' * D ffr c . 5399 WEST HOLT l _-_>. M< M . MQNT.CLAtR, BRINKA: An American Countess, BY MARY CLARE SPENSER, AUTHOR OF " THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT," ETC., ETC. NEW YORK: SPENSER PUBLISHING COMPANY, 329 FIFTH AVENUE, 1888. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1SS7, by MARY CLARE SPENSER, in the Office of the librarian of Congress, at Washington. CONTENTS. PAGE I. " ONE Two THREE FOUR FIVE Six SEVEN," 5 II. A SMALL COUNTESS, 12 III. How MY BIRTHDAY FESTIVITIES ENDED, .... 16 IV. A STORM WITHIN-DOORS, 20 V. IN SIEGE, 31 VI. " WE'RE SURE TO CATCH HIM," 40 VII. THE DUKE'S FORCED INVITATION, 47 VIII. A FRIEND IN NEED, 68 IX. PROFESSOR WYE, 86 X. THE LIONS OF ELM RIDGE, 96 XI. THE OSCULATION OF CURVES, 108 XII. BRINKA WRITES, 121 XIII. MY FIRST LESSON IN ASTRONOMY, 128 XIV. " I TOLD You I WOULD COME," 140 XV. A TRIANGULAR ARRANGEMENT, 147 XVI. " OUR ENGAGEMENT RING," 157 XVII. MARATHON, 163 XVIII. A NEW NAME 174 XIX. " I AM so GLAD TO SEE You," 183 iii 1763828 j v CONTENTS. PAGE XX. AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY 192 XXI. A SERIOUS CONFIDENCE, 209 XXII. TONE PICTURES, 220 XXIII. A BOLD SCHEME 227 XXIV. ON THE SOUND, 233 XXV. " SHE MIGHT BE YOUR SISTER," 251 XXVI. CECIL, 262 XXVII. " I THINK I AM ox THE RIGHT TRACK," . . 271 XXVIJI, A.N.OVEL EMOTION, 280 XXIX S ." HE MUST BE FOUND AT ANY COST," .... 288 XX.X, CAPTAIN CORRIE'S TACTICS, 296 XXXI, VpicE BUILDING, 311 XXXII. " THAT SETTLES THE QUESTION," 325 XXXIII, >\ N IMPROMPTU AFFAIR, 339 XXXIV. ' YOU'VE ONLY TO SAVE HER LIFE, CARYL," 351 XXXV. THE LADY GRISELDA SLEEPS, 363 XXXYL. THE EARL RESIGNS BRINKA 373 XXXyjI. THE DUKE HAS OTHER VIEWS, 381 XXXVIII. ' I AM AFRAID I AM THE CAUSE," 390 XXXIX. "ALL HE TOUCHES TURNS TO GOLD," . . . . 400 XL. "HE'S COME," 407 BRINKA: AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. I. " ONE TWO -THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN !" ZEBRA called off the numbers one by one, as he clutched me suddenly by the arm, the sharp blows from his curry-comb descending upon my slender shoulders. Zebra was one of the stable-boys of the Red House, and had lured me to the back of the barn with a gayly colored "Jack, the Giant Killer," which, instead of giving me to look at as he promised, he had crammed into his trousers pocket and had pounced upon me. " There !" he exclaimed, with a feint of utter ex- haustion, tumbling himself down on a pile of straw, and with droll grimaces inspecting his curry-comb to ascertain the extent of injury it had sustained; " no one can't complain but what I've done my dooty by you. You're seven year old to the min- nit. Cap'n Corrie said you was born this day seven year ago at three o'clock p. M., an' the town clock's just ben an' struck the time." If the time was one-half as angry at being struck 6 BR1NKA : as I was, it must have been furious. Smarting with pain and burning with futile indignation, though too proud to utter a cry or shed a tear, I was compelled, from a sorry lack of bone and muscle, to take refuge in sullen endurance as lowering as the day a sod- den, biting afternoon in mid-March. " Gee whiz ! little Seven-up," cried Zebra, after a series of hand-springs that I would not permit to in- terest me ; " 'taint fair to up and be cantankerous, a-hitchin' yer shoulders as if you'd ben an' got the St. Viterses, when a feller's ben an' illusterated with cuts as the comic papers say. S'pose the whacks was rousin' ones, what then ? A whack or so aint nothin'. 'Cause why ? Why, 'cause you'll git plenty, fust an' last, up to the day of yer death, which will be the rousin'est whack of all. Whacks is what we was born for, an' whether we's gritty an' stands up to um, or is limpsy an' snivels at um (which last aint us, little Seven-up), or whether we's foxy an' tries to dodge um, 'taint no use. 'Cause why ? Why, 'cause for every let up our good luck gives us our bad luck lays um on. And so the lucks has it nip- an'-tuck." Zebra rounded off this bit of Manichean philoso- phy with a toss into the air of his curry-comb, adroitly catching it in its descent with his strong white teeth. Then, making a spy-glass of his two fists, he affected to sight me through them, with grotesque attitudes, as though it were impossible to see me. " Gee whiz ! what a Liliput !" he cried. " Why, AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. * you are not as big as a or'nary fiver. I wouldn't 'a' believed you was a seven-upper an' wuth so many embellishments if Cap'n Corrie hadn't 'a' told us just as Red Top come a-tearin' in from the kitchen. ' I say, Nance,' sez he, ' did you know our little boy out there is seven year old this day ?' And what did Red Top yell back, sez you ? Why : ' I say,' sez she, ' git outer my way; he's none of mine!' An' with that she drove a past him an' Hi an' Snake an' Ranee Noney an' Charming Charlie an' Wiry Jack an' all on us with a blazin' poker in her hand that she'd ben a-heatin' red hot to bingavast off that white-chok- ered duffer who had you out on the porch a lolly- poppin' you with soft words. But come now, let's see the picter White Choker gin you, an' let's hear the jabber he told you, an' you shall have Jack an' the Giants fur yer own, to -make up fur the whacks." And Zebra jerked the book from his pocket, opening it to where little, valiant Jack, in lapis-lazuli blue, by virtue of his " shoes of swift- ness " and his " sword of sharpness " and his " invis- ible mantle," was gallantly engaged in slaying a huge gamboge giant, who was in the act of making off with two stolen ladies gorgeously arrayed in green and gold the monster having a stolen lady clutched tightly in each of his hands. This was irresistible ; I found voice : " It was two pictures he gave me, and she's got them both," said I, doggedly. " Who, Red Top ?" asked Zebra, grinning. " Yes, she snatched them from me, and " 8 BRINKA : " She did, did she ?" and Zebra snorted defiance. " If there's such a thing as snookin' an' hookin' an' if anybody oughter know it's me why, I'll git them two picters back ag'in fur you. But you'd better hide Jack an' his giants. Now propel. Give us White Choker's yarn.". " He said he was a missionary," returned I, quite mollified that Zebra had made such handsome amends for his treacherous blows. And I thrust the book under my jacket my pockets, like the rivers between the great chain of lakes, with a mouth at either end, being useless as pockets. " A missionary !" ejaculated Zebra. " Gee whiz ! Why, missionaries is good to eat. They's sent out reg'lar to the cannerbels." With eyes open to their full width, I said that I hoped they would not eat my missionary, that if they wanted some one, why didn't they send her? " Who, Red Top ?" interrogated Zebra, with a de- lighted grin. " Yes, Nance," I assented, the bloodthirstiness of all the Fijii's smouldering in my breast. " Gee whiz ! such pepper-sauce as she'd make," affirmed Zebra, blowing his breath backward and forward. " But tell us about the picters." " What makes you always call Nance ' Red Top ' ?" I demanded ; " nobody else calls her that." " I'd like to know if she isn't a Red Top ? What makes you call hornets hornets, and wild cats wild cats ? Gee whiz ! I might call her wuss 'an Red AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. g Top. But Mrs. Corrie Redwood, to please you. Now tell us about the picters." . " I hate her !" I exclaimed, with fervor. " I guess there aint no love lost in that quarter. Now for the picters." " One was a fiery pit, full of people looking up and screaming " " Screamin' !" interrupted Zebra. " Did you hear them scream ?" " What nonsense !" I returned, with dignity. " As though you could hear them. I saw them all scream- ing, with their mouths wide open so. And they looked just like and there's where she'll go." " Who, Red Top ?" demanded Zebra, grinning from ear to ear. " Yes," insisted I. " He said that was where all the wicked folks went ; and she's wicked, and I wish she was there now." " All right," assented Zebra, with the most intense satisfaction. " And it's a very perlite way of sayin' it. Now, what was the other picter ?" " It was all full of gold streaks, and it had a golden gate to where everything is beautiful and good. And there's where I am going as soon as I get big enough to find the way." " Gee whiz ! what more ?" " He said the devil was watching out from the fiery pit, but that all who looked straight at the Golden Gate the devil couldn't touch." "Gee whiz! what more?" " Why, he was telling me about the angels who I0 BR1NKA: live up there, when she came out with a poker and drove him off, and snatched my pictures and boxed my ears and said, ' Take that for your birthday !' and" A clear, ringing voice (the voice of the woman Nancy, that always sent sharp shivers though me) here interrupted my narrative by imperative calls for " Owen," then " Zebra." " There goes Red Top a-screechin' fur me," ex- claimed Zebra, with intense disgust. " I wonder what's up ? There she goes ag'in with her ' Owen Blythe !' That's my real name, you know." " Is it ?" I asked, looking at Zebra, admiringly. " Nobody don't call me by it except now and then," and he looked thoughtfully on the ground. " There she goes ag'in," he ejaculated. " She must 'a' bin an' got her belluses re-leathered. Just put a ' to be continnered ' to yer yarn, an' look sharp that she don't git a squint at Jack an' the Giants." " I say, little Seven-up," Zebra called out, pausing in his flight toward the house, " Cap'n Corrie an' me an' Hi an' Snake an' Ranee Noney an' Charming Charlie an' Wiry Jack an' all of us is off to-night on a midnight lay. Don't you wish you could go? Gee whiz ! jest hear her yell ! Ef I don't hurry up she'll hot-poker me." And Zebra was off again, calling out as he ran : " Mind you don't blab to Cap'n Corrie about the whacks. If you do I'll" What I was to expect in case I should " blab " to Captain Corrie Redwood, the head of the Red House, AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. j i Zebra fully conveyed to my juvenile comprehension by a side jerk of his head. I sought shelter from the keen air in the barn, preferring its solitude and chill to the uncertain tem- perature of the house; and nested in hay to the eyes, I feasted on my first literary banquet with a zest as keen as Jerome's could have been in the works of Origen, that exhausted his exchequer to purchase. The florid delineations of Jack and his giants told the story, the text being as dead a letter to me, at that time, as was the magic word lost to the fol- lowers of Hiram with his assassination at the gate of the Temple. 12 JtRlXA'A; II. A SMALL COUNTESS. GROWING very hungry later on in the after- noon, I climbed down from my nest in the hay, and hiding my precious book under my ragged jacket, I ran to seek old Sally in the great kitchen. She always had some choice bit, tart or turnover, laid by for me, and was always ready with sharp argument in my behalf to brave Nancy Redwood's displeasure, though her defense of me invariably ended in defeat, the consequences being visited on me. Just before I reached the kitchen door a carriage dashed around the turn in the road, and I instinct- ively dodged behind the well-curb as the quickest way of getting out of sight of its occupants, without stopping to analyze my sudden dread of being seen by them. The carriage was a grand affair, with outriders in livery, and was drawn by four horses so sleek they seemed to be outvying in gloss the blazoning of its highly varnished panels. Instead of rolling on past out of sight, it stopped at our house, and a quick shame of appearing before its finely dressed occu- pants in my poor clothes having taken possession of me, I crouched down still lower behind the well- curb. AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. 1 3 I saw Zebra and Wiry Jack fill buckets with water from the trough in front of the bar-room, and I saw the handsome horses arch their slender necks and drink thirstily ; for the Red House, as a swing- ing sign that bore on its surface a gorgeously painted bright red house proclaimed, was a public tavern for the accommodation of man and beast. But it was the dainty little figure at the carriage window, in soft, white furs and pretty white hat, with its white feathers, that I devoured with my eyes. I had never seen anything so beautiful so differ- ent from all my surroundings. And when the car- riage drove off and took her .from my sight, I sprang to my feet, and, sitting astride the well-curb, began wondering who she could be and where such grand people lived. The stable-boys, lounging over nearer to me, interrupted my speculations. " I tell you," said Zebra, in his shrill boy's treble, " that little chick in her white furs is a bony-fidy countess, and the grand gonoff a-sittin' in the swell carriage beside her there's a lord, and he's her father. But wouldn't I like to be one of the crowd to crack open his castle for him ? It wouldn't be fun oh ! no. He's a chump, he is." " How do you know he's a lord ? We don't have no lords in America. You've shot your aged grandmother," elegantly persisted Wiry Jack, with a jeering laugh. " Didn't I hear the footman in his flash livery when he opened the carriage door, while I was a- 14 BRINKA: waterin' the nigh hoss, say, ' Shall I fetch you or the Countess Brinka a glass of water, my Lord?' an' didn't my Lord answer back, ' No, I thank you,' as fine as you please? an' didn't the Countess Brinka say the same, in a voice like a silver bell ? An' if that's not proof enough that he's a lord an' the little white-furred chick's a countess, what more'd you have ? But he's a chump, he is." " What's his name ?" asked Wiry Jack. " Can't say ; all I know is he's a ' my Lord.' Per- haps they're a-gettin' to have the nobility in this country. What do we know of polertics here away off ten miles from Boston ? I shouldn't wonder if they had a king an' a queen a' ready down there in Washington an' lords, an' jukes, an' countesses, and knight errants though we've got plenty of them here." " Knight errants ? what's them ?" asked Wiry Jack. " Gentlemen whose business calls them out at night, to be sure. We're knight errants Captain Corrie, Ranee Noney, an' all on us. Robin Hood, Jack Shepard, and Claude Duval was knight errants. They was in history. I've read all about them. It's some to be a knight errant." " It don't make no difference to me what name you call us by," returned Wiry Jack. " Them four hosses of that there Lord of yourn took my eye. They was the spankin'est, high steppin'est hosses I ever did see. An' " " Gee whiz ! There's Red Top a-ycllin' for us !" AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. jtj exclaimed Zebra, and the boys ran off to the bar- room. And in the chill March air, up astride the well-curb, I fell to thinking or dreaming. I saw again the little girl in the grand carriage pass by. Then came shadowy pictures, or recollec- tions, from my short past, and I saw a pair of tender eyes smiling down wistfully on me from a face of exquisite beauty, and a lovely form moving with gentle grace through soft-carpeted rooms overflow- ing with every adornment that makes a home beau- tiful. Then, in my mental vision, I saw the sweet face so full of life grown white and still, and the tender eyes so full of light closed and unresponsive. And I somehow knew the sweet face and graceful form, that the glimpses of the pretty little Countess had evoked, belonged to my own dead mother, and with a choking sob I realized my utter loneliness, and I tried to fathom what it meant, why I was there where all were so different from me, in the midst of sordid, discordant scenes in which I had no part and seemed to have no place. Old Sally, opening the kitchen door and kindly bidding me come in and get my supper, saying I'd catch my death of cold sitting out there so long after dark, interrupted my melancholy reveries. I obeyed her summons, but found my hunger had somehow all vanished gone with the costly equipage that contained the small Countess, who, in her white furs and soft raiment, had brought to life the memory -pictures of my departed mother. BRINK A: III. HOW MY BIRTHDAY FESTIVITIES ENDED. DARKNESS came soon on that lowering day, and with it came hail, sleet, and a mad, howl- ing wind. The woman Nancy and I were out on the covered porch witnessing the departure of Cap- tain Corrie, Hi, Snake, Ranee Noney, Charming Charlie, Zebra, and Wiry Jack, and I was ponder- ing in my mind what Zebra meant by a " midnight lay," at which he had so mysteriously hinted in the afternoon, and which took them all away on that tempestuous night. They were very merry, bandying jokes back and forth with the woman Nancy, Captain Corrie alone speaking not a word until just as they drove off. " I say, Nance !" he called out then, in his fresh, strong voice, " look well to the citadel ; you are as good as a whole garrison any day. And, Nance, it's high time the little shaver was abed and asleep." He said something more that was drowned in the noise of the wheels and the horses' hoofs as the wagon rounded the wooded turn in the road close by the house. The woman, with a loud, derisive laugh, whisked about with a sudden bounce and darted into the house, slamming the door shut and turning the key AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. ^ with a loud click of the bolt. The light from the lantern she held, flashing full on her face as she disappeared, revealed its fiery beauty so darkly clouded with anger that I well knew I was hope- lessly left out in the storm and dark to seek shel- ter and lodging for the night in the barn if I would, and that no appeal to her would avail me, how- ever much I might call out. I knew also that old Sally, the only female ser- vant of the Red House, having more talent for sleeping than watching, could never be made to hear me, however loudly I might call. It was in a sort of frenzy of despair I hurried around and around the house, seeking some unfastened window or door ajar that would admit me to the warmth within. The rimy wet stiffened as it fell on my face, hair, and clothes, the piercing air penetrated on electric wires of ice to my marrow, whilst the uncanny soughing of the wind awakened mysterious voices all abroad, as though the ghosts also had been locked out, and, being of a social turn and afflicted with pulmonary difficulties, were assuring me in croupy whispers how much they commiserated my forlorn condition a supposition that caused me to shiver with an intenser agony than that of cold, wet, or the hunger that pinched my small stomach. No crowning success of any ardent aspiration of after life ever afforded me one half the joy I felt at the discovery of a vacant light in the dingy, un- shuttered window to a little off-room opening out of the great kitchen. ! g BR1NKA : Clutching the sill, I darted eagerly into the aper- ture. But instead of freeing myself with one leap from the starving cold and howling ghosts, I be- came wedged fast, as though the house were'a giant anaconda and I some dainty tid-bit that, going the wrong way, stuck in the monster's throat. Whilst thus balancing in the very acme of my night's misery, uncertain whether I could force my- self through or work my way out back again, or be compelled, like the iron coffin of the Islam prophet, to remain suspended in mid-air, I dared not cry out, as my fear of the woman Nancy was greater even than that of ghosts, or of anything I had learned to fear in my short life. At length, inch by inch, I struggled through, and pitching headlong into the room, with a last, frantic effort, I overturned a bench of wash-tubs in my de- scent, and rolled with them to the floor. As hair-lifting tales, of the dangers, escapes, the captures, trials, and verdicts of an enterprising fra- ternity on whom the law frowns, formed the staple of conversation in my narrow world, in my guilty dismay at the din I had caused (the falling tubs sounding to my alarmed sense like so many worlds crashing out of space) I expected that nothing short of hanging would atone for my temerity. But no one came, and I groped my way by the cloudy light into the kitchen and found comfort in the smouldering embers of what had been a great wood fire in the huge, old-fashioned fire-place of stone, and whilst smoking like slacked lime in the AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. JQ thaw of my frozen clothes, I dozed off into the for- getfulness of my troubles, to be happy in the pres- ence of my beautiful dream-mother, and in my dreams to hear her kind voice, see her sweet face, and feel her loving touch wrapping me in soft, warm blankets. 20 BRINKA ; IV. A STORM WITH IN- DOORS. THE morning was bright with sunshine and glistening with dew-drops that hung gem- ming every tree-branch, fence, and eve-trough for the wind and sleet of the night had turned into snow and thaw and frost, all three together, and had con- verted the world around me into a fairy-land of fleecy and sparkling whiteness. I was out in the untracked snow by the gate, watching Captain Corrie, who, in a light sleigh, had just driven from the stables. As he tucked the buf- falo-robes around his stalwart proportions he leaned down toward me and said in a low voice : " Keep a quiet tongue in your head, little man ; your time is coming. I know all about your being locked out last night, and all the rest. I am going to take you out of this in a day or two to the jol- liest kind of a boarding-school, where you will learn everything good and forget everything bad. Re- member, I have said it." With that he' drove off. But I had noticed that he kept his eyes well on the house, and I knew why ; for I had discovered that, big as he was, his dread of Nancy was only less than mine. AN AMERICA N CO UNTESS. 2 1 The great spruce-tree shielded us from view of the house though ; and as I ran past it to seek the kitchen, where old Sally, the cook, had always a kind word for me, I stopped and patted its bristling, snow-covered needles, as though it had intelligence, and had heard Captain Corrie's words, and knew how happy they made me. As I went by the bar-room door I saw, standing in front of the counter with a round-shouldered back toward me, a strange man, on whom Nancy Redwood was waiting with the smiles and bright glances she lavished on the favored visitors of the Red House. Ranee Noney and Charming Charlie (the first drawing ale and the other lounging by the great, red-hot stove, softly blowing a melody on his flute) were exchanging nods and winks behind the woman Nancy's back, as I had often seen them do when she was particularly sweet on some male guest. With a dread of the round-shouldered man, and not caring to encounter the woman Nancy, I ran on past the bar-room toward the kitchen door, when of a sudden, galloping furiously from the stables on the back of a gaunt, gray horse, I beheld Zebra beckoning imperatively to me. " Run an' hide, quick !" he exclaimed, in a se- pulchral whisper, as I reached him, while he half slid from his saddle down toward me in his agile, careless way. " Hide fur your life ! That man's come to carry you off. He's got an institootion, an' works boys. 22 BRINK A : That's his hoss an' cutter there in the road. It's Red Top's scheme, an' Cap'n Corrie don't know. / found it out, and I've got a scheme, too," and Zebra stopped to take breath and give his head sev- eral knowing jerks. " Have you ?" I asked, my terror increasing every moment. "My scheme's to go a blue streak fur Cap'n Cor- rie an' send him back here all flukin'." " Hadn't you better hurry up and go ?" I asked, a gleam of hope entering my heart. " No fear but what I'll hurry up fast enough when onc't I start. Red Top's got to give the In- stitootioner his breakfast ; he'll eat fur six, an' be- fore he's half through Cap'n Corrie'll come pounce on him. Then you'll see who's boss when it comes down to hard pan him or Red Top. I'm sent on the fly by Red Top to Farmer Slack's with this here fiery charger " and Zebra gave the gray a cut with his whip, causing him to start and plunge. " Be quiet now, can't you ? (this to the horse). He's one of the lot of hosses Hi an' Snake borrowed the other day an' forgot to return which particular item Farmer Slack, who's bought him of us reg'lar, C. O. D., isn't to be told, you bet." " Wouldn't he rather know ?" I suggested, so much interested for Farmer Slack and in the horse and the nimble way Zebra tumbled himself back up into the saddle when the horse was plunging, that I forgot my fear of the man in the bar-room. " Ruther know ? Gee whiz ! Course he'd AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. 23 ruther. But folks don't gen'rally git what they'd ruther. Red Top 'd ruther I'd make a bee line fur Farmer Slack's, an' if she knew I was fur a diverge to the Strand House, where Cap'n Corrie has to stop on his way to Boston, she'd ruther see me cut up inter mince-meat. I'm off!" And Zebra, flour- ishing a rusty cap in adieu, terrified the gray into motion by a war-whoop, and to say he went like the wind is doing faint justice to the way he gal- loped off through the snow. Seeing Hi and Snake going into the stables, I con- cluded the barn would be the safest place, and I had been hidden in the hay, it seemed to me, a long time, when I heard Nancy Redwood outside shrilly demanding where that boy was. " No one needn't look for Miss Maudie (one of the names I went by at the Red House) in the stables ; Hi and me's just come from there," roared Snake, in reply. " I see Miss Maudie go inter the barn a half an hour ago," exclaimed the gruff voice of Hi. " He's hid in the hay, there's where he is." This last was the high treble of Wiry Jack, my mortal foe, always in league against me to curry favor with the woman Nancy. " Hethe motht probably athleep." I recognized the soft lisp of Charming Charlie, and was glad he was in the barn with the rest, for he was the only one of them all, with the exception of Captain Corrie, who never teased or tormented me. There seemed a great many of them, for their 24 BRINKA : voices broke in upon each other and their steps sounded heavily on the barn floor. Had I known anything of the noble pleasures of the chase, I should have compared them to riders and hounds in hot pursuit of a poor little, frightened hare. I was peremptorily called by Nancy, and Ranee Noney (I knew the incisive tones of his metallic voice and his favorite oaths) proposed setting fire to the mow to wake me up. This suggestion was followed by a laugh, and I distinguished above the others the mirthless, mock- ing laughter of Nancy Redwood, that always sounded to me like the weird, uncanny notes of those large sea-loons, the great Northern divers, whose distinctly syllabled ha-has I had often heard on a calm day coming across the surf from far out on the rocky reefs where they fed, for the Red House was on the bay above Boston, where the ragged headlands jut far out into the sea. With the scratching of a match I started in terror to my feet, whereupon Ranee Noney swore he thought that would fetch me, which caused a great laugh. " If Mith Maudie had only conthidered, he would have been thertain no one wath going to thet fire to the barn," lisped Charming Charlie, taking his flute from his mouth, on which he had been softly playing, attentive to what was passing around him. They all laughed again, and the woman Nancy invited me, in the sweet voice I well knew meant mischief, to descend and follow her. AN A ME RICA N CO UNTESS. 2 5 I obeyed, and she led the way, the man with the round-shouldered back walking by her side. When we reached the bar-room, where Hi and Snake had been sent to preside, she bade me, still in the same sweet voice, to run up-stairs and make a bundle of my clothes, as the gentleman I saw had kindly come to take me to his beautiful establishment, where I would find boys of my own age to play with. I looked at the man, who was hideously grinning, very evidently flattered by Nancy's attentions, and his wicked old face so repelled me that I replied : " I had rather not go, if you please." This created a great laugh, and Charming Char- lie, with more than his usual careless manner, vol- unteered to help me put my clothes together, and we proceeded to the loft, in which I slept, he playing snatches of melodies on his flute all the way up the stairs. Fair-haired, blue-eyed, well-formed, and well- looking, Charming Charlie, with manners as soft as his voice, had a way, when the others attempted to run him on account of his lisp, his flute-playing, or his mild indolence, of saying back something so full of humorous point that he invariably turned the laugh on his antagonist. As he tied together the ends of the cotton ban- dana, in which he had packed the entirety of my worldly possessions, we were vociferously called. " Come-ing !" he halloed back. But instead of going down below he went over to the dormer win- dow overlooking the road. 2 6 BRINKA : " Hard as she ith to you, he would "be a thouthand timeth worthe ; tho we'll wait awhile for Corrie Red- wood." Then I knew, as Charming Charlie lisped this in a low voice, fixing his blue eyes meaningly on me, that he was in Zebra's secret, and that the rest had no suspicion of it. Just as we were called for the third time, each call more peremptory than the last, I saw from the dormer window Captain Corrie's horse and sleigh turn into sight from the cross-roads a quarter of a mile below. " He cometh, by Juno ! Now we'll go down," exclaimed Charming Charlie, handing me the bun- dle. And we descended to find Nancy Redwood with her handsome face as flaming as her hair, and wishing to know in words more strong than elegant what had kept us so long. " I wath thearching for hith thockth," replied Charming Charlie, with an unconcern so dense, as lie sauntered, flute in hand, over to the window, softly whistling a popular melody, that she could only exclaim contemptuously : " His socks, indeed !" And venting her wrath on me, I was jerked by the arm out to the gate so violently that I could with difficulty keep my feet. I was then jerked into the sleigh, where the man with the round-shouldered back was already sitting, and just as he was making room for me beside him, Captain Corrie suddenly dashed round the corner of the road close bv the house. AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. 2 / My heart gave a great leap, and Nancy's tawny black eyes fairly blazed as she opened them wide upon her husband. " You !" she exclaimed, taken by surprise. " You ! What brought you back ?" " I say, Nance," said he, taking no notice of her surprise or of anything unusual, "just think of the luck !" and he leaped out of the sleigh and threw the lines to Wiry Jack. " I met Kimball, and he must have the horses right off. So I had to drive back, and but how's this, the boy going for a sleigh ride ? Why, Nance, you forgot his overcoat, and his teeth clatter like the bones of the end man at the minstrels. With your leave, I'll take him to the fire and let him warm up before I see to the horses for Kimball." Captain Corrie lifted me from the sleigh in his strong arms, at the same time fixing a steady look on the man beside me, who, not knowing whether to go or stay, had stayed, and who now, under Captain Corrie's eyes, grew so manifestly uneasy that he suddenly drove off without saying even a word of compliment to the woman Nancy. Ranee Noney, who had been standing in the doorway of the bar-room twirling his fierce red whiskers, silently surveying the scene, made room as we passed through into the house, and Charm- ing Charlie, still at the window, turning to me, gave me a side wink that put me in much trepidation lest Nancy might see it. But she was in too great a rage to notice any- 2 8 BRINKA : thing, having fairly mounted what Zebra called her " high hoss," which she rode so frequently that it might be said of her, as of the warriors of old, that she lived in the saddle. From her hands flew mis- siles of destruction iron, wood, glass, porcelain, and pewter while from her lips proceeded such a storm of invective that I should have grown quite warm without the aid of the fire before which Cap- tain Corrie had stood me when we entered the great kitchen. Suddenly she pounced upon me, and I was jerked by my hair out into the middle of the room. Captain Corrie, who had been watching her move- ments and listening to her threats in the apathetic manner customary to him on like occasions, merely warding oft" the shower of kitchen utensils that rained down on him, now came to the rescue. But the woman, with the agility of a harlequin, avoiding him at every turn, leaped on tables, chairs, and dressers, dragging me after her, until finally he closed with her, which brought us all three to the floor. Captain Corrie's strength prevailed, and I was held high up among the cobweb festoonery of the rafters out of the woman's reach, who, tossing her arms in the air, declared that she would and that she wouldn't, and when he found she had, what could such a guy as he do without her to plan the lays safe for him. " No use, Nance, no use !" was all her husband said, reiterating the disclaimer each time she stopped to take AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. 2 g breath for a new start, which she did by a jerking pro- cess, as though she were a piece of machinery worked by steam. Her supply of invective at length becom- ing exhausted, he offered a variation on his theme : " No use, Nance, the boy shall be sent to school, high and dry out of this. The money shall be paid for him. The oath I made his mother who wasn't what you say shall be kept, and the " Here the woman interrupted him by a shriek, and sinking on the floor all in a heap, as though the springs that held her upright had snapped from ex- treme tension, she began rocking her body dolefully to and fro, accompanying each rock by a dismal groan. " Look here, Nance," said he, after a curious sur- vey of her rocking figure, " if I could make it smiling sunshine between us two again by giving it all up to you I would. I, who was as wax in the warmth of your smiles, am growing disenchanted with your violence. This boy's mother, I have often tried to make you understand, Nance, was as far from us as the stars. She, the only daughter of my old boss, and I, her father's ignorant stable-boy, until she took pains with me and taught me all I know, never dreamed in her purity and innocence of such lost wretches as we are. And it was my unbounded reverence for her, when she lost everything after her father's death, and her husband who was a villain had deserted her, that made me take the oath, and she dying, to bring her boy up to good things and give him an education and the best going. You willed the other way, Nance, and when you grew 30 BRINKA : vindictive, that did what my own sense of right did not do it clinched my resolve." From her to and fro rocking the woman sprang up with the elasticity of a forest animal. " Here's a blessed state of penitence for a pious cracksman to be in !" and she sent up peal on peal of mocking laughter. I felt Captain Corrie wince, and wondered how she could so affect his huge strength, though I saw he took care to let none of his shuddering be seen by her. Setting his jaws firm and hard, he said, in an even, dogged tone : " Have done, Nance. This Red House, which I am landlord of, is not famous for being pious. And you know who led me on from a downy boy to be a cracksman. And you know who would still lead me on to as much worse as there is if I would go in for it. Your power is great, Nance," and his voice softened, while warm shadows chased each other in his brown eyes, " and it is hard to go against you, notwithstanding your " Captain Corrie was ready for her sudden spring toward me, and I was held so high up among the cobwebs that they choked my breath. Foiled in her attempt to seize me, the woman Nancy, with a jeering laugh, wheeled about and strode out of the kitchen, her long, red hair flaming after her like the receding tail of a gorgeous comet, her heels at every tread sounding on the old oaken floor through the long corridor like sharp, successive strokes of a mallet. AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. V. IN SIEGE. QTEALTHILY, at the last reverberation of the ^-} clicking heels, Captain Corrie carried me up the time-worn oaken stairs to a loft in another part of the rambling old house from that in which I slept, and entering a room within a room, carefully locking the doors after him, he laid me down on a dusty old sofa, and began examining my bruises. " You've got an awful mauling, little man. A very little more and your small anatomy would have been utterly spoiled for all practical purposes. I must go down now and get things for you, but I'll be back in no time." Although he locked me safely in after him, I quaked in terror until his return. I did not have long to quake, and, from the huge basket he brought with him, he took as many various articles of use as Pandora's newly wedded husband did of evils from the wonderful box she brought to him. My hurts were dressed with a cooling wash ; a fire was lighted in the rusty old stove, on which Captain Corrie cooked porridge for me in a bright, new tin basin, giving me milk to drink from a gilt- edged mug that had pink and blue lambs upon it 22 XRLYA'A : feeding from the hands of a pink and blue little girl. He spread me a bed with white linen from the basket, and here I was installed with the assurance that I should be well in a trice an indefinite period of time supposed to comprise three seconds, but capable of being stretched into as many hours or weeks ; in my case, what with the shock of my bruises and my causeless alarms during the temporary ab- sences of Captain Corrie, lasting nearly three months. One morning, after an unusually long absence, he returned thoughtful and gloomy, and, waiting on me in silence for a time, he said, in deep, rumbling tones, which, taking a downward inflection at the end of each sentence, sounded to my ears like the wailing of the wind : " She's gone, my boy ; Nance has gone." " Has the devil come and got her?" irreverently asked I. " Not yet," he replied, with a dull smile that changed into a sigh, or rather a groan. " Her cousin, captain of a coaster, a regular shell-back, came to take her home to her mother, who is dy- ing." " Does her mother know ?" I asked. Fully understanding, Captain Corrie slowly shook his head. " Her mother and her people know very little of Nance since she struck out for herself and left her home in Nantucket, where she only vegetated, she AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. 33 said. Her mother thinks the Red House is only what it seems a country hotel and that Captain Corrie Redwood, its landlord, who has horses for sale, as well, is an honest, straight-going man, and if she dies in that belief all the better for her, as her husband, Nance's father, went three years ago." This, for Captain Corrie, usually so reticent, was a long explanation. But he looked so gloomy and woe-begone that I felt quite sorry for him, and wanted to say so, but I only took his big hand in mine and played with his blunt, unresisting fingers. " Do you think she's truly, truly gone ?" I asked. Captain Corrie nodded his head dejectedly in the affirmative. " But," I persisted, " she may only make believe go and then come up here and " " You are sharp, if you are little," responded Captain Corrie, stroking my hair slowly with his rough hand. " But we'll have no foxy invasions. Nance has gone, and, what is more, against her own will, too." The blustering March and changeful April and sunny May had worn away, and I was still in the old garret-room, Captain Corrie tenderly nursing me all the long weeks with unflagging devotion. I was so far recovered as to be able to walk around the room without support, when he came one morning, after a longer absence than usual, and, locking the door after him, threw himself into a great arm-chair and fell into deep thought. I shut my picture-books one after the other (Cap- 34 BRINKA : tain Corrie had added a number of astonishing books to my library during my illness), and, regard- ing him from my cot attentively and with increas- ing alarm, I wished to know if SHE had come back. " She's come," sententiously assented he, without raising his head or taking his eyes from the floor, where they were fastened. " Did she heat the poker ?" " Not this time." " Did she pitch into you ?" " Rather," he replied, with a grim smile that meant anything but mirth. " Did she get the better of you this time ?" " That remains to be seen," he replied, his eyes beginning to soften as they looked up and rested on me. " What's to be done now ?" was my last ques- tion. " Leave here on the double quick, you and me." But instead of making a move to leave, he let his head sink into the palms of his hands, resting his elbows on his knees. Suddenly starting up he did things by jerks now he pulled out his watch, exclaiming : " Come, my boy, it's time we were on our way !" Just then a loud knocking came at the door an event that had not before transpired. " Don't be frightened, my boy ; it's only Owen, who's been blacking my boots." Captain Corrie never called him Zebra. AN AMERICAN CO UNTESS. 3 5 " Gee whiz ! what a pipe-stem, white and slim," exclaimed that young gentleman, scrutinizing me as he was admitted into the room. " How's things down below now ?" demanded Captain Corrie. " Snug as a bug an' still as a Quaker meetin'." " Have Hi and Snake got back ?" " Not five minutes ago ; and they says to me : ' I say, Zebra, what's the row ?' an' then they plumped inter bed with their boots on." " With their boots on ?" " Not that they'd ben a-drinkin' not they only dead tired out with their tramp." " And what did you tell them ?" " I said that Red To- that Mrs. Redwood was back, an' was a-havin' it out with you." " Where's Ranee Noney and Charming Charlie ?" asked Captain Corrie, gloomily. " Ranee Noney 's 'tendin' bar, an' Charming Char- lie's out on the porch a-playin' the flute, an' Wiry Jack's in the stables, an' Red To- Mrs. Redwood's in her own room, an' has double-locked her door. I heard her a-slammin' at the bolts ; an' old Sally's a " " Here ! help the little shaver on with his clothes. I'll be right back," commanded Captain Corrie, hastily quitting the room and locking the doors after him. " Olli compolli !" cried Zebra. " Sposin' he forgits to come back to dub the jigger for us which means open the door we'd be as buttered as the princes 36 BRINKA: ] was in the tower, who ended up by being quinsied under pillows." -;.Who the princes in the tower were, and what be- ing quinsied under pillows meant, I did not know, but I said that if the princes were like Hi and Snake and Ranee Noney, they wouldn't have cared how much they were buttered. " Look-a-here !" exclaimed Zebra, laughing so immoderately that he was compelled to hold his sides, " ef I don't hurry up and git on your togs (which needn't a-had so many winders by severial) Cap'n Corrie'll butter me," and Zebra helped me on with my trousers and jacket. " Now for your trot- ter-cases," he cried, " only take care you don't go an' put your toes inter the wrong openings. There, my kiddie, you'll do," and Zebra put the finishing touch to my toilet by taking from his neck a gor- geous satin scarf and tying it on mine in a bow that he proclaimed "perfectly stunnin'." And then for my entertainment he went through with a series of mar- velous somersaults and handsprings. " Did you know I'd been on a reg'lar circumben- dabus down to New York ?" he asked, springing upright to his feet again with the lightness of a cat. " Have you ?" I returned, vastly admiring his ac- robatic powers. " Me an' Hi an' Snake, with Ranee Noney as cap'n, all went, a-leavin' Cap'n Corrie an' Charming Charlie an' Wiry Jack to keep things a-goin' here. Well, we cracked open the Juke's crib, an' then we was a-proceedin' to the same Juke whose car- AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. 37 riage stopped here on your buthday, an' we watered his hosses. He's awful swell ; why, a juke's way up a'most to a king. A juke's as much above all of us here in the United States as we're above the Injuns. The President, even, aint nowheres in comparison to a juke. Well, we was a '' " Why is a juke 'way up above the President ?" I questioned. " 'Cause he is," satisfactorily answered Zebra. " I don't believe a juke's above the President," dissented I. " Captain Corrie read to me about Washington. He was a President, and he was ever so much greater than a king. Perhaps I'll get to be President some day." " Gee whiz ! But jest you wait till you know more of the world, an' then you'll see what a juke is ; why, everybody knuckles down tight to a juke. Well, after we'd cracked open his crib fur him an* was a-proceedin' to biz in his swell mansion, where everything was the gorgeousest you ever did see, who should come a-flyin' down the great, wide stairs but the Juke's little daughter, all blazin' with di'mons, an' with a little Skye a-tearin' after her a-yelpin' like mad. An' the way we four duffers rushed out er that air Fifth Avenue mansion was somethin' to tell of. An' now Charming Charlie's got the bulge on Ranee Noney, 'cause he was scar'd off by a little gal. But, then, the little gal was a juke's daughter, you see the Juke of Chillingford's daughter, an' she a countess a real countess, all blazin' with di'mons, so 'taint no wonder she put to flight three men an' 38 BRINKA a boy. Look-a-here," concluded Zebra, changing the subject, " did you know Red Top's got home ?" "An* 'twa'n't her cousin she come back with, nuther," added Zebra, mysteriously, as I replied in the affirmative. " Who was it with ?" I asked. Instead of telling me, Zebra went through with another extraordinary series of handsprings. " Red Top Redwood, of the Red House ! Aint that sanguinary enough for Colonel Blood ?" he ex- claimed, coming right side up. " Well, it was the dashin'est kind of a turn-out, drawn by two bang-up hosses, that she come home in. An' such a howlin' swell set beside her, with a stove-pipe set rakish a top of his curls, so shiny you could see your face in it. But didn't he mizzle as soon as he clapped his eyes on Cap'n Corrie stove-pipe, mus- tache, fast hosses, an' all ! An' Red Top looked redder, spit-fireier, an' handsomer than ever, all in a blaze, like the Fourth of July, of ribbons, jewelry, streamers, an' feathers. An' Cap'n Corrie a-lookin' on, his ogles green as grass, an' his face nutty yeller, with Red Top a raisin' high jinks a-givin' every one tiddereei. Heel up an' toe down, ef that" The door was hastily unlocked, and Captain Corrie entered, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. " Is the boy ready ?" "You bet!" cried Zebra. Catching me in his arms, Captain Corrie made AX AMERICAN COUNTESS. 39 rapid strides through the corridors, Zebra tumbling down the stairways before him six or eight steps at a time. At the foot of the stairs stood Charming Charlie playing on his flute. " The coatht ith clear, Captain Corrie," lisped he, adding, " Good-bye, Mith Maudie. You're in luck to get off tho." Then he went on with his flute- playing, and Captain Corrie stole out of the back door and around into the back road in the shade of the barn and stables. And that was the last I saw of the Red House. BKIA'A'A : VI. "WE'RE SURE TO CATCH HIM." HELLO, Landlord!" exclaimed the butcher who served the Red House with pork and beef; "you've sliced a good half hour off of the app'inted time, ur I'll eat kittens." He was seated in a covered wagon that stood in the shade of some broad oaks, and was restraining the impatience of the two stout horses attached to it. "You sha'n't be the loser, Sowerson," replied Captain Corrie, leaping into the wagon with me in his arms. And the horses started off, waking up the young pigs in the after-part of the wagon, who shrilly disputed the right of conversation. All I saw was a wonder and delight to me the snatches of wooded and brooked ravines, the pretty villages we passed through, the grim old granite hills, the occasional glimpses of blue mountains in the distance. I devoured all with a boy's unfledged love of the beautiful. I had often heard of Boston, and speculating on the marvels told about it among Red House fre- quenters, I had come to the conclusion that it was the final limit to the world, where one could look- off and . c ee what was down below. But that it \vas AN AMERICAN COUXTESS. 4I the pivot around which the whole universe revolved (as I have since ascertained) did not then enter into my wildest conjecture. I was bewildered by the confusion of the many vehicles and the many people and the many houses, and when our wagon stopped Captain Corrie, as he alighted, handed the butcher a bank-note from his wallet, saying : " Never mind the change, Sowerson. Keep it all for the delay I caused you." " Swaller me deown hull the fust annerkonder that comes along ef you're*not a up an' deown liberal one, Landlord. An' the best wish I can make is that Mis' Redwood, your harndsome wife, '11 live a thou- sand year an' never grow any older, as they say in Spain. She's a hull team, she is full er spunk, spry as a cricket, pooty as a picter, an' with gumption enough fur a parson. Jerusalem crickets ! What more'n that kin a man's is a man an' not a dumb driven critter a-snortin' away his life on all fours, like Nebberchodnezzer, ask fur ?" With that the butcher shouted " Git ep !" aae? drove on. Captain Corrie bore me in his arms into a shoe shop, where, hanging up overhead and protruding from shelves, were boots and shoes enough, as I thought, to have shod the whole world. A pair of fancy half-boots were selected for me, which I greatly admired, and the dealer, a slender, pale man, inclining his head to one side, asked so many questions about me that I wondered how he 42 BRJNKA : could think of them all. And when we left, he stood looking after us in the attitude of a stray interroga- tion point. We next went into a store where a whole row of elegantly dressed little boys were standing. And whilst wondering what kept them so still, I learned a lesson on the falsity of appearances. A number of them being robbed of their gay attire to fit me out, I saw, to my dismay, their wire-work substitution for bone and muscle, their lack of feet, and their wooden heads. Captain Corrie was ar&nging^n a substantial new valise, the various suits he had purchased for me ; and I, clad in a marvelous blue jacket and trousers, ornamented with a double row of gilt buttons and edged with white linen frills, was watching in the doorway the stream of passers-by, when suddenly I recognized Ranee Noney seated in a light open wagon driving a span of horses. Beside him was the woman Nancy, and in the seat back of them was a man in officers uniform. That the quick eyes of Nancy Redwood who was peering up and down the street had detected me, and that she was pointing me out to the officer I also saw. And to run to Captain Corrie, who was buckling the last strap of Jthe stout valise, took but an instant. And the perfectly cool way he comprehended the situation, lifting me in his arms and grasping the valise in his disengaged hand as easily as though lie could have taken two or three more boys and valises, AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. 43 and the perfectly cool way he bade good-morning to the salesman, making huge strides, though in no ap- parent hurry, through the door opening on the cross street (it being a corner store), was astonishing to me, who scarcely breathed in my agony of terror. He turned corner after corner of the crooked, narrow streets until we came to a yellow stage full of people, and apparently ready to start. " Just in time. Only one seat left," called out a voice that I thought was the driver's until I saw he was engaged in swearing at his horses to make them stand still. " Just in time ! Just in time !" screamed the voice again. And then, as we mounted into the stage, I beheld, hanging in a cage from a post close beside me, a green parrot that seemed to be especially ad- dressing me, for as soon as I caught its sharp, twinkling eyes, it burst out into a peal of laughter that was lost in the rumble of our wheels. We had arrived just beyond the precincts of the city and were ascending a long hill, and I was thinking we had fairly escaped our pursuers, when, Captain Corrie giving a great start, I beheld at the bottom of the hill the light two-horse wagon whirl- ing around into the road from a cross-road, the fierce red whiskers of Ranee Noney blazing in the noon-day sun, and the still redder locks of Nancy Redwood frizzed in showy bang above her bold, handsome face. I gave up all as lost, and wondered what Captain Corrie would do now. 44 BRINKA f He leaned forward to the front seat, handing the driver some money. " I get out here," said he, in the most careless way. " Which one of those houses is Deacon Warren's ?" " The first one, with the lilacs in the front yard," replied the driver, stopping his horses ; " and here's your ninepence change." Captain Corrie, taking advantage of a clump of maples on the brow of the hill that for the moment concealed us from view of the wagon down below us, took no time to lift me and the valise from the stage, and to pass through the front yard, further screened by the lilacs, and to knock at the door. " Is Deacon Warren at home ?" asked he, enter- ing the room into which the door opened, and clos- ing it upon us so suddenly that the old lady, who was placidly knitting in a great rocking-chair, gave a scream and rose to her feet. " He's eaut in the barn," she said, inspecting us over her glasses. I saw through the open window a gleam of red whiskers and a flutter of streaming ribbons as the light wagon drove furiously past to overtake the stage, and Captain Corrie, saying to the old lady, " Don't trouble yourself, madam, I will go out to the barn and see the Deacon there," took great strides through the house and out at the back door, the old lady trotting after him and exclaiming : " My souls !" But instead of seeking the barn and Deacon War- AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. 45 ren, Captain Corrie made his way through the long garden and over a picket fence into a green lane, at one end of which stood a tumble-down house with broken window-lights and doors hanging off their hinges, in forlorn and patient waiting for its next occupant. Captain Corrie occupied it only long enough to hurry through its deserted rooms out into the weed- tangled garden. "We'll have to try it!" he exclaimed, breathing hard. Parting the matted weeds and bushes where a long, old-fashioned well-sweep idly swung, that had once been used to let down and draw up the old oaken bucket, he crept down into the old well, and finding a foothold on its projecting stones, holding me with his left arm, he straightened with his right the shrubbery around its mouth that he had trodden down, almost shutting out the daylight. " Gran'mammy Warren said she saw the man that scar't her so a-climin' over the picket fence into the lane ; and he'd a little boy in his arms," shrilly screamed a piping voice over our heads. " He must have gone up with the little boy in his arms," growled a hoarse voice in reply. " There's no one can beat me on a search in the whole of the United States, and if he's anywheres about here anybody can have my head for a football." " Oh ! come now, officer, we're sure to catch him ; let's get back into the wagon and go around into the road there. We'll overtake him, never fear. We're sure to catch him." 46 BRINK A : It was Nancy Redwood who said this in her sweetest tones, and I was in deadly fear lest her quick eyes should detect the old well. But they all went off, and among their receding voices I could distinguish Ranee Noney's metallic barytone with its sharp hiss of the letter S. " I should have thought of this well the first thing ; but the hard pressed are always more ready with their wits than the pursuers," mumbled Cap- tain Corrie. " Ranee Noney thinks too much of himself to make even a fifth-rate detective, and Nance is too eager, and the policeman too stupid ; so perhaps we'll outwit them all, my boy." " Are we going to stay down here ?" I asked. " They'll take the road going west at this end of the lane awhile, and then they'll come back here for another look. They've had time to reach Deacon Warren's and their wagon ; so we'll skirt along be- hind the alders to the other end of the lane and take to the pike that goes south down to Providence, and we may chance on a stage or covered wagon." Even while speaking Captain Corrie had scrambled out of the well with me and the valise, and no one for wager or for life ever walked faster than he. AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. VII. THE DUKE'S FORCED INVITATION. THE first object we saw on the turnpike was an elegant carriage, that I recognized at once as the gay equipage, with its liveried outriders, that watered its four sleek, high-stepping horses at the Red House on my memorable birthday. Instead of passing us by on the dusty road, it suddenly stopped in front of us, and the little girl within (I recognized her also on the moment, although her pretty white furs were changed for fleecy white mus- lin) was urging a point in a rush of remonstrance with the pale, high-featured gentleman beside her, and was looking up to him appealingly through a most wonderful pair of eyes, large, dark, and lus- trous. " Papa, papa, you must. Just look ! the boy is sucJi a pretty boy the very prettiest boy I ever saw ; and he is so white, so very white. Papa, papa, you must. The man looks so tired, and he's sncJi a nice man, with such a. good face every bit as hand- some as you are, papa. And just think ! carrying the little boy all the way ! It might be you and me, papa, there in the dusty road." The gentleman looked down into her upturned eyes and laid a white hand caressingly on her pretty hair. 48 BR1NKA : 11 It shall be as you say, little tyrant," said he, pushing open the carriage door. " My good man," and calling to Captain Corrie his voice changed from its caressing tone to one remarkable for a certain frigid urbanity, " it is my daughter's wish that you enter the carriage with your son and give yourself a little rest." " A good, long rest, you mean, papa," persisted the child. " And please tell the man he and his little boy can have the front seat; see, they are waiting outside. Be polite, papa." Thus adjured, the gentleman signified by a wave of his hand his motions as well as his words evinc- ing the highest breeding that we must enter the carriage. I was afraid Captain Corrie would decline, after all, the gentleman's manner was so very lofty ; but he precipitately took possession of the luxurious seat assigned us and sat me down beside him, ex- pressing his thanks with a respectful dignity I thought was very nice. I noticed, too, that as he wiped from his face the perspiration the hot June sun had caused, it was with a spotless handkerchief fresh from its folds. It was my first sensation of ruffled pride ; and though I did not know what name to give it, it tugged away in my breast and choked in my throat ; and I wondered at the vast composure of Captain Corrie under the chillingly patronizing bearing of the little girl's father. The child called to the liveried footman who stood ready to shut the carriage door, addressing him as " Roberts." AX AMERICAN COUXTESS. 49 " Yes, my Lady," returned Roberts, opening the carriage door again. " Please fix the blinds of the window by the little boy. See, the sun shines straight in his face. And then tell Perkins to drive on." All the little girl said was spoken in that exqui- sitely modulated voice that comes with the culture of centuries. It was so new to me and was so lovely, and she was so lovely, with her animated face framed in the shining lustre of her bright hair and lighted by the generous warmth of her dark eyes, that I was charmed and could not keep my eyes off from her. " Hanything more, my Lady ?" asked Roberts, after he had closed the blinds. " One very important thing, Roberts," said the gentleman, in his cold, even voice; " please recollect to address my daughter as Miss Brinka, and not ' my Lady.' " " Yes, my Lord," assented Roberts. " And endeavor to forget the habit of years passed by, as I so often have told you. In this, the country of my adoption, recollect I am plain Mr. Vaughan, an untitled American citizen." " Yes, my Lord. Certainly, my Lord." " There, Roberts, you are incorrigible !" and plain Mr. Vaughan's clean-cut mouth relaxed into a smile so frigid one would not have been surprised to see it become petrified on his pale, aristocratic face. But the smile vanished and he added : " There ! shut the door and tell Jenkins to proceed." jo BRIXKA ; "Yes, my Lor Mr. Vaughan, hi should say; hexcuse me, Mr. Vaughan," and Roberts closed the door, mounted the box, and the carriage rolled on. " Papa," said Brinka, " ask the man if his boy ha ; been ill. I think he must have been ill, he is so very white and so very thin. You would not like to see me so white and thin, would you ? Do, papa, ask him." The little maiden was sitting on her father's knee, he in one delicately white hand holding a book he was reading, and with the other caressing the loose curls of her pretty hair. Lifting his eyes from his book at her appeal, he fixed them with cold, un- sympathizing inspection first on me and then on Captain Corrie, who stood the scrutiny with pon- derous composure, a slight flush that mounted to his forehead alone showing he felt any uneasiness from the searching look. " You hear my daughter's request," said Mr. Vaughan, in a voice of impassive command ; " she is much interested to know if your son has been ill." " He has been very ill so ill I feared he would die, sir ; but, all the same, he is not my son. He is an orphan, and comes of a proud stock, as proud a stock as your own, sir as proud as the proudest. I am nobody, but the boy is all I have averred." This Captain Corrie vouchsafed in his deepest bass, as though wrung from him against his own volition by Mr. Vaughan 's grand manner. " If the boy is what you declare, why are you AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. r j thus in the public road on foot, with him in your arms, and he just from a bed of sickness?" demanded Mr. Vaughan. " Papa, papa, you are not polite. Perhaps the man is poor and does not like to say, you know," cried Brinka, pulling her father's face down to hers with a pretty action and kissing him. " You ask me why at this part of our journey I am traveling thus on foot with him, sir ; it is be- cause it would take too long to tell it all, sir. Re- verses came, reverses came to his family reverses come even to kings," said Captain Corrie, steadily, his eyes wandering from the father to the little girl, who with her kiss had released her father's head from the clasp of her dainty hands, and was look- ing up into his face with large, admonishing eyes, making such a charming picture that it was no wonder Mr. Vaughan saw little else save her. "And," continued Captain Corrie, with a pathos of tone that carried irresistible conviction with it, his look returning to Mr. Vaughan, " I am the only friend the little boy has left." Mr. Vaughan, having given a studiedly polite attention to Captain Corrie's words, with critical in- quiry, and the pretty Brinka with tender sympathy, looked at me again, and I felt quite abashed. Mr. Vaughan then turned to his book as though to re- sume his reading, but, instead, he once more fixed his eyes on me, shivering me with his scrutiny. " Who and what is the boy ?" demanded he. " He is descended in direct line, sir, from an an- 5 2 BKINKA : cient stock," replied Captain Corrie, solemnly, " dat- ing back to the Norman Conquest. His great- grandfather, a younger son, with a younger son's portion, and of an adventurous spirit, came to this country and settled here, marrying an American beauty and heiress. His grandfather, General Rich- mond Forsythe, being an only son, inherited a large property, and had but one child also this boy's mother, Miss Agnes Forsythe, who was likewise a beauty and an heiress. She also married, and then came the reverses." " Who was it Miss Agnes Forsythe married, and how was it reverses came?" demanded Mr. Vaughan, and I wondered the words did not turn to ice on his lips. Brinka listened intently, her pretty face varying in expression with each word, and at her father's blunt question she looked quite distressed. "She married a Mr. Eugene Leighton, sir, who wormed himself into her father's confidence, got control of his property, gambled it all away in stocks and horse-races, and then deserted his young wife." This was the first time I had ever heard the name Leighton the first time I had ever heard anything connected with my own history. " Where is he ?" asked Mr. Vaughan. " Gone to parts unknown." " Where is the boy's mother ?" " Dead. Died of a broken heart." . " Is his grandfather living ?" AN AMERICAN COUNTESS. 53 " Dead, sir ; all dead." " The boy's name, then, is Leighton ?" " Leighton, sir." Mr. Vaughan looked at me much as a highly cul- tured iceberg, with a pair of steely, blue-gray eyes, might look down on a stray dolphin, and, having frozen the name Leighton in on my memory, he re- sumed his book with a cold dismissal of both Cap- tain Corrie and me." Brinka glanced up into her father's unsympathetic eyes, and, springing down lightly from his knee, she shyly offered me a bunch of pink buds and blossoms she had been holding in her hand. " They are rhododendrons," she said, " the first of the season. Roberts bought them for me in Boston this morning. They grow in the mountains. People who don't know any better call them laurel. But my governess says real laurel doesn't grow wild in America. She says the right name is rhododen- dron, and that it is a species of kalmia. I love them dearly, and I want you to have them." And with this bit of botanical lore she left the flowers in my hand and returned to her position on her father's lap. The carriage rolled smoothly on, and the little Brinka fell asleep in her father's arms. A small Skye-terrier, that had manifested the liveliest interest in all that occurred, lay coiled up in a flossy blue and silver-gray knot on Brinka's vacant seat with its keen bright eyes now peering at me from under its shaggy brows, and now closed in sleep. 54 BRINK A .' I was ravenously hungry, with a convalescent's craving, but before I knew it I also dropped asleep, disproving the Spanish, " He who sleeps dines," for when I awoke I was hungrier than ever. The carriage had stopped at a public house with a wide lawn in front, and Roberts was holding open the carriage door. " Is it here our luncheon is prepared, Roberts ?" Mr. Vaughan was asking. " Yes, my Lord Mr. Vaughan, I mean. I sent the horders to this 'otel yesterday, but if you will be so good as to listen hi 'ave something to com- muni " " O papa ! the little boy must have luncheon, too," interrupted Brinka, vehemently, as Captain Corrie made a movement to go, but was prevented by Roberts, who stood with the carriage door in his hand, blocking the egress. " Say on, Roberts, but be brief," acquiesced Mr. Vaughan, taking no further notice of Brinka's im- perative suggestion than to put forth his hand and draw her toward him. " When we stopped to water the 'orses, my Lord Mr. Vaughan, I mean," pursued Roberts, " hafter this gentleman hand 'is son got in, a countryman who was driving away from the trough hinformed Jenkins hand me that the detective police were out in all directions in search hof a hescaped burglar and 'orse-thief a regular prison-bird who 'ad a boy with 'im, hand that a reward of a thousand dollars 'ad been hoffered for the happrehension of the same. AN A MEXICAN COUNTESS. 55 Similarly, on the top of an 'igh 'ill a hofficer on 'orseback haccosted us with the same hinformation. But Jenkins and me 'adn't seen no one of that disreputable cast so we couldn't give him any satis- faction. But " here Roberts stopped. " Proceed, Roberts," said Mr. Vaughan. " But hany man might get harrested on suspicion, my Lord Mr. Vaughan, I mean and hi put it to you, my Lord Mr. Vaughan, I mean if you think it safe, with the police hout like sleuth 'ounds, for honest men to be traveling on foot with boys ?" "Anything more, Roberts ?" demanded Mr. Vaughan, with an air that marked him so much above police officers and prison-birds and men traveling on foot with boys, that I wondered Rob- erts did not abandon the subject and withdraw in confusion. " Hexcuse me, my Lord Mr. Vaughan, I mean but it would be such a pity such a pretty boy, you see such a huncommonly pretty boy," returned Roberts, with so intent a look at Mr. Vaughan as rendered it doubtful if he were not the pretty boy in question. "Anything more, Roberts ?" again urged Mr. Vaughan, with condescending patience, meantime inspecting me critically as I sat observant in my fine linen frills and gorgeous new suit. " Nothink, my Lord Mr. Vaughan, I mean ex- cept that if the wrong man should 'appen to get harrested hon suspicion " Roberts paused once more, and Mr. Vaughan transferred his steely blue 56 BRINKA : eyes from me to Captain Corrie's calm, honest face (he had an honest face), and then, for the third time, repeated his question to Roberts with a pa- tience so serenely unruffled in its condescension that one must admire the perfection of good breed- ing that prompted it. " Honly, my Lord Mr. Vaughan, I mean that hif the wrong man should 'appen to get harrested hon suspicion it might go 'ard with the boy, hand 'e just from a bed of sickness." Mr. Vaughan glanced again at Captain Corrie, who, pale, but quite composed, met his cold, search- ing look with clear, open eyes eyes, I felt, as I looked up into his handsome and very grave coun- tenance, that spoke him good and true at heart, and I crept up close to him, he quietly putting out his arm and drawing me still closer. " Oh, papa !" exclaimed Brinka, eagerly, her dark- eyes gazing up into her father's face, " ask the little boy's only friend he told you he was the little boy's only friend, you know ask him where he is going, papa, and then we can take him there, you know. Roberts says the policemen will do some- thing to him, and then the little boy won't have any friend, papa, and he is such a nice boy." " You hear my daughter's request, sir. Where is it you are taking the boy ?" asked Mr. Vaughan, with frigid condescension. " First to Providence, sir, and from there to " " Papa, papa, you hear. He says he is going to Providence," broke in little Brinka, with her pretty A