, and would like to lessen the disproportion." "From this time on," said the boy, "I am white." "Softly, softly, my Caucasian fellow citizen," returned the judge, chuckling with quiet amusement. "You are white in the abstract, before the law. You may cherish the fact in secret, but I would not advise you to proclaim it openly just yet. You must wait until you go away--to South Carolina." "And can I learn to be a lawyer, sir?" asked the lad. "It seems to me that you ought to be reasonably content for one day with what you have learned already. You cannot be a lawyer until you are white, in position as well as in theory, nor until you are twenty-one years old. I need an office boy. If you are willing to come into my office, sweep it, keep my books dusted, and stay here when I am out, I do not care. To the rest of the town you will be my servant, and still a negro. If you choose to read my books when no one is about and be white in your own private opinion, I have no objection. When you have made up your mind to go away, perhaps what you have read may help you. But mum 's the word! If I hear a whisper of this from any other source, out you go, neck and crop! I am willing to help you make a man of yourself, but it can only be done under the rose." For two years John Walden openly swept the office and surreptitiously read the law books of old Judge Straight. When he was eighteen, he asked his mother for a sum of money, kissed her good-by, and went out into the world. When his sister, then a pretty child of seven, cried because her big brother was going away, he took her up in his arms, gave her a silver dime with a hole in it for a keepsake, hugged her close, and kissed her. "Nev' min', sis," he said soothingly. "Be a good little gal, an' some o' these days I'll come back to see you and bring you somethin' fine." In after years, when Mis' Molly was asked what had become of her son, she would reply with sad complacency,-- "He's gone over on the other side." As we have seen, he came back ten years later. Many years before, when Mis' Molly, then a very young woman, had taken up her residence in the house behind the cedars, the gentleman heretofore referred to had built a cabin on the opposite corner, in which he had installed a trusted slave by the name of Peter Fowler and his wife Nancy. Peter was a good mechanic, and hired his time from his master with the provision that Peter and his wife should do certain work for Mis' Molly and serve as a sort of protection for her. In course of time Peter, who was industrious and thrifty, saved enough money to purchase his freedom and that of his wife and their one child, and to buy the little house across the street, with the cooper shop behind it. After they had acquired their freedom, Peter and Nancy did no work for Mis' Molly save as they were paid for it, and as a rule preferred not to work at all for the woman who had been practically their mistress; it made them seem less free. Nevertheless, the two households had remained upon good terms, even after the death of the man whose will had brought them together, and who had remained Peter's patron after he had ceased to be his master. There was no intimate association between the two families. Mis' Molly felt herself infinitely superior to Peter and his wife,--scarcely less superior than her poor white neighbors felt themselves to Mis' Molly. Mis' Molly always meant to be kind, and treated Peter and Nancy with a certain good-natured condescension. They resented this, never openly or offensively, but always in a subconscious sort of way, even when they did not speak of it among themselves--much as they had resented her mistress-ship in the old days. For after all, they argued, in spite of her airs and graces, her white face and her fine clothes, was she not a negro, even as themselves? and since the slaves had been freed, was not one negro as good as another? Peter's son Frank had grown up with little Rena. He was several years older than she, and when Rena was a small child Mis' Molly had often confided her to his care, and he had watched over her and kept her from harm. When Frank became old enough to go to work in the cooper shop, Rena, then six or seven, had often gone across to play among the clean white shavings. Once Frank, while learning the trade, had let slip a sharp steel tool, which flying toward Rena had grazed her arm and sent the red blood coursing along the white flesh and soaking the muslin sleeve. He had rolled up the sleeve and stanched the blood and dried her tears. For a long time thereafter her mother kept her away from the shop and was very cold to Frank. One day the little girl wandered down to the bank of the old canal. It had been raining for several days, and the water was quite deep in the channel. The child slipped and fell into the stream. From the open window of the cooper shop Frank heard a scream. He ran down to the canal and pulled her out, and carried her all wet and dripping to the house. From that time he had been restored to favor. He had watched the girl grow up to womanhood in the years following the war, and had been sorry when she became too old to play about the shop. He never spoke to her of love,--indeed, he never thought of his passion in such a light. There would have been no legal barrier to their union; there would have been no frightful menace to white supremacy in the marriage of the negro and the octoroon: the drop of dark blood bridged the chasm. But Frank knew that she did not love him, and had not hoped that she might. His was one of those rare souls that can give with small hope of return. When he had made the scar upon her arm, by the same token she had branded him her slave forever; when he had saved her from a watery grave, he had given his life to her. There are depths of fidelity and devotion in the negro heart that have never been fathomed or fully appreciated. Now and then in the kindlier phases of slavery these qualities were brightly conspicuous, and in them, if wisely appealed to, lies the strongest hope of amity between the two races whose destiny seems bound up together in the Western world. Even a dumb brute can be won by kindness. Surely it were worth while to try some other weapon than scorn and contumely and hard words upon people of our common race,--the human race, which is bigger and broader than Celt or Saxon, barbarian or Greek, Jew or Gentile, black or white; for we are all children of a common Father, forget it as we may, and each one of us is in some measure his brother's keeper. XIX GOD MADE US ALL Rena was convalescent from a two-weeks' illness when her brother came to see her. He arrived at Patesville by an early morning train before the town was awake, and walked unnoticed from the station to his mother's house. His meeting with his sister was not without emotion: he embraced her tenderly, and Rena became for a few minutes a very Niobe of grief. "Oh, it was cruel, cruel!" she sobbed. "I shall never get over it." "I know it, my dear," replied Warwick soothingly,--"I know it, and I'm to blame for it. If I had never taken you away from here, you would have escaped this painful experience. But do not despair; all is not lost. Tryon will not marry you, as I hoped he might, while I feared the contrary; but he is a gentleman, and will be silent. Come back and try again." "No, John. I couldn't go through it a second time. I managed very well before, when I thought our secret was unknown; but now I could never be sure. It would be borne on every wind, for aught I knew, and every rustling leaf might whisper it. The law, you said, made us white; but not the law, nor even love, can conquer prejudice. HE spoke of my beauty, my grace, my sweetness! I looked into his eyes and believed him. And yet he left me without a word! What would I do in Clarence now? I came away engaged to be married, with even the day set; I should go back forsaken and discredited; even the servants would pity me." "Little Albert is pining for you," suggested Warwick. "We could make some explanation that would spare your feelings." "Ah, do not tempt me, John! I love the child, and am grieved to leave him. I'm grateful, too, John, for what you have done for me. I am not sorry that I tried it. It opened my eyes, and I would rather die of knowledge than live in ignorance. But I could not go through it again, John; I am not strong enough. I could do you no good; I have made you trouble enough already. Get a mother for Albert--Mrs. Newberry would marry you, secret and all, and would be good to the child. Forget me, John, and take care of yourself. Your friend has found you out through me--he may have told a dozen people. You think he will be silent;--I thought he loved me, and he left me without a word, and with a look that told me how he hated and despised me. I would not have believed it--even of a white man." "You do him an injustice," said her brother, producing Tryon's letter. "He did not get off unscathed. He sent you a message." She turned her face away, but listened while he read the letter. "He did not love me," she cried angrily, when he had finished, "or he would not have cast me off--he would not have looked at me so. The law would have let him marry me. I seemed as white as he did. He might have gone anywhere with me, and no one would have stared at us curiously; no one need have known. The world is wide--there must be some place where a man could live happily with the woman he loved." "Yes, Rena, there is; and the world is wide enough for you to get along without Tryon." "For a day or two," she went on, "I hoped he might come back. But his expression in that awful moment grew upon me, haunted me day and night, until I shuddered at the thought that I might ever see him again. He looked at me as though I were not even a human being. I do not love him any longer, John; I would not marry him if I were white, or he were as I am. He did not love me--or he would have acted differently. He might have loved me and have left me--he could not have loved me and have looked at me so!" She was weeping hysterically. There was little he could say to comfort her. Presently she dried her tears. Warwick was reluctant to leave her in Patesville. Her childish happiness had been that of ignorance; she could never be happy there again. She had flowered in the sunlight; she must not pine away in the shade. "If you won't come back with me, Rena, I'll send you to some school at the North, where you can acquire a liberal education, and prepare yourself for some career of usefulness. You may marry a better man than even Tryon." "No," she replied firmly, "I shall never marry any man, and I'll not leave mother again. God is against it; I'll stay with my own people." "God has nothing to do with it," retorted Warwick. "God is too often a convenient stalking-horse for human selfishness. If there is anything to be done, so unjust, so despicable, so wicked that human reason revolts at it, there is always some smug hypocrite to exclaim, 'It is the will of God.'" "God made us all," continued Rena dreamily, "and for some good purpose, though we may not always see it. He made some people white, and strong, and masterful, and--heartless. He made others black and homely, and poor and weak"-- "And a lot of others 'poor white' and shiftless," smiled Warwick. "He made us, too," continued Rena, intent upon her own thought, "and He must have had a reason for it. Perhaps He meant us to bring the others together in his own good time. A man may make a new place for himself--a woman is born and bound to hers. God must have meant me to stay here, or He would not have sent me back. I shall accept things as they are. Why should I seek the society of people whose friendship--and love--one little word can turn to scorn? I was right, John; I ought to have told him. Suppose he had married me and then had found it out?" To Rena's argument of divine foreordination Warwick attached no weight whatever. He had seen God's heel planted for four long years upon the land which had nourished slavery. Had God ordained the crime that the punishment might follow? It would have been easier for Omnipotence to prevent the crime. The experience of his sister had stirred up a certain bitterness against white people--a feeling which he had put aside years ago, with his dark blood, but which sprang anew into life when the fact of his own origin was brought home to him so forcibly through his sister's misfortune. His sworn friend and promised brother-in-law had thrown him over promptly, upon the discovery of the hidden drop of dark blood. How many others of his friends would do the same, if they but knew of it? He had begun to feel a little of the spiritual estrangement from his associates that he had noticed in Rena during her life at Clarence. The fact that several persons knew his secret had spoiled the fine flavor of perfect security hitherto marking his position. George Tryon was a man of honor among white men, and had deigned to extend the protection of his honor to Warwick as a man, though no longer as a friend; to Rena as a woman, but not as a wife. Tryon, however, was only human, and who could tell when their paths in life might cross again, or what future temptation Tryon might feel to use a damaging secret to their disadvantage? Warwick had cherished certain ambitions, but these he must now put behind him. In the obscurity of private life, his past would be of little moment; in the glare of a political career, one's antecedents are public property, and too great a reserve in regard to one's past is regarded as a confession of something discreditable. Frank, too, knew the secret--a good, faithful fellow, even where there was no obligation of fidelity; he ought to do something for Frank to show their appreciation of his conduct. But what assurance was there that Frank would always be discreet about the affairs of others? Judge Straight knew the whole story, and old men are sometimes garrulous. Dr. Green suspected the secret; he had a wife and daughters. If old Judge Straight could have known Warwick's thoughts, he would have realized the fulfillment of his prophecy. Warwick, who had builded so well for himself, had weakened the structure of his own life by trying to share his good fortune with his sister. "Listen, Rena," he said, with a sudden impulse, "we'll go to the North or West--I'll go with you--far away from the South and the Southern people, and start life over again. It will be easier for you, it will not be hard for me--I am young, and have means. There are no strong ties to bind me to the South. I would have a larger outlook elsewhere." "And what about our mother?" asked Rena. It would be necessary to leave her behind, they both perceived clearly enough, unless they were prepared to surrender the advantage of their whiteness and drop back to the lower rank. The mother bore the mark of the Ethiopian--not pronouncedly, but distinctly; neither would Mis' Molly, in all probability, care to leave home and friends and the graves of her loved ones. She had no mental resources to supply the place of these; she was, moreover, too old to be transplanted; she would not fit into Warwick's scheme for a new life. "I left her once," said Rena, "and it brought pain and sorrow to all three of us. She is not strong, and I will not leave her here to die alone. This shall be my home while she lives, and if I leave it again, it shall be for only a short time, to go where I can write to her freely, and hear from her often. Don't worry about me, John,--I shall do very well." Warwick sighed. He was sincerely sorry to leave his sister, and yet he saw that for the time being her resolution was not to be shaken. He must bide his time. Perhaps, in a few months, she would tire of the old life. His door would be always open to her, and he would charge himself with her future. "Well, then," he said, concluding the argument, "we'll say no more about it for the present. I'll write to you later. I was afraid that you might not care to go back just now, and so I brought your trunk along with me." He gave his mother the baggage-check. She took it across to Frank, who, during the day, brought the trunk from the depot. Mis' Molly offered to pay him for the service, but he would accept nothing. "Lawd, no, Mis' Molly; I did n' hafter go out'n my way ter git dat trunk. I had a load er sperrit-bairls ter haul ter de still, an' de depot wuz right on my way back. It'd be robbin' you ter take pay fer a little thing lack dat." "My son John's here," said Mis' Molly "an' he wants to see you. Come into the settin'-room. We don't want folks to know he's in town; but you know all our secrets, an' we can trust you like one er the family." "I'm glad to see you again, Frank," said Warwick, extending his hand and clasping Frank's warmly. "You've grown up since I saw you last, but it seems you are still our good friend." "Our very good friend," interjected Rena. Frank threw her a grateful glance. "Yas, suh," he said, looking Warwick over with a friendly eye, "an' you is growed some, too. I seed you, you know, down dere where you live; but I did n' let on, fer you an' Mis' Rena wuz w'ite as anybody; an' eve'ybody said you wuz good ter cullud folks, an' he'ped 'em in deir lawsuits an' one way er 'nuther, an' I wuz jes' plum' glad ter see you gettin' 'long so fine, dat I wuz, certain sho', an' no mistake about it." "Thank you, Frank, and I want you to understand how much I appreciate"-- "How much we all appreciate," corrected Rena. "Yes, how much we all appreciate, and how grateful we all are for your kindness to mother for so many years. I know from her and from my sister how good you've been to them." "Lawd, suh!" returned Frank deprecatingly, "you're makin' a mountain out'n a molehill. I ain't done nuthin' ter speak of--not half ez much ez I would 'a' done. I wuz glad ter do w'at little I could, fer frien'ship's sake." "We value your friendship, Frank, and we'll not forget it." "No, Frank," added Rena, "we will never forget it, and you shall always be our good friend." Frank left the room and crossed the street with swelling heart. He would have given his life for Rena. A kind word was doubly sweet from her lips; no service would be too great to pay for her friendship. When Frank went out to the stable next morning to feed his mule, his eyes opened wide with astonishment. In place of the decrepit, one-eyed army mule he had put up the night before, a fat, sleek specimen of vigorous mulehood greeted his arrival with the sonorous hehaw of lusty youth. Hanging on a peg near by was a set of fine new harness, and standing under the adjoining shed, as he perceived, a handsome new cart. "Well, well!" exclaimed Frank; "ef I did n' mos' know whar dis mule, an' dis kyart, an' dis harness come from, I'd 'low dere 'd be'n witcheraf' er cunjin' wukkin' here. But, oh my, dat is a fine mule!--I mos' wush I could keep 'im." He crossed the road to the house behind the cedars, and found Mis' Molly in the kitchen. "Mis' Molly," he protested, "I ain't done nuthin' ter deserve dat mule. W'at little I done fer you wa'n't done fer pay. I'd ruther not keep dem things." "Fer goodness' sake, Frank!" exclaimed his neighbor, with a well-simulated air of mystification, "what are you talkin' about?" "You knows w'at I'm talkin' about, Mis' Molly; you knows well ernuff I'm talkin' about dat fine mule an' kyart an' harness over dere in my stable." "How should I know anything about 'em?" she asked. "Now, Mis' Molly! You folks is jes' tryin' ter fool me, an' make me take somethin' fer nuthin'. I lef' my ole mule an' kyart an' harness in de stable las' night, an' dis mawnin' dey 're gone, an' new ones in deir place. Co'se you knows whar dey come from!" "Well, now, Frank, sence you mention it, I did see a witch flyin' roun' here las' night on a broom-stick, an' it 'peared ter me she lit on yo'r barn, an' I s'pose she turned yo'r old things into new ones. I wouldn't bother my mind about it if I was you, for she may turn 'em back any night, you know; an' you might as well have the use of 'em in the mean while." "Dat's all foolishness, Mis' Molly, an' I'm gwine ter fetch dat mule right over here an' tell yo' son ter gimme my ole one back." "My son's gone," she replied, "an' I don't know nothin' about yo'r old mule. And what would I do with a mule, anyhow? I ain't got no barn to put him in." "I suspect you don't care much for us after all, Frank," said Rena reproachfully--she had come in while they were talking. "You meet with a piece of good luck, and you're afraid of it, lest it might have come from us." "Now, Miss Rena, you oughtn't ter say dat," expostulated Frank, his reluctance yielding immediately. "I'll keep de mule an' de kyart an' de harness--fac', I'll have ter keep 'em, 'cause I ain't got no others. But dey 're gwine ter be yo'n ez much ez mine. W'enever you wants anything hauled, er wants yo' lot ploughed, er anything--dat's yo' mule, an' I'm yo' man an' yo' mammy's." So Frank went back to the stable, where he feasted his eyes on his new possessions, fed and watered the mule, and curried and brushed his coat until it shone like a looking-glass. "Now dat," remarked Peter, at the breakfast-table, when informed of the transaction, "is somethin' lack rale w'ite folks." No real white person had ever given Peter a mule or a cart. He had rendered one of them unpaid service for half a lifetime, and had paid for the other half; and some of them owed him substantial sums for work performed. But "to him that hath shall be given"--Warwick paid for the mule, and the real white folks got most of the credit. XX DIGGING UP ROOTS When the first great shock of his discovery wore off, the fact of Rena's origin lost to Tryon some of its initial repugnance--indeed, the repugnance was not to the woman at all, as their past relations were evidence, but merely to the thought of her as a wife. It could hardly have failed to occur to so reasonable a man as Tryon that Rena's case could scarcely be unique. Surely in the past centuries of free manners and easy morals that had prevailed in remote parts of the South, there must have been many white persons whose origin would not have borne too microscopic an investigation. Family trees not seldom have a crooked branch; or, to use a more apposite figure, many a flock has its black sheep. Being a man of lively imagination, Tryon soon found himself putting all sorts of hypothetical questions about a matter which he had already definitely determined. If he had married Rena in ignorance of her secret, and had learned it afterwards, would he have put her aside? If, knowing her history, he had nevertheless married her, and she had subsequently displayed some trait of character that would suggest the negro, could he have forgotten or forgiven the taint? Could he still have held her in love and honor? If not, could he have given her the outward seeming of affection, or could he have been more than coldly tolerant? He was glad that he had been spared this ordeal. With an effort he put the whole matter definitely and conclusively aside, as he had done a hundred times already. Returning to his home, after an absence of several months in South Carolina, it was quite apparent to his mother's watchful eye that he was in serious trouble. He was absent-minded, monosyllabic, sighed deeply and often, and could not always conceal the traces of secret tears. For Tryon was young, and possessed of a sensitive soul--a source of happiness or misery, as the Fates decree. To those thus dowered, the heights of rapture are accessible, the abysses of despair yawn threateningly; only the dull monotony of contentment is denied. Mrs. Tryon vainly sought by every gentle art a woman knows to win her son's confidence. "What is the matter, George, dear?" she would ask, stroking his hot brow with her small, cool hand as he sat moodily nursing his grief. "Tell your mother, George. Who else could comfort you so well as she?" "Oh, it's nothing, mother,--nothing at all," he would reply, with a forced attempt at lightness. "It's only your fond imagination, you best of mothers." It was Mrs. Tryon's turn to sigh and shed a clandestine tear. Until her son had gone away on this trip to South Carolina, he had kept no secrets from her: his heart had been an open book, of which she knew every page; now, some painful story was inscribed therein which he meant she should not read. If she could have abdicated her empire to Blanche Leary or have shared it with her, she would have yielded gracefully; but very palpably some other influence than Blanche's had driven joy from her son's countenance and lightness from his heart. Miss Blanche Leary, whom Tryon found in the house upon his return, was a demure, pretty little blonde, with an amiable disposition, a talent for society, and a pronounced fondness for George Tryon. A poor girl, of an excellent family impoverished by the war, she was distantly related to Mrs. Tryon, had for a long time enjoyed that lady's favor, and was her choice for George's wife when he should be old enough to marry. A woman less interested than Miss Leary would have perceived that there was something wrong with Tryon. Miss Leary had no doubt that there was a woman at the bottom of it,--for about what else should youth worry but love? or if one's love affairs run smoothly, why should one worry about anything at all? Miss Leary, in the nineteen years of her mundane existence, had not been without mild experiences of the heart, and had hovered for some time on the verge of disappointment with respect to Tryon himself. A sensitive pride would have driven more than one woman away at the sight of the man of her preference sighing like a furnace for some absent fair one. But Mrs. Tryon was so cordial, and insisted so strenuously upon her remaining, that Blanche's love, which was strong, conquered her pride, which was no more than a reasonable young woman ought to have who sets success above mere sentiment. She remained in the house and bided her opportunity. If George practically ignored her for a time, she did not throw herself at all in his way. She went on a visit to some girls in the neighborhood and remained away a week, hoping that she might be missed. Tryon expressed no regret at her departure and no particular satisfaction upon her return. If the house was duller in her absence, he was but dimly conscious of the difference. He was still fighting a battle in which a susceptible heart and a reasonable mind had locked horns in a well-nigh hopeless conflict. Reason, common-sense, the instinctive ready-made judgments of his training and environment,--the deep-seated prejudices of race and caste,--commanded him to dismiss Rena from his thoughts. His stubborn heart simply would not let go. XXI A GILDED OPPORTUNITY Although the whole fabric of Rena's new life toppled and fell with her lover's defection, her sympathies, broadened by culture and still more by her recent emotional experience, did not shrink, as would have been the case with a more selfish soul, to the mere limits of her personal sorrow, great as this seemed at the moment. She had learned to love, and when the love of one man failed her, she turned to humanity, as a stream obstructed in its course overflows the adjacent country. Her early training had not directed her thoughts to the darker people with whose fate her own was bound up so closely, but rather away from them. She had been taught to despise them because they were not so white as she was, and had been slaves while she was free. Her life in her brother's home, by removing her from immediate contact with them, had given her a different point of view,--one which emphasized their shortcomings, and thereby made vastly clearer to her the gulf that separated them from the new world in which she lived; so that when misfortune threw her back upon them, the reaction brought her nearer than before. Where once she had seemed able to escape from them, they were now, it appeared, her inalienable race. Thus doubly equipped, she was able to view them at once with the mental eye of an outsider and the sympathy of a sister: she could see their faults, and judge them charitably; she knew and appreciated their good qualities. With her quickened intelligence she could perceive how great was their need and how small their opportunity; and with this illumination came the desire to contribute to their help. She had not the breadth or culture to see in all its ramifications the great problem which still puzzles statesmen and philosophers; but she was conscious of the wish, and of the power, in a small way, to do something for the advancement of those who had just set their feet upon the ladder of progress. This new-born desire to be of service to her rediscovered people was not long without an opportunity for expression. Yet the Fates willed that her future should be but another link in a connected chain: she was to be as powerless to put aside her recent past as she had been to escape from the influence of her earlier life. There are sordid souls that eat and drink and breed and die, and imagine they have lived. But Rena's life since her great awakening had been that of the emotions, and her temperament made of it a continuous life. Her successive states of consciousness were not detachable, but united to form a single if not an entirely harmonious whole. To her sensitive spirit to-day was born of yesterday, to-morrow would be but the offspring of to day. One day, along toward noon, her mother received a visit from Mary B. Pettifoot, a second cousin, who lived on Back Street, only a short distance from the house behind the cedars. Rena had gone out, so that the visitor found Mis' Molly alone. "I heared you say, Cousin Molly," said Mary B. (no one ever knew what the B. in Mary's name stood for,--it was a mere ornamental flourish), "that Rena was talkin' 'bout teachin' school. I've got a good chance fer her, ef she keers ter take it. My cousin Jeff Wain 'rived in town this mo'nin', f'm 'way down in Sampson County, ter git a teacher fer the nigger school in his deestric'. I s'pose he mought 'a' got one f'm 'roun' Newbern, er Goldsboro, er some er them places eas', but he 'lowed he'd like to visit some er his kin an' ole frien's, an' so kill two birds with one stone." "I seed a strange mulatter man, with a bay hoss an' a new buggy, drivin' by here this mo'nin' early, from down to'ds the river," rejoined Mis' Molly. "I wonder if that wuz him?" "Did he have on a linen duster?" asked Mary B. "Yas, an' 'peared to be a very well sot up man," replied Mis' Molly, "'bout thirty-five years old, I should reckon." "That wuz him," assented Mary B. "He's got a fine hoss an' buggy, an' a gol' watch an' chain, an' a big plantation, an' lots er hosses an' mules an' cows an' hawgs. He raise' fifty bales er cotton las' year, an' he's be'n ter the legislatur'." "My gracious!" exclaimed Mis' Molly, struck with awe at this catalogue of the stranger's possessions--he was evidently worth more than a great many "rich" white people,--all white people in North Carolina in those days were either "rich" or "poor," the distinction being one of caste rather than of wealth. "Is he married?" she inquired with interest? "No,--single. You mought 'low it was quare that he should n' be married at his age; but he was crossed in love oncet,"--Mary B. heaved a self-conscious sigh,--"an' has stayed single ever sence. That wuz ten years ago, but as some husban's is long-lived, an' there ain' no mo' chance fer 'im now than there wuz then, I reckon some nice gal mought stan' a good show er ketchin' 'im, ef she'd play her kyards right." To Mis' Molly this was news of considerable importance. She had not thought a great deal of Rena's plan to teach; she considered it lowering for Rena, after having been white, to go among the negroes any more than was unavoidable. This opportunity, however, meant more than mere employment for her daughter. She had felt Rena's disappointment keenly, from the practical point of view, and, blaming herself for it, held herself all the more bound to retrieve the misfortune in any possible way. If she had not been sick, Rena would not have dreamed the fateful dream that had brought her to Patesville; for the connection between the vision and the reality was even closer in Mis' Molly's eyes than in Rena's. If the mother had not sent the letter announcing her illness and confirming the dream, Rena would not have ruined her promising future by coming to Patesville. But the harm had been done, and she was responsible, ignorantly of course, but none the less truly, and it only remained for her to make amends, as far as possible. Her highest ambition, since Rena had grown up, had been to see her married and comfortably settled in life. She had no hope that Tryon would come back. Rena had declared that she would make no further effort to get away from her people; and, furthermore, that she would never marry. To this latter statement Mis' Molly secretly attached but little importance. That a woman should go single from the cradle to the grave did not accord with her experience in life of the customs of North Carolina. She respected a grief she could not entirely fathom, yet did not for a moment believe that Rena would remain unmarried. "You'd better fetch him roun' to see me, Ma'y B.," she said, "an' let's see what he looks like. I'm pertic'lar 'bout my gal. She says she ain't goin' to marry nobody; but of co'se we know that's all foolishness." "I'll fetch him roun' this evenin' 'bout three o'clock," said the visitor, rising. "I mus' hurry back now an' keep him comp'ny. Tell Rena ter put on her bes' bib an' tucker; for Mr. Wain is pertic'lar too, an' I've already be'n braggin' 'bout her looks." When Mary B., at the appointed hour, knocked at Mis' Molly's front door,--the visit being one of ceremony, she had taken her cousin round to the Front Street entrance and through the flower garden,--Mis' Molly was prepared to receive them. After a decent interval, long enough to suggest that she had not been watching their approach and was not over-eager about the visit, she answered the knock and admitted them into the parlor. Mr. Wain was formally introduced, and seated himself on the ancient haircloth sofa, under the framed fashion-plate, while Mary B. sat by the open door and fanned herself with a palm-leaf fan. Mis' Molly's impression of Wain was favorable. His complexion was of a light brown--not quite so fair as Mis' Molly would have preferred; but any deficiency in this regard, or in the matter of the stranger's features, which, while not unpleasing, leaned toward the broad mulatto type, was more than compensated in her eyes by very straight black hair, and, as soon appeared, a great facility of complimentary speech. On his introduction Mr. Wain bowed low, assumed an air of great admiration, and expressed his extreme delight in making the acquaintance of so distinguished-looking a lady. "You're flatt'rin' me, Mr. Wain," returned Mis' Molly, with a gratified smile. "But you want to meet my daughter befo' you commence th'owin' bokays. Excuse my leavin' you--I'll go an' fetch her." She returned in a moment, followed by Rena. "Mr. Wain, 'low me to int'oduce you to my daughter Rena. Rena, this is Ma'y B.'s cousin on her pappy's side, who's come up from Sampson to git a school-teacher." Rena bowed gracefully. Wain stared a moment in genuine astonishment, and then bent himself nearly double, keeping his eyes fixed meanwhile upon Rena's face. He had expected to see a pretty yellow girl, but had been prepared for no such radiant vision of beauty as this which now confronted him. "Does--does you mean ter say, Mis' Walden, dat--dat dis young lady is yo' own daughter?" he stammered, rallying his forces for action. "Why not, Mr. Wain?" asked Mis' Molly, bridling with mock resentment. "Do you mean ter 'low that she wuz changed in her cradle, er is she too good-lookin' to be my daughter?" "My deah Mis' Walden! it 'ud be wastin' wo'ds fer me ter say dat dey ain' no young lady too good-lookin' ter be yo' daughter; but you're lookin' so young yo'sef dat I'd ruther take her fer yo' sister." "Yas," rejoined Mis' Molly, with animation, "they ain't many years between us. I wuz ruther young myself when she wuz bo'n." "An', mo'over," Wain went on, "it takes me a minute er so ter git my min' use' ter thinkin' er Mis' Rena as a cullud young lady. I mought 'a' seed her a hund'ed times, an' I'd 'a' never dreamt but w'at she wuz a w'ite young lady, f'm one er de bes' families." "Yas, Mr. Wain," replied Mis' Molly complacently, "all three er my child'en wuz white, an' one of 'em has be'n on the other side fer many long years. Rena has be'n to school, an' has traveled, an' has had chances--better chances than anybody roun' here knows." "She's jes' de lady I'm lookin' fer, ter teach ou' school," rejoined Wain, with emphasis. "Wid her schoolin' an' my riccommen', she kin git a fus'-class ce'tifikit an' draw fo'ty dollars a month; an' a lady er her color kin keep a lot er little niggers straighter 'n a darker lady could. We jus' got ter have her ter teach ou' school--ef we kin git her." Rena's interest in the prospect of employment at her chosen work was so great that she paid little attention to Wain's compliments. Mis' Molly led Mary B. away to the kitchen on some pretext, and left Rena to entertain the gentleman. She questioned him eagerly about the school, and he gave the most glowing accounts of the elegant school-house, the bright pupils, and the congenial society of the neighborhood. He spoke almost entirely in superlatives, and, after making due allowance for what Rena perceived to be a temperamental tendency to exaggeration, she concluded that she would find in the school a worthy field of usefulness, and in this polite and good-natured though somewhat wordy man a coadjutor upon whom she could rely in her first efforts; for she was not over-confident of her powers, which seemed to grow less as the way opened for their exercise. "Do you think I'm competent to teach the school?" she asked of the visitor, after stating some of her qualifications. "Oh, dere 's no doubt about it, Miss Rena," replied Wain, who had listened with an air of great wisdom, though secretly aware that he was too ignorant of letters to form a judgment; "you kin teach de school all right, an' could ef you didn't know half ez much. You won't have no trouble managin' de child'en, nuther. Ef any of 'em gits onruly, jes' call on me fer he'p, an' I'll make 'em walk Spanish. I'm chuhman er de school committee, an' I'll lam de hide off'n any scholar dat don' behave. You kin trus' me fer dat, sho' ez I'm a-settin' here." "Then," said Rena, "I'll undertake it, and do my best. I'm sure you'll not be too exacting." "Yo' bes', Miss Rena,'ll be de bes' dey is. Don' you worry ner fret. Dem niggers won't have no other teacher after dey've once laid eyes on you: I'll guarantee dat. Dere won't be no trouble, not a bit." "Well, Cousin Molly," said Mary B. to Mis' Molly in the kitchen, "how does the plan strike you?" "Ef Rena's satisfied, I am," replied Mis' Molly. "But you'd better say nothin' about ketchin' a beau, or any such foolishness, er else she'd be just as likely not to go nigh Sampson County." "Befo' Cousin Jeff goes back," confided Mary B., "I'd like ter give 'im a party, but my house is too small. I wuz wonderin'," she added tentatively, "ef I could n' borry yo' house." "Shorely, Ma'y B. I'm int'rested in Mr. Wain on Rena's account, an' it's as little as I kin do to let you use my house an' help you git things ready." The date of the party was set for Thursday night, as Wain was to leave Patesville on Friday morning, taking with him the new teacher. The party would serve the double purpose of a compliment to the guest and a farewell to Rena, and it might prove the precursor, the mother secretly hoped, of other festivities to follow at some later date. XXII IMPERATIVE BUSINESS One Wednesday morning, about six weeks after his return home, Tryon received a letter from Judge Straight with reference to the note left with him at Patesville for collection. This communication properly required an answer, which might have been made in writing within the compass of ten lines. No sooner, however, had Tryon read the letter than he began to perceive reasons why it should be answered in person. He had left Patesville under extremely painful circumstances, vowing that he would never return; and yet now the barest pretext, by which no one could have been deceived except willingly, was sufficient to turn his footsteps thither again. He explained to his mother--with a vagueness which she found somewhat puzzling, but ascribed to her own feminine obtuseness in matters of business--the reasons that imperatively demanded his presence in Patesville. With an early start he could drive there in one day,--he had an excellent roadster, a light buggy, and a recent rain had left the road in good condition,--a day would suffice for the transaction of his business, and the third day would bring him home again. He set out on his journey on Thursday morning, with this programme very clearly outlined. Tryon would not at first have admitted even to himself that Rena's presence in Patesville had any bearing whatever upon his projected visit. The matter about which Judge Straight had written might, it was clear, be viewed in several aspects. The judge had written him concerning the one of immediate importance. It would be much easier to discuss the subject in all its bearings, and clean up the whole matter, in one comprehensive personal interview. The importance of this business, then, seemed very urgent for the first few hours of Tryon's journey. Ordinarily a careful driver and merciful to his beast, his eagerness to reach Patesville increased gradually until it became necessary to exercise some self-restraint in order not to urge his faithful mare beyond her powers; and soon he could no longer pretend obliviousness of the fact that some attraction stronger than the whole amount of Duncan McSwayne's note was urging him irresistibly toward his destination. The old town beyond the distant river, his heart told him clamorously, held the object in all the world to him most dear. Memory brought up in vivid detail every moment of his brief and joyous courtship, each tender word, each enchanting smile, every fond caress. He lived his past happiness over again down to the moment of that fatal discovery. What horrible fate was it that had involved him--nay, that had caught this sweet delicate girl in such a blind alley? A wild hope flashed across his mind: perhaps the ghastly story might not be true; perhaps, after all, the girl was no more a negro than she seemed. He had heard sad stories of white children, born out of wedlock, abandoned by sinful parents to the care or adoption of colored women, who had reared them as their own, the children's future basely sacrificed to hide the parents' shame. He would confront this reputed mother of his darling and wring the truth from her. He was in a state of mind where any sort of a fairy tale would have seemed reasonable. He would almost have bribed some one to tell him that the woman he had loved, the woman he still loved (he felt a thrill of lawless pleasure in the confession), was not the descendant of slaves,--that he might marry her, and not have before his eyes the gruesome fear that some one of their children might show even the faintest mark of the despised race. At noon he halted at a convenient hamlet, fed and watered his mare, and resumed his journey after an hour's rest. By this time he had well-nigh forgotten about the legal business that formed the ostensible occasion for his journey, and was conscious only of a wild desire to see the woman whose image was beckoning him on to Patesville as fast as his horse could take him. At sundown he stopped again, about ten miles from the town, and cared for his now tired beast. He knew her capacity, however, and calculated that she could stand the additional ten miles without injury. The mare set out with reluctance, but soon settled resignedly down into a steady jog. Memory had hitherto assailed Tryon with the vision of past joys. As he neared the town, imagination attacked him with still more moving images. He had left her, this sweet flower of womankind--white or not, God had never made a fairer!--he had seen her fall to the hard pavement, with he knew not what resulting injury. He had left her tender frame--the touch of her finger-tips had made him thrill with happiness--to be lifted by strange hands, while he with heartless pride had driven deliberately away, without a word of sorrow or regret. He had ignored her as completely as though she had never existed. That he had been deceived was true. But had he not aided in his own deception? Had not Warwick told him distinctly that they were of no family, and was it not his own fault that he had not followed up the clue thus given him? Had not Rena compared herself to the child's nurse, and had he not assured her that if she were the nurse, he would marry her next day? The deception had been due more to his own blindness than to any lack of honesty on the part of Rena and her brother. In the light of his present feelings they seemed to have been absurdly outspoken. He was glad that he had kept his discovery to himself. He had considered himself very magnanimous not to have exposed the fraud that was being perpetrated upon society: it was with a very comfortable feeling that he now realized that the matter was as profound a secret as before. "She ought to have been born white," he muttered, adding weakly, "I would to God that I had never found her out!" Drawing near the bridge that crossed the river to the town, he pictured to himself a pale girl, with sorrowful, tear-stained eyes, pining away in the old gray house behind the cedars for love of him, dying, perhaps, of a broken heart. He would hasten to her; he would dry her tears with kisses; he would express sorrow for his cruelty. The tired mare had crossed the bridge and was slowly toiling up Front Street; she was near the limit of her endurance, and Tryon did not urge her. They might talk the matter over, and if they must part, part at least they would in peace and friendship. If he could not marry her, he would never marry any one else; it would be cruel for him to seek happiness while she was denied it, for, having once given her heart to him, she could never, he was sure,--so instinctively fine was her nature,--she could never love any one less worthy than himself, and would therefore probably never marry. He knew from a Clarence acquaintance, who had written him a letter, that Rena had not reappeared in that town. If he should discover--the chance was one in a thousand--that she was white; or if he should find it too hard to leave her--ah, well! he was a white man, one of a race born to command. He would make her white; no one beyond the old town would ever know the difference. If, perchance, their secret should be disclosed, the world was wide; a man of courage and ambition, inspired by love, might make a career anywhere. Circumstances made weak men; strong men mould circumstances to do their bidding. He would not let his darling die of grief, whatever the price must be paid for her salvation. She was only a few rods away from him now. In a moment he would see her; he would take her tenderly in his arms, and heart to heart they would mutually forgive and forget, and, strengthened by their love, would face the future boldly and bid the world do its worst. XXIII THE GUEST OF HONOR The evening of the party arrived. The house had been thoroughly cleaned in preparation for the event, and decorated with the choicest treasures of the garden. By eight o'clock the guests had gathered. They were all mulattoes,--all people of mixed blood were called "mulattoes" in North Carolina. There were dark mulattoes and bright mulattoes. Mis' Molly's guests were mostly of the bright class, most of them more than half white, and few of them less. In Mis' Molly's small circle, straight hair was the only palliative of a dark complexion. Many of the guests would not have been casually distinguishable from white people of the poorer class. Others bore unmistakable traces of Indian ancestry,--for Cherokee and Tuscarora blood was quite widely diffused among the free negroes of North Carolina, though well-nigh lost sight of by the curious custom of the white people to ignore anything but the negro blood in those who were touched by its potent current. Very few of those present had been slaves. The free colored people of Patesville were numerous enough before the war to have their own "society," and human enough to despise those who did not possess advantages equal to their own; and at this time they still looked down upon those who had once been held in bondage. The only black man present occupied a chair which stood on a broad chest in one corner, and extracted melody from a fiddle to which a whole generation of the best people of Patesville had danced and made merry. Uncle Needham seldom played for colored gatherings, but made an exception in Mis' Molly's case; she was not white, but he knew her past; if she was not the rose, she had at least been near the rose. When the company had gathered, Mary B., as mistress of ceremonies, whispered to Uncle Needham, who tapped his violin sharply with the bow. "Ladies an' gent'emens, take yo' pa'dners fer a Fuhginny reel!" Mr. Wain, as the guest of honor, opened the ball with his hostess. He wore a broadcloth coat and trousers, a heavy glittering chain across the spacious front of his white waistcoat, and a large red rose in his buttonhole. If his boots were slightly run down at the heel, so trivial a detail passed unnoticed in the general splendor of his attire. Upon a close or hostile inspection there would have been some features of his ostensibly good-natured face--the shifty eye, the full and slightly drooping lower lip--which might have given a student of physiognomy food for reflection. But whatever the latent defects of Wain's character, he proved himself this evening a model of geniality, presuming not at all upon his reputed wealth, but winning golden opinions from those who came to criticise, of whom, of course, there were a few, the company being composed of human beings. When the dance began, Wain extended his large, soft hand to Mary B., yellow, buxom, thirty, with white and even teeth glistening behind her full red lips. A younger sister of Mary B.'s was paired with Billy Oxendine, a funny little tailor, a great gossip, and therefore a favorite among the women. Mis' Molly graciously consented, after many protestations of lack of skill and want of practice, to stand up opposite Homer Pettifoot, Mary B.'s husband, a tall man, with a slight stoop, a bald crown, and full, dreamy eyes,--a man of much imagination and a large fund of anecdote. Two other couples completed the set; others were restrained by bashfulness or religious scruples, which did not yield until later in the evening. The perfumed air from the garden without and the cut roses within mingled incongruously with the alien odors of musk and hair oil, of which several young barbers in the company were especially redolent. There was a play of sparkling eyes and glancing feet. Mary B. danced with the languorous grace of an Eastern odalisque, Mis' Molly with the mincing, hesitating step of one long out of practice. Wain performed saltatory prodigies. This was a golden opportunity for the display in which his soul found delight. He introduced variations hitherto unknown to the dance. His skill and suppleness brought a glow of admiration into the eyes of the women, and spread a cloud of jealousy over the faces of several of the younger men, who saw themselves eclipsed. Rena had announced in advance her intention to take no active part in the festivities. "I don't feel like dancing, mamma--I shall never dance again." "Well, now, Rena," answered her mother, "of co'se you're too dignified, sence you've be'n 'sociatin' with white folks, to be hoppin' roun' an' kickin' up like Ma'y B. an' these other yaller gals; but of co'se, too, you can't slight the comp'ny entirely, even ef it ain't jest exac'ly our party,--you'll have to pay 'em some little attention, 'specially Mr. Wain, sence you're goin' down yonder with 'im." Rena conscientiously did what she thought politeness required. She went the round of the guests in the early part of the evening and exchanged greetings with them. To several requests for dances she replied that she was not dancing. She did not hold herself aloof because of pride; any instinctive shrinking she might have felt by reason of her recent association with persons of greater refinement was offset by her still more newly awakened zeal for humanity; they were her people, she must not despise them. But the occasion suggested painful memories of other and different scenes in which she had lately participated. Once or twice these memories were so vivid as almost to overpower her. She slipped away from the company, and kept in the background as much as possible without seeming to slight any one. The guests as well were dimly conscious of a slight barrier between Mis' Molly's daughter and themselves. The time she had spent apart from these friends of her youth had rendered it impossible for her ever to meet them again upon the plane of common interests and common thoughts. It was much as though one, having acquired the vernacular of his native country, had lived in a foreign land long enough to lose the language of his childhood without acquiring fully that of his adopted country. Miss Rowena Warwick could never again become quite the Rena Walden who had left the house behind the cedars no more than a year and a half before. Upon this very difference were based her noble aspirations for usefulness,--one must stoop in order that one may lift others. Any other young woman present would have been importuned beyond her powers of resistance. Rena's reserve was respected. When supper was announced, somewhat early in the evening, the dancers found seats in the hall or on the front piazza. Aunt Zilphy, assisted by Mis' Molly and Mary B., passed around the refreshments, which consisted of fried chicken, buttered biscuits, pound-cake, and eggnog. When the first edge of appetite was taken off, the conversation waxed animated. Homer Pettifoot related, with minute detail, an old, threadbare hunting lie, dating, in slightly differing forms, from the age of Nimrod, about finding twenty-five partridges sitting in a row on a rail, and killing them all with a single buckshot, which passed through twenty-four and lodged in the body of the twenty-fifth, from which it was extracted and returned to the shot pouch for future service. This story was followed by a murmur of incredulity--of course, the thing was possible, but Homer's faculty for exaggeration was so well known that any statement of his was viewed with suspicion. Homer seemed hurt at this lack of faith, and was disposed to argue the point, but the sonorous voice of Mr. Wain on the other side of the room cut short his protestations, in much the same way that the rising sun extinguishes the light of lesser luminaries. "I wuz a member er de fus' legislatur' after de wah," Wain was saying. "When I went up f'm Sampson in de fall, I had to pass th'ough Smithfiel', I got in town in de afternoon, an' put up at de bes' hotel. De lan'lo'd did n' have no s'picion but what I wuz a white man, an' he gimme a room, an' I had supper an' breakfas', an' went on ter Rolly nex' mornin'. W'en de session wuz over, I come along back, an' w'en I got ter Smithfiel', I driv' up ter de same hotel. I noticed, as soon as I got dere, dat de place had run down consid'able--dere wuz weeds growin' in de yard, de winders wuz dirty, an' ev'ything roun' dere looked kinder lonesome an' shif'less. De lan'lo'd met me at de do'; he looked mighty down in de mouth, an' sezee:-- "'Look a-here, w'at made you come an' stop at my place widout tellin' me you wuz a black man? Befo' you come th'ough dis town I had a fus'-class business. But w'en folks found out dat a nigger had put up here, business drapped right off, an' I've had ter shet up my hotel. You oughter be 'shamed er yo'se'f fer ruinin' a po' man w'at had n' never done no harm ter you. You've done a mean, low-lived thing, an' a jes' God'll punish you fer it.' "De po' man acshully bust inter tears," continued Mr. Wain magnanimously, "an' I felt so sorry fer 'im--he wuz a po' white man tryin' ter git up in de worl'--dat I hauled out my purse an' gin 'im ten dollars, an' he 'peared monst'ous glad ter git it." "How good-hearted! How kin'!" murmured the ladies. "It done credit to yo' feelin's." "Don't b'lieve a word er dem lies," muttered one young man to another sarcastically. "He could n' pass fer white, 'less'n it wuz a mighty dark night." Upon this glorious evening of his life, Mr. Jefferson Wain had one distinctly hostile critic, of whose presence he was blissfully unconscious. Frank Fowler had not been invited to the party,--his family did not go with Mary B.'s set. Rena had suggested to her mother that he be invited, but Mis' Molly had demurred on the ground that it was not her party, and that she had no right to issue invitations. It is quite likely that she would have sought an invitation for Frank from Mary B.; but Frank was black, and would not harmonize with the rest of the company, who would not have Mis' Molly's reasons for treating him well. She had compromised the matter by stepping across the way in the afternoon and suggesting that Frank might come over and sit on the back porch and look at the dancing and share in the supper. Frank was not without a certain honest pride. He was sensitive enough, too, not to care to go where he was not wanted. He would have curtly refused any such maimed invitation to any other place. But would he not see Rena in her best attire, and might she not perhaps, in passing, speak a word to him? "Thank y', Mis' Molly," he replied, "I'll prob'ly come over." "You're a big fool, boy," observed his father after Mis' Molly had gone back across the street, "ter be stickin' roun' dem yaller niggers 'cross de street, an' slobb'rin' an' slav'rin' over 'em, an' hangin' roun' deir back do' wuss 'n ef dey wuz w'ite folks. I'd see 'em dead fus'!" Frank himself resisted the temptation for half an hour after the music began, but at length he made his way across the street and stationed himself at the window opening upon the back piazza. When Rena was in the room, he had eyes for her only, but when she was absent, he fixed his attention mainly upon Wain. With jealous clairvoyance he observed that Wain's eyes followed Rena when she left the room, and lit up when she returned. Frank had heard that Rena was going away with this man, and he watched Wain closely, liking him less the longer he looked at him. To his fancy, Wain's style and skill were affectation, his good-nature mere hypocrisy, and his glance at Rena the eye of the hawk upon his quarry. He had heard that Wain was unmarried, and he could not see how, this being so, he could help wishing Rena for a wife. Frank would have been content to see her marry a white man, who would have raised her to a plane worthy of her merits. In this man's shifty eye he read the liar--his wealth and standing were probably as false as his seeming good-humor. "Is that you, Frank?" said a soft voice near at hand. He looked up with a joyful thrill. Rena was peering intently at him, as if trying to distinguish his features in the darkness. It was a bright moonlight night, but Frank stood in the shadow of the piazza. "Yas 'm, it's me, Miss Rena. Yo' mammy said I could come over an' see you-all dance. You ain' be'n out on de flo' at all, ter-night." "No, Frank, I don't care for dancing. I shall not dance to-night." This answer was pleasing to Frank. If he could not hope to dance with her, at least the men inside--at least this snake in the grass from down the country--should not have that privilege. "But you must have some supper, Frank," said Rena. "I'll bring it myself." "No, Miss Rena, I don' keer fer nothin'--I did n' come over ter eat--r'al'y I didn't." "Nonsense, Frank, there's plenty of it. I have no appetite, and you shall have my portion." She brought him a slice of cake and a glass of eggnog. When Mis' Molly, a minute later, came out upon the piazza, Frank left the yard and walked down the street toward the old canal. Rena had spoken softly to him; she had fed him with her own dainty hands. He might never hope that she would see in him anything but a friend; but he loved her, and he would watch over her and protect her, wherever she might be. He did not believe that she would ever marry the grinning hypocrite masquerading back there in Mis' Molly's parlor; but the man would bear watching. Mis' Molly had come to call her daughter into the house. "Rena," she said, "Mr. Wain wants ter know if you won't dance just one dance with him." "Yas, Rena," pleaded Mary B., who followed Miss Molly out to the piazza, "jes' one dance. I don't think you're treatin' my comp'ny jes' right, Cousin Rena." "You're goin' down there with 'im," added her mother, "an' it 'd be just as well to be on friendly terms with 'im." Wain himself had followed the women. "Sho'ly, Miss Rena, you're gwine ter honah me wid one dance? I'd go 'way f'm dis pa'ty sad at hea't ef I had n' stood up oncet wid de young lady er de house." As Rena, weakly persuaded, placed her hand on Wain's arm and entered the house, a buggy, coming up Front Street, paused a moment at the corner, and then turning slowly, drove quietly up the nameless by-street, concealed by the intervening cedars, until it reached a point from which the occupant could view, through the open front window, the interior of the parlor. XXIV SWING YOUR PARTNERS Moved by tenderness and thoughts of self-sacrifice, which had occupied his mind to the momentary exclusion of all else, Tryon had scarcely noticed, as he approached the house behind the cedars, a strain of lively music, to which was added, as he drew still nearer, the accompaniment of other festive sounds. He suddenly awoke, however, to the fact that these signs of merriment came from the house at which he had intended to stop;--he had not meant that Rena should pass another sleepless night of sorrow, or that he should himself endure another needless hour of suspense. He drew rein at the corner. Shocked surprise, a nascent anger, a vague alarm, an insistent curiosity, urged him nearer. Turning the mare into the side street and keeping close to the fence, he drove ahead in the shadow of the cedars until he reached a gap through which he could see into the open door and windows of the brightly lighted hall. There was evidently a ball in progress. The fiddle was squeaking merrily so a tune that he remembered well,--it was associated with one of the most delightful evenings of his life, that of the tournament ball. A mellow negro voice was calling with a rhyming accompaniment the figures of a quadrille. Tryon, with parted lips and slowly hardening heart, leaned forward from the buggy-seat, gripping the rein so tightly that his nails cut into the opposing palm. Above the clatter of noisy conversation rose the fiddler's voice:-- "Swing yo' pa'dners; doan be shy, Look yo' lady in de eye! Th'ow yo' ahm aroun' huh wais'; Take yo' time--dey ain' no has'e!" To the middle of the floor, in full view through an open window, advanced the woman who all day long had been the burden of his thoughts--not pale with grief and hollow-eyed with weeping, but flushed with pleasure, around her waist the arm of a burly, grinning mulatto, whose face was offensively familiar to Tryon. With a muttered curse of concentrated bitterness, Tryon struck the mare a sharp blow with the whip. The sensitive creature, spirited even in her great weariness, resented the lash and started off with the bit in her teeth. Perceiving that it would be difficult to turn in the narrow roadway without running into the ditch at the left, Tryon gave the mare rein and dashed down the street, scarcely missing, as the buggy crossed the bridge, a man standing abstractedly by the old canal, who sprang aside barely in time to avoid being run over. Meantime Rena was passing through a trying ordeal. After the first few bars, the fiddler plunged into a well-known air, in which Rena, keenly susceptible to musical impressions, recognized the tune to which, as Queen of Love and Beauty, she had opened the dance at her entrance into the world of life and love, for it was there she had met George Tryon. The combination of music and movement brought up the scene with great distinctness. Tryon, peering angrily through the cedars, had not been more conscious than she of the external contrast between her partners on this and the former occasion. She perceived, too, as Tryon from the outside had not, the difference between Wain's wordy flattery (only saved by his cousin's warning from pointed and fulsome adulation), and the tenderly graceful compliment, couched in the romantic terms of chivalry, with which the knight of the handkerchief had charmed her ear. It was only by an immense effort that she was able to keep her emotions under control until the end of the dance, when she fled to her chamber and burst into tears. It was not the cruel Tryon who had blasted her love with his deadly look that she mourned, but the gallant young knight who had worn her favor on his lance and crowned her Queen of Love and Beauty. Tryon's stay in Patesville was very brief. He drove to the hotel and put up for the night. During many sleepless hours his mind was in a turmoil with a very different set of thoughts from those which had occupied it on the way to town. Not the least of them was a profound self-contempt for his own lack of discernment. How had he been so blind as not to have read long ago the character of this wretched girl who had bewitched him? To-night his eyes had been opened--he had seen her with the mask thrown off, a true daughter of a race in which the sensuous enjoyment of the moment took precedence of taste or sentiment or any of the higher emotions. Her few months of boarding-school, her brief association with white people, had evidently been a mere veneer over the underlying negro, and their effects had slipped away as soon as the intercourse had ceased. With the monkey-like imitativeness of the negro she had copied the manners of white people while she lived among them, and had dropped them with equal facility when they ceased to serve a purpose. Who but a negro could have recovered so soon from what had seemed a terrible bereavement?--she herself must have felt it at the time, for otherwise she would not have swooned. A woman of sensibility, as this one had seemed to be, should naturally feel more keenly, and for a longer time than a man, an injury to the affections; but he, a son of the ruling race, had been miserable for six weeks about a girl who had so far forgotten him as already to plunge headlong into the childish amusements of her own ignorant and degraded people. What more, indeed, he asked himself savagely,--what more could be expected of the base-born child of the plaything of a gentleman's idle hour, who to this ignoble origin added the blood of a servile race? And he, George Tryon, had honored her with his love; he had very nearly linked his fate and joined his blood to hers by the solemn sanctions of church and state. Tryon was not a devout man, but he thanked God with religious fervor that he had been saved a second time from a mistake which would have wrecked his whole future. If he had yielded to the momentary weakness of the past night,--the outcome of a sickly sentimentality to which he recognized now, in the light of reflection, that he was entirely too prone,--he would have regretted it soon enough. The black streak would have been sure to come out in some form, sooner or later, if not in the wife, then in her children. He saw clearly enough, in this hour of revulsion, that with his temperament and training such a union could never have been happy. If all the world had been ignorant of the dark secret, it would always have been in his own thoughts, or at least never far away. Each fault of hers that the close daily association of husband and wife might reveal,--the most flawless of sweethearts do not pass scathless through the long test of matrimony,--every wayward impulse of his children, every defect of mind, morals, temper, or health, would have been ascribed to the dark ancestral strain. Happiness under such conditions would have been impossible. When Tryon lay awake in the early morning, after a few brief hours of sleep, the business which had brought him to Patesville seemed, in the cold light of reason, so ridiculously inadequate that he felt almost ashamed to have set up such a pretext for his journey. The prospect, too, of meeting Dr. Green and his family, of having to explain his former sudden departure, and of running a gauntlet of inquiry concerning his marriage to the aristocratic Miss Warwick of South Carolina; the fear that some one at Patesville might have suspected a connection between Rena's swoon and his own flight,--these considerations so moved this impressionable and impulsive young man that he called a bell-boy, demanded an early breakfast, ordered his horse, paid his reckoning, and started upon his homeward journey forthwith. A certain distrust of his own sensibility, which he felt to be curiously inconsistent with his most positive convictions, led him to seek the river bridge by a roundabout route which did not take him past the house where, a few hours before, he had seen the last fragment of his idol shattered beyond the hope of repair. The party broke up at an early hour, since most of the guests were working-people, and the travelers were to make an early start next day. About nine in the morning, Wain drove round to Mis' Molly's. Rena's trunk was strapped behind the buggy, and she set out, in the company of Wain, for her new field of labor. The school term was only two months in length, and she did not expect to return until its expiration. Just before taking her seat in the buggy, Rena felt a sudden sinking of the heart. "Oh, mother," she whispered, as they stood wrapped in a close embrace, "I'm afraid to leave you. I left you once, and it turned out so miserably." "It'll turn out better this time, honey," replied her mother soothingly. "Good-by, child. Take care of yo'self an' yo'r money, and write to yo'r mammy." One kiss all round, and Rena was lifted into the buggy. Wain seized the reins, and under his skillful touch the pretty mare began to prance and curvet with restrained impatience. Wain could not resist the opportunity to show off before the party, which included Mary B.'s entire family and several other neighbors, who had gathered to see the travelers off. "Good-by ter Patesville! Good-by, folkses all!" he cried, with a wave of his disengaged hand. "Good-by, mother! Good-by, all!" cried Rena, as with tears in her heart and a brave smile on her face she left her home behind her for the second time. When they had crossed the river bridge, the travelers came to a long stretch of rising ground, from the summit of which they could look back over the white sandy road for nearly a mile. Neither Rena nor her companion saw Frank Fowler behind the chinquapin bush at the foot of the hill, nor the gaze of mute love and longing with which he watched the buggy mount the long incline. He had not been able to trust himself to bid her farewell. He had seen her go away once before with every prospect of happiness, and come back, a dove with a wounded wing, to the old nest behind the cedars. She was going away again, with a man whom he disliked and distrusted. If she had met misfortune before, what were her prospects for happiness now? The buggy paused at the top of the hill, and Frank, shading his eyes with his hand, thought he could see her turn and look behind. Look back, dear child, towards your home and those who love you! For who knows more than this faithful worshiper what threads of the past Fate is weaving into your future, or whether happiness or misery lies before you? XXV BALANCE ALL The road to Sampson County lay for the most part over the pine-clad sandhills,--an alternation of gentle rises and gradual descents, with now and then a swamp of greater or less extent. Long stretches of the highway led through the virgin forest, for miles unbroken by a clearing or sign of human habitation. They traveled slowly, with frequent pauses in shady places, for the weather was hot. The journey, made leisurely, required more than a day, and might with slight effort be prolonged into two. They stopped for the night at a small village, where Wain found lodging for Rena with an acquaintance of his, and for himself with another, while a third took charge of the horse, the accommodation for travelers being limited. Rena's appearance and manners were the subject of much comment. It was necessary to explain to several curious white people that Rena was a woman of color. A white woman might have driven with Wain without attracting remark,--most white ladies had negro coachmen. That a woman of Rena's complexion should eat at a negro's table, or sleep beneath a negro's roof, was a seeming breach of caste which only black blood could excuse. The explanation was never questioned. No white person of sound mind would ever claim to be a negro. They resumed their journey somewhat late in the morning. Rena would willingly have hastened, for she was anxious to plunge into her new work; but Wain seemed disposed to prolong the pleasant drive, and beguiled the way for a time with stories of wonderful things he had done and strange experiences of a somewhat checkered career. He was shrewd enough to avoid any subject which would offend a modest young woman, but too obtuse to perceive that much of what he said would not commend him to a person of refinement. He made little reference to his possessions, concerning which so much had been said at Patesville; and this reticence was a point in his favor. If he had not been so much upon his guard and Rena so much absorbed by thoughts of her future work, such a drive would have furnished a person of her discernment a very fair measure of the man's character. To these distractions must be added the entire absence of any idea that Wain might have amorous designs upon her; and any shortcomings of manners or speech were excused by the broad mantle of charity which Rena in her new-found zeal for the welfare of her people was willing to throw over all their faults. They were the victims of oppression; they were not responsible for its results. Toward the end of the second day, while nearing their destination, the travelers passed a large white house standing back from the road at the foot of a lane. Around it grew widespreading trees and well-kept shrubbery. The fences were in good repair. Behind the house and across the road stretched extensive fields of cotton and waving corn. They had passed no other place that showed such signs of thrift and prosperity. "Oh, what a lovely place!" exclaimed Rena. "That is yours, isn't it?" "No; we ain't got to my house yet," he answered. "Dat house b'longs ter de riches' people roun' here. Dat house is over in de nex' county. We're right close to de line now." Shortly afterwards they turned off from the main highway they had been pursuing, and struck into a narrower road to the left. "De main road," explained Wain, "goes on to Clinton, 'bout five miles er mo' away. Dis one we're turnin' inter now will take us to my place, which is 'bout three miles fu'ther on. We'll git dere now in an hour er so." Wain lived in an old plantation house, somewhat dilapidated, and surrounded by an air of neglect and shiftlessness, but still preserving a remnant of dignity in its outlines and comfort in its interior arrangements. Rena was assigned a large room on the second floor. She was somewhat surprised at the make-up of the household. Wain's mother--an old woman, much darker than her son--kept house for him. A sister with two children lived in the house. The element of surprise lay in the presence of two small children left by Wain's wife, of whom Rena now heard for the first time. He had lost his wife, he informed Rena sadly, a couple of years before. "Yas, Miss Rena," she sighed, "de Lawd give her, an' de Lawd tuck her away. Blessed be de name er de Lawd." He accompanied this sententious quotation with a wicked look from under his half-closed eyelids that Rena did not see. The following morning Wain drove her in his buggy over to the county town, where she took the teacher's examination. She was given a seat in a room with a number of other candidates for certificates, but the fact leaking out from some remark of Wain's that she was a colored girl, objection was quietly made by several of the would-be teachers to her presence in the room, and she was requested to retire until the white teachers should have been examined. An hour or two later she was given a separate examination, which she passed without difficulty. The examiner, a gentleman of local standing, was dimly conscious that she might not have found her exclusion pleasant, and was especially polite. It would have been strange, indeed, if he had not been impressed by her sweet face and air of modest dignity, which were all the more striking because of her social disability. He fell into conversation with her, became interested in her hopes and aims, and very cordially offered to be of service, if at any time he might, in connection with her school. "You have the satisfaction," he said, "of receiving the only first-grade certificate issued to-day. You might teach a higher grade of pupils than you will find at Sandy Run, but let us hope that you may in time raise them to your own level." "Which I doubt very much," he muttered to himself, as she went away with Wain. "What a pity that such a woman should be a nigger! If she were anything to me, though, I should hate to trust her anywhere near that saddle-colored scoundrel. He's a thoroughly bad lot, and will bear watching." Rena, however, was serenely ignorant of any danger from the accommodating Wain. Absorbed in her own thoughts and plans, she had not sought to look beneath the surface of his somewhat overdone politeness. In a few days she began her work as teacher, and sought to forget in the service of others the dull sorrow that still gnawed at her heart. XXVI THE SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE WOODS Blanche Leary, closely observant of Tryon's moods, marked a decided change in his manner after his return from his trip to Patesville. His former moroseness had given way to a certain defiant lightness, broken now and then by an involuntary sigh, but maintained so well, on the whole, that his mother detected no lapses whatever. The change was characterized by another feature agreeable to both the women: Tryon showed decidedly more interest than ever before in Miss Leary's society. Within a week he asked her several times to play a selection on the piano, displaying, as she noticed, a decided preference for gay and cheerful music, and several times suggesting a change when she chose pieces of a sentimental cast. More than once, during the second week after his return, he went out riding with her; she was a graceful horsewoman, perfectly at home in the saddle, and appearing to advantage in a riding-habit. She was aware that Tryon watched her now and then, with an eye rather critical than indulgent. "He is comparing me with some other girl," she surmised. "I seem to stand the test very well. I wonder who the other is, and what was the trouble?" Miss Leary exerted all her powers to interest and amuse the man she had set out to win, and who seemed nearer than ever before. Tryon, to his pleased surprise, discovered in her mind depths that he had never suspected. She displayed a singular affinity for the tastes that were his--he could not, of course, know how carefully she had studied them. The old wound, recently reopened, seemed to be healing rapidly, under conditions more conducive than before to perfect recovery. No longer, indeed, was he pursued by the picture of Rena discovered and unmasked--this he had definitely banished from the realm of sentiment to that of reason. The haunting image of Rena loving and beloved, amid the harmonious surroundings of her brother's home, was not so readily displaced. Nevertheless, he reached in several weeks a point from which he could consider her as one thinks of a dear one removed by the hand of death, or smitten by some incurable ailment of mind or body. Erelong, he fondly believed, the recovery would be so far complete that he could consign to the tomb of pleasant memories even the most thrilling episodes of his ill-starred courtship. "George," said Mrs. Tryon one morning while her son was in this cheerful mood, "I'm sending Blanche over to Major McLeod's to do an errand for me. Would you mind driving her over? The road may be rough after the storm last night, and Blanche has an idea that no one drives so well as you." "Why, yes, mother, I'll be glad to drive Blanche over. I want to see the major myself." They were soon bowling along between the pines, behind the handsome mare that had carried Tryon so well at the Clarence tournament. Presently he drew up sharply. "A tree has fallen squarely across the road," he exclaimed. "We shall have to turn back a little way and go around." They drove back a quarter of a mile and turned into a by-road leading to the right through the woods. The solemn silence of the pine forest is soothing or oppressive, according to one's mood. Beneath the cool arcade of the tall, overarching trees a deep peace stole over Tryon's heart. He had put aside indefinitely and forever an unhappy and impossible love. The pretty and affectionate girl beside him would make an ideal wife. Of her family and blood he was sure. She was his mother's choice, and his mother had set her heart upon their marriage. Why not speak to her now, and thus give himself the best possible protection against stray flames of love? "Blanche," he said, looking at her kindly. "Yes, George?" Her voice was very gentle, and slightly tremulous. Could she have divined his thought? Love is a great clairvoyant. "Blanche, dear, I"-- A clatter of voices broke upon the stillness of the forest and interrupted Tryon's speech. A sudden turn to the left brought the buggy to a little clearing, in the midst of which stood a small log schoolhouse. Out of the schoolhouse a swarm of colored children were emerging, the suppressed energy of the school hour finding vent in vocal exercise of various sorts. A group had already formed a ring, and were singing with great volume and vigor:-- "Miss Jane, she loves sugar an' tea, Miss Jane, she loves candy. Miss Jane, she can whirl all around An' kiss her love quite handy. "De oak grows tall, De pine grows slim, So rise you up, my true love, An' let me come in." "What a funny little darkey!" exclaimed Miss Leary, pointing to a diminutive lad who was walking on his hands, with his feet balanced in the air. At sight of the buggy and its occupants this sable acrobat, still retaining his inverted position, moved toward the newcomers, and, reversing himself with a sudden spring, brought up standing beside the buggy. "Hoddy, Mars Geo'ge!" he exclaimed, bobbing his head and kicking his heel out behind in approved plantation style. "Hello, Plato," replied the young man, "what are you doing here?" "Gwine ter school, Mars Geo'ge," replied the lad; "larnin' ter read an' write, suh, lack de w'ite folks." "Wat you callin' dat w'ite man marster fur?" whispered a tall yellow boy to the acrobat addressed as Plato. "You don' b'long ter him no mo'; you're free, an' ain' got sense ernuff ter know it." Tryon threw a small coin to Plato, and holding another in his hand suggestively, smiled toward the tall yellow boy, who looked regretfully at the coin, but stood his ground; he would call no man master, not even for a piece of money. During this little colloquy, Miss Leary had kept her face turned toward the schoolhouse. "What a pretty girl!" she exclaimed. "There," she added, as Tryon turned his head toward her, "you are too late. She has retired into her castle. Oh, Plato!" "Yas, missis," replied Plato, who was prancing round the buggy in great glee, on the strength of his acquaintance with the white folks. "Is your teacher white?" "No, ma'm, she ain't w'ite; she's black. She looks lack she's w'ite, but she's black." Tryon had not seen the teacher's face, but the incident had jarred the old wound; Miss Leary's description of the teacher, together with Plato's characterization, had stirred lightly sleeping memories. He was more or less abstracted during the remainder of the drive, and did not recur to the conversation that had been interrupted by coming upon the schoolhouse. The teacher, glancing for a moment through the open door of the schoolhouse, had seen a handsome young lady staring at her,--Miss Leary had a curiously intent look when she was interested in anything, with no intention whatever to be rude,--and beyond the lady the back and shoulder of a man, whose face was turned the other way. There was a vague suggestion of something familiar about the equipage, but Rena shrank from this close scrutiny and withdrew out of sight before she had had an opportunity to identify the vague resemblance to something she had known. Miss Leary had missed by a hair's-breadth the psychological moment, and felt some resentment toward the little negroes who had interrupted her lover's train of thought. Negroes have caused a great deal of trouble among white people. How deeply the shadow of the Ethiopian had fallen upon her own happiness, Miss Leary of course could not guess. XXVII AN INTERESTING ACQUAINTANCE A few days later, Rena looked out of the window near her desk and saw a low basket phaeton, drawn by a sorrel pony, driven sharply into the clearing and drawn up beside an oak sapling. The occupant of the phaeton, a tall, handsome, well-preserved lady in middle life, with slightly gray hair, alighted briskly from the phaeton, tied the pony to the sapling with a hitching-strap, and advanced to the schoolhouse door. Rena wondered who the lady might be. She had a benevolent aspect, however, and came forward to the desk with a smile, not at all embarrassed by the wide-eyed inspection of the entire school. "How do you do?" she said, extending her hand to the teacher. "I live in the neighborhood and am interested in the colored people--a good many of them once belonged to me. I heard something of your school, and thought I should like to make your acquaintance." "It is very kind of you, indeed," murmured Rena respectfully. "Yes," continued the lady, "I am not one of those who sit back and blame their former slaves because they were freed. They are free now,--it is all decided and settled,--and they ought to be taught enough to enable them to make good use of their freedom. But really, my dear,--you mustn't feel offended if I make a mistake,--I am going to ask you something very personal." She looked suggestively at the gaping pupils. "The school may take the morning recess now," announced the teacher. The pupils filed out in an orderly manner, most of them stationing themselves about the grounds in such places as would keep the teacher and the white lady in view. Very few white persons approved of the colored schools; no other white person had ever visited this one. "Are you really colored?" asked the lady, when the children had withdrawn. A year and a half earlier, Rena would have met the question by some display of self-consciousness. Now, she replied simply and directly. "Yes, ma'am, I am colored." The lady, who had been studying her as closely as good manners would permit, sighed regretfully. "Well, it's a shame. No one would ever think it. If you chose to conceal it, no one would ever be the wiser. What is your name, child, and where were you brought up? You must have a romantic history." Rena gave her name and a few facts in regard to her past. The lady was so much interested, and put so many and such searching questions, that Rena really found it more difficult to suppress the fact that she had been white, than she had formerly had in hiding her African origin. There was about the girl an air of real refinement that pleased the lady,--the refinement not merely of a fine nature, but of contact with cultured people; a certain reserve of speech and manner quite inconsistent with Mrs. Tryon's experience of colored women. The lady was interested and slightly mystified. A generous, impulsive spirit,--her son's own mother,--she made minute inquiries about the school and the pupils, several of whom she knew by name. Rena stated that the two months' term was nearing its end, and that she was training the children in various declamations and dialogues for the exhibition at the close. "I shall attend it," declared the lady positively. "I'm sure you are doing a good work, and it's very noble of you to undertake it when you might have a very different future. If I can serve you at any time, don't hesitate to call upon me. I live in the big white house just before you turn out of the Clinton road to come this way. I'm only a widow, but my son George lives with me and has some influence in the neighborhood. He drove by here yesterday with the lady he is going to marry. It was she who told me about you." Was it the name, or some subtle resemblance in speech or feature, that recalled Tryon's image to Rena's mind? It was not so far away--the image of the loving Tryon--that any powerful witchcraft was required to call it up. His mother was a widow; Rena had thought, in happier days, that she might be such a kind lady as this. But the cruel Tryon who had left her--his mother would be some hard, cold, proud woman, who would regard a negro as but little better than a dog, and who would not soil her lips by addressing a colored person upon any other terms than as a servant. She knew, too, that Tryon did not live in Sampson County, though the exact location of his home was not clear to her. "And where are you staying, my dear?" asked the good lady. "I'm boarding at Mrs. Wain's," answered Rena. "Mrs. Wain's?" "Yes, they live in the old Campbell place." "Oh, yes--Aunt Nancy. She's a good enough woman, but we don't think much of her son Jeff. He married my Amanda after the war--she used to belong to me, and ought to have known better. He abused her most shamefully, and had to be threatened with the law. She left him a year or so ago and went away; I haven't seen her lately. Well, good-by, child; I'm coming to your exhibition. If you ever pass my house, come in and see me." The good lady had talked for half an hour, and had brought a ray of sunshine into the teacher's monotonous life, heretofore lighted only by the uncertain lamp of high resolve. She had satisfied a pardonable curiosity, and had gone away without mentioning her name. Rena saw Plato untying the pony as the lady climbed into the phaeton. "Who was the lady, Plato?" asked the teacher when the visitor had driven away. "Dat 'uz my ole mist'iss, ma'm," returned Plato proudly,--"ole Mis' 'Liza." "Mis' 'Liza who?" asked Rena. "Mis' 'Liza Tryon. I use' ter b'long ter her. Dat 'uz her son, my young Mars Geo'ge, w'at driv pas' hyuh yistiddy wid 'is sweetheart." XXVIII THE LOST KNIFE Rena had found her task not a difficult one so far as discipline was concerned. Her pupils were of a docile race, and school to them had all the charm of novelty. The teacher commanded some awe because she was a stranger, and some, perhaps, because she was white; for the theory of blackness as propounded by Plato could not quite counter-balance in the young African mind the evidence of their own senses. She combined gentleness with firmness; and if these had not been sufficient, she had reserves of character which would have given her the mastery over much less plastic material than these ignorant but eager young people. The work of instruction was simple enough, for most of the pupils began with the alphabet, which they acquired from Webster's blue-backed spelling-book, the palladium of Southern education at that epoch. The much abused carpet-baggers had put the spelling-book within reach of every child of school age in North Carolina,--a fact which is often overlooked when the carpet-baggers are held up to public odium. Even the devil should have his due, and is not so black as he is painted. At the time when she learned that Tryon lived in the neighborhood, Rena had already been subjected for several weeks to a trying ordeal. Wain had begun to persecute her with marked attentions. She had at first gone to board at his house,--or, by courtesy, with his mother. For a week or two she had considered his attentions in no other light than those of a member of the school committee sharing her own zeal and interested in seeing the school successfully carried on. In this character Wain had driven her to the town for her examination; he had busied himself about putting the schoolhouse in order, and in various matters affecting the conduct of the school. He had jocularly offered to come and whip the children for her, and had found it convenient to drop in occasionally, ostensibly to see what progress the work was making. "Dese child'en," he would observe sonorously, in the presence of the school, "oughter be monst'ous glad ter have de chance er settin' under yo' instruction, Miss Rena. I'm sho' eve'body in dis neighbo'hood 'preciates de priv'lege er havin' you in ou' mids'." Though slightly embarrassing to the teacher, these public demonstrations were endurable so long as they could be regarded as mere official appreciation of her work. Sincerely in earnest about her undertaking, she had plunged into it with all the intensity of a serious nature which love had stirred to activity. A pessimist might have sighed sadly or smiled cynically at the notion that a poor, weak girl, with a dangerous beauty and a sensitive soul, and troubles enough of her own, should hope to accomplish anything appreciable toward lifting the black mass still floundering in the mud where slavery had left it, and where emancipation had found it,--the mud in which, for aught that could be seen to the contrary, her little feet, too, were hopelessly entangled. It might have seemed like expecting a man to lift himself by his boot-straps. But Rena was no philosopher, either sad or cheerful. She could not even have replied to this argument, that races must lift themselves, and the most that can be done by others is to give them opportunity and fair play. Hers was a simpler reasoning,--the logic by which the world is kept going onward and upward when philosophers are at odds and reformers are not forthcoming. She knew that for every child she taught to read and write she opened, if ever so little, the door of opportunity, and she was happy in the consciousness of performing a duty which seemed all the more imperative because newly discovered. Her zeal, indeed, for the time being was like that of an early Christian, who was more willing than not to die for his faith. Rena had fully and firmly made up her mind to sacrifice her life upon this altar. Her absorption in the work had not been without its reward, for thereby she had been able to keep at a distance the spectre of her lost love. Her dreams she could not control, but she banished Tryon as far as possible from her waking thoughts. When Wain's attentions became obviously personal, Rena's new vestal instinct took alarm, and she began to apprehend his character more clearly. She had long ago learned that his pretensions to wealth were a sham. He was nominal owner of a large plantation, it is true; but the land was worn out, and mortgaged to the limit of its security value. His reputed droves of cattle and hogs had dwindled to a mere handful of lean and listless brutes. Her clear eye, when once set to take Wain's measure, soon fathomed his shallow, selfish soul, and detected, or at least divined, behind his mask of good-nature a lurking brutality which filled her with vague distrust, needing only occasion to develop it into active apprehension,--occasion which was not long wanting. She avoided being alone with him at home by keeping carefully with the women of the house. If she were left alone,--and they soon showed a tendency to leave her on any pretext whenever Wain came near,--she would seek her own room and lock the door. She preferred not to offend Wain; she was far away from home and in a measure in his power, but she dreaded his compliments and sickened at his smile. She was also compelled to hear his relations sing his praises. "My son Jeff," old Mrs. Wain would say, "is de bes' man you ever seed. His fus' wife had de easies' time an' de happies' time er ary woman in dis settlement. He's grieve' fer her a long time, but I reckon he's gittin' over it, an' de nex' 'oman w'at marries him'll git a box er pyo' gol', ef I does say it as is his own mammy." Rena had thought Wain rather harsh with his household, except in her immediate presence. His mother and sister seemed more or less afraid of him, and the children often anxious to avoid him. One day, he timed his visit to the schoolhouse so as to walk home with Rena through the woods. When she became aware of his purpose, she called to one of the children who was loitering behind the others, "Wait a minute, Jenny. I'm going your way, and you can walk along with me." Wain with difficulty hid a scowl behind a smiling front. When they had gone a little distance along the road through the woods, he clapped his hand upon his pocket. "I declare ter goodness," he exclaimed, "ef I ain't dropped my pocket-knife! I thought I felt somethin' slip th'ough dat hole in my pocket jes' by the big pine stump in the schoolhouse ya'd. Jinny, chile, run back an' hunt fer my knife, an' I'll give yer five cents ef yer find it. Me an' Miss Rena'll walk on slow 'tel you ketches us." Rena did not dare to object, though she was afraid to be alone with this man. If she could have had a moment to think, she would have volunteered to go back with Jenny and look for the knife, which, although a palpable subterfuge on her part, would have been one to which Wain could not object; but the child, dazzled by the prospect of reward, had darted back so quickly that this way of escape was cut off. She was evidently in for a declaration of love, which she had taken infinite pains to avoid. Just the form it would assume, she could not foresee. She was not long left in suspense. No sooner was the child well out of sight than Wain threw his arms suddenly about her waist and smilingly attempted to kiss her. Speechless with fear and indignation, she tore herself from his grasp with totally unexpected force, and fled incontinently along the forest path. Wain--who, to do him justice, had merely meant to declare his passion in what he had hoped might prove a not unacceptable fashion--followed in some alarm, expostulating and apologizing as he went. But he was heavy and Rena was light, and fear lent wings to her feet. He followed her until he saw her enter the house of Elder Johnson, the father of several of her pupils, after which he sneaked uneasily homeward, somewhat apprehensive of the consequences of his abrupt wooing, which was evidently open to an unfavorable construction. When, an hour later, Rena sent one of the Johnson children for some of her things, with a message explaining that the teacher had been invited to spend a few days at Elder Johnson's, Wain felt a pronounced measure of relief. For an hour he had even thought it might be better to relinquish his pursuit. With a fatuousness born of vanity, however, no sooner had she sent her excuse than he began to look upon her visit to Johnson's as a mere exhibition of coyness, which, together with her conduct in the woods, was merely intended to lure him on. Right upon the heels of the perturbation caused by Wain's conduct, Rena discovered that Tryon lived in the neighborhood; that not only might she meet him any day upon the highway, but that he had actually driven by the schoolhouse. That he knew or would know of her proximity there could be no possible doubt, since she had freely told his mother her name and her home. A hot wave of shame swept over her at the thought that George Tryon might imagine she were following him, throwing herself in his way, and at the thought of the construction which he might place upon her actions. Caught thus between two emotional fires, at the very time when her school duties, owing to the approaching exhibition, demanded all her energies, Rena was subjected to a physical and mental strain that only youth and health could have resisted, and then only for a short time. XXIX PLATO EARNS HALF A DOLLAR Tryon's first feeling, when his mother at the dinner-table gave an account of her visit to the schoolhouse in the woods, was one of extreme annoyance. Why, of all created beings, should this particular woman be chosen to teach the colored school at Sandy Run? Had she learned that he lived in the neighborhood, and had she sought the place hoping that he might consent to renew, on different terms, relations which could never be resumed upon their former footing? Six weeks before, he would not have believed her capable of following him; but his last visit to Patesville had revealed her character in such a light that it was difficult to predict what she might do. It was, however, no affair of his. He was done with her; he had dismissed her from his own life, where she had never properly belonged, and he had filled her place, or would soon fill it, with another and worthier woman. Even his mother, a woman of keen discernment and delicate intuitions, had been deceived by this girl's specious exterior. She had brought away from her interview of the morning the impression that Rena was a fine, pure spirit, born out of place, through some freak of Fate, devoting herself with heroic self-sacrifice to a noble cause. Well, he had imagined her just as pure and fine, and she had deliberately, with a negro's low cunning, deceived him into believing that she was a white girl. The pretended confession of the brother, in which he had spoken of the humble origin of the family, had been, consciously or unconsciously, the most disingenuous feature of the whole miserable performance. They had tried by a show of frankness to satisfy their own consciences,--they doubtless had enough of white blood to give them a rudimentary trace of such a moral organ,--and by the same act to disarm him against future recriminations, in the event of possible discovery. How was he to imagine that persons of their appearance and pretensions were tainted with negro blood? The more he dwelt upon the subject, the more angry he became with those who had surprised his virgin heart and deflowered it by such low trickery. The man who brought the first negro into the British colonies had committed a crime against humanity and a worse crime against his own race. The father of this girl had been guilty of a sin against society for which others--for which he, George Tryon--must pay the penalty. As slaves, negroes were tolerable. As freemen, they were an excrescence, an alien element incapable of absorption into the body politic of white men. He would like to send them all back to the Africa from which their forefathers had come,--unwillingly enough, he would admit,--and he would like especially to banish this girl from his own neighborhood; not indeed that her presence would make any difference to him, except as a humiliating reminder of his own folly and weakness with which he could very well dispense. Of this state of mind Tryon gave no visible manifestation beyond a certain taciturnity, so much at variance with his recent liveliness that the ladies could not fail to notice it. No effort upon the part of either was able to affect his mood, and they both resigned themselves to await his lordship's pleasure to be companionable. For a day or two, Tryon sedulously kept away from the neighborhood of the schoolhouse at Sandy Rim. He really had business which would have taken him in that direction, but made a detour of five miles rather than go near his abandoned and discredited sweetheart. But George Tryon was wisely distrustful of his own impulses. Driving one day along the road to Clinton, he overhauled a diminutive black figure trudging along the road, occasionally turning a handspring by way of diversion. "Hello, Plato," called Tryon, "do you want a lift?" "Hoddy, Mars Geo'ge. Kin I ride wid you?" "Jump up." Plato mounted into the buggy with the agility to be expected from a lad of his acrobatic accomplishments. The two almost immediately fell into conversation upon perhaps the only subject of common interest between them. Before the town was reached, Tryon knew, so far as Plato could make it plain, the estimation in which the teacher was held by pupils and parents. He had learned the hours of opening and dismissal of the school, where the teacher lived, her habits of coming to and going from the schoolhouse, and the road she always followed. "Does she go to church or anywhere else with Jeff Wain, Plato?" asked Tryon. "No, suh, she don' go nowhar wid nobody excep'n' ole Elder Johnson er Mis' Johnson, an' de child'en. She use' ter stop at Mis' Wain's, but she's stayin' wid Elder Johnson now. She alluz makes some er de child'en go home wid er f'm school," said Plato, proud to find in Mars Geo'ge an appreciative listener,--"sometimes one an' sometimes anudder. I's be'n home wid 'er twice, ann it'll be my tu'n ag'in befo' long." "Plato," remarked Tryon impressively, as they drove into the town, "do you think you could keep a secret?" "Yas, Mars Geo'ge, ef you says I shill." "Do you see this fifty-cent piece?" Tryon displayed a small piece of paper money, crisp and green in its newness. "Yas, Mars Geo'ge," replied Plato, fixing his eyes respectfully on the government's promise to pay. Fifty cents was a large sum of money. His acquaintance with Mars Geo'ge gave him the privilege of looking at money. When he grew up, he would be able, in good times, to earn fifty cents a day. "I am going to give this to you, Plato." Plato's eyes opened wide as saucers. "Me, Mars Geo'ge?" he asked in amazement. "Yes, Plato. I'm going to write a letter while I'm in town, and want you to take it. Meet me here in half an hour, and I'll give you the letter. Meantime, keep your mouth shut." "Yas, Mars Geo'ge," replied Plato with a grin that distended that organ unduly. That he did not keep it shut may be inferred from the fact that within the next half hour he had eaten and drunk fifty cents' worth of candy, ginger-pop, and other available delicacies that appealed to the youthful palate. Having nothing more to spend, and the high prices prevailing for some time after the war having left him capable of locomotion, Plato was promptly on hand at the appointed time and place. Tryon placed a letter in Plato's hand, still sticky with molasses candy,--he had inclosed it in a second cover by way of protection. "Give that letter," he said, "to your teacher; don't say a word about it to a living soul; bring me an answer, and give it into my own hand, and you shall have another half dollar." Tryon was quite aware that by a surreptitious correspondence he ran some risk of compromising Rena. But he had felt, as soon as he had indulged his first opportunity to talk of her, an irresistible impulse to see her and speak to her again. He could scarcely call at her boarding-place,--what possible proper excuse could a young white man have for visiting a colored woman? At the schoolhouse she would be surrounded by her pupils, and a private interview would be as difficult, with more eyes to remark and more tongues to comment upon it. He might address her by mail, but did not know how often she sent to the nearest post-office. A letter mailed in the town must pass through the hands of a postmaster notoriously inquisitive and evil-minded, who was familiar with Tryon's handwriting and had ample time to attend to other people's business. To meet the teacher alone on the road seemed scarcely feasible, according to Plato's statement. A messenger, then, was not only the least of several evils, but really the only practicable way to communicate with Rena. He thought he could trust Plato, though miserably aware that he could not trust himself where this girl was concerned. The letter handed by Tryon to Plato, and by the latter delivered with due secrecy and precaution, ran as follows:-- DEAR MISS WARWICK,--You may think it strange that I should address you after what has passed between us; but learning from my mother of your presence in the neighborhood, I am constrained to believe that you do not find my proximity embarrassing, and I cannot resist the wish to meet you at least once more, and talk over the circumstances of our former friendship. From a practical point of view this may seem superfluous, as the matter has been definitely settled. I have no desire to find fault with you; on the contrary, I wish to set myself right with regard to my own actions, and to assure you of my good wishes. In other words, since we must part, I would rather we parted friends than enemies. If nature and society--or Fate, to put it another way--have decreed that we cannot live together, it is nevertheless possible that we may carry into the future a pleasant though somewhat sad memory of a past friendship. Will you not grant me one interview? I appreciate the difficulty of arranging it; I have found it almost as hard to communicate with you by letter. I will suit myself to your convenience and meet you at any time and place you may designate. Please answer by bearer, who I think is trustworthy, and believe me, whatever your answer may be, Respectfully yours, G. T. The next day but one Tryon received through the mail the following reply to his letter:-- GEORGE TRYON, ESQ. Dear Sir,--I have requested your messenger to say that I will answer your letter by mail, which I shall now proceed to do. I assure you that I was entirely ignorant of your residence in this neighborhood, or it would have been the last place on earth in which I should have set foot. As to our past relations, they were ended by your own act. I frankly confess that I deceived you; I have paid the penalty, and have no complaint to make. I appreciate the delicacy which has made you respect my brother's secret, and thank you for it. I remember the whole affair with shame and humiliation, and would willingly forget it. As to a future interview, I do not see what good it would do either of us. You are white, and you have given me to understand that I am black. I accept the classification, however unfair, and the consequences, however unjust, one of which is that we cannot meet in the same parlor, in the same church, at the same table, or anywhere, in social intercourse; upon a steamboat we would not sit at the same table; we could not walk together on the street, or meet publicly anywhere and converse, without unkind remark. As a white man, this might not mean a great deal to you; as a woman, shut out already by my color from much that is desirable, my good name remains my most valuable possession. I beg of you to let me alone. The best possible proof you can give me of your good wishes is to relinquish any desire or attempt to see me. I shall have finished my work here in a few days. I have other troubles, of which you know nothing, and any meeting with you would only add to a burden which is already as much as I can bear. To speak of parting is superfluous--we have already parted. It were idle to dream of a future friendship between people so widely different in station. Such a friendship, if possible in itself, would never be tolerated by the lady whom you are to marry, with whom you drove by my schoolhouse the other day. A gentleman so loyal to his race and its traditions as you have shown yourself could not be less faithful to the lady to whom he has lost his heart and his memory in three short months. No, Mr. Tryon, our romance is ended, and better so. We could never have been happy. I have found a work in which I may be of service to others who have fewer opportunities than mine have been. Leave me in peace, I beseech you, and I shall soon pass out of your neighborhood as I have passed out of your life, and hope to pass out of your memory. Yours very truly, ROWENA WALDEN. XXX AN UNUSUAL HONOR To Rena's high-strung and sensitive nature, already under very great tension from her past experience, the ordeal of the next few days was a severe one. On the one hand, Jeff Wain's infatuation had rapidly increased, in view of her speedy departure. From Mrs. Tryon's remark about Wain's wife Amanda, and from things Rena had since learned, she had every reason to believe that this wife was living, and that Wain must be aware of the fact. In the light of this knowledge, Wain's former conduct took on a blacker significance than, upon reflection, she had charitably clothed it with after the first flush of indignation. That he had not given up his design to make love to her was quite apparent, and, with Amanda alive, his attentions, always offensive since she had gathered their import, became in her eyes the expression of a villainous purpose, of which she could not speak to others, and from which she felt safe only so long as she took proper precautions against it. In a week her school would be over, and then she would get Elder Johnson, or some one else than Wain, to take her back to Patesville. True, she might abandon her school and go at once; but her work would be incomplete, she would have violated her contract, she would lose her salary for the month, explanations would be necessary, and would not be forthcoming. She might feign sickness,--indeed, it would scarcely be feigning, for she felt far from well; she had never, since her illness, quite recovered her former vigor--but the inconvenience to others would be the same, and her self-sacrifice would have had, at its very first trial, a lame and impotent conclusion. She had as yet no fear of personal violence from Wain; but, under the circumstances, his attentions were an insult. He was evidently bent upon conquest, and vain enough to think he might achieve it by virtue of his personal attractions. If he could have understood how she loathed the sight of his narrow eyes, with their puffy lids, his thick, tobacco-stained lips, his doubtful teeth, and his unwieldy person, Wain, a monument of conceit that he was, might have shrunk, even in his own estimation, to something like his real proportions. Rena believed that, to defend herself from persecution at his hands, it was only necessary that she never let him find her alone. This, however, required constant watchfulness. Relying upon his own powers, and upon a woman's weakness and aversion to scandal, from which not even the purest may always escape unscathed, and convinced by her former silence that he had nothing serious to fear, Wain made it a point to be present at every public place where she might be. He assumed, in conversation with her which she could not avoid, and stated to others, that she had left his house because of a previous promise to divide the time of her stay between Elder Johnson's house and his own. He volunteered to teach a class in the Sunday-school which Rena conducted at the colored Methodist church, and when she remained to service, occupied a seat conspicuously near her own. In addition to these public demonstrations, which it was impossible to escape, or, it seemed, with so thick-skinned an individual as Wain, even to discourage, she was secretly and uncomfortably conscious that she could scarcely stir abroad without the risk of encountering one of two men, each of whom was on the lookout for an opportunity to find her alone. The knowledge of Tryon's presence in the vicinity had been almost as much as Rena could bear. To it must be added the consciousness that he, too, was pursuing her, to what end she could not tell. After his letter to her brother, and the feeling therein displayed, she found it necessary to crush once or twice a wild hope that, her secret being still unknown save to a friendly few, he might return and claim her. Now, such an outcome would be impossible. He had become engaged to another woman,--this in itself would be enough to keep him from her, if it were not an index of a vastly more serious barrier, a proof that he had never loved her. If he had loved her truly, he would never have forgotten her in three short months,--three long months they had heretofore seemed to her, for in them she had lived a lifetime of experience. Another impassable barrier lay in the fact that his mother had met her, and that she was known in the neighborhood. Thus cut off from any hope that she might be anything to him, she had no wish to meet her former lover; no possible good could come of such a meeting; and yet her fluttering heart told her that if he should come, as his letter foreshadowed that he might,--if he should come, the loving George of old, with soft words and tender smiles and specious talk of friendship--ah! then, her heart would break! She must not meet him--at any cost she must avoid him. But this heaping up of cares strained her endurance to the breaking-point. Toward the middle of the last week, she knew that she had almost reached the limit, and was haunted by a fear that she might break down before the week was over. Now her really fine nature rose to the emergency, though she mustered her forces with a great effort. If she could keep Wain at his distance and avoid Tryon for three days longer, her school labors would be ended and she might retire in peace and honor. "Miss Rena," said Plato to her on Tuesday, "ain't it 'bout time I wuz gwine home wid you ag'in?" "You may go with me to-morrow, Plato," answered the teacher. After school Plato met an anxious eyed young man in the woods a short distance from the schoolhouse. "Well, Plato, what news?" "I's gwine ter see her home ter-morrer, Mars Geo'ge." "To-morrow!" replied Tryon; "how very fortunate! I wanted you to go to town to-morrow to take an important message for me. I'm sorry, Plato--you might have earned another dollar." To lie is a disgraceful thing, and yet there are times when, to a lover's mind, love dwarfs all ordinary laws. Plato scratched his head disconsolately, but suddenly a bright thought struck him. "Can't I go ter town fer you atter I've seed her home, Mars Geo'ge?" "N-o, I'm afraid it would be too late," returned Tryon doubtfully. "Den I'll haf ter ax 'er ter lemme go nex' day," said Plato, with resignation. The honor might be postponed or, if necessary, foregone; the opportunity to earn a dollar was the chance of a lifetime and must not be allowed to slip. "No, Plato," rejoined Tryon, shaking his head, "I shouldn't want to deprive you of so great a pleasure." Tryon was entirely sincere in this characterization of Plato's chance; he would have given many a dollar to be sure of Plato's place and Plato's welcome. Rena's letter had re-inflamed his smouldering passion; only opposition was needed to fan it to a white heat. Wherein lay the great superiority of his position, if he was denied the right to speak to the one person in the world whom he most cared to address? He felt some dim realization of the tyranny of caste, when he found it not merely pressing upon an inferior people who had no right to expect anything better, but barring his own way to something that he desired. He meant her no harm--but he must see her. He could never marry her now--but he must see her. He was conscious of a certain relief at the thought that he had not asked Blanche Leary to be his wife. His hand was unpledged. He could not marry the other girl, of course, but they must meet again. The rest he would leave to Fate, which seemed reluctant to disentangle threads which it had woven so closely. "I think, Plato, that I see an easier way out of the difficulty. Your teacher, I imagine, merely wants some one to see her safely home. Don't you think, if you should go part of the way, that I might take your place for the rest, while you did my errand?" "Why, sho'ly, Mars Geo'ge, you could take keer er her better 'n I could--better 'n anybody could--co'se you could!" Mars Geo'ge was white and rich, and could do anything. Plato was proud of the fact that he had once belonged to Mars Geo'ge. He could not conceive of any one so powerful as Mars Geo'ge, unless it might be God, of whom Plato had heard more or less, and even here the comparison might not be quite fair to Mars Geo'ge, for Mars Geo'ge was the younger of the two. It would undoubtedly be a great honor for the teacher to be escorted home by Mars Geo'ge. The teacher was a great woman, no doubt, and looked white; but Mars Geo'ge was the real article. Mars Geo'ge had never been known to go with a black woman before, and the teacher would doubtless thank Plato for arranging that so great an honor should fall upon her. Mars Geo'ge had given him fifty cents twice, and would now give him a dollar. Noble Mars Geo'ge! Fortunate teacher! Happy Plato! "Very well, Plato. I think we can arrange it so that you can kill the two rabbits at one shot. Suppose that we go over the road that she will take to go home." They soon arrived at the schoolhouse. School had been out an hour, and the clearing was deserted. Plato led the way by the road through the woods to a point where, amid somewhat thick underbrush, another path intersected the road they were following. "Now, Plato," said Tryon, pausing here, "this would be a good spot for you to leave the teacher and for me to take your place. This path leads to the main road, and will take you to town very quickly. I shouldn't say anything to the teacher about it at all; but when you and she get here, drop behind and run along this path until you meet me,--I'll be waiting a few yards down the road,--and then run to town as fast as your legs will carry you. As soon as you are gone, I'll come out and tell the teacher that I've sent you away on an errand, and will myself take your place. You shall have a dollar, and I'll ask her to let you go home with her the next day. But you mustn't say a word about it, Plato, or you won't get the dollar, and I'll not ask the teacher to let you go home with her again." "All right, Mars Geo'ge, I ain't gwine ter say no mo' d'n ef de cat had my tongue." XXXI IN DEEP WATERS Rena was unusually fatigued at the close of her school on Wednesday afternoon. She had been troubled all day with a headache, which, beginning with a dull pain, had gradually increased in intensity until every nerve was throbbing like a trip-hammer. The pupils seemed unusually stupid. A discouraging sense of the insignificance of any part she could perform towards the education of three million people with a school term of two months a year hung over her spirit like a pall. As the object of Wain's attentions, she had begun to feel somewhat like a wild creature who hears the pursuers on its track, and has the fear of capture added to the fatigue of flight. But when this excitement had gone too far and had neared the limit of exhaustion came Tryon's letter, with the resulting surprise and consternation. Rena had keyed herself up to a heroic pitch to answer it; but when the inevitable reaction came, she was overwhelmed with a sickening sense of her own weakness. The things which in another sphere had constituted her strength and shield were now her undoing, and exposed her to dangers from which they lent her no protection. Not only was this her position in theory, but the pursuers were already at her heels. As the day wore on, these dark thoughts took on an added gloom, until, when the hour to dismiss school arrived, she felt as though she had not a friend in the world. This feeling was accentuated by a letter which she had that morning received from her mother, in which Mis' Molly spoke very highly of Wain, and plainly expressed the hope that her daughter might like him so well that she would prefer to remain in Sampson County. Plato, bright-eyed and alert, was waiting in the school-yard until the teacher should be ready to start. Having warned away several smaller children who had hung around after school as though to share his prerogative of accompanying the teacher, Plato had swung himself into the low branches of an oak at the edge of the clearing, from which he was hanging by his legs, head downward. He dropped from this reposeful attitude when the teacher appeared at the door, and took his place at her side. A premonition of impending trouble caused the teacher to hesitate. She wished that she had kept more of the pupils behind. Something whispered that danger lurked in the road she customarily followed. Plato seemed insignificantly small and weak, and she felt miserably unable to cope with any difficult or untoward situation. "Plato," she suggested, "I think we'll go round the other way to-night, if you don't mind." Visions of Mars Geo'ge disappointed, of a dollar unearned and unspent, flitted through the narrow brain which some one, with the irony of ignorance or of knowledge, had mocked with the name of a great philosopher. Plato was not an untruthful lad, but he seldom had the opportunity to earn a dollar. His imagination, spurred on by the instinct of self-interest, rose to the emergency. "I's feared you mought git snake-bit gwine roun' dat way, Miss Rena. My brer Jim kill't a water-moccasin down dere yistiddy 'bout ten feet long." Rena had a horror of snakes, with which the swamp by which the other road ran was infested. Snakes were a vivid reality; her presentiment was probably a mere depression of spirits due to her condition of nervous exhaustion. A cloud had come up and threatened rain, and the wind was rising ominously. The old way was the shorter; she wanted above all things to get to Elder Johnson's and go to bed. Perhaps sleep would rest her tired brain--she could not imagine herself feeling worse, unless she should break down altogether. She plunged into the path and hastened forward so as to reach home before the approaching storm. So completely was she absorbed in her own thoughts that she scarcely noticed that Plato himself seemed preoccupied. Instead of capering along like a playful kitten or puppy, he walked by her side unusually silent. When they had gone a short distance and were approaching a path which intersected their road at something near a right angle, the teacher missed Plato. He had dropped behind a moment before; now he had disappeared entirely. Her vague alarm of a few moments before returned with redoubled force. "Plato!" she called; "Plato!" There was no response, save the soughing of the wind through the swaying treetops. She stepped hastily forward, wondering if this were some childish prank. If so, it was badly timed, and she would let Plato feel the weight of her displeasure. Her forward step had brought her to the junction of the two paths, where she paused doubtfully. The route she had been following was the most direct way home, but led for quite a distance through the forest, which she did not care to traverse alone. The intersecting path would soon take her to the main road, where she might find shelter or company, or both. Glancing around again in search of her missing escort, she became aware that a man was approaching her from each of the two paths. In one she recognized the eager and excited face of George Tryon, flushed with anticipation of their meeting, and yet grave with uncertainty of his reception. Advancing confidently along the other path she saw the face of Jeff Wain, drawn, as she imagined in her anguish, with evil passions which would stop at nothing. What should she do? There was no sign of Plato--for aught she could see or hear of him, the earth might have swallowed him up. Some deadly serpent might have stung him. Some wandering rabbit might have tempted him aside. Another thought struck her. Plato had been very quiet--there had been something on his conscience--perhaps he had betrayed her! But to which of the two men, and to what end? The problem was too much for her overwrought brain. She turned and fled. A wiser instinct might have led her forward. In the two conflicting dangers she might have found safety. The road after all was a public way. Any number of persons might meet there accidentally. But she saw only the darker side of the situation. To turn to Tryon for protection before Wain had by some overt act manifested the evil purpose which she as yet only suspected would be, she imagined, to acknowledge a previous secret acquaintance with Tryon, thus placing her reputation at Wain's mercy, and to charge herself with a burden of obligation toward a man whom she wished to avoid and had refused to meet. If, on the other hand, she should go forward to meet Wain, he would undoubtedly offer to accompany her homeward. Tryon would inevitably observe the meeting, and suppose it prearranged. Not for the world would she have him think so--why she should care for his opinion, she did not stop to argue. She turned and fled, and to avoid possible pursuit, struck into the underbrush at an angle which she calculated would bring her in a few rods to another path which would lead quickly into the main road. She had run only a few yards when she found herself in the midst of a clump of prickly shrubs and briars. Meantime the storm had burst; the rain fell in torrents. Extricating herself from the thorns, she pressed forward, but instead of coming out upon the road, found herself penetrating deeper and deeper into the forest. The storm increased in violence. The air grew darker and darker. It was near evening, the clouds were dense, the thick woods increased the gloom. Suddenly a blinding flash of lightning pierced the darkness, followed by a sharp clap of thunder. There was a crash of falling timber. Terror-stricken, Rena flew forward through the forest, the underbrush growing closer and closer as she advanced. Suddenly the earth gave way beneath her feet and she sank into a concealed morass. By clasping the trunk of a neighboring sapling she extricated herself with an effort, and realized with a horrible certainty that she was lost in the swamp. Turning, she tried to retrace her steps. A flash of lightning penetrated the gloom around her, and barring her path she saw a huge black snake,--harmless enough, in fact, but to her excited imagination frightful in appearance. With a wild shriek she turned again, staggered forward a few yards, stumbled over a projecting root, and fell heavily to the earth. When Rena had disappeared in the underbrush, Tryon and Wain had each instinctively set out in pursuit of her, but owing to the gathering darkness, the noise of the storm, and the thickness of the underbrush, they missed not only Rena but each other, and neither was aware of the other's presence in the forest. Wain kept up the chase until the rain drove him to shelter. Tryon, after a few minutes, realized that she had fled to escape him, and that to pursue her would be to defeat rather than promote his purpose. He desisted, therefore, and returning to the main road, stationed himself at a point where he could watch Elder Johnson's house, and having waited for a while without any signs of Rena, concluded that she had taken refuge in some friendly cabin. Turning homeward disconsolately as night came on, he intercepted Plato on his way back from town, and pledged him to inviolable secrecy so effectually that Plato, when subsequently questioned, merely answered that he had stopped a moment to gather some chinquapins, and when he had looked around the teacher was gone. Rena not appearing at supper-time nor for an hour later, the elder, somewhat anxious, made inquiries about the neighborhood, and finding his guest at no place where she might be expected to stop, became somewhat alarmed. Wain's house was the last to which he went. He had surmised that there was some mystery connected with her leaving Wain's, but had never been given any definite information about the matter. In response to his inquiries, Wain expressed surprise, but betrayed a certain self-consciousness which did not escape the elder's eye. Returning home, he organized a search party from his own family and several near neighbors, and set out with dogs and torches to scour the woods for the missing teacher. A couple of hours later, they found her lying unconscious in the edge of the swamp, only a few rods from a well-defined path which would soon have led her to the open highway. Strong arms lifted her gently and bore her home. Mrs. Johnson undressed her and put her to bed, administering a homely remedy, of which whiskey was the principal ingredient, to counteract the effects of the exposure. There was a doctor within five miles, but no one thought of sending for him, nor was it at all likely that it would have been possible to get him for such a case at such an hour. Rena's illness, however, was more deeply seated than her friends could imagine. A tired body, in sympathy with an overwrought brain, had left her peculiarly susceptible to the nervous shock of her forest experience. The exposure for several hours in her wet clothing to the damps and miasma of the swamp had brought on an attack of brain fever. The next morning, she was delirious. One of the children took word to the schoolhouse that the teacher was sick and there would be no school that day. A number of curious and sympathetic people came in from time to time and suggested various remedies, several of which old Mrs. Johnson, with catholic impartiality, administered to the helpless teacher, who from delirium gradually sunk into a heavy stupor scarcely distinguishable from sleep. It was predicted that she would probably be well in the morning; if not, it would then be time to consider seriously the question of sending for a doctor. XXXII THE POWER OF LOVE After Tryon's failure to obtain an interview with Rena through Plato's connivance, he decided upon a different course of procedure. In a few days her school term would be finished. He was not less desirous to see her, was indeed as much more eager as opposition would be likely to make a very young man who was accustomed to having his own way, and whose heart, as he had discovered, was more deeply and permanently involved than he had imagined. His present plan was to wait until the end of the school; then, when Rena went to Clinton on the Saturday or Monday to draw her salary for the month, he would see her in the town, or, if necessary, would follow her to Patesville. No power on earth should keep him from her long, but he had no desire to interfere in any way with the duty which she owed to others. When the school was over and her work completed, then he would have his innings. Writing letters was too unsatisfactory a method of communication--he must see her face to face. The first of his three days of waiting had passed, when, about ten o'clock on the morning of the second day, which seemed very long in prospect, while driving along the road toward Clinton, he met Plato, with a rabbit trap in his hand. "Well, Plato," he asked, "why are you absent from the classic shades of the academy to-day?" "Hoddy, Mars Geo'ge. W'at wuz dat you say?" "Why are you not at school to-day?" "Ain' got no teacher, Mars Geo'ge. Teacher's gone!" "Gone!" exclaimed Tryon, with a sudden leap of the heart. "Gone where? What do you mean?" "Teacher got los' in de swamp, night befo' las', 'cause Plato wa'n't dere ter show her de way out'n de woods. Elder Johnson foun' 'er wid dawgs and tawches, an' fotch her home an' put her ter bed. No school yistiddy. She wuz out'n her haid las' night, an' dis mawnin' she wuz gone." "Gone where?" "Dey don' nobody know whar, suh." Leaving Plato abruptly, Tryon hastened down the road toward Elder Johnson's cabin. This was no time to stand on punctilio. The girl had been lost in the woods in the storm, amid the thunder and lightning and the pouring rain. She was sick with fright and exposure, and he was the cause of it all. Bribery, corruption, and falsehood had brought punishment in their train, and the innocent had suffered while the guilty escaped. He must learn at once what had become of her. Reaching Elder Johnson's house, he drew up by the front fence and gave the customary halloa, which summoned a woman to the door. "Good-morning," he said, nodding unconsciously, with the careless politeness of a gentleman to his inferiors. "I'm Mr. Tryon. I have come to inquire about the sick teacher." "Why, suh," the woman replied respectfully, "she got los' in de woods night befo' las', an' she wuz out'n her min' most er de time yistiddy. Las' night she must 'a' got out er bed an' run away w'en eve'ybody wuz soun' asleep, fer dis mawnin' she wuz gone, an' none er us knows whar she is." "Has any search been made for her?" "Yas, suh, my husban' an' de child'en has been huntin' roun' all de mawnin', an' he's gone ter borry a hoss now ter go fu'ther. But Lawd knows dey ain' no tellin' whar she'd go, 'less'n she got her min' back sence she lef'." Tryon's mare was in good condition. He had money in his pocket and nothing to interfere with his movements. He set out immediately on the road to Patesville, keeping a lookout by the roadside, and stopping each person he met to inquire if a young woman, apparently ill, had been seen traveling along the road on foot. No one had met such a traveler. When he had gone two or three miles, he drove through a shallow branch that crossed the road. The splashing of his horse's hoofs in the water prevented him from hearing a low groan that came from the woods by the roadside. He drove on, making inquiries at each farmhouse and of every person whom he encountered. Shortly after crossing the branch, he met a young negro with a cartload of tubs and buckets and piggins, and asked him if he had seen on the road a young white woman with dark eyes and hair, apparently sick or demented. The young man answered in the negative, and Tryon pushed forward anxiously. At noon he stopped at a farmhouse and swallowed a hasty meal. His inquiries here elicited no information, and he was just leaving when a young man came in late to dinner and stated, in response to the usual question, that he had met, some two hours before, a young woman who answered Tryon's description, on the Lillington road, which crossed the main road to Patesville a short distance beyond the farmhouse. He had spoken to the woman. At first she had paid no heed to his question. When addressed a second time, she had answered in a rambling and disconnected way, which indicated to his mind that there was something wrong with her. Tryon thanked his informant and hastened to the Lillington road. Stopping as before to inquire, he followed the woman for several hours, each mile of the distance taking him farther away from Patesville. From time to time he heard of the woman. Toward nightfall he found her. She was white enough, with the sallowness of the sandhill poor white. She was still young, perhaps, but poverty and a hard life made her look older than she ought. She was not fair, and she was not Rena. When Tryon came up to her, she was sitting on the doorsill of a miserable cabin, and held in her hand a bottle, the contents of which had never paid any revenue tax. She had walked twenty miles that day, and had beguiled the tedium of the journey by occasional potations, which probably accounted for the incoherency of speech which several of those who met her had observed. When Tryon drew near, she tendered him the bottle with tipsy cordiality. He turned in disgust and retraced his steps to the Patesville road, which he did not reach until nightfall. As it was too dark to prosecute the search with any chance of success, he secured lodging for the night, intending to resume his quest early in the morning. XXXIII A MULE AND A CART Frank Fowler's heart was filled with longing for a sight of Rena's face. When she had gone away first, on the ill-fated trip to South Carolina, her absence had left an aching void in his life; he had missed her cheerful smile, her pleasant words, her graceful figure moving about across the narrow street. His work had grown monotonous during her absence; the clatter of hammer and mallet, that had seemed so merry when punctuated now and then by the strains of her voice, became a mere humdrum rapping of wood upon wood and iron upon iron. He had sought work in South Carolina with the hope that he might see her. He had satisfied this hope, and had tried in vain to do her a service; but Fate had been against her; her castle of cards had come tumbling down. He felt that her sorrow had brought her nearer to him. The distance between them depended very much upon their way of looking at things. He knew that her experience had dragged her through the valley of humiliation. His unselfish devotion had reacted to refine and elevate his own spirit. When he heard the suggestion, after her second departure, that she might marry Wain, he could not but compare himself with this new aspirant. He, Frank, was a man, an honest man--a better man than the shifty scoundrel with whom she had ridden away. She was but a woman, the best and sweetest and loveliest of all women, but yet a woman. After a few short years of happiness or sorrow,--little of joy, perhaps, and much of sadness, which had begun already,--they would both be food for worms. White people, with a deeper wisdom perhaps than they used in their own case, regarded Rena and himself as very much alike. They were certainly both made by the same God, in much the same physical and mental mould; they breathed the same air, ate the same food, spoke the same speech, loved and hated, laughed and cried, lived and would die, the same. If God had meant to rear any impassable barrier between people of contrasting complexions, why did He not express the prohibition as He had done between other orders of creation? When Rena had departed for Sampson County, Frank had reconciled himself to her absence by the hope of her speedy return. He often stepped across the street to talk to Mis' Molly about her. Several letters had passed between mother and daughter, and in response to Frank's inquiries his neighbor uniformly stated that Rena was well and doing well, and sent her love to all inquiring friends. But Frank observed that Mis' Molly, when pressed as to the date of Rena's return, grew more and more indefinite; and finally the mother, in a burst of confidential friendship, told Frank of all her hopes with reference to the stranger from down the country. "Yas, Frank," she concluded, "it'll be her own fault ef she don't become a lady of proputty, fer Mr. Wain is rich, an' owns a big plantation, an' hires a lot of hands, and is a big man in the county. He's crazy to git her, an' it all lays in her own han's." Frank did not find this news reassuring. He believed that Wain was a liar and a scoundrel. He had nothing more than his intuitions upon which to found this belief, but it was none the less firm. If his estimate of the man's character were correct, then his wealth might be a fiction, pure and simple. If so, the truth should be known to Mis' Molly, so that instead of encouraging a marriage with Wain, she would see him in his true light, and interpose to rescue her daughter from his importunities. A day or two after this conversation, Frank met in the town a negro from Sampson County, made his acquaintance, and inquired if he knew a man by the name of Jeff Wain. "Oh, Jeff Wain!" returned the countryman slightingly; "yas, I knows 'im, an' don' know no good of 'im. One er dese yer biggity, braggin' niggers--talks lack he own de whole county, an' ain't wuth no mo' d'n I is--jes' a big bladder wid a handful er shot rattlin' roun' in it. Had a wife, when I wuz dere, an' beat her an' 'bused her so she had ter run away." This was alarming information. Wain had passed in the town as a single man, and Frank had had no hint that he had ever been married. There was something wrong somewhere. Frank determined that he would find out the truth and, if possible, do something to protect Rena against the obviously evil designs of the man who had taken her away. The barrel factory had so affected the cooper's trade that Peter and Frank had turned their attention more or less to the manufacture of small woodenware for domestic use. Frank's mule was eating off its own head, as the saying goes. It required but little effort to persuade Peter that his son might take a load of buckets and tubs and piggins into the country and sell them or trade them for country produce at a profit. In a few days Frank had his stock prepared, and set out on the road to Sampson County. He went about thirty miles the first day, and camped by the roadside for the night, resuming the journey at dawn. After driving for an hour through the tall pines that overhung the road like the stately arch of a cathedral aisle, weaving a carpet for the earth with their brown spines and cones, and soothing the ear with their ceaseless murmur, Frank stopped to water his mule at a point where the white, sandy road, widening as it went, sloped downward to a clear-running branch. On the right a bay-tree bending over the stream mingled the heavy odor of its flowers with the delicate perfume of a yellow jessamine vine that had overrun a clump of saplings on the left. From a neighboring tree a silver-throated mocking-bird poured out a flood of riotous melody. A group of minnows; startled by the splashing of the mule's feet, darted away into the shadow of the thicket, their quick passage leaving the amber water filled with laughing light. The mule drank long and lazily, while over Frank stole thoughts in harmony with the peaceful scene,--thoughts of Rena, young and beautiful, her friendly smile, her pensive dark eyes. He would soon see her now, and if she had any cause for fear or unhappiness, he would place himself at her service--for a day, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime, if need be. His reverie was broken by a slight noise from the thicket at his left. "I wonder who dat is?" he muttered. "It soun's mighty quare, ter say de leas'." He listened intently for a moment, but heard nothing further. "It must 'a' be'n a rabbit er somethin' scamp'in' th'ough de woods. G'long dere, Caesar!" As the mule stepped forward, the sound was repeated. This time it was distinctly audible, the long, low moan of some one in sickness or distress. "Dat ain't no rabbit," said Frank to himself. "Dere's somethin' wrong dere. Stan' here, Caesar, till I look inter dis matter." Pulling out from the branch, Frank sprang from the saddle and pushed his way cautiously through the outer edge of the thicket. "Good Lawd!" he exclaimed with a start, "it's a woman--a w'ite woman!" The slender form of a young woman lay stretched upon the ground in a small open space a few yards in extent. Her face was turned away, and Frank could see at first only a tangled mass of dark brown hair, matted with twigs and leaves and cockleburs, and hanging in wild profusion around her neck. Frank stood for a moment irresolute, debating the serious question whether he should investigate further with a view to rendering assistance, or whether he should put as great a distance as possible between himself and this victim, as she might easily be, of some violent crime, lest he should himself be suspected of it--a not unlikely contingency, if he were found in the neighborhood and the woman should prove unable to describe her assailant. While he hesitated, the figure moved restlessly, and a voice murmured:-- "Mamma, oh, mamma!" The voice thrilled Frank like an electric shock. Trembling in every limb, he sprang forward toward the prostrate figure. The woman turned her head, and he saw that it was Rena. Her gown was torn and dusty, and fringed with burs and briars. When she had wandered forth, half delirious, pursued by imaginary foes, she had not stopped to put on her shoes, and her little feet were blistered and swollen and bleeding. Frank knelt by her side and lifted her head on his arm. He put his hand upon her brow; it was burning with fever. "Miss Rena! Rena! don't you know me?" She turned her wild eyes on him suddenly. "Yes, I know you, Jeff Wain. Go away from me! Go away!" Her voice rose to a scream; she struggled in his grasp and struck at him fiercely with her clenched fists. Her sleeve fell back and disclosed the white scar made by his own hand so many years before. "You're a wicked man," she panted. "Don't touch me! I hate you and despise you!" Frank could only surmise how she had come here, in such a condition. When she spoke of Wain in this manner, he drew his own conclusions. Some deadly villainy of Wain's had brought her to this pass. Anger stirred his nature to the depths, and found vent in curses on the author of Rena's misfortunes. "Damn him!" he groaned. "I'll have his heart's blood fer dis, ter de las' drop!" Rena now laughed and put up her arms appealingly. "George," she cried, in melting tones, "dear George, do you love me? How much do you love me? Ah, you don't love me!" she moaned; "I'm black; you don't love me; you despise me!" Her voice died away into a hopeless wail. Frank knelt by her side, his faithful heart breaking with pity, great tears rolling untouched down his dusky cheeks. "Oh, my honey, my darlin'," he sobbed, "Frank loves you better 'n all de worl'." Meantime the sun shone on as brightly as before, the mocking-bird sang yet more joyously. A gentle breeze sprang up and wafted the odor of bay and jessamine past them on its wings. The grand triumphal sweep of nature's onward march recked nothing of life's little tragedies. When the first burst of his grief was over, Frank brought water from the branch, bathed Rena's face and hands and feet, and forced a few drops between her reluctant lips. He then pitched the cartload of tubs, buckets, and piggins out into the road, and gathering dried leaves and pine-straw, spread them in the bottom of the cart. He stooped, lifted her frail form in his arms, and laid it on the leafy bed. Cutting a couple of hickory withes, he arched them over the cart, and gathering an armful of jessamine quickly wove it into an awning to protect her from the sun. She was quieter now, and seemed to fall asleep. "Go ter sleep, honey," he murmured caressingly, "go ter sleep, an' Frank'll take you home ter yo' mammy!" Toward noon he was met by a young white man, who peered inquisitively into the canopied cart. "Hello!" exclaimed the stranger, "who've you got there?" "A sick woman, suh." "Why, she's white, as I'm a sinner!" he cried, after a closer inspection. "Look a-here, nigger, what are you doin' with this white woman?" "She's not w'ite, boss,--she's a bright mulatter." "Yas, mighty bright," continued the stranger suspiciously. "Where are you goin' with her?" "I'm takin' her ter Patesville, ter her mammy." The stranger passed on. Toward evening Frank heard hounds baying in the distance. A fox, weary with running, brush drooping, crossed the road ahead of the cart. Presently, the hounds straggled across the road, followed by two or three hunters on horseback, who stopped at sight of the strangely canopied cart. They stared at the sick girl and demanded who she was. "I don't b'lieve she's black at all," declared one, after Frank's brief explanation. "This nigger has a bad eye,--he's up ter some sort of devilment. What ails the girl?" "'Pears ter be some kind of a fever," replied Frank; adding diplomatically, "I don't know whether it's ketchin' er no--she's be'n out er her head most er de time." They drew off a little at this. "I reckon it's all right," said the chief spokesman. The hounds were baying clamorously in the distance. The hunters followed the sound and disappeared m the woods. Frank drove all day and all night, stopping only for brief periods of rest and refreshment. At dawn, from the top of the long white hill, he sighted the river bridge below. At sunrise he rapped at Mis' Molly's door. Upon rising at dawn, Tryon's first step, after a hasty breakfast, was to turn back toward Clinton. He had wasted half a day in following the false scent on the Lillington road. It seemed, after reflection, unlikely that a woman seriously ill should have been able to walk any considerable distance before her strength gave out. In her delirium, too, she might have wandered in a wrong direction, imagining any road to lead to Patesville. It would be a good plan to drive back home, continuing his inquiries meantime, and ascertain whether or not she had been found by those who were seeking her, including many whom Tryon's inquiries had placed upon the alert. If she should prove still missing, he would resume the journey to Patesville and continue the search in that direction. She had probably not wandered far from the highroad; even in delirium she would be likely to avoid the deep woods, with which her illness was associated. He had retraced more than half the distance to Clinton when he overtook a covered wagon. The driver, when questioned, said that he had met a young negro with a mule, and a cart in which lay a young woman, white to all appearance, but claimed by the negro to be a colored girl who had been taken sick on the road, and whom he was conveying home to her mother at Patesville. From a further description of the cart Tryon recognized it as the one he had met the day before. The woman could be no other than Rena. He turned his mare and set out swiftly on the road to Patesville. If anything could have taken more complete possession of George Tryon at twenty-three than love successful and triumphant, it was love thwarted and denied. Never in the few brief delirious weeks of his courtship had he felt so strongly drawn to the beautiful sister of the popular lawyer, as he was now driven by an aching heart toward the same woman stripped of every adventitions advantage and placed, by custom, beyond the pale of marriage with men of his own race. Custom was tyranny. Love was the only law. Would God have made hearts to so yearn for one another if He had meant them to stay forever apart? If this girl should die, it would be he who had killed her, by his cruelty, no less surely than if with his own hand he had struck her down. He had been so dazzled by his own superiority, so blinded by his own glory, that he had ruthlessly spurned and spoiled the image of God in this fair creature, whom he might have had for his own treasure,--whom, please God, he would yet have, at any cost, to love and cherish while they both should live. There were difficulties--they had seemed insuperable, but love would surmount them. Sacrifices must be made, but if the world without love would be nothing, then why not give up the world for love? He would hasten to Patesville. He would find her; he would tell her that he loved her, that she was all the world to him, that he had come to marry her, and take her away where they might be happy together. He pictured to himself the joy that would light up her face; he felt her soft arms around his neck, her tremulous kisses upon his lips. If she were ill, his love would woo her back to health,--if disappointment and sorrow had contributed to her illness, joy and gladness should lead to her recovery. He urged the mare forward; if she would but keep up her present pace, he would reach Patesville by nightfall. Dr. Green had just gone down the garden path to his buggy at the gate. Mis' Molly came out to the back piazza, where Frank, weary and haggard, sat on the steps with Homer Pettifoot and Billy Oxendine, who, hearing of Rena's return, had come around after their day's work. "Rena wants to see you, Frank," said Mis' Molly, with a sob. He walked in softly, reverently, and stood by her bedside. She turned her gentle eyes upon him and put out her slender hand, which he took in his own broad palm. "Frank," she murmured, "my good friend--my best friend--you loved me best of them all." The tears rolled untouched down his cheeks. "I'd 'a' died, fer you, Miss Rena," he said brokenly. Mary B. threw open a window to make way for the passing spirit, and the red and golden glory of the setting sun, triumphantly ending his daily course, flooded the narrow room with light. Between sunset and dark a traveler, seated in a dusty buggy drawn by a tired horse, crossed the long river bridge and drove up Front Street. Just as the buggy reached the gate in front of the house behind the cedars, a woman was tying a piece of crape upon the door-knob. Pale with apprehension, Tryon sat as if petrified, until a tall, side-whiskered mulatto came down the garden walk to the front gate. "Who's dead?" demanded Tryon hoarsely, scarcely recognizing his own voice. "A young cullud 'oman, sah," answered Homer Pettifoot, touching his hat, "Mis' Molly Walden's daughter Rena."