AUHMX 5 441 B ■^ ^A& u53 Tales from McClure's RAISING A PETROLEUM TORCH, HE WAS ABOUT TO HURL IT ON THE ROOF OF HER VERANDA." Tales from McClure's ADVENTURE THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY By Earl Joslyn DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES By George H. Jessop A LEAP IN THE DARK By James T. McKay HOW CASSIE SAVED THE SPOONS By Annie Hovvells Frechette A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS By Lizzie Hver Neff TWO MODERN PRODIGALS By James F. McKay NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO. 1898 Copyright, 1897, by DOUBLEDAY & McClURE CO. CONTENTS 1782194 PAGE The Mistress of the Foundry • .. i By Earl Joslyn Dreams Go by Contraries , , • 33 By George H. Jessop A Leap in the Dark . . . •65 By James T. McKay How Cassie Saved the Spoons . . 97 By Annie Howells Frechette A Strange Story: The Lost Years . .123 By Lizzie Hyer Neff Two Modern Prodigals . , .161 By James F. McKay THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY BY Earl Joslyn THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY POUR off!" The molder waited a moment by his crucible of glowing, molten metal; then in a loud, deep voice he cried again: " Pour off !" Don, the foreman of the foundry, turned with impatience to three young fellows who were sorting metal chips out of a barrel of foundry sweepings, and who were all smok- ing clay pipes. " Pat, Jack, and Mike, when you hear a molder call ' pour off,' you get to him lively," he said shortly. The foreman's eyes sparkled ominously as he watched the trio hustling over copper ingots and piles of zinc, dodging, now and 3 TALES FROM McCLURE'S then, stacks of flasks. " Shut the window, there, Mike; you '11 bu'st your cylinder," he roared. "Water!" called the molder. " Here, you, Pat, why don't you have the watering-pot always full? The flask-boards will burn to cinders while you 're fetching it. You 're a dandy! " The foreman turned away disgusted. ?'he metal was poured into the small holes prepared for it. Tongues of beautifully col- ored flame darted from the beds of sand, and the smoke, full of ashy flakes, rose in billows. Bang! There was an explosion louder than usual. The molder and his helpers laughed; they always liked to hear a good round report. " That will be a fine cylinder ring," said Don. "Now go help the core-boys; they are crowded. And look alive," he added, glancing sharply at the three. " And what did ye hear at the mission the night, Mike McCoy? " asked Luke Reardon of his bench-mate. "The mission, Luke? Father Gogarty 's 4 THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY after askin' where the likes of you bees," responded Mike. " ' Luke 's a hard one/ says Father Gogarty. *He 's traveled many a mile hanging on under a freight-car, and he 's niver a bit consarned for his sowl, that '11 go to purgatory some day by way of a header,' says Father Gogarty." "Come off, now," laughed Luke; "Father Gogarty niver said that. But what did ye hear at mission, I ask ye, Mike McCoy?" " Ah, thin, Luke, the father kept saying, * Stand up now.' Be the time I was well up he said, * Sit down now.' It bein' a new ser- vice. Father Gogarty had hard work to kape us movin'. He gave us a dressing down at the end. ' You 're in your sates, aisy and comfortable,' he says, * when ye should be on your knees. Kape watch on me,' says he, 'and whin I jinnyflict then you jinnyflict.' Them missions is pious work, Luke." At ten minutes of six the men were wash- ing up. "Going to the union to-night, Timmy?" asked Tom Mahanney. "'Dade, that I am, Tom. We '11 spoil Mowry. He won't hire union men to work 5 TALES FROM McCLURE'S for him, and we '11 see that his pots are doctored. Did ye know that the big cast- ing that he sint to Dinver was brittle as glass? I know the man that made it. ' That '11 bu'st suddint on you, Mowry,' says my fri'nd, when he poured it. ' You need n't be so high and mighty with us brotherhood felleys. You '11 come down a peg,' says he." "Hist, hist, Timmy; there 's the missis." A lady dressed in plain black stood in the smoky foundry. She was perhaps thirty-five years old, but she was still extremely girlish in figure and face. She was speaking with Don. " Good night, Mr. Donoghue," she said when she had finished talking, and then stepped lightly along, bowing courteously to the men as she passed them. "I does hate to have the missis see me when my shirt 's all open and I 'm as red as a gobbler," said young Dan Doyle. "Red, are you, Dan?" mocked Luke. "You 're the greenest Irishman that ever stood on ten toes." " Tin, is it, Luke ! Dan stands on nine iver since the bottom of Paddy O'Shea's crucible 6 THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY fell out and slopped on Dan's feet," said Dennis Slavin, the oldest man in the foundry. "The missis is polite to us jacks," said Dick Flanaghan, in his shrill, squeaking voice. ''That last hot day, I was all of a lather, and had been dusting me work with charcoal. The wind blew it in me face, and I looked like a striped devil. Don was off to a picnic. Up comes the missis smiling. I wanted to jump under me bench. 'Mr, Flanaghan,' says she, ' and will ye be having them hame balls ready to go on the last ex- press the night?' 'Shure, they 're poured and cooling there,' says I; 'but you '11 have to ask Mike if he '11 be after tumbling them.' * Thank ye, Mr. Flanaghan,' says she. Any- body niver called me ' mister ' before. She did me proud. She 's the lady for ye." "You're long-winded, Dick," broke in Don. "Don't you see I 'm waiting to lock the door? Dump them grates, Pat. Must I tell you ivery night to put the fires out?" The men hurried out on the street, and went clumsily homeward. Mrs. Sterns, the "missis," had gone toward High Street to 7 TALES FROM McCLURE'S her house. Half an hour after her entrance she was seated at her dainty dinner-table. She had changed her foundry dress for a delicate tea-gown. A letter bearing an Eng- lish postmark had been placed by her plate. An immense mastiff lay stretched out on a rug by her chair; he was always near his mis- tress when she was at home. Between the courses she read the letter. ''I am gone much longer, Kate dear," her husband wrote, " than I expected to be. Some litigation has arisen about the patent, and will keep me here several months longer; but after we win the case— as we shall— I can quickly negotiate the sale and return. The patent is more valuable than I thought, and will greatly increase our wealth. Can you hold the men together? There are signs of re- newed labor troubles." Mrs. Sterns laid down the letter and mused. It was a hard task that was set her. The molders and polishers, from Big Luke to little Joe, her office-boy, were do- voted to her. They would not trouble the " missis." But Parker, the bookkeeper, was 8 THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY hostile to her, and resented her appoint- ment as treasurer in her husband's absence. Parker was an untried man, the trusty old bookkeeper having died a year before Mr. Sterns's departure to England. Preston, too, the manager, was against her and friendly to Parker. Moreover, Parker was nephew to the wife of the president of the corporation, Edward Starkey. Starkey was not pleased with Sterns's lack of confidence in his relative, as shown by the latter's choice of assistant treasurer. Sterns had signed Starkey's notes— to what extent Mrs. Sterns did not know. That way might lie ruin. She would do her best, she replied to her husband's letter, but she must know for what amount he was on Starkey's paper. "I am confident that Parker is dishonest," she continued, " though I cannot detect any fraud; but I am continually on the alert, and shall unearth it if any exists." The next morning at nine Mrs. Sterns was at her desk. She opened the morning mail, and passed the orders to Parker for entry, with the letters that must be answered. She 9 TALES FROM McCLURE'S receipted the bills that had been paid, and placed the checks in the bank-book. Look- ing up just then, she saw Moore, the foreman of the polishing-room, standing by her and waiting. " I can't get them air-chambers off to-day, Mrs. Sterns," he said. " Jim 's out. He 's sick with the copper dust. It busted his lungs, and they 're bleeding. He '11 be all right to-morrow. Nobody can do them so good as Jim." "I am sorry for Jim," answered Mrs. Sterns; "but, Moore, we must send the large air-chamber to-day. It goes into a great ocean steamer that sails from New York Friday, and it will not get there a mo- ment too soon." " I 'm doing that one," Moore said. " Don't hurt your lungs, Mike." "No; I look out for mesilf; I wears wet sponges," he said as he left the office. The other foremen came for orders. They would not take them from Parker if they could avoid it, nor report to him. Parker was unpopular with the men, chiefly on 10 THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY account of his curt way of speaking to them. So the day went. Soon after one o'clock Parker returned from the bank with the money to pay off the men. Mrs. Sterns had previously signed a check, which he had had cashed. He threw on the table before him the heavy bag of silver and bills, which he proceeded to count and place in the pay-en- velopes. While he was doing this Mrs. Sterns noticed a peculiar flutter of the eyelids. It occurred to her that she had been carefully excluded from the work of the pay-roll. She turned her chair round to her desk, and in- wardly debated what course to pursue in order to get this business into her own hands in a way that would arouse no suspicion on Parker's part. She knew that she must be wary. After Parker had finished paying off the men, he was obliged to go out of the city on business for the company. Being hurried to catch the train, he inadvertently left the pay-roll book out of his desk, which he care- fully locked before leaving. 11 TALES FROM McCLURE'S Shortly after he had gone, Don came in to ask her to have some files ordered. When she had made a memorandum of the sizes and kinds, she inquired: "How much are your wages a week, Donoghue?" *' Eighteen dollars, ma'am," he answered. " Can you give me a list of all the men's wages per day, Don?" " Yes, ma'am." "Will you keep dark, Donoghue?" " Yes, ma'am— glad to." "I depend on you, Donoghue," said Mrs. Sterns, looking keenly at the foreman. "You 're safe, ma'am," replied the fore- man, and respectfully touched his paper cap. Mrs. Sterns put the pay-roll book into her black satin hand-bag, and as she was leaving the foundry Don placed in her hand the daily wage-list. Then she went homeward. Kaiser was on the piazza, looking serious. It was the swill-gatherers' day, and he and the swill-gatherers were at feud. Kaiser objected on principle to any one that re- moved so much as a feather from the yard. 12 THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY He brightened up as he saw his mistress approaching, and marched majestically down the walk to greet her. "Good fellow, Kaiser," she said lightly, as the dog sprang joyfully up to her face. "Have you been kind to the pussies to- day?" After dinner Mrs. Sterns compared the wage-lists. Don reported himself as receiv- ing three dollars per day. Parker's record showed three dollars and seventy-five cents. According to Don's list, every employee re- ceived from seventy-five down to twenty cents a day less than Parker's book showed. On computation, Mrs. Sterns found that Parker professed to pay out two hundred dollars weekly more than Don's list called for. She was astonished and frightened at her discovery. Her heart beat rapidly. That night she telegraphed the facts of the case to her husband, and asked instruc- tions. Reply came: "Use your judgment for present. Have written." The next morning Parker was visibly dis- turbed, and remarked: 13 TALES FROM McCLURE'S "1 cannot find my pay-roll book, Mrs. Sterns." "Where did you leave it, Parker?" " In my desk, I thought. I went away in such a hurry that I may have left it outside." "Can you not remember, Parker?" con- tinued Mrs. Sterns. " No, I cannot," was the answer. " If I had entered on the ledger the amount of the pay-roll I would not mind the loss." " How much have you in the safe? Can- not you tell by that, Parker?" Mrs. Sterns was looking directly at Parker's face as she put the last question. " Yes, very nearly." "How much have you?" pursued Mrs. Sterns. " Fifty dollars," said Parker, after a pause. " Thirty-six of that came in this morning. Did you have fourteen dollars on hand?" "Yes," replied Parker, "I did." Mrs. Sterns said no more. What had he done with the two hundred dollars overplus? She had found that for six weeks he had falsified the pay-roll. 14 THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY Parker was very uneasy about the missing" book. Perhaps he suspected what had be- come of it; at all events, on the following pay-day he made out a correct list of wages. When all was ready Mrs. Sterns said: "I will pay the men, Parker. I like to know them by name, and if I pay them I shall remember them." Parker hesitated, but delivered up the enve- lopes with the best grace that he could muster. When her husband's letter came Mrs. Sterns learned that he had signed Starkey's notes for twenty-five thousand dollars, fifteen thousand dollars of which was due in thirty days. " I have instructed m.y lawyer," the letter continued, "to secure me when the first note falls due, and to manage as best he can on the second. Keep Parker with you until the notes are paid; then arrest him. My lawyer understands my wishes, and will act when the time comes for action." The strikes of that autumn will always be remembered by business men for their bitter- 15 TALES FROM McCLURE'S ness and long continuance. The brother- hoods of brass- and iron-workers were finally drawn into the strife. One evening, shortly before five o'clock, Mrs. Sterns saw six sooty- faced fellows enter the office. " We can't w^ork any more, missis," said Luke, who had been appointed spokesman. *'Why, Luke, what is the trouble?" in- quired Mrs. Sterns, considerably alarmed. " Nothing that you can help, missis," said Luke. " Fact of the case is, the union has ordered us to quit, and we must stop work to-night at five. We was ordered out last Saturday, but Don said we must help you out by finishing up the big order for them bibbs, so we got leave to stick by until now. I 'm dumbed sorry to serve you so, specially when your man 's gone ; but we can't help it. We '11 come back, ivery lad of us, as soon as the union lets us." Dick Flanaghan thrust forward his long, grimy arm, and bent down toward the desk his dark, alert face. ''We 're smokers, missis," he said excitedly, "but don't you be afraid; we '11 never smoke the likes of 16 DICK FLANAGHAN THRUST FORWARD HIS LONG GRIMY ARM, AND BENT DOWN TOWARD THE DESK HIS DARK, ALERT FACE." TALES FROM McCLURE'S you out, though we will some as lives near ye. If ye iver nade a strong arm, there 't is for ye." "Shut up, Dick Flanaghan," interrupted Luke. ''Ye was n't ilicted Paddy first of this diligation." Then, turning to Mrs. Sterns, Luke continued: "Will ye kindly pay us our wages to-morrow? Yis? Ye 're a lady. Don't ye be 'fraid of nothin'." The men shuffled awkwardly out of the office. Paddy O'Shea, who went last, slammed the door violently. A moment later he put his head in to say: " Beg pardon, missis; the door went togither aisier nor I expected." The workmen went slowly out of the foundry by twos and threes. Even Dave Collins, the clown of the foundry, wore for once a serious countenance, and lingered until the last moment. He went over to his corner near the core-oven, and said, "Good-by, old bench, till I come again." Then he reluctantly went his way. Dave had often cursed his place as being the hottest in the foundry, but now he regarded it with affection. 18 THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY Mrs. Sterns looked down the street after the receding figures of the men. It was two months before they returned to their work. In all that time not a foundry fire was lighted in the great city of Riverbank. Meanwhile the contest between the work- men and their employers increased in vio- lence, and now hunger began to press hard on the foundrymen's families. They always lived from hand to mouth, the tobacco and drink that the men consumed costing much more than the food of the women and chil- dren ; but for days past one scanty meal was all that the women could provide from their lean larders, and it seemed impossible to procure that little for any considerable time longer. The men were becoming dis- heartened, as their employers persisted in refusing to accede to their demands. Big Luke and Don met on the street one afternoon while affairs were at this pass. Luke was loud-mouthed against those whom he considered the oppressors of the poor. " It is to-night that we have a bonfire, Don,'' said Luke. "Will ye be there? That old 19 TALES FROM McCLURE'S wharf-rat, Mowry, is the one that holds out and kapes us fellers from gettin' back to work. He ain't starvin', and his wife 's got stacks of clothes in her drawers, that Dan Doyle's mother saw when she cl'aned house there,— more nor she could wear out in two lifetimes,— and here we bees half naked. Look at my ragged pants! See my shoes! Old Mo^\Ty wears 'good ones on his divil's hoof. Why don't he share his money with us working-men? We 're the producers. His foundry belongs to us. We made the money that paid for it. Manufacturers ought to diwy up the profits that the men makes. We 've got to scare them into it, Don; that 's what we 've got to do. They grind us poor men's faces till our noses are worn flat. You don't think as I do, Don; but it 's God's truth that I 'm after tellin' to you." " There 's some truth in what you 're say- in', Luke," admitted Don. ''Truth? I '11 tell ye more yet that 's true, Don. I have tramped it, and ye know it. Why did I tramp? Because no man 20 THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY under heaven can stand foundry smoke long, and ye know it. When ye have yer big melts of zinc, I 'm just about crazy after breathing the smoke. Poor Bob McEvoy has been luny twice from the effects of zinc, and is in the hospital now. If I did n't get out into the fields and breathe the fresh air, I 'd be stark crazy too. Sleepin' on the ground seems to take the pizen out o' me. The smoke don't strike to every molder's head, but it does to mine; and I 'd ruther have it there than in my kidneys, as others does. And what does Mowry care for us poor divils? I 've worked for him, and I knows him. The little core-boys asked him once for a raise of ten cints a day. They was gettin' seventy-five cints. Mowry discharged them on the spot; and that same week he bought his great hound and paid a thousand dollars for it. A thousand dollars, man, for a dog, but no ten cints for a boy ! That thou- sand dollars would buy me a fine little shanty, and then I would marry Bridie Hamilton, the purty little girl, and settle down to be stiddy. D' ye know what Howry's new house cost? 21 TALES FROM McCLURE'S Ninety thousand dollars he paid; and I have n't money to buy a pigsty! He would n't put in a blower to save his polisher's lungs, because it cost too much." "Things ain't right," said Don, who was listening with darkened face. "They '11 lose some of their fine things the night, though," said Luke, angrily. " Good-by. I have business on hand. I 'm going to engage the ' Water Witch.' The firemen are friends of mine." Luke lurched down the street toward the engine-house on Dover street, and Don went past the foundry. At one o'clock in the morning follo\sing this conversation a terrible alarm of fire sounded through the city of Riverbank. Springing from her bed and throwing on a heavy blanket-gown, Mrs. Sterns raised her curtain and looked out. The whole street seemed \^Tapped in fire. Mowry's handsome house opposite was a blazing mass. From the houses on her left and right lurid tongues of flame shot upward to the sky. Sup- THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY posing her house to be also on fire, she ran, in her alarm, to her door. There, in the shadows of the broad front piazza, she saw a figure crouching. Big Luke's voice whis- pered, '' Go back, missis; we 're watchin' your house before and behint. The ' Water Witch ^ is on the way, and will stand before your house, whoever else burns, and wet down the roof and walls. You 've been good to us; we '11 take care of you." Mrs. Sterns retreated. In three minutes more the " Water Witch " pulled up before her gate. Though ostensibly playing on the burning houses, she perceived that the sharp- est lookout was exercised over her home, and it escaped unscathed, although all around was a wall of fire. Never before in her ex- perience had she been so terrified; yet the conflagration so fascinated her that she could not turn her eyes from the terrible sights without. As she stood at one of the long French windows of her drawing- room, she saw a throng of laboring-men rapidly passing down the street, and dis- 23 TALES FROM McCLURE'S tinguished the rude words of their low chanting: "Smoke High Street louts! Burn her out, Burn her out!" She recognized Dick Flanaghan and Paddy O'Shea in the crowd. Opposite her granite steps, a dark, wild-faced man glowered at the house a moment; then, raising a petroleum torch, he was about to hurl it on the roof of her veranda. Dick Flanaghan's strong arm knocked the torch into the street. "Let alone, man," he commanded; "the missis lives there. Cheer, boys, cheer! Cheer for the missis ! " A yell as if from the throats of a thousand Tammany tigers went upward. " God," moaned the woman standing at the windows, "protect me from the horrors of this night!" The mastiff, bolt upright and growling low, stood by her side. Her old colored servant was shaking with terror in the rear of the room. "It 's de judg- ment-day," she groaned; " de Lord has come. My ole man alius said de world would bust 24 THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY and burn up like stubber. Oh, come, Lord Jesus! Send de golden chariot fo' me!" All that dreadful night, which seemed end- less to Mrs. Sterns, Big Luke was her self- constituted sentinel. Several times she heard him saying in a low, distinct tone, "Move on, boys; she 's all right." At five o'clock Luke tapped on the pane. Mrs. Sterns cautiously opened the door. "The cops is after us," he hoarsely whis- pered. "I '11 stay till daylight if I can. Leave your doors unfastened, missis, so I can skip through the house out into the back yard and get off." "Do you know the way, Luke?" " Better nor you do, missis," he replied. Just as the shadows of night were lifting, Mrs. Sterns saw three policemen closing in on the piazza. Luke was watching them. He gave a quick spring, met the one that was coming up the front steps, and pushed him backward. The man fell heavily on the flagstones, and lay there stunned. The others pursued Luke into the house. Run-. ning like a greyhound through the rooms, 25 TALES FROM McCLVRE'S whose doors were all set wide open, he saw through the kitchen windows another police- man waiting for him at the rear door. The mastiff and Mrs. Sterns reached the kitchen, by a short cut, in advance of the two men. Luke stood at bay. The largest of the policemen took out a pistol. The huge animal sprang threateningly between the policeman and the fugitive. Mrs. Sterns stepped, terrified, before the mastiff. " Don't shoot my dog, sir," she entreated; "don't shoot him." " Call off your dog, then, lady," said the man, roughly. That was enough. The infuriated beast heard the man speaking to his mistress in unfriendly tones. Before she could even attempt to call him off he had jumped, with a frightful growl, at the man's throat. When she had succeeded in pacifying the dog, the man lay on the floor, a sickening spectacle. " The other cop ran out front," explained Luke, as Mrs. Sterns looked around the room. " I must be off, missis. They will send twenty cops here to take me " ; and Luke leaped out 26 THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY of a window at the rear of the house. The wounded man writhed on the floor, while Candace crooned a weird judgment hymn, whose burden was: " Gabriel sounds his mighty trumpet." "Stop singing, Candace. It is not the judgment-day," said Mrs. Sterns. " Laws, missis, I 'se dead sure I heard him blow," replied Candace, in a tone hoarse with fear. " No, no. Go to the sideboard and bring me some brandy for this poor man," said her mistress. While she was engaged in caring for him, six stalwart policemen came in at the back door. They tenderly took away their lacer- ated comrade, first searching the house for Luke. " He is the toughest customer in the State, ma'am," remarked the chief of police. " He has been in more jails than I have ever seen. He 's hard to handle, too. I have seen him knock out three police. Was in your employ, do I understand you to say? Well, foundry- 27 TALES FROM McCLURE'S men are a hard crowd. It has been a terri- ble night's work; the city is wild with fear." About eight o'clock on the evening after the fires, Bridie Hamilton, stylishly if not tastefully dressed, was standing on a narrow platform in the rear of Riverbank's railway- station. Suddenly a man emerged from under a freight-car that was standing de- tached from the other cars. "Oh, Luke," exclaimed Bridie, "I got word where ye were from Dick Flanaghan's brother, that works here. Are ye going away again? Don't go; stay here." Tears rolled down her face, and Luke awkwardly tried to com- fort her. " I '11 come back, Bridie darlint, shure, soon as I darst to; and don't ye be cryin'. The cops will get me if I stay here. Say," he continued, as her distress increased, "I HI send ye money to come to Fairlee, and we '11 get married." " Let me go with ye now, Luke/' begged the girl, piteously. "Father Gogarty will marry us to-night. We Ve been called, and my clothes are all ready." 28 THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY " Mine ain't," said Luke, ruefully. " I Ve got nothin' on but me old jumper and me old pants, and it ain't safe for me to ride in a car with ye. No, darlint; ye must wait." " Oh," moaned the girl, " I 'm afraid I '11 never see ye again, Luke, me lovely darlin.* Do take me to Father Gogarty. I 've got fifty dollars in me pocket that I earned dressmaking. I '11 go in the car, and ye can ride under it if you 're afraid to sit with me. We can start at eleven to-night. Ye will have time to go and put on your good clothes. The cops won't know ye if ye go in a hack. Do let me go with ye, Luke, there 's a dear." '^I 've got a nice coat and vest in the trunk in me room. If I had some dacint pants I 'd do, now," said Luke, half yielding. " But, Bridget, me dear, I wanted to give ye a handsome send-off. I wanted jest for once to ride in the parlor-car by yer side. Ye have no idee how like a gintleman I look when I 'm clane. I took a Turkish bath once, when I went to the ball of the United Brotherhood, and I came out white. Old 29 TALES FROM McCLURE'S Mowry, with his club-foot, niver looked half so fine as mesilf then; and ye Ve got a purty face, and we would be a stylish-look- ing couple. Ye 're as handsome as a picter, and ye 're the object of me affic- tions, Bridget, me girl." "Call me Bridie, Luke dear. Bridget is so common." "It was me ould mother's name," said Luke, apologetically. " Send that little feller there for a hack, Luke," pleaded Bridie. Finally,after more entreaties,Luke yielded, and the two went in a carriage through the dark streets to Father Gogarty's house. At half-past ten they reappeared in the station. Luke kept in the dark corners, and Bridie, carrying her satchel, entered the cars. At eleven the train pulled out, with Mrs. Bridie sitting in the parlor-car, and Luke hanging to its under side. It was summer-time again in Riverbank, and the windows and doors of Sterns's foundry were all wide open. Mrs. Sterns 30 d THE MISTRESS OF THE FOUNDRY went in at the main entrance, nodded good morning to the men, and went into the office, where sat her husband, a man royal in body and soul. Hearing the door open, he raised his head. " Ah, here comes the little mis- tress of the foundry," he said, smiling. " Take a seat. The money is ready for you to pay off the men. I suppose that you will never relinquish the pleasure of putting money into the men's hands. No wonder you are so popular with them." When she came to Dick Flanaghan's bench, and he had counted his pay, he nodded and said, " All right, missis." Then, taking his clay pipe from his mouth, he con- tinued, " And have ye heard the news about Luke, ma'am?" " No, indeed; what is it? " eagerly inquired Mrs. Sterns. "Well, Luke he went down to Pennsylvania to work in a coal-mine. His name was Hugh Brierly down there. Luke he thought there was going to be a strike among the miners; and he niver could kape out of a strike no- how, missis. Luke was boss in the riots 31 TALES FROM McCLURE'S there last spring, and he carried on wild. He would n't let the trains move, and so the guvnor sent down the meleeshy to smash the miners. Luke and a gang of men behind him met the train that was fetchin' the sojers, and pitched rocks down the bank and ditched the train. Then them sojers just chased after the strikers, and shot lots of them. Luke got a ball through his heart." "Poor Luke!" said Mrs. Sterns, with un- affected sorrow; "poor, misguided Luke!" S2 DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES BY George H. Jessop DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES " T DON'T want to hurry any one," remarked 1 our host, shaking the ashes out of a well- blackened meerschaum, " but we have a long day before us to-morrow, and if any one wants any sleep, this is the time to take it." No response from anyone of the half-dozen men lounging in the snug arm-chairs of that most perfectly appointed smoking-room. "I don't mind," said Sir Alan. "Two or three hours in bed are enough for me at any time. Please pass the spirit-case, Jones. I wonder you *re not sleepy, Tom Everton. Tou used always to be in bed by eleven when you had an early morning in prospect; 35 TALES FROM McCLURE'S but I suppose matrimony has cured you of that, along with other failings." ** Tom says he is n't going," some one re- marked. "Not going! Pooh! nonsense! I thought he M made up his mind to bring down a hart royal at least, or leave his bones on Balma- quidder Brae." Mr. Everton looked decidedly uncomfor- table. " I— I should like to try, of all things," he stammered; "but— well— I won't— at least I think— I — I sha'n't go with you to-morrow —that is, if Sir Alan will excuse me." " Please yourself and you '11 please me," replied the hospitable baronet; "but if it is n't any secret, I 'd like to know what has made you change your mind so sud- denly." " He promised Mrs. Everton he would n't go," broke in the previous speaker. " She dreamed a dream, and, like Pharaoh's chief baker, she thought there was something in it." " Do be quiet, Jones," interrupted Everton, 36 DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES irritably. " My wife had a rather odd dream last night, and she 's a bit nervous, you know, and— well, after all, it 's not much to give up one day's deer-stalking, if any one 's going to make herself miserable over it." We all knew one another pretty well, this little circle of guests collected by Sir Alan to help him to shoot his Scotch mountain, and very free and outspoken was the "chaff" that flew around poor Tom Everton's devoted head. He bore it with great good humor for some time, till Jones made a rather uncalled- for remark involving questions of free will and "petticoat government." Then Tom flared up. " I don't stay at home because I 'm afraid of an3rthing, but simply because I have promised. My wife dreamed that I went out with this party, and it grew late without any of us coming back. Then she thought she saw me lying face down in the Balma- quidder, and she seemed to know I was dead. I don't remember the details, but I know she worked herself up into a shocking nervous state about it till I promised not to go. Of 37 TALES FROM McCLURE'S course it 's all nonsense; I know that; but what can I do?" "Do as you promised!" It was Colonel Eyre's deep voice that uttered the words, and we all glanced round at the speaker. He had remained silent during the badinage occa- sioned by Everton's determination, sitting with his tumbler of Scotch whisky and water in front of him, puffing away silently at the short brier-root, whose bowl scarcely cleared the sweep of his heavy grizzled mustache. He was holding the pipe in his hand now, sitting erect, and speaking with unmistakable earnestness of manner: "Do as you prom- ised, and don't be too sure it 's all nonsense, either. I have known cases in which men have lived to be very thankful that they yielded to a presentiment." " But this was a dream, colonel," broke in the irrepressible Jones. " Dream be it, then! Stay at home, Ever- ton. As you say, it 's not much to miss a day's shooting; and if you neglect this warn- ing, the chances are you may never live to regret it." The speaker took a sip from the 38 TALES FROM McCLURE'S tumbler in front of him, replaced his pipe be- tween his lips, and leaned back as if the sub- ject were at an end. But the colonel, an Indian officer of many- years' service, was popularly supposed to have led a life of adventure, and to have figured in more than one story whose excit- ing incidents could well bear repetition. As a rule he was a taciturn man, and it was by no means easy to " set him talking," as the story- goes. The present seemed an opportunity too good to be lost, and several voices de- manded the experience by whose authority he had spoken so decidedly. "Well, yes," said Colonel Eyre, slowly; "I have seen a presentiment very remarkably fulfilled. I am not much of a hand at yarn- ing, but, if you wish, I have no objection to give you a leaf out of my own book, if it 's only that you may leave my friend Tom here in peace to follow his own course, without badgering him about it. Yes, I mean you, Mr. Jones," he went on, impaling that help- less youngster with a glance that sent him nervously to the spirit-case, while the rest of 40 DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES US settled ourselves comfortably to listen, and Sir Alan, with a ** Fire ahead, colonel," drew his chair forward into a better position. " It was a good while after the breaking of the monsoon in '68," began the colonel, slowly. " The weather was cool and pleasant enough, so that, on the face of it, it seemed no great hardship when I was ordered to take a detachment down to Sumbulpur. I was stationed at Raipur at the time, in the Orissa district, and word came of some trouble with the Zemindars above Sumbul- pur. The only thing that seemed incon- venient was the suddenness of the order. It was just * fall in and march out ' without delay of an hour. I was a young married man in those days, pretty much in the posi- tion of my friend Tom Everton, with a wife of two years and a bit of a baby a few months old. It was n't pleasant to leave them behind me in a place like Raipur, and of course it was out of the question to start them at an hour's notice. I spoke to my bearer, Josein, one of the best native servants I ever saw, and directed him to make arrangements for 41 TALES FROM McCLURE'S an early march on the following morning. He was to see my family driven quietly over to Sumbulpur in the tonga. They were to travel by easy stages under the charge of a careful bilewallah. If there are any * griffs ' in this company, I may explain for their benefit that a tonga is a kind of bullock- wagon, and a bilewallah is the driver of the same. Well, I had just time for a few words of comfort and farewell— Tom will appreciate all that— before I rode out of Raipur at the head of my column. We camped that night in the jungle, after a march of about twenty miles, and it was under canvas that I was visited with the dream or presentiment, or whatever you choose to call it, that gives such point as it may possess to this old-time yarn of mine." The colonel paused to refill his glass, but every one's interest was now awakened, and no one broke the momentary silence that ensued. " It was pretty late before I fell asleep," resumed Colonel Eyre, setting down his tumbler, "and it was still dark when I 42 DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES awoke, or seemed to awake, with my wife's voice ringing in my ears— a shriek of agony that made me start up from my pillow and listen breathlessly. There was a lantern burning in my tent,— I had left it so when I lay down,— and by the glimmer of light I saw a large, dark mass spread itself between me and the canvas roof and gradually settle down on my head. I did not know what it was,— it was vague and formless in outline, —but I had a consciousness that it was something of a dangerous nature,— some- thing that threatened my life,— and I strug- gled to throw myself to one side or the other. In vain: I could not move hand or foot. I lay as if chained to the bed, and still the dark mass descended, shutting out light and air, and seeming to suffocate me." *' Nightmare!" remarked Sir Alan. "Very possibly," returned the colonel. " Suddenly, just as I gave myself up for lost and sank back on the pillow exhausted, I heard my wife's voice again, this time clear and articulate. ' Save yourself, Gerald,' it cried. * Make one more effort for my sake.' 43 TALES FROM McCLURE'S I glanced up at the threatening outline, nerving myself for a final struggle. It was no longer formless; its approach had ceased to be slow. Swift as the swoop of a falcon it descended upon me— the immense body of a tiger on the spring, its cruel jaws agape, its enormous paws with every claw unsheathed, and its hot, fetid breath on my very brow! " " A decidedly uncomfortable dream," ob- served Jones. " Of course all this passed in one tenth of the time I take to tell it. I rolled out from under the hungry jaws, and just as I reached the ground I heard the angry growl of the baffled monster, followed by a shattering roar loud enough to waken the Seven Sleep- ers. As my senses came back tt me I found myself lying half on the ground, half on my low camp-bed, my body bathed in perspira- tion, and trembling in every limb. Just then my batman put his head inside the tent-flap and asked me if I had heard the roar, adding that there was a tiger in the camp. I pulled on my clothes, and I could hear the men walk- ing about among the tents, searching and 44 TALES FROM McCLURE'S whispering; but no trace of a tiger could we discover." *' Then it was a real tiger? " inquired Tom. *' It would seem so, as the whole camp had heard the roar as well as myself. However, it was almost morning by this time, and as every one was afoot, and moments were precious, I gave orders to push on at once. A hurried chota hazree was quickly prepared and despatched, and by the time the sun rose we were fairly on our way, with a good prospect of reaching Sumbulpur before night- fall. I could n't shake off the impression of the dream, however, try as I would. Besides, some natives who had come in before we broke camp told us of a man-eater which had been infesting the district. A tiger that has once tasted human flesh, as you may have heard, is never content ^^^th beef or venison afterward, and they sometimes make themselves the terror of a whole country-side before they are shot. What with the vague misgivings suggested by my dream, and the tangible danger of the man- eater, I found myself growing more and more 46 DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES uneasy with every mile we marched. Finally I determined to turn back and meet my wife. I was well mounted, and I believed I could gallop to the rear, assure myself that all was well with her, and pick up my command again before it reached Sumbulpur. I left the de- tachment in charge of a sergeant,— poor old Busbee, he died of jungle-fever that same year,— and rode back as fast as King Tom, a very speedy chestnut, could lay leg to ground. I passed the spot where we had spent the night, and kept on several miles beyond without seeing anything to cause un- easiness. My fears were beginning to dis- perse, and common sense made itself heard. I realized that I might find it very difficult to give a satisfactory explanation of my ab- sence if the men reached Sumbulpur with- out me — they do not pay much attention to dreams at headquarters. This view of the case became more impressive with each mile I rode, and I determined that if the next turn in the path did not bring my family into view, or show me some other good reason for push- ing on, I would turn back and rejoin my com- 47 TALES FROM McCLURE'S mand. Thus resolved, I cantered forward, swung round the tangled angle of brush that limited my view, and saw—" Here the colonel stopped for another sip of whisky and water. DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES "What did you see?" cried Sir Alan. "Your wife?" " Yes, sir ; I saw her. She was sitting with the baby in her lap in the tonga— pale— I have never seen such an expression of strained terror on any human countenance. The bilewallah was in front, trying to keep the bullocks, which seemed almost frantic with fear, to the path. I knew the man well,— one of the best hands with a team at the station, — but just then his face was so distorted with fright that I hardly recognized him. You know that lilac-grayish tinge a native's face gets when he is scared almost to death—" " I know, I know," broke in Sir Alan. " But what was the matter— what was frightening them? Could you see anything?" "Indeed I could," replied the colonel. "Cause enough they had. Not five yards behind them trotted the largest tiger it has ever been my fortune to see." Various exclamations testified to the com- pleteness of the surprise to which Colonel Eyre had treated his audience. 49 TALES FROM MeCLURE'S "Was it a man-eater?" I asked. " At first I supposed it was, but if it had been I never should have seen them alive. After I shot the beast—" "Oh, you did shoot him?" " Don't ask me how! I am counted a fair shot— I was far better then; but when I leveled my rifle at that brute's heart, when I realized how much hung on the result,— for if I had missed, or if I had merely wounded him, he would have been in the tonga at a single spring, and nothing under heaven 50 DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES itself could have saved those dearest to me from a horrible death,— when I realized all this, I don't know how I found the nerve to pull the trigger. I suppose I knew it was the only chance. My appearance had enraged the animal, and he was just preparing to spring. This I do know, and I 'm not ashamed to own it: when I saw that I had laid the tiger out with a single shot— a thing that does n't happen twice in a life- time—I fell flat beside the tonga in the act of helping my wife down; for the first and last time in my life I fainted. "Yes, it was a pretty hard trial on the nerves," resumed the colonel, as our discus- sion of the situation sank into silence, " but nothing to what my wife had gone through. That tiger had followed them for more than four miles through the jungle. The bile- wallah, with rare presence of mind, had managed to keep the bullocks to their steady jog-trot; any increase of pace or ap- pearance of flight would have provoked a spring. She, poor woman, had succeeded in hushing her baby, for had the child cried 51 TALES FROM McCLURE'S nothing is surer than that the sound would have led to an attack. It must have been an awful four miles for her. It was years be- fore she recovered from the effect." " And why did not the tiger attack them? " inquired Jones. "Does any one know?" " The animal was doubtless waiting to kill them till they got into the vicinity of water," explained Colonel Eyre. "Tigers often do that with cattle and other large quarry. There was water a mile or less farther on. I had noticed it myself in passing. If I had not come upon the ground, another ten minutes would have sealed their fate." " So it may fairly be said that your dream was the means of saving their lives," observed Tom Everton, who, although the most silent, had not been the least attentive of the listeners. "I think we may fairly admit so much," replied Colonel Eyre. " If it had not been for my dream I do not think the report of the man-eater would have brought me back. On the other hand, but for hearing about the man-eater and actually being awakened by 52 DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES the roar of a tiger, I am not sure that the dream would have had weight enough with me to induce me to leave a detachment on the march— a serious thing, gentlemen, as some of you who are soldiers know well enough." "It 's a very curious circumstance, cer- tainly," observed Sir Alan; and then there was a pause. "But see here, colonel," Tom broke in again, " the dream, if a warning at all, was a warning of danger to you yourself; and though you certainly heard Mrs. Eyre's voice calling to you, yet it was urging you to save yourself, and not summoning you to her as- sistance." " That is very true, and it puzzled me at the time. But, as I argued, it is wonderful enough to get a warning of danger in the future at all ; you must not expect to have it spelled out to you in large print. Now as to this dream of Mrs. Everton's— it prefigures danger to you, as I understand?" " You must go to Mrs. Everton herself for the details. All that I remember is that she 53 TALES FROM McCLURE'S saw me lying drowned in the Balmaquidder, and read the vision as a warning that some accident would befall me if I joined the shooting-party to-morrow. But, by the light of your experience, it would seem the danger is to her, not to me." "I'm not quite so sure of that," returned the colonel, thoughtfully. ''Well, I think there can be no question that your dream saved your wife's life," ob- 54 DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES served Jones, upon whose skepticism the colo- nel's narrative had made some impression. " No question at all," rejoined that officer, rising; "and therefore, young man, pay at- tention to dreams, whether they be your own or those of your better half, which should be, afortioriy better and more reliable than your own. Good night, gentlemen. It 's past one o'clock, and we have an early start before us." In ten minutes more silence and darkness reigned in the smoking-room of Balmaquid- der Lodge. Next morning the men of the party were up and stirring betimes. As I left my bed- room, candle in hand, I heard voices proceed- ing from the apartment occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Everton. " Ah ha," thought I ; " Tom's curtain lecture is not over yet." However, our friend's absence was forgotten in the en- joyment of a substantial Highland breakfast, and by the time the sun asserted his power against the mist we were bravely breasting a steep mountain-side, spurred on by the hope of a good day's sport. 55 TALES FROM McCLURE'S Only one incident occurred at our start. Sir Alan was setting his face against a steep brae when he was stopped by the bare-legged gillie who acted as our guide. ** Dinna gae yon gait, Sir Alan. We must win ower by the brig below." "Can't we get across by the stepping- stones at the ford?" inquired our host, im- patiently. "The bridge is a mile of a round." " I dinna ken that the stanes '11 be ower muckle safe, Sir Alan, forbye ye canna see them at a' wi' the white water swirling ower them, and the pool maybe ten feet deep close in under them. We mought win ower recht enoo, an' again we mought na, ye ken—" " Yes, I ken," interrupted SirAlan. " We '11 go round by the bridge, gentlemen. There 's a flood in the river, it appears— a cheerful habit the Balmaquidder has when you least want it or expect it." By the bridge accordingly we went; and when I saw the brown water whirling down in swift eddies I was thankful that we had not attempted the stepping-stones. 56 DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES It was evening, and fast growing dark, when we reached the gl^ on our return, wet, tired, and hungry, but thoroughly sat- isfied with the day's result. We were step- ping out briskly, for we knew we were close to home, when a big mountain hawk swooped right in front of us. Jones, who had not drawn the cartridge from his rifle, let fly on the instant, without remembering how small was his chance with a bullet at quarry on the wing. We were amusing ourselves chaff- ing Jones as the bird flew off untouched, when Colonel Eyre, who was a few steps to the rear, pulled up short and raised his hand to signal for silence. We all heard it then— a shrill, lamentable voice ringing sharply from the hillside. There was no mistaking the purport of that appeal: it was a cry for help. But the mist was beginning to settle, and the echo baffled us. For a moment we looked blankly at one another and around, not knowing whither to turn. Again the cry, "Help, help, help!" with a note of agony in it that stirred the blood like 57 TALES FROM McCLURE'S a trumpet. " God guide us— 't is at the foord above you," cried the giUie; and, tired as we were, none of us were far behind him when he reached the stepping-stones. They w^ere hidden by a mass of swirling, broken water; but just below them lay the pool of which the guide had spoken— calm by comparison with the ford, but agitated, nevertheless, with a swift current that flashed between steep banks faced with granite; as ugly a place for an accident as might be found in the whole length of the brawling Balmaquidder. And an accident had happened, plainly enough. On one of the granite boulders knelt Mrs. Everton, leaning back with all her might against the drag of a plaid, one end of which she held, while the other was lost in the black shadows of the pool. She heard our footsteps as we ran up, but did not turn her head. "Help, help!" she cried again. " I can't hold on much longer, and he— oh— " She broke off with a sob as strong hands relieved her of the extemporized life-line; 58 -/•-= TALES FROM McCLURE'S and Colonel Eyre, bending forward, peered down into the obscurity of the pool. I was one of those w^ho had grasped the shore end of the plaid, and the strain told me that whoever was below still maintained his grasp. *'Can you hold on another mo- ment?" asked the colonel; then, without waiting for a reply, "Cling close for dear life. Now, boys, gently does it. A steady, slow pull— no jerking"; and in another mo- ment the dripping, half-senseless form of Tom Everton was drawn out on the bank, his drowning grip of the plaid still unloos- ened, and laid beside the fainting form of his wdfe. " It was this way," Tom explained some hours later, when we were all assembled for our usual smoking-room symposium. '*I dare say I was pretty cross all day, thinking of the sport you fellows were having and all I was missing, and toward evening my wife suggested that we should walk out and try to meet you. We kept along the river up to the stepping-stones; but the crossing there looked so bad that my wife would not hear 60 DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES of my attempting it. I did not think it so very dangerous, but I dare say I 'd have let her have her own way—" " As you usually do," interjected Jones. " —when all of a sudden I heard a shot 61 TALES FROM McCLURE'S close by on the other side. Then I started over at once. I 've been across the ford a dozen times, but before I had taken three steps I found the stream was too strong for me. I tried to turn back, but the current seemed to whirl me right off my feet; I went sliding over the slippery stones, and in two seconds I was soused well over my head into the pool below, and spinning round like a troll in a brook. I tried to grasp hold of something on the bank, but that was the only result,"— showing his lacerated hands, —"and I think I must have been very close to kingdom come when something or another flapped in my face. I clutched it and hung on like grim death; it w^as Jenny's plaid, which she had the presence of mind to fling me and the pluck and strength to hold on to till you came to help. God bless her, I say,"— Tom's voice faltered a little, — " she 's a wife to be proud of; and the next time she has a dream and wants me to stay at home, she sha'n't have to ask me twice." "Oh, by the by, the dream!" broke in Sir Alan. "Is this accident to Tom to be re- 62 DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES garded as the fulfilment of his wife's dream or not?" "Mrs. Everton's dream was a warning," said the colonel. " I should say that, having profited by the warning—" "But stay," I argued; "did she profit by the warning? She persuaded her husband to stay at home. Now, if he had gone with us he would have crossed by the bridge and been as safe as any of us. The dream did not save him. On the contrary, it very nearly drowned him." " She acted for the best, and all 's well that ends well," replied the colonel. " Look at my dream, now. If I had not gone to my wife's help and shot that tiger, I should never have seen her again. No, no; as I said before, you can't expect these warnings to be printed out in big type. You must just take them as they come, and chance your reading them aright." "And come within an ace of drowning yourself or some one else," interjected Jones. "It only bears out the old saying that 'dreams go by contraries,'" I remarked. 63 TALES FROM McCLURE'S "Still, these are a very remarkable pair of coincidences." " Here 's my view," said Sir Alan. " Eat light suppers, go to bed healthily tired, and you won't dream at all, or, if you must, for- get all about it as soon as possible. You can torture a warning out of almost any- thing, and make yourself WTetched trying to find out where the hidden danger is, and very likely rush right into it, as Everton did, try- ing to avoid it. Half the time dreams do go by contraries, and it 's dangerous meddling with what we don't understand." And by the time the spirit-case had com- pleted its next round we all agreed with Sir Alan. 64 A LEAP IN THE DARK BY James T. McKay A LEAP IN THE DARK THE Windhams and Mandisons were old neighbors, and Phil Windham had al- ways been very much at home among the Mandisons, and especially with Mary, the eldest daughter, who was like a wise, kind sister to him. Now his own house began to break up: his brothers went West; his sisters married; his father, who was a chemist and inventor, was killed one day by an explosion. In these trying times the Mandison house- hold was his chief resource, and Mary most of all. Then the Mandisons moved away. That seemed to Windham like the end of things. He was awfully lonely, and thought a great 67 TALES FROM McCLURE'S deal about Mary in the months that followed, but was not quite sure of himself, though he was certain there was no one else he liked and admired half so much. But in the fol- lowing winter he went to spend the holidays with the Mandisons, and when he came away he and Mary were engaged. The next summer the Mandisons took a cottage at the shore, and Windham went to spend some weeks with them. Idly busy and calmly happy in the pleasant company of Mary and all the friendly house, the sunny days slipped by, till one came that disturbed his dream. An aunt of Mary's arrived, with her husband, Dr. Saxon, and his niece, Agnes Maine. At the first glance Miss Maine chal- lenged Windham's attention. She was a tall and striking person, with a keen glance that he felt took his measure at the first look. She piqued his curiosity, and interested him more and more. One day he saw her and Mary together, and caught himself comparing them— not in Mary's favor. Panic seized him, and he turned his back on Miss Maine and devoted 68 A LEAP IN THE DARK himself to Mary. Miss Maine went to stay with some neighbors, the Colemans. One night she was caught at the Mandisons by a storm. Mary asked Windham to entertain her, and he went and asked her to play chess. She declined coldly, and Windham turned away with such a look that Mary wondered what Agnes could have said so un- kind ; and the next day Miss Maine spoke so gently to him that it warmed him all through. Still he persistently avoided her. The Colemans got up a play in the attic of their large old house. On the night of the performance the place was crowded. The first two acts went off smoothly. Windham had been helping to shift the scenes, and was standing alone, looking over the animated spectacle as the audience chatted and laughed. Something in the play had made him think of Agnes Maine, though she was not in the cast and he had not seen her. Suddenly, without any notice of her approach, she stood close to him, looking in his face. Her face was paler than usual, and her eyes had a startling 69 TALES FROM McCLURE'S light in them. She said only half a dozen low words, but they made him turn ghastly "white. What she said was: " The house is on fire down-stairs." He stood looking at her an instant, long enough to reflect that any alarm would re- sult in piling those gay people in an awful mass at the foot of the one steep and frag- ile stairway. The stage entrance was little better than an inclosed ladder, and not to be thought of. '' Go and stand at the head of the stairs," he said to her. The bell rang for the curtain to rise, but he slipped back behind it, and it did not go up. Instead, Jeffrey Coleman appeared be- fore it, bowing and smiling with exaggera- tion, and announced that the continuation of the performance had been arranged as a surprise below-stairs, and would be found even more exciting and interesting than the part already given. The audience were re- quested to go below quickly, but at the same time were cautioned against crowding, as the stair was rather steep, and temporary. As 70 A LEAP IN THE DARK they did not start at once he came off the stage and led the way, going on down the stairs, and calling gaily to the rest to follow. Windham had got to the stair-head by this time. Agnes Maine stood there on one side, looking calm and contained, and he took up his position on the other, and followed the cue given by young Coleman. He began to call out, extolling the absorbing and thrill- ing character of the performance down- stairs with the extravagant epithets of the circus posters, laughing all the while. He urged them on when they lingered, and re- strained them when they came too fast, addressing one and another with jocularity, laying his hands on some and pushing them on with assumed playfulness, keeping up the fire of raillery with desperate resistance. When screams were heard now and then from below, he made it appear to be only excited feminine merriment, directing at- tention to it, and calling out to those yet to come : " You hear them ? Oh, yes ; you '11 scream too when you see it!" 71 TALES FROM McCLURE'S All the time, though his faculties were sufficiently strained by the effort he was making, he was watching Agnes Maine, who stood opposite, doing nothing, but looking her calm, pale self, and now and then smil- ing slightly at his extravagant humor; and he thought admiringly that her simple quiet did more to keep up the illusion than all his labored and violent simulation. It seemed as if there never would be an end to the stream of leisurely people who answered his banter with laugh and joke. But finally the last of them were fairly on the stair, and he turned to Agnes Maine with a suddenly transformed face. "Now— be quick!" he called. But she gave a low cry, looking away to- ward the farther end, where she caught sight of a young couple still lingering. She ran toward them, calling to them to hurry; and as they did not understand, she took hold of the girl and made her run. Windham had followed her, and the four came together to the stair-head; but there they stopped, and the young girl broke into wild screams. The 72 A LEAP IN THE DARK foot of the stairway was wrapped in smoke and flames. There was an observatory upon the house, into which Windham had once gone with Jeffrey Coleman; and he turned to it now, and made the three go up before him. He stopped and cut away a rope that held some of the hangings, and took it up with him. Miss Maine was standing with her arm about Fanny Lee, whom she had quieted. "Had she better go first?" he asked. " Yes, of course," Miss Maine answered. He fastened the rope about the girl, as- sured her that they would let her down safely, and between them they persuaded her, shrinkingly, to let herself be swung over and lowered to the ground. In this Miss Maine gave more help than young Pritch- ard, who shook and chattered so much as to be of little use. And as soon as the girl was down, and Windham turned toward Miss Maine, Pritchard took a turn of the rope around the railing with a hasty knot, went over, and slid down it out of sight; but be- fore he reached the ground the rope broke 73 TALES FROM McCLURE'S loose, and slipped out of Windham's grasp as he tried to catch it. A cry came up from below. Windham turned toward Miss Maine, and they looked at one another, but said nothing. She was very pale and still. Windham glanced down and around; the fire was already following them up the tower. He made her come to the other side, where the balcony overhung the ridge of the sloping roof, got over the railing, and helped her to do the same and to seat herself on the narrow ledge outside, holding on by the bars with her arms behind her. He let himself dowm by his hands till within two or three feet of the roof, and dropped safely upon it. Then he stood up, facing her, just below, braced himself with one foot on each side of the ridge, and told her to loosen her hold and let herself fall forward. She did so, and he caught her in his arms as she fell. It was a struggle for a minute to keep his balance; and, whether in the involuntary stress of the effort or by an instinctive im- pulse, conscious or otherwise, he clasped her 74 A LEAP IN THE DARK close, for a moment, till her face touched his own. Then he put her down, and they sat on the ridge near each other, flushed and short of breath. Below, on the lawn, a throng of people looked up at them, some motionless, some gesticulating, and some shouting in dumb-show, their voices drowned in the fierce roar and crackling that raged beneath the roof and shut in the two above it in a kind of visible privacy. They were still awhile; then Agnes asked, "Can we do anything more ? " "No," he answered; "nothing but wait." Both saw that men were running for lad- ders and ropes. Presently he asked quietly: " Why did you come to me?" She looked up at him for a moment, then answered : "I suppose I thought you would know what to do." "Thank you," he said in a grave, low voice. After a little the tower blazed out above them, and they moved along the ridge till stopped by a chimney, against which he made 75 TALES FROM McCLURE'S her lean. Then they sat still again. The flames rose above the eaves on one side, and flared higher and hotter. Soon they grew scorching, and Agnes said, with quickened breathing: " We could n't stay here long." He looked at her, and the side of her face toward the fire glowed bright red. He took off his coat, moved close to her, and held it up between their faces and the flames; and they sat together so, breathing audibly, but not speaking, till the head of a ladder rose suddenly above the eaves, and a minute later the head and shoulders of Jeffrey Coleman. He flung a rope to Windham, who in another minute had let Miss Maine slip down by it to the ladder; then, throwing a noose of it over the chimney, he slid down himself to the eaves and so to the ground. Miss Maine stood waiting for him, pale and trembling now, but said nothing. Mary Mandison was with her; she had made no scene, and made none now. But there were sharper eyes than Mary's. That night, as Windham strolled on the 76 AGNES SAID, WITH QUICKENED BREATHING, *WE COULD n't stay here LONG.'" TALES FROM McCLURE'S lawn alone, Dr. Saxon confronted him, grimly puffing at his pipe; then he said: ** I thought you were an honest fellow." Windham leaned against a tree. " I want to be," he said feebly. "Then you '11 have to look sharp," the doctor retorted. " You 'd better go fishing with me up-country in the morning." He went, Mary making him promise to re- turn in time for an excurison to Blackberrj'- Island which he had helped her plan. He got back the night before, and in the morn- ing the party set out, some going round the shore by stage, and some in the boat down the bay. Miss Maine went with those in the boat, and Windham went with Mary in the stage. Both on the way and after their arrival he stayed by her and did all he could to be use- ful and amusing. They lunched on a grassy bank in the shade of a cliff, by a tumbling brook that streamed down from the rocks. By and by Mary remarked that she would like to see where the little torrent came from, and 78 A LEAP IN THE DARK Windham said he would try and find out for her. He scrambled up, and soon passed out of sight among the boulders. He found some tough climbing, but kept on, and after a while traced the stream to a clear pool where a spring bubbled out of a rock wall in a cave-like chamber near the top. As he reached its edge he caught sight of the reflection in the pool of a woman's white dress, and, glancing up, saw Agnes Maine standing a little above him, on a sort of natural pedestal in a rude niche at one side. She looked so like a statue that she smiled slightly at the confused thought of it which she saw for an instant in his face; but she turned grave then, as their eyes met for a moment in a look of intimate recognition. Then he turned his away, with a sudden terror at himself, and leaned back against the wall, white in the face. She stepped down and passed by him. He half put out his hand to stop her, but drew it back; and she partly turned at the gesture, but went on out of his sight. He stood there for some time, then climbed 79 TALES FROM McCLURE'S down the rocks again, shaping his features into a careless form as he went, and came back to Mary with a forced smile on his face. But he forgot what he had gone for, and looked confused when Mary asked him if he had found it; and she commented: ''Why, Philip, what has happened? You look as if you had seen a ghost." " I have," he answered. Mary asked no more, except by her look. Some one came and proposed a sail, and Windham eagerly agreed, and went out in the boat with Mary and others. They sailed down the bay. On the return the wind died away, and when they got back the stage had gone with more than half the party, and Agnes Maine was not among those who were waiting. They came on board, and the boat headed away for home. After landing they had to walk across some fields. When near the house Mary missed something, and Windham went back for it. He had to cross the road, and as he came near it the stage passed along, with its merry company laughing and singing. They 80 A LEAP IN THE DARK did not notice him among the trees, but he distinctly saw all who were in the open vehicle, and Miss Maine was not among them. She had climbed up the cliff by a gradual, roundabout path; and after Windham saw her she had wandered on, lost herself for a while, and got back after both stage and boat had left, each party supposing she had gone with the other. Windham found a rowboat, and started back. He knew nothing about boats, but the bay was very smooth, it was yet early, and he got across in due time. As he neared the island he saw her, in her white dress, standing on the bluff, and looking out toward him. Off the shore rocks and boulders stood thickly out of the water, and Windham threaded his way in among them, thinking nothing of those underneath. The skiff was little better than an egg-shell, being built of half-inch cedar; and before he knew what had happened, the point of a sunken rock had cut through the bows and the boat was 81 TALES FROM McCLURE'S filling with water. With a landsman's in- stinct, he stood up on a thwart; the boat tipped over and went from under him. In the effort to right it he made a thrust down- ward with one of the oars, but found no bot- tom; and the next minute Agnes saw him clinging to the side of a steep rock, with only his head and shoulders out of water. She did not cry out; but after he had struggled vainly to get up the rock, and found no other support for foot or hand than the one projection just above him by which he held, he looked toward her as he clung there, out of breath, and saw her eagerly watching him from the water's edge, and her voice showed the stress of her feeling, though it was quite clear, when she called: "Can't you climb up?" "No; there is nothing to hold by." "Can you swim?" "No." She looked all about, then back to him. There was no one in sight; the island was out of the lines of communication, and a 82 A LEAP IN THE DARK point just north of them shut off the open water; but she saw that the reef to which Windham clung trended in to the shore a little way off, and she called: "I think I can get out to you; keep hold till I come." She ran along the beach, but not all the way; as soon as she was opposite a part of the reef that seemed accessible, she walked straight into the water, and made her way through it, though it was two or three feet deep near the rocks. He saw her clamber upon them and start toward him, springing from one to another, wading across sub- merged places, climbing around or over the higher points. And even there, in his des- perate plight, as he watched her coming steadily toward him, her eyes fixed on the difficult path and her skirt instinctively gathered a little in one hand, the sight of her fearless grace thrilled through him and filled him with despairing admiration. She came presently to the edge of a wider gap with clear water beneath, and paused for an instant. Windham called out: 83 TALES FROM McCLURE'S "Don't jump; you '11 be lost!" She looked at him a moment, studied the rocks again, stepped back, then forward quickly, and sprang across. She slipped and fell, but got to her feet again, and came on as before. She went out of Wind- ham's sight, but in another minute he heard a rustle above him, looked up, and saw her standing very near the edge and looking down at him, panting a little, but otherwise calm. "Don't stand there; you will fall!" he called to her. She knelt down and tried to reach over, but could not. She raised herself again, and looked all around anxiously, but saw no one; she had not seen any one since she left him, hours before, on the cliff. She looked down at him, and asked: "Can you hold on long?" " No," he answered, " not very long." She moved back, and lay down on the rock, with her face over the edge. It was wet and slippery and inclined forward, so that she had to brace herself with one hand by a pro- 84 A LEAP IN THE DARK jection just below the brink. Lying so, she could reach down very near him. " Take hold of my hand," she said. He raised one arm with an effort, so that she caught him by the wTist, and his fingers closed about hers. She tried to pull him up slowly; but he felt that it was hopeless, and would only result in drawing her off the rock, so he settled back as before. He noticed that she had given him her left hand, and saw that there was another reason besides the necessity of bracing herself with her right: her wrist was cut and bleeding. "Oh, you are hurt!" he exclaimed. "Never mind," she replied; "that is nothing." He looked up in her face with passionate regret. Her lips were parted, and her breathing came quick and deep. He felt in her wrist the hot blood with which all her pulses throbbed, and it went through him as though one current flowed in their veins. Her eyes looked full into his, and did not turn away till the lashes trembled over them suddenly, and tears gushed out upon 85 TALES FROM McCLURE'S her face. An agony of yearning took hold of Windham and \vrung his heart. ''Agnes, do you know?" he asked. And she answered, " Yes." When she could see him again, drops stood out on his forehead, and his eyes looked up at her with a despairing tenderness. Her lips closed, and her features settled into a look of answering resolve. "You must not give up," she urged. "Don't let go of my hand." '' Oh, I must ! " he answered. " You could n't hold me; I should only draw you down." She neither looked away nor made any reply. ''It would do no good," he went on; "I should only drown you too." " I don't care," she answered. " I will not let you go." "Oh, Agnes!" he responded, the faint- ness of exhaustion creeping over him and mingling with a sharp but sweet despair. Mary was standing at the door when the stage arrived, and she saw that Agnes w^as 86 -!> 'Si ,^^r^ ^ ^^^s^: ^^ "' AGNES, DO YOU KNOW?' HE ASKED. AND SHE ANSWERED, ' YES.'" TALES FROM McCLURE'S not there. She took one of her brothers, who was a good boatman, and started back at once. When their boat rounded the point of the island she was on the lookout, and was the first to see the two they came to succor none too soon. And before they saw her she caught sight, with terrible clearness, of the look in the two faces that were bent upon each other. It was she who supported Windham until Agnes could be taken off and preparations made for getting him on board ; but she turned her eyes away and did not speak to him. On the way back she hardly noticed the dreary and draggled pair, who had little to say for themselves. Many things that had puzzled and troubled her ranged themselves in a dreadful sequence and order now in her unsuspicious mind. On their arrival she made some arrangements for their comfort quietly, then went to her room and did not come df)wn again. Windham left early in the morning, went straight back to Dr. Saxon, and told him the whole story. 88 A LEAP IN THE DARK " I hardly know whether I 'm a villain or not," Windham concluded. ''You might as well be," the doctor growled; "you Ve been a consummate fool, and one does about as much harm as the other. Go home now, and stay there; and don't do anything more, for heaven's sake, until you hear from me." Windham went home and was very miser- able, as may be supposed. Hearing nothing for some time, he could not bear it, and wrote to Mary that he honored and admired her, and thought everything of her that he ever had or could. In a week he got this reply: "Mary Mandison has received Philip Wind- ham's letter, and can only reply that there is nothing to be said." This stung him more deeply than silence, and he \vrote that he was going to see her on a certain day, and begged her not to deny him. He went at the time, and she saw him, simply sitting still and hearing what he had to say. He hardly knew what to say then, but vowed and protested, and finally complained of her coldness and TALES FROM McCLURE'S cruelty. She replied that she was not cold or cruel, but only, as she had told him, there was nothing to be said. In the end he found this was true, and rushed away in despair. Mary had seemed calm; but when her mo- ther came in that afternoon and looked for her, she found her in her room, lying on her face. When she knew who it was, she raised herself silently, looked in her mother's face a moment, put her arms about her neck, and hid her hot, dry eyes there as she used to do when a child. Late that night those two were alone to- gether in the same place, and before they parted the mother said: " You were always my brave child, and you are going to be my brave Mary still." And Mary answered with a low cry: "Yes— yes; but not now— not now!" For a good while Windham felt the sensa- tion of ha^ing run headlong upon a blank wall and been flung back and crippled. But the feeling wore itself out as the months passed. 90 A LEAP IN THE DARK It was nearly a year before he heard from Dr. Saxon, and he had given up looking for anything from him when he received a cold note inviting him to call at the doctor's home, if he chose, at a certain date and hour. At the time set he went to the city, and rang the doctor's bell as the hour was striking. He was shown into the library, and when the door closed behind him he fell back against it. Dr. Saxon was not the only person in the room: at the farther end sat Agnes Maine. She knew nothing of his com- ing; and when she glanced round and saw him, she stood up and faced him, with her hands crossed before her, her breathing quickened, and her face flushed blood-red. The old doctor leaned back and looked from one to the other, studying them open- ly and keenly. When he was satisfied he ordered Windham to take a chair near the window, and told Agnes she might go out. She faced him a moment, then went away with her straight, proud carriage. The doc- tor finished something he was at, then got 91 TALES FROM McCLURE'S his pipe and filled and lighted it, backed up against the chimneypiece, and stood eying Windham with something more than his usual scowl. "Well, young man," he asked finally, "what did you come here for?" " I came here because you asked me to." "No, sir; you did n't," the old man re- torted. "I said you might come if you liked." Windham stood up trembling, and replied with suppressed passion: "I came on your invitation. I did not come to be insulted." "Tut, tut," the doctor rejoined. "You need n't be so hoity-toity; you have n't much occasion. Sit down. Have you been mak- ing any more of your ' mistakes,' as you call them?" Windham answered emphatically, "No!" " Are you going to ? " the doctor continued. " No, sir, I am not," Windham replied, with angry decision. " Well, I would n't; you 've done enough," the doctor commented roughly. " You call 92 A LEAP IN THE DARK it a mistake, but I call it blind stupidity, worse than many crimes. Mary is worth three of Agnes, to begin with; but it would be just as bad if she were a doll or a dolt. Any fellow out of swaddling-clothes, who has brains in his body, and is n't made of wood, ought to know that passion is as hard a fact as hunger, and no more to be left out of ac- count. You were bound to know the chances were that it would have to be reckoned with, first or last, and you deldberately took the risk of \vrecking two women's lives. I don't say anything about your own; you richly de- serve all you got and all that 's coming to you. If law could be made to conform to ab- stract justice, it would rank your offense worse than many for which men pay behind bars." He went out abruptly, and after a few minutes returned with Agnes, who came in, lingering and apparently unwilling. ''Here, Agnes, I am going out," he said. " I 've been giving this young man my opinion of him, and have n't any more time to waste. You can tell him what you think of him, and send him off." 93 TALES FROM McCLURE'S He went out and banged the door after him. Agnes leaned agamst it, and stood there, downcast and perfectly still. Wind- ham sat sunk together, as the doctor had left him, waiting for her to speak; but she did not, and after a while he got up and stood by the high desk, looking at her. Finally he spoke low: "Are you going to scold me, too? Mary has discarded me, and your uncle says I am a miserable sinner and ought to be in the penitentiary. I don't deny it, but if I went there it would be for your sake. Do you con- demn me too? Have you no mercy for me? " A flush spread slowly over her pale face. Then she replied softly: " No ; I have no right. I am no better than you." Two or three hours later Dr. Saxon sat at his desk, when Agnes entered and came silently and stood beside him. He did not look up, but asked quietly: "Well, have you packed him off?" "No," she answered under her breath; " you know I have n't." 94 A LEAP IN THE DARK He smiled up at her,— this gruff old man had a rare smile, on occasion, for those he- liked,— and he said: "Well, he is n't the worst they make.- He 's got spirit, and he can take a drubbing, too, when it 's deserved. I tried him pretty- well. Did n't I fire into him, though, hot shot!" He fairly grinned at the recollec- tion. " I had to, you know, to keep myself in countenance. I suppose I said rather more than I meant— but don't you tell him so." She smiled. " I have told him so already; I told him you did n't mean a word you said." " You presumptuous baggage ! " The doc- tor scowled now. '' Then you told him a tre- mendous fib. I meant a deal of it. Well, he '11 get his deserts yet if he gets you, you deceiving minx. I told him one thing that was true enough, anyway." He smiled broadly again. ''I told him Mary was worth half a dozen of you." Agnes turned grave, and put down her head so that she hid her face. 95 TALES FROM McCLURE'S "So she is," she answered. "Oh, I 'm very sorry— and ashamed." "Well, well," the old doctor responded soberly, stroking her cheek; "it is a pity, but I suppose it can't be helped. Mary 's made of good stuff, and will pull through. It would n't do her any good if three lives were spoiled instead of one. It 's lucky she found out before it was too late." 96 HOW CASSIE SAVED THE SPOONS BY Annie Howells Frechette HOW CASSIE SAVED THE SPOONS THE last good-by had been said, and the comfortable country carriage, drawn by its two glossy bay horses, had disappeared around a knoll. " They is dorn," remarked the baby, as if just in possession of a solemn fact. "Torse they is dorn, you blessed baby," answered Florence, his fifteen-year-old sister, stooping down and lifting him in her strong arms and kissing him. The baby, let me remark, was a sturdy boy of four, with bright brown eyes and red cheeks— cheeks so plump that when you had a side view of his face you could only see the tip of his little pug nose. 99 TALES FROM McCLURE'S "Well, if ever any- body has earned a holi- """' day, they are father and mother," said Cassie. "" Cassie dear, your sentiment is better than "C^^* l^SP^ -^"-^ y^^^ grammar," laughed Rose, the eldest of the '5p three sisters. 100 HOW CASSIE SAVED THE SPOONS "Never you mind my grammar, Miss Eglantine. I may n't have much 'book- TarninV but I 've got a head on my shoul- ders, as father frequently remarks— which is a good thing, for I could n't bear to look at myself in the glass if I had n't; and be- sides, how could I do my hair up so neatly [Cassie's hair was the joke of the family] if I had n't? And now I 'm going up-stairs to cry, and I '11 be down in three minutes to help with the dishes " ; and the giddy girl flew into the house and disappeared. At the expiration of the three minutes which Cassie had set apart as sacred to her grief she reappeared, sniffing audibly, but otherwise cheerful. " Now, girls, I say, let us buzz through the work like a swarm of industrious bumble- bees, and then go down to the creek lots and put in the day gathering nuts. Last night, as Ned and I came through them, the nuts were falling like hail, and we can pick up our winter's supply in a few hours." This was favorably received, for they were all, even Rose, children enough to enjoy a 101 TALES FROM McCLURE'S long day in the autumn woods. We all know that willing hands make light work, and the morning's task was quickly done, a basket of lunch was put up, and the girls, with the '■if ^ .^^i % #j baby, were soon scampering through the meadow toward the little creek, whose borders for miles around were famous for their wealth of nuts. The harvest was indeed bountiful, and they worked merrily and untiringly until 102 HOW CASSIE SAVED THE SPOONS bags and baskets were filled and deposited by a great log, where their brother would next day find them and cart them home. So busy and happy had they been that they could scarcely be- lieve that the day had ended until the woods began to fill with shadow^s and the baby declared he was sleepy and wanted his supper. "Who would ever have believed it so late?" cried Rose, peering from under the low boughs toward the west. "And there are all those cows to milk and the chickens to feed! Come, come, girls, not another nut; we '11 have to go home at once if we want to get through before dark. Cassie, you are the quickest; do run ahead and let the bars down, and get the pails ready, and I '11 carry the baby— he 's so tired, poor little fellow, he can hardly stand. Florence can 103 TALES FROM McCLURE'S start the fire and begin the supper while you and I do the chores." Away sped the light-footed Cassie, while the others made such haste as they could with the tired baby, who wept in a self-pity- ing way upon Rose's shoulder. "Oo dirls is 'tarvin' me an' w^alkin' me 'most to pieces, an' I want my mohver," he wailed as he finally dozed off. Rose laid him upon the lounge in the cozy sitting-room, and, waiting for a moment to see Florence started with the supper, for which they were all ready, hurried away to the barn, where she could hear Cassie whistling and talking to the cows as she milked. Out from the kitchen's open door appetiz- ing odors of coffee and frying ham stole to greet the two girls as they came toward the house with their brimming pails of frothy milk. "It smells good," said Cassie, "and I 'm as hungry as a tramp—" " Oh, Cassie! why did you say that? I 've just been trying not to think about tramps. 104 HOW CASSIE SAVED THE SPOONS I always feel creepy when I 'm about the barn after dark anyway, and now—" " Well, my saying that won't bring any along." 105 TALES FROM McCLURE'S ** They are positively the only things in the world that I 'm afraid of." "Well, then, / 'm not afraid of them. And suppose one should come? Surely three great stout girls ought to be able to take care of themselves." *'0h, Cassie dear, please stop talking about them! I feel as if one were step- ping on my heels. Let 's run." " And spill the milk? Not much." The kitchen looked so bright and cheery as they entered it that Rose seemed to leave her fears outside with the duskiness, and by the time she had strained the milk and put it away she had forgotten that tramps existed. Cassie had gone up-stairs to make some needed changes in her toilet, the baby had roused from a short nap and was taking a rather mournful interest in the preparations for supper, when Rose, who had just stopped to ask him whether he would rather have honey or preserves, heard a stealthy step upon the porch. A moment later the door was pushed slowly open and a man walked in. 106 mm TALES FROM McCLURE'S "Good evening, ladies! Is your pa at home?" "N-no," faltered Rose, trying to settle to her own satisfaction whether this dirty- looking stranger might be some new neigh- bor who had come upon legitimate business or whether he was her one horror— a tramp. ''Any of your big brothers in?" with rather a jocular manner. '' N-no, sir." " And I don't see any bulldog loafin' round," he added. '' Our dord he is dead," explained the baby, solemnly. " Well, that 's a good thing. Will the old gentleman be in soon?" '' I— I don't know— yes— I— I hope so. Is there any message you would like to leave for him?" Before the man could answer the baby's voice was again heard: " My fahver he 's dorn orf." "Where 's he gone, sonny?" "He 's dorn on the tars; so 's my mohver; and my bid brover he putted yem on, and he 108 HOW CASSIE SAVED THE SPOONS won't be home till I 'm asleep; and he 's doin' to brin' me a drum and put it in my bed." Oh, how Rose longed to shake the baby! " Well, then, ladies, since you are likely to be alone, I think I '11 stay and keep you com- pany; and since you press me, I will take tea and spend the evening. Don't go to any extra work for me, though; it all looks very nice. I 'm rather hungry, so you may dish up that ham at once, my dear "—this to poor Florence, who had shrunk almost into invisi- bility behind the stove-pipe, and who seemed glued to the spot. '' I 've usually a very fair appetite, and I am sure I will relish it." He tossed his hat down beside the chair which he drew up to the table. With the light falling full upon his dirty, insolent face. Rose knew that her greatest dread was before her. With her knees al- most sinking under her, she started toward the stairs; for she felt that she must let the intrepid Cassie know and find out what she advised. "Where are you going, my dear?" asked the tramp, suspiciously. " You 've not got 109 TALES FROM McCLURE'S any big cousin or uncle or anything of that kind up-stairs that you are going to call to tea, have you?" '' Oh, no; there is no one up-stairs but my poor sister," she managed to gasp. She could not have told why she said '' poor sister," un- less it was from the sense of calamity which had overtaken them all. " In that case be spry, for I 'm hungry, and I want you to pour out my tea for me. I like to have a pretty face opposite me at table." Rose dragged herself up the narrow in- closed stairs and into Cassie's room. " Well, Rose, you must be about tuckered out. You come up-stairs as if you were eighty," said Cassie, looking up from the shoe she was fastening. "Why, what ails you? You look as if you had seen a ghost!" " Oh, Cassie, there is one of them down- stairs!" came in a whisper. "What do you mean, Rose Bostwick? A ghost down-stairs!" "No— no— a tramp." "Whew!" and Cassie gave a low whistle. "And I suppose you 're scared?" 110 HOW CASSIE SAVED THE SPOONS "Oh, Cassie, I feel as if I were choking! Do hurry down; he may be killing poor little Florence and the baby. What shall we do? The baby has told him we are all alone." "The baby ought to be soundly spanked for that." " What can we do? Try to think." Cassie sat swinging the button-hook in her hand and thinking very hard and fast. "Does he know I 'm here?" "Yes; I've told him." " Then it would be no use for me to pre- tend to be Ned," thinking aloud. " I 'm afraid not." Another silence, dedicated to thought. "Rose?" "Yes." " I 'm going to be crazy. I 'm going to chase him off the farm." " Oh, Cassie, you can't ! He 's a great big impudent wretch. What folly to talk about chasing him off the farm!" " It 's our only chance." " Don't count on me. / can't help you. My teeth are chattering with terror, and my 111 TALES FROM McCLURE'S legs are doubling up under me this very minute. I could n't help chase a fly." ''You can scream, I s'pose?" "Oh, yes; I can do that." " Well, you do the screaming, and I '11 do the chasing. Rush down-stairs, and scream and scream, and bang the door to, and just shriek, 'She 's out— she 's out! She 's coming down-stairs!' And you '11 see w^hat a perfectly beautiful lunatic I will be. It 's a good thing I have this old dress on and only one shoe. Now make a rush, and scream." Rose's overstrained nerves w^ere her best allies, and as she flew down the stairs it was the easiest thing in the world for her to give one piercing shriek after another. They re- sounded from the narrow stairway through the kitchen, and for the moment seemed to paralyze its inmates. As she burst in upon them, Florence was transfixed midway of the table and the stove, with the platter of ham in her hands, the baby had climbed upon a chair, and the tramp had arisen with a be- wildered air from the table. As her skirts 112 HOW CASSIE SAVED THE SPOONS cleared the door, she turned and dashed it shut, and flung herself against it, shrieking, *' She 's out! She 's out of her room! " To the mystified Florence there came but one solution to her be- havior—fright had over- thrown her sister's rea- son ; and with a wail she rushed toward her, cry- ing, "She 's crazy! Oh, she 's crazy! "Who's crazy?" yelled the tramp. The baby, now wildly terrified, set up a loud we eping, while from the stairway came a suc- cession of blows and angry demands that the door be opened. A moment later it was forced ajar, and a head crowned with a mass of tossed 113 TALES FROM McCLURE'S hair was thrust out, and quickly followed by a hand in which was clutched a gun. ''She 's got the gun! Oh, Florence, run to the baby!" cried Rose. " Who 's that? " demanded the apparition, making a rush toward the tramp. '* Here, keep off! Leave me alone! " back- ing away, and warding off an expected blow. She stood before him, tall, strong, and agile. '' I won't leave you alone. "What do you mean by locking me in that room? I 'm no more crazy than you are. What 's this? "— as she stumbled over the hat which the tramp had put beside the chair and into which he had deposited the silver spoons from the table. "Oh, I see; you are all in league to rob me of my gold and precious stones!" And catching the hat up on the muzzle of the gun, she gave it a whirl which sent the spoons glittering in every direction; then, advancing upon him, she thrust hat and gun into the face of the horrified man. With a volley of oaths, he sprang backward, upsetting his chair and falling over it. 114 TALES FROM McCLURE'S "Oh, don't kill him, Cassie! Don't kill him!" " We '11 have a merry time," gaily dancing about him, and prodding him sharply with the gun as he tried to scramble to his feet. "Keep off with that gun, can't you!" he yelled. " Can't you hold her, you screaming idiots?" And half crawling, half pushed, he gained the kitchen door, which had stood partly open since he had entered. "Where are you going, my pretty maid? Don't you try to get away," shouted Cassie, as she lilted lightly after him. The tramp stayed not to answer her ques- tion nor to obey her command, but clearing the door, fled wildly away through the dusk. "Here 's your hat; I '11 fire it after you," she called, and a sharp report rang out on the quiet evening air; then all was still. The three girls stood for a moment in the door, watching the dim outline fleeing across the meadow in the direction of the highway. " He '11 think twice before inviting himself to supper another time," quietly remarked Cassie, with a satisfied smile. 116 TALES FROM McCLURE'S "Oh, Cassie darling, you have saved our lives," cried Florence, flinging her arms around her sister. "I don't know about that; but I 've saved the spoons, anyway. There, there, baby," going to the still afllicted boy; "don't cry any more. Sister Cassie was just making a dirty old tramp hop. She did n't really shoot him; she was just playing shoot." "Oh, Cassie, you splendid, brave girl! How did you ever happen to think to go crazy?" asked Rose, as she looked over her shoulder from the door, which she was barricading. " Well, I knew something had to be done, and that just popped into my mind. I was doing Ophelia the other day up in my room, so I was in practice; and did n't I make a sweetly pensive maniac? Now I hope you girls ^^^ll never again make disrespectful comments upon any little private theatricals of mine. If I had never cultivated my dramatic talents, what would have become of you, I M like to know?" It was some time before the tidal wave of 118 HOW CASSIE SAVED THE SPOONS excitement subsided sufficiently for the girls to settle down for the evening or for the baby to go to sleep. Again and again they thought they heard footsteps; and although the door was locked and double-locked, they 119 TALES FROM McCLURE'S drew up into battle line whenever the autumn wind shook down a shower of leaves upon the roof. Just as the clock was on the stroke of eight a pleasant sound came fitfully to them. It was a softly whistled tune, and the cheery cadence told of a mind free from unpleasant doubts of welcome. "Surely that can't be Ned back already; he was n't to start home until nine," said Rose, going to the window and cautiously peeping from under the curtain. "Right you are there, sister Rose," as- sented Cassie. " It surely can't be, especial- ly as Ned could no more whistle 'Match- ing through Georgia ' than you could have done the marching. It sounds uncommonly like young Farmer Dunscomb's whistle to me." " Well, whoever it is, I am deeply thank- ful that somebody besides a tramp is com- ing," interrupted Florence. "And so am I," demurely agreed Rose. **Do go to the door, Cassie, and peep out, 120 HOW CASSIE SAVED THE SPOONS and make sure that it is n't that dreadful creature coming back." "Are you a dreadful creature coming to murder us all?" demanded Cassie of the whistler, setting the door slightly ajar, and thrusting her head out. " Well, I don't go round giving myself out as a dreadful creature," responded a jolly voice from the porch. ''Hello! What 's this I 'm breaking my neck over?" as the owner of the voice tripped upon an old slouch- hat. " Bring that article of wearing apparel to me, if you please," requested Cassie, as she opened the door, letting a flood of light out upon the visitor. " That is a little token of remembrance which I wish to keep. There ! " holding the hat out at arm's-length. " I have long wanted a gilt toasting-fork or rolling- pin, or something artistic, for my room; now I shall embroider these shot-holes, and gild the brim, and hang it up by long blue rib- bons just where my waking orbs can rest upon it as they open in the morning. Ah, 121 TALES FROM McCLURE'S this hat will ever have stirring memories for me, friend George," eying the young man dramatically. He looked at her a moment, then burst into a hearty laugh. '' Is she crazy, Rose? " " Yes; she 's the dearest and bravest luna- tic in the world, George,"' answered Rose. 122 A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS BY Lizzie Hyer Neff A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS WHETHER or not to relate the history that I now commence has been to me a seriously debated question. But after due rerfection I decide that, being the only wit- ness to the events that have lately been so startling to at least one community, it is my duty to state as clearly and exactly as pos- sible, while yet fresh in my memory, the occurrences that came under my observation. I am satisfied, in so doing, that the contin- gencies which might arise from my silence would be much more serious in their effect upon my friends than their aversion to the publicity to which they may be subjected; but of course, when completed, my state- 125 TALES FROM McCLURE'S ment will be subject to their wish in its dis- posal. Regarding myself, it is only necessary to state that last winter, I think it was the last week in January, my health became so alarm- ing as to induce me to accept my son's urgent invitation to visit him in a far Western Ter- ritory, hoping that the brighter sky and milder air would more than compensate for the long and lonely journey to one who is neither young nor adventurous. And the effect of the change was almost magical. My son is a civil and mining en- gineer, and, being unmarried, boards at the largest of the three hotels in the busy min- ing town upon the Southern Pacific road which I shall call Brownville. I reached the place on the afternoon of a bright, balmy day— a May day, it seemed to me; but being an unaccustomed traveler, the motion of the cars and the strangeness of the transition gave everything such a dream-like unreality that I cannot recall the impressions of the first few days with as much distinct- ness as later ones. I was continually ex- 12G A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS pecting my son to vanish and myself to wake up in my room at home. This soon wore off, however. I think it was on the second day after my arrival, as we were starting down- stairs to dinner, my son suddenly drew me back into my room, as if to avoid some one who was passing. " I was afraid you might be startled," he explained. " I was at first, and I am neither sick nor a woman. Mother, there is a young man here who will seem like one risen from the dead to you at first sight. He looks enough like Chester Mansfield to be his twin brother; I think I never saw so striking a resemblance before; but after you are ac- quainted with him the impression will wear away, because he is so different in every other way." Then we went down-stairs, and meeting the young man at the dining-room door, my son introduced him as " Mr. Reynolds," and thus began my acquaintance with him. Of course, after my son's caution- ary remarks, I noticed him closely, but I should have done so anyhow, I am sure, for 127 i A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS the resemblance to the dead was so strong as to give me a very strange feeling; for Chester Mansfield had been only less dear to me than my own son. But, as Howard had said, the resemblance seemed to wear away somewhat as I talked with him, and I began to wonder that I had felt it so much. This young man was older, stouter, and many shades darker in complexion than my friend. His manner, speech, and style of dress were wholly unlike those of the dead Chester, al- though his voice, while deeper, was very similar. He was attached to the hotel in some capacity, and went out with us to din- ner after a moment's talk; and I found him to be a pleasant talker, with a ready fund of the slang which seems to be the evolving language of the far West, and a very witty use of it; but he did not seem to be well in- formed on any subject that I could mention —a strong contrast to the scholarship of the dead man whose face he bore. Yet he had an unmistakable air of good breeding and even of intelligence, although it was impossible to draw him into a con- 129 TALES FROM McCLURE'S nected conversation. He seemed to be very popular in the house. Howard was closely engaged in his work^ which sometimes kept him away for a week at a time, and I had neither the strength nor courage to go very far from the house alone through that odd, rushing, foreign-looking town, so I had much time to myself. I was. the only woman at the house, except the proprietor's wife and one Irish chamber- maid. This, perhaps, would account for my interest in the young man, for I must confess that he occupied my thoughts a good deal during those first weeks. One Sabbath afternoon I saw him going away with a party of friends,— stylishly dressed, hard-looking men,— and I turned and spoke to Howard of the idea that I had formed of him. " I have thought of the same thing myself, mother," he replied. " That fellow is of East- ern origin, and he is well brought up, in spite of his efforts to conceal it; and you can't get a word out of him about his past; I Ve tried a dozen times. I 'm positive that he puts on ignorance, a good many times, just as a blind. 130 A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS There 's a good deal of that here— men who have forgotten all about the East, you un- derstand, and who have new names, and who don't write home by every mail. Now, were n't there other Mansfield boys besides Chester? His mother was a second wife, w^as n't she, and there was another family, who lived with their grandmother?" " Why, certainly there w^as! " I exclaimed^ catching at the idea. " Three boys, and two of them went out to Denver, or somewhere in that region. Now I have it; that 's just who he is. I wonder what crime he has committed— robbery or perhaps murder? Who knows?" "Oh, no! Take care; not quite so fast, mother. But I have a little clue that nobody else has had the interest to notice. It is more than mere coincidence. Of course Dr. Mansfield's sons would be brought up in the deepest piety; and when this fellow gets drunk— you '11 hear him some night— he 's terribly pious: prays and sings half the night to himself— old church hymns that were never heard in this place. And the thing 131 TALES FROM McCLURE'S that I notice is this: he prays like one who was brought up to it, not like some reprobate who has been scared into piety. I Ve heard them a few times, too, and I know the difference. Now, that means a little; and when you put it with the company he keeps, especially with Crouch, his chum,— that black-looking fellow who was shooting at the target out there this morning,— don't you see it grows quite interesting?" " I should think it does. Why, it is per- fectly certain that he is a desperate sort of person. I wonder what he has done? It could n't be the Cleveland fur robbery, I sup- pose," I said. Howard got up and shook himself, and then laughed uproariously. "No; but he might be the Rahway murderer. You 'd better lock the door fast and tight at night." (This was a stab at my well-known cowardice.) " And, little mother, if you think you have got hold of a delightful, bloody mystery, for the love of heaven keep still about it. A little talk will set a cyclone going, if you are not particular." 132 A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS I resented this caution as quite unneces- sary; but Howard laughed and shook his finger at me. I think he is at that age when "a young man feels his physical and political superiority over his mother very 133 TALES FROM McCLURE'S fully. After he had gone out I sat think- ing over his new idea. I had a faint suspi- cion that Howard was amusing himself at my interest in the matter and was starting me in pursuit of something that he knew per- fectly well beforehand; yet every word that he had said was fastened in my memory, and many little unnoticed things now came up to strengthen my suspicions. In Crouch, the evil-looking fellow^, I had no interest, for he was not mysterious. He was a rascal at the first glance, and could not be anything else; and he w^as the sort of rascal that one is content not to investi- gate, but observe at the greatest possible distance. What, then, was young Reynolds's interest in him? I intended to \wite home the next day to ask about the Mansfield brothers; but Howard carried me off to the mines to camp for a few days, and my thoughts were turned in a new direction. The day after my return I went out for a walk through the town. I crossed the plaza, and went down one of the diverging streets, 134 A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS when I suddenly found myself in a most un- savory neighborhood, and suspected that I must have crossed the " dead-line," beyond which I had been told no white woman ever ventured. I turned to beat a hasty retreat, when I heard my name, and looking up saw Charlie Reynolds, apparently very drunk, issuing from the door of a dance saloon. One or two of his friends were sitting in the doorway. " Good evening, Mish Spencer," he said, with an aggravated bow. " Thish bad place for lady. See you home, Mish Spencer? " " No," I said; '' yoU can't see me home, but I will see you home. You walk on before me, and I will follow." To my surprise, he obeyed; and across the plaza and down the street of adobe houses I steered my drunken companion until I saw him safe within the doors of the El Dorado House, where I was assured that he would be put to bed. That night my son was detained at the mines, and I sat at my window alone in the marvelous moonlight, so clear, so brilliant, in that rarefied atmosphere, that I could see 135 TALES FROM McCLURE'S the round blue lines of the mountains in Mexico, sixty miles away. Sounds from different parts of the town came up with startling distinctness; I could distinguish every word of sentences spoken two squares away, and the barking of coyotes out in the mesquit brush that surrounded the town seemed to come from under my window. I seemed to be far from the rest of the earth, on some desolate peak that stood in vast soli- tude; for the stars were so large and bright and the great glowing moon seemed to hang just overhead. There were no trees on the great blue mountains, no grass in the stony valley; and I realized, in their absence, how much we owe to the mission of the green and growing. There was no sense of companionship in the babel of sounds and languages that came up from the wicked little town. I am afraid that a few homesick tears came to my eyes. Suddenly one of the grand old hymns of my church struck the intense air; a clear, strong, manly voice. How familiar it sounded, ringing out alone! I sat spellbound; for it 136 A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS was, as my son had said, not the effort of a tyro, but the cultivated voice of a cultivated man. Coming just at this moment in the grandly solemn night, its effect upon me was indescribable; and a new thought flashed into my mind, which, I am ashamed to confess, was not there before: ''Why cannot this young man, whatever he may have done, be saved through this early training?" I could not sleep for this thought, and waited impa- tiently for the morning, resolved to under- take some missionary work in behalf of Charlie Reynolds. II The Chester Mansfield to whom I have re- ferred was the young minister of my church, and also the son of my dearest friend. Mrs. Mansfield had been my playmate and school- mate in childhood, my confidante in girlhood, and when we were matrons and neighbors our early affection had settled into the deep, en- during friendship of later life. She had mar- ried our minister, and was an exemplary wife and mother. Our children were schoolmates 137 TALES FROM McCLURE'S also, and her only son, Chester, was a boy of unusual promise. He distinguished himself in school and college, and, finishing his course just before his father's death, was unanimously called to fill the vacant pulpit. Here his eloquence and spirituality fully justified the promise of his youth, and he became almost the idol of his congregation. He married a lovely girl, and life seemed to hold for him the highest blessings that man can dream of. The sorrow, then, of his sudden and peculiarly sad death cannot be described. Not only his family and church, but the whole town, mourned as if for a brother, and the church could not hold the concourse that followed his body to the grave. The mother and sisters and the frail young wife were almost crushed by the blow, and even after the lapse of nearly five years it was fresh enough in my heart to make Charlie Reynolds's face bring back those days of mourning with sad reality. I formed then the hope, foolish, perhaps, that if this young man should be found to be a relative of 138 A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS the dead man, and be reclaimed, he might in some measure atone to those bereaved ones for their loss. With this idea I improved every opportunity to cultivate Charlie Reyn- olds's acquaintance and win his good opin- ion, although I was much embarrassed by 139 TALES FROM McCLURE'S the laughing eyes that Howard never failed to turn upon me in my efforts at conversation. They were efforts indeed; for if I had come from a foreign land and spoken an unknown language, I could hardly have had more diffi- culty in finding a topic of common interest or in making myself intelligible, for old- fashioned English seemed to be less under- stood than any other of the numerous tongues I heard. I could hear from my win- dow Mexicans, Chinamen, Indians, French- men, and Spaniards chatting in the plaza, until I could almost guess what they said; but the vernacular of the American miner and rancher is beyond comprehension. There are about four topics discussed at the El Dorado tables, chief of all, the mines; and to this day I cannot talk coherently about drifts and leads and dumps and the like. Then there were the games, the most absorbing of all— who had lost and won; and as I don't know one card or one game from another, I am not interested in that subject. There was, it seemed to me, a fresh murder or robbery or Indian fight to discuss every 140 A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS morning at breakfast; and the ranch talk, in which my most intelligent questions al- ways provoked a shout of laughter. When I quoted Talmage one morning, a young man looked at me pityingly, and said: "Oh, he 's dead a year ago! He had one of the finest saloons in Las Vegas. He was a smart man, poor fellow!" My attempts to interest my table companions in a description of the Chautauqua and its purpose, and the mis- sion of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and their painful efforts to be politely interested, almost sent my son into convul- sions in consequence of laughing into his coffee-cup ; and the intense earnestness with which the man they called Bunco Brown asked, "And did n't they sell no booze there?" and then, "Well, then, how in thunder do they get it, if they are too pious to steal?" might have seemed amus- ing to one who was not struck by the horror of the fact that the man could not conceive of life for any person without drink. So, owing" to the missionary's usual diffi- culty in making himself understood, I had 141 TALES FROM McCLURE'S to wait to learn a means of communication with my subject. I even ventured to the door of the billiard-room and tried to mani- fest an interest in the science of the game; but here also I was too hopelessly old-fash- ioned to be able to comprehend the beauty of the angles, and beat an ignominious retreat. I heard Charlie remark as I went up-stairs, " Game for such a pious old lady, is n't she? " I took it as a compliment. But my opportunity finally came through the humble instrumentality of an onion. It was about the size of a dinner-plate, and lay on the newel-post as I came down-stairs one morning. Charlie was standing in the front door, with his back to me, peeling an orange. He turned around at my exclamation of sur- prise, and asked, " Why, don't they grow like that where you live? " " In New England ? Oh dear, no ! " I cried. And then he asked me a number of ques- tions, and seemed very much interested in my account of vegetables and fruit and trees and flowers in the East. I was de- lighted to tell him, although I had a lurking 142 TALES FROM McCLURE'S suspicion that such a remarkable ignorance of that country was feigned; and yet his eyes, so wonderfully like Chester Mansfield's except in expression, had a certain vacant honesty— for which, I presume, an accus- tomed story-teller could find a better expres- sion—that I was obliged to believe genuine. As soon as he found that I was curious about the flora and fauna of the locality, he took great pains in bringing me specimens, and on two occasions took me out for a walk to see something that could not be brought. In this closer acquaintance I found so much that was kind and pleasant, and so many peculiar little resemblances to my dead friend,— a backward toss of the head when he laughed, a frown when listening, an odd little gesture with the left hand in explain- ing anything,— that he puzzled me more and more. Among the few books that I could find to read in the town was " The Woman in White," which I read with compunction, not having been addicted to works of fiction; and the curious resemblance between the two women made a deep impression upon me, 144 A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS and seemed to have a strange significance just at this time. Although I had as yet not succeeded in drawing any confidence from Charlie, who, indeed, seldom spoke of him- self and never related any past experience, —a very suspicious trait, I thought,— I felt sure that time would unravel the dark mys- tery that enveloped him. Just as I was feeling that I had now Char- lie's friendship, the man Crouch seemed to become jealous of my influence, and became so attentive to him that my acquaintance with him was virtually suspended for a time. One day, a bright, hot day in March, a Mexi- can wagon-train arrived in town, laden with beans, hides, and chilli Colorado, and a crowd of rancheros from another direction sw^armed into the plaza. The town was full of excite- ment and whisky; the tinkle of the dance sa- loons came up from all quarters; the ranch- eros, with their red shirts and broad hats, galloped their tough mustangs madly through the streets, firing at random, and lassoing the unlucky curs and pigs that happened to be in the way; while there were street brawls 145 TALES FROM McCLURE'S at every corner. I hardly dared to leave my room, and I could not venture to sit by my window. It was a great relief that Howard came in very early. All through the evening I listened to the confused sounds tjiat came up through the resonant air, and could dis- tinguish the soft voice of the pretty Mexican girl in the saloon opposite my window, accom- panied by her castanet. It was another of those still, white nights when the town seemed to hang in mid-air. I felt the pre- monition of impending disaster so common to nervous women, and made Howard sit in my room as long as I could think of a pretext for keeping him. When I was alone I lay wakeful through the noisy hours, waiting for daylight. At perhaps three o'clock, or a little later, I fell into a semiconscious doze, from which I was aroused by the footsteps and low voices of men in the hall. The slow- ness of the steps and the hushed tone in which they spoke gave me a thrill of terror. Something had happened. Yes; they were talking about it, and carrying something — some one— by. " Right this way ; lay him on 146 A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS the bed." "What -doctor?" "Pretty near dead." "Small chance,"— and so on. Then with strained nerves I listened for the doc- tor, heard him come, heard his quick direc- tions, heard the running to and fro to get what he required, and then arose and dressed myself with trembling hands, unable to bear the tension any longer, and thinking that I might be of assistance. I went to Howard's door, aroused him, and sent him to learn what was the matter. He went a little re- luctantly, but returned wide awake. "Why, it 's Charlie Reynolds, poor fellow! I guess he 's about killed— some row, I sup- pose; did n't wait to find out. The doctor is attending to him now." A little later, in the gray, solemn dawn, the doctor came out of the room in which Charlie had been laid, and I went to learn the worst. I knew now that I had grown very fond of the young man, and I could see that Howard liked him, too. Ill The doctor looked at me curiously. " He is pretty badly hurt, but I think that 147 TALES FROM McCLURE'S he will pull through. I don't suppose it makes any particular difference to him or anybody- else whether he does or not," he said, brush- ing his hat with his coat-sleeve. ''Why not?" I demanded. " Why, because he will only pull through this to get killed in some other scrape, and before he can get into anything else he will have to answer for this one. You know how he was hurt?" "No; I don't know anything about it." " He robbed a fellow in the night, and the man chased him and shot him, and finding that he still ran, knocked him down with the butt end of his pistol— threw it at him. That is the worst hurt he had; and he is an old customer, for this blow opened an old place. It is n't the first time he has been caught. I 've just trepanned it— quite a serious operation under the circumstances." " And the pistol wounds?" " Nothing but scratches ; they won't hurt." ''Well, he is a human creature, with an immortal soul, and I shall take care of him anyhow. There is nobody else to do it, so I 148 A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS intend to," I said, as calmly as I could after all this terrible information, which had shaken me none the less for the doctor's indifferent tone and manner. "Very well, ma'am; I wish you success. There 's nothing to do now but keep him quiet until I come back after breakfast." I walked in alone, and looked at the still, white face under the bandages. He was evidently under the influence of a heavy opiate, for there was no sign of life except the faint breathing. I could not help feeling a great pity for the young man, so friendless and so indiffer- ently regarded, and with such a future to look forward to on his recovery. No clue could be found to his past or his family, if he had any. I took it as more than mere accident that he had fallen thus helpless and suff:'ering into my hands, and resolved to use to the utmost my skill and influence for the best. He lay for a good many days— I cannot tell just how many— in a comatose condi- tion, and I did not for a moment relax my 149 TALES FROM McCLURE'S watch, except to take a little rest now and then. At length there began to be signs of re- turning consciousness. The dull eyes would open and gaze vacantly around the room. 150 A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS He could utter a few incoherent words, and the hands groped in a troubled way among the bedclothes. And day by day, as the bronze tint of the skin disappeared and the features grew clearer and thinner, that marvelous likeness grew stronger, until, looking at him, I rubbed my eyes some- times and believed myself the victim of an hallucination. One morning, at length, he opened his eyes and looked at me with a new intelli- gence, an attentiveness that I had never seen in him before. As he lay there with bright, open eyes, the likeness was simply intolerable as I thought of the career that he represented. I busied myself in bringing the basin of water and sponge to bathe his face and hands. He was evidently trying to recall the circumstances of his injury and account for his presence there, for he looked in turn at me and the room, and then at the bed in which he lay. "Mrs. Spencer, I cannot think how you come to be here. Was I much hurt?" " Yes; you were pretty badly hurt; but you 151 TALES FROM McCLURE'S will soon be all right now if you keep quiet. Don't move your head. I will wash your hands now." He closed his eyes as if weary with even the effort he had made, and soon fell asleep as naturally as a child. Later in the day he awoke and seemed strange. He looked at me with the same puzzled expression. I w^as heating some drink for him over the spirit-lamp, when he spoke in a strangely familiar voice, although very weak. " Mrs. Spencer, has anything happened at home, that you have come to me, and not mother? I had a letter from mother yester- day, and all were well. Was the accident very fatal ? " I dropped the cup that I was holding; my heart seemed to stop beating; for the white, serious face on the pillow was not that of Charlie Reynolds, but Chester Mansfield! I ran out of the room, down the hall, and into my own room. I had no motive in doing so, because I was too much startled and, I think^ terrified for thought. 152 A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS My first collected idea was that I had dwelt upon the subject so much during lonely days and nights of vigil that I was now a victim of subjective vision; I was for the moment insane upon that subject. I sent for the doctor immediately, and after bathing my face and trying to steady my quivering nerves returned to my patient, whom I was afraid I might have shocked by my sudden exit. He looked surprised, and watched me curiously. "I think you had better not talk any more; the doctor says you must be kept quiet," and I busied my hands in smoothing down the bedclothes. " I will be quiet; but you must tell me one or two things. Are they all well at home— Lucia and mother and the girls? and how many were hurt in the accident?" " They are all well at home. I am visiting here," I managed to answer; and he turned away his head, apparently satisfied. I paced up and down the hall until the doctor came, and drew him into a vacant room to tell him the situation. He looked at me incredulously 153 TALES FROM McCLURE'S when I had finished my excited narrative, reached for my wrist, and shook his head. "You have been working too hard over that fellow," he said; "you will be the next patient." " But he asked for his wife, and called her by name. Come and see which is the lunatic," and I led the way to the sick-room. " Ah," he said in a cheery tone, going to the bedside, "I see we are getting along bravely, and look as smart as folks that have a whole skull." The patient (I did n't know what name to call him) smiled, but without a trace of recognition. "I suppose you are my physician, and I am probably indebted to you for my life," he said feebly. The doctor looked puzzled. "You don't seem to recall my face." "No; I suppose I was knocked senseless. The last thing I can remember is going down the embankment. I tried to jump, but my foot caught and I struck my head against something. There was a young woman in 154 A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS the opposite berth; was she killed, I wonder? She had two little children. I suppose I have been unconscious for some time; it must have happened yesterday, did n't it?" " It was several days ago," said the doctor, soothingly. " You had better rest awhile, and then youcan tell us more, and about yourself." "This lady can tell you all about me; she has known me all my life," and he closed his eyes wearily. The doctor looked at me significantly, and 1 followed him into the hall. "What in the world does this mean? That young man is no more Charlie Reyn- olds than I am. I can only account for the case in one way, and that is a very unusual one. The operation I performed last week restored his skull to its normal shape. There was quite ^ deep indenture, and a consequent pressure upon the brain, which undoubtedly affected, probably sus- pended, his memory. Now, this young man —minister, did you say?" "Yes," I interrupted; "but this is the awful part of it: he is dead— buried— five 155 TALKS FROM }[cCLrRE'S years ago. I saw him buried, liave <]:one to his grave many times; and now he lies tliere and talks to me. And Cliarlie Reynolds— drunkard and robber— oh, no! no!" " You say your friend was killed in a rail- road accident on his vacation trip? How was tlie body identifuMl? Wlio saw it after it was sent home?" "None of his family saw the remains, he was so badly burned. 1 see; it nuist have been the wrong body." " And the railroad, of cours(\ had him cared for until he was well; and then In^ could n't tell who he was, and drifted about unt il ho foil into bad company. He has bei»n a cat's-paw for this gang, no doubt. Well, you 've got a ])retty little sensation upon your linnds; 1 M like to see you get back and tell your story." I wondered how lie could talk and smile so carelessly; but in that country nobody is sur- prised at anything. I went back to my patient, after despjitching a messenger for Howard, who was working in the "San Jacinto," twenty miles away. ir.G A STRANGE STO/iY: T/I/'J LOST YEARS (JheHter, as I could safely call him now, was extremely anxious about his fellow- passenj^ors, and thouj^ht tlioy must be in the hotel at this time. 1 was familiar with the shocking details of the disaster at the time, but could not recall them with sulli- cient accuracy to satisfy him. The five years int(!rv(;ning were apparently entirely lost, lie could scarcely believe us when we told him that he had lain unconscious for more than a wcsek. Howard came; in th(5 ev(;ning, and was amazed beyond his powctr of expn^ssion. Il7 TALES FROM McCLURE'S tinually asked, and the old mother? We finally left it to Howard, who telegraphed to the wife that her husband had been found alive, though recovering from serious illness; that he was in our care, but wished her to join him as soon as possible; and that the body sent home as his must have been that of another man. When we told Chester that she had been sent for, he exclaimed, " How can she leave her baby? She would have been with me but for that three-months-old baby." The baby was now a tall boy of five in kilts. Al- though the complications arising from this strange case were countless, we managed to keep the real story from Chester until he was sufl^iciently recovered to bear it; and, indeed, we did not then tell him of the seri- ous misdeeds of his other self. But when the young wife came after her long journey, and we led her (for the first time without her mourning-dress) up to his room, he knew that to her he was in truth one risen from the dead. I opened the door for her; and when I heard her cry of joy as 158 1 TALES FROM McCLURE'S she sprang forward, satisfied at last of his identity, and his low "My love! my love!" I closed the door, and went away to weep a few tears to myself, but not of sorrow. My story is told. We secured bail for Charles Reynolds, and took him home, to await the fall term of court, when he ex- pects to have no difficulty in proving his in- nocence in his present person. To himself his case presents some metaphysical and moral studies quite at variance with his own belief. He cannot yet comprehend the silence of his conscience at this time of need. The sensation created by our return and all subsequent events are well known to those who will read this statement, so that I need tell no more. My only object in A\Titing so minute an account, and detailing such conversations as I could remember, is to protect him forever, as far as my word will avail, from any insinu- ation of intentional or conscious wrong-doing in those five lost years, knowing as I do the conditions of life exacted of a clergyman, and fearing some future recrimination. 160 i TWO MODERN PRODIGALS BY James F. McKay TWO MODERN PRODIGALS TOM STANDISH and Chauncey Smith were chums at school. Tom went into the army and Chauncey into the church, and they drifted apart. Chauncey made a bril- liant start in his first parish, but he resigned suddenly, and wandered about, then went out as missionary to the Oregons. Few knew that the cause of his going off the track was a certain Emily Varick. Miss Varick was a young person of ideas, and when Chauncey expressed his great re- gard for her, she repulsed him with some scornful remarks about carpet-knights, and the need there was for men and women to do noble deeds before saying fine words. 163 TALES FROM McCLURE'S Out West he met Frank Standish, but could get nothing from him about Tom. He did not succeed there, nor get on well with the other missionaries. Finally he gave it up at short notice, and went straight back home to the old farm among the Eastern hills. He left his baggage at the station, and walked home across lots, touched by every familiar stone and tree. It was haying-time, and he saw his father at the other end of a mown field. He took a stray fork and began heaping up the windrows, finding it pleasant that he could beat the man on the next row. The old man presently came down to see who it was, and Chauncey kept his head down and made the hay fly till his father stood close beside him. Then he dropped the fork, and threw his arms across the bent shoulders, laughing, with a sudden dimness in his eyes. " This is honest work," he said. " I guess this is what I was made for." The old folks were glad and sorry, but saw he was not to be questioned. He worked away and made it pleasant for them all that summer and fall; but he did not find it sat- 164 1 TWO MODERN PRODIGALS isfying. In the middle of November he got a letter from Frank Standish, which he showed to his mother, and he told her the story in a few words. "I have just heard you are out of the woods," the captain wrote. "I know just the spot for you. Maberly is going to take a professorship, and they want a parson up at Standish. They pay pretty well, and you 're just the man. There 's work enough to satisfy you, and the kind of work you ought to be at. I 've spoken about you, and they want to see you. Come up and preach for them at Thanksgiving. We '11 all be at home this year, and will make it pleasant for you. Did you know I had been getting engaged? She '11 be there. Come and see her. We '11 depend on you." The old folks talked it over that night, and they urged him to go, though they would miss him sadly. So he set to work on a Thanksgiving sermon. He threw it away several times and went to work out of doors again. But he saw it vexed the old people; they had expected great things of him. 165 TALES FROM McCLURE'S Everybody had, in fact. He had been a brilliant fellow at college— class poet and a forcible speaker. In the end he finished his sermon and started for Standish, intending to stop over one train in the city on some business of his father's. On the train he remembered that Dan Field lived at Preston, on this road, and he looked out for him. Sure enough, he saw him getting on the train. They sat together the rest of the way, and Chauncey found his friend's strong, laughing talk very pleasant to hear again. He told him where he was going, and they talked over the Standishes, Nelly's marriage to Colonel Haven, Parry's narrow escape from the Arctic, and the rest. Chauncey asked Field if he knew anything about Tom, and why Frank would not speak of him. Then Field stopped laughing. "No; they don't talk about Tom. Tom went to the bad. He got to be a lieutenant, and was out in New Mexico, acting captain and commissary of the post. He got into some scrape,— there was a shortage in his accounts, or something,— and he was court- 166 TWO MODERN PRODIGALS martialed, and dismissed from the army in disgrace. Scott Jervis ran across him, in New Orleans, in a shirt and trousers and close down to the husks. Scott bought him a ticket and sent him home, and when he got to Standish they turned him out; he had dishonored them, and they shut the door in his face." Chauncey made little reply to this, except by the expression on his face. Tom Stand- ish had been the gentlest, nicest boy he knew, and he did not know how to make this story fit. Finally he asked Field if he knew where Tom was. "Yes; I think he 's about town. I used to get a glimpse of him, but he keeps on the shady side, and I have n't seen him in a long time. I hear about him occasionally, though, through a client of mine who keeps a place on the East Side." They talked about some other things; but Chauncey was absent and forgetful, and after a while asked Field for his client's address. Field wrote a few words on a card and gave it to him. Just as they were 167 TALES FROM McCLURE'S shaking hands in the hubbub of the streets, Field said, " Remember me to Frank Stand- ish. I suppose he told you he is going to marry Emily Varick." A wave of the hand, and then he was gone. Chauncey drifted on with the human tide. When he remembered his father's business it was too late fpr that day. He found he was tired out, and took a room at a cheap hotel near by. He threw himself on the bed, and lay there several hours without moving. Finally he got up and went out into the streets again. It was night now, and he wandered into a riotous quarter, finding it congenial with his humor. He saw on a lamp the name of the street Field had writ- ten for him, looked up the number, and went in. He gave Field's card to the proprietor of the place, and the man looked at it and him, then said: "I expect the man you want will be in here before long. I '11 give you a hint when he comes." A faintness had crept upon Chauncey; he forgot that he had not eaten anything since 168 TWO MODERN PRODIGALS early morning. He sat down aside, where he could watch the door. Presently a man came in, and stood speaking to some one near the entrance. Chauncey sat looking at him in a kind of a dream, in which the brilliant lights, the swinging doors, the coming and going, the loud talk of flashy, sharp-faced men, swam in a shifting scene. Something made him turn, and the keeper of the place caught his eye and motioned with his thumb toward the door. He got up and met the new-comer half-way. He was shabby and unkempt enough; but Chauncey was glad he was not like most of the people in the place, who were not shabby, at least. He had to stare sharply to find the Standish look in the dull face, though, to tell the truth, Tom had always been a trifle dull. " Well, Tom, I suppose you don't remember me," he said. " Yes," he answered, without brightening, "I know you; you 're Chauncey Smith." Chauncey had not the slightest idea what he was going to do with him, but he said decidedly: 169 HE HAD TO STARE SHARPLY TO FIND THE STANDISH LOOK IN THE DULL FACE." TWO MODERN PRODIGALS " Tom, come along with me; I want to talk to you." Tom looked dogged as well as dull. "I don't want to go with you. If you want to talk, we can do it here." " All I 've got to say," Chauncey replied, " is that I think you 've had enough of this, and I want you to come out of it." Tom simply refused, and Chauncey re- sponded: " Well, if you won't come with me, I '11 go with you; I don't care much which." There was a certain hardness and reck- lessness in Chauncey's manner that worked through to Tom's dull perception and affected him more than any appeal would have done ; and finding that he could not shake Chauncey off, he finally asked what he wanted of him, and let him take him away. Chauncey did not talk, but took him under his arm and walked him along with an impatient, almost fierce imperiousness that wielded the sway of natural right over Tom's milder spirit. He went into a clothing store, penciled on a scrap of wrapping-paper for the man to take 171 TALES FROM McCLURE'S Tom's measure in his eye, and pointed out what he wanted. His pocket-book was not very stout when he went in, and was lean when he came out; but he did n't care. He fetched the bundle away under one arm and Tom under the other. He went into some baths behind a barber shop, saying: "Tom, I Ve been traveling all day, and feel principally composed of cinders and engine-smoke. Let 's have a wash-up." He turned on the water for Tom, threw down the bundle, and told him to put on the things, shut him in, and went into the next place himself. He was waiting when Tom came out, and he told the barbers to do their worst by them both. Then he saw in a glass that Tom looked something like a Standish again. He brought him away, and took him up to his room, stopping at the office to write " T. J. Standish " on the register. Then he sat down opposite to Tom, and forgot all about him for a good while, though he seemed to be staring at him all the time. By and by this roused a certain resent- ment in Tom, and he spoke up angrily: 172 TWO MODERN PRODIGALS " Now I 'd like to know what you mean by all this." Chauncey straightened up, and woke him- self slowly to a remembrance of the situa- tion. Then he said, with a deliberateness that showed the fiery temper behiAd it: " Say that over again slow." It was the perception of this something unnatural, something almost furious, behind Chauncey's words and manner, that made Tom passive in his hands. There had never been anything coarse about the Chauncey Smith that Tom had known, and now his whole manner and speech were rough. His talk had suddenly caught the flavor of the street, of the untamed, riotous world. He had chaffed and laughed harshly with the bath-keeper and the hotel clerk. Tom was shaken and stung by his scornful expres- sion. " Do you suppose," he asked, " that a little soap and water can clean up a man who has been down, in the mud for years?" " No, I don't," Chauncey retorted. " I '11 tell you what I suppose: I suppose any man 173 TALES FROM McCLURE'S is liable to slip and get down under foot, and even roll into the gutter; but I did n't sup- pose, until now, that a man who had been brought up on soap and water would like mud well enough to be still and wallow in it until somebody came and pulled him out by the neck. I supposed that any one out of his teens must know that every man has his own way to make in this world, without much help from anybody else, and that any man who lies down in the street and whines for somebody to pick him up and push him along the straight road is a miserable fraud and failure." He said more of the same sort— said it harshly and hotly, and with the emphasis of strong language. His words were harder than those Tom had met when he went home, but there was an underlying differ- ence that Tom felt rather than saw. The few words he had met at home sent him away hard and desperate; Chauncey's un- bridled reproaches broke him to pieces, doubled him up, and set him sobbing like a whipped child. 174 TWO MODERN PRODIGALS Chauncey kept still then, and did not in- terfere. But when Tom looked up at length, he saw Chauncey bent forward, looking at him, with his face between his hands; and from the face between his hands looked out a haggard misery. "I am a failure," Tom complained. "I ought to know. And I 'm a fraud, too. I suppose you Ve heard of it, like everybody else. I lost the money playing cards; there was n't anything else to do in that cursed hole. But they need n't have been so hard on me when I went home. It was Frank and Nelly that w^ere the worst. Nelly said she 'd rather have heard that I was dead, and Frank put me out. The old man was awfully cut up, but I think I could have made it up with him if I had seen him alone. And I know Kate was sorry; but she was n't home. I 've got the letter here that she wrote me; I 've read it a hundred times, but I never an- sw^ered it. Frank is no saint himself, as I know. He said I had disgraced them and they disowned me forever. I said I would disgrace them then, and I guess I have. 175 TALES FROM McCLURE'S But I might have done worse yet if it had n't been for Kate." Chauncey still looked at him from between his hands. " Don't mind me, Tom," he said; " I was n't preaching at you so much as at myself. It 's I that am the failure. I got turned out, too, and I have n't stood up against it any better than you. I 've been racing and raving about the country for a couple of years, and have n't done a decent thing. And I 'm the worst kind of a fraud. I 'm on my way now to preach at Thanksgiving and tell the people all the things we 've got to be thankful for, and there is n't a thing in the world that I 'm thankful for myself. See here, Tom; I 've got it in my pocket, all written out. Oh, it 's beautiful! It shows you what great gains we 've made, what blood and tears our liberty has cost, what noble characters and families generations of brave living have bred (like the Standishes, for example), and all the rest. And I don't care to-night if chaos comes again; I know the world is full of griefs too bitter for tears 176 TWO MODERN PRODIGALS and wounds too deep to bleed. We 're down in the ditch together, and it won't do any- good for us to call names." And so these two confessed poor sinners humbled and bemoaned themselves far into the night, and crept sick-hearted into bed as the dawn began to come in from the sea. The city was all bustle and sunshine when they rose from their unrefreshing sleep. They went down and ate breakfast together, then wandered aimlessly about the town. It brought back the memory of a holiday they had spent there as joyous boys, and they took the freak of going about to some of the same sights and shows, laughing as loudly as then, but ^vith a different humor, as may be supposed. So the day passed, and Chauncey showed no sign of proceeding on his journey. He had not named his destination, but had in- timated that he was due farther north, the night previous: and now it was the day be- fore Thanksgiving. He had not gone into any particulars, but it had been borne in upon Tom that here was a keener spirit 177 TALES FROM McCLURE'S than his own, quite as likely as not to go to pieces in the strait it was in. Chauncey left the lead to him all day, and in the even- ing Tom told Chauncey it was time to go and get his things to take the night train. So Chauncey went along with him, paid his bill, and they went up together to the north- ern train. Chauncey went to the ticket- office, and when he came back Tom held out his hand. " I w^on't forget this," he said, his voice turning thick as he spoke. "You 're the first one that has n't despised me; you 've done me a good turn. I 'm going to do better." Chauncey did not take his hand. " I 've got your ticket," he said. " I won't go unless you do." Tom said there was no reason for his going; and Chauncey replied, then they would n't go. He did not know what he was going to do with Tom or with himself. Quite probably he perceived vaguely that throwing the lead on Tom had a good effect, and he persisted in it, half recklessly, half 178 I TWO MODERN PRODIGALS purposely. That was characteristic of his doubting and subtilizing intellect. Tom argued, hesitated, then went with him as the gates were about to close. They arrived between three and four in the morning, and went to the nearest hotel. Chauncey had kept the tickets, and Tom took no notice and did not know where they were. On the previous morning Chauncey Smith had naturally been the subject of talk at the breakfast-table in the Standish mansion. He had been expected the preceding night. Emily Varick was there. She had been a school friend of Kate's, and in that way be- came acquainted with Kate's brother, Cap- tain Frank, whom she admired as one of the doers of heroic things and a handsome, courtly fellow personally. Frank was led to speak of his acquaintance with Chauncey in the far West, and the rather singular kind of missionary he made. "I used to think he was cut out for a soldier or trapper. He was a great rider and a splendid shot, and I don't think that he has any such thing as fear in his compo- 179 TALES FROM McCLURE'S sition. I used to wonder at him. We never thought of him in that way in the old times. He used to be quite natty, and his strong point was his head. There was n't any white man out there the Indians were as much afraid of as Parson Smith. I saw him knock down one of the biggest braves, one day, with his naked hand; and when the Shanahan fam- ily were cut off by the hostiles, nobody else would go, because it seemed sure death, and it would have been sure death to any one else. Smith lodged the women in a sort of chamber, which he beat down in the middle of a thicket, where there was only a path for one to come in at a time; and he lay and guarded that path with a repeating rifle, and dropped every redskin that showed himself, till he beat them off and gained time for the troops to come up. Yet he did n't seem to take much pleasure in anything; he was wasp- ish in his temper, and a kind of rough in his talk and dress. I used to think some- thing had happened to him, but most likely he was only out of place." They did not know that Emily Varick knew 180 TWO MODERN PRODIGALS Chauncey Smith, and she said nothing; but there was no more interested hearer of this account of him, as may be supposed. Chauncey and Tom came out of the hotel as the bell of the old church was ringing on Thanksgiving morning. Tom then first dis- covered that he was in the familiar old place, and it staggered him a good deal. They strolled along, looking about them silently, and came to the church door. Then Tom said: " I won't go in now, but I '11 wait for you. Maybe I '11 come in by and by." Chauncey hesitated, then went up the aisle and the pulpit stairs. The sexton came and asked him if he was Mr. Smith, saying they had given him up and an old resident min- ister was expected to preach. Chauncey told him to send the old gentleman up, and he presently came, shook hands, and asked if he should conduct the opening services, and Chauncey said he should like it. Then he saw the people gathering as in a dream. He saw the Standishes come down the aisle, each glancing up at him, and among them 181 TALES FROM McCLURE'S one who took his thoughts away from all the rest. The dream drifted on. Through it presently organ music rose and rolled; an anthem of many voices filled the house; the tones of prayer and Scripture followed from the old grayhead beside him. And then he became aware that the people were waiting for him to speak. The sermon he had prepared was in his pocket, and he took it out mechanically, but did not open it; all that fact and logic was simply impossible. The phrase came into his mind, ''It shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak"; and he be- gan in a low voice, that never became loud, but grew more and more distinct as it took hold of the people and hushed them by its suppressed passion and conviction. He alluded to the obvious causes for thankfulness, the undeniable gains of pro- gress, our precious freedom, and the great debt to the dead who wrought it out for us, and the honor and emulation we rightly show to those who personally represent their noble traditions of character and courage. He said 182 TWO MODERN PRODIGALS that those who could uphold the heritage of honored names prospered only by the tenure of continued noble living, and not by any show of pride or state. He said that, after all, the individual life was the one essential thing, to which all the rest was but acces- sory; that in Job's day, as in ours, a man's life was a march from mystery to mystery, that still the earth is full of sorrow and sin, that the strength of the strongest is a break- ing staff, and the knowledge of the wisest but to see the vastness of the unknown. He said that all inventions and institutions came to nothing if they did not result in making men the more to do justice and love mercy and truth; and that perhaps justice between man and man, when all was considered, was not far removed from the charity that is not puffed up, but suft'ers long, and forgives as it hopes to be forgiven ; that the mother who watches, heart-sick, night after night, and hopes against hope, for the return of the prodigal to his right mind, reproaching him only by her wan face and tireless solicitude, does as much as another to bring him to feel 183 TALES FROM McCLURE'S the bitterness of feeding with the swine and to save his soul and her own. And he closed with the quotation: "I say unto you, that joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no re- pentance." The service drew to an end, and the con- gregation dispersed. The Standishes waited while the old minister spoke with Chauncey; and when they came down from the pulpit together Captain Frank went forward to meet them. Kate Standish stood by her father in the aisle, tall and strikingly like the gray-haired admiral with his straight and gracious dignity; and now there was a certain wistful regret in both their faces, and neither of them spoke. The place grew empty while they waited for Frank to come with Chauncey; and Frank's sister, Mrs. Haven, chatted with Miss Varick in an undertone. Kate's attention was attracted to a young man near the east door, partly hidden by a pillar against which he leaned with his back toward them. Presently she 184 TWO MODERN PRODIGALS moved slowly down the aisle, keeping her eyes upon the stranger. She came quite near him by degrees, then stood still, re- garding him until he turned his face as if by a painful effort, without looking up. She went forward, came full in front of him, and then he raised his eyes and smiled faintly. " Oh, Tom ! " she cried, and threw her arms about his neck. Chauncey had slipped out at the rear door, and Frank joined the family and came down the aisle with them. Astonished at Kate, they came near, and found her sobbing on Tom's neck. Frank took hold of her arm and spoke sternly, commanding her to come away; but Tom straightened up then, put his arm about her, and faced the tall cap- tain. " Stand off," he said. " She is my sister as much as yours." Frank had assumed a good deal of power in the family of late years, and his father had given way to him. But days like this always brought the old admiral bitter long- ings for his lost boy, which the words he had 185 TALES FROM McCLVRE'S just heard had not made less, and he inter- posed now with a tremulous authority not to be gainsaid. "Let her alone; it is her brother. He is my son, and if he has come back penitent he shall not be turned away." And Tom was penitent enough, and went home to his father's house, where all but Frank and Mrs. Haven received him with varying degrees of cordiality. Frank did not come to dinner at all, but had an inter- view with his father alone afterward, and then went and talked with Miss Varick. He told her how much he regretted this unfor- tunate aifair, on her account; said that his father had been wrought upon by the im- pertinent personalities of that fellow Smith and refused to hear reason; that it was, of course, very painful to him, but it was his duty as the future head of the family to pro- test in its honor by leaving the house. He was sorry to cut short her visit; but as his future wife, she would, of course, wish to leave with him, and he would accomipany her to the city in the morning. To his surprise, 186 TWO MODERX PRODIGALS Miss Varick dissented from these views and arrangements. The captain, who was very angry, under a show of courtly bearing gave her the night to consider, and said he would take her an- swer in the morning as an intimation that she did, or did not, wish to continue their present relation. Emily Varick did not sleep much that night. Early in the morning Captain Frank sent her a ceremonious note, asking if she desired his escort into town; and she re- turned a more simple reply to the effect that she was very sorry, but could not go with him that day. He read it, and turned away, and ordered himself to be driven to the train alone. Emily went into Kate's room and talked it over with her, both being much concerned, and some tears were shed on both sides. Kate told her friend more fully about Tom, and enlarged upon Chauncey's generous ser- vice, of which Tom had been talking to her. He had found him at the hotel again, and urged him to remain, and this morning had 187 TALES FROM McCLURE'S gone down to him with an invitation from the admiral. Tom came back alone, found Kate with Miss Varick, and told her that Chauncey sent his regrets, but said there were reasons personal to himself that made it impossible for him to come. Tom said he was going up to his father, and then would return to the hotel. Miss Varick turned to him then and said: " When you go back to the hotel, tell him that I Vvish him to come." Tom looked his surprise, but bowed, and went on up-stairs. Kate looked at Emily. ''Do you know Chauncey Smith?" And Eniily answered, *' Yes." Kate made no further inquiry, except by a long, grave look in her face; but wlien Tom came up and told her Chauncey was below, she took Emily with her and went down. She walked straight across to Chauncey, gave him her hand, and said warmly: "I am very glad indeed to see you, and very grateful. I will go and tell my father. Here is some one you know." She went out and shut the door. Chaun- 188 TWO MODERN PRODIGALS ' cey did not move or speak until Emily came across and said, with embarrassment: "I am glad you came. I wanted to say to you that I think you have acted a very generous and unselfish part in this affair, knowing as you must that you ran the risk of forfeiting an excellent position by doing and saying what you did. You must be glad now. And I wanted to say that I have heard of your noble bravery and devotion in the West, and that— and that I—" He stood looking down at her. After a pause, he said in a low tone: '' There is not a word of truth in all that." She sat down then, and both were silent. After a while he asked: '* Would you mind if I tell you the truth? " And she answered, " Yes, tell me." " I went to the West on your account. I was restless at home, and I was restless and reckless out there. I earned the dislike of the missionaries, and was impatient and over- bearing with the Indians. I did n't care for my life, and they thought me brave. I did n't care for anything but you. I did no good 189 TALES FROM McCLURE'S Out there, and have been working as a farm- laborer this year, wasting the talents and education that w^ere given me. On my way here I heard about Tom, and that you were going to marry Frank Standish. I was sorry about Tom, of course, but should not have done him any good if I had not been desper- ate myself. I could not have come here and preached as I intended, knowing about you. Tom did as much to bring me as I to bring him. In truth, I suppose it was my hunger to see you that brought us both." '' You should not talk so. If we analyzed motives in that way, all honor w^ould disap- pear." She turned away and stood by the win- dow a little while, then came back part way. " I think I said some foolish things to you, which, I am afraid, did you harm. I am very sorry, and want to do anything I can to re- pair the wrong. I am going to tell you something about myself, on the condition that you do not take me to mean anything more than exactly what I say, and that you 190 TWO MODERN PRODIGALS say nothing in reply, but go away and get back to honest work at your vocation, and do not come to see me for a year. I am not going to marry Captain Standish." Chauncey stood still, incapable for a time of taking in the meaning of those dozen syllables that changed the aspect and atti- tude of all the universe. *'I am sorry you are troubled," he said. **Can I do anything for you?" " You forget the condition," she returned. " I did not agree to the condition. I have been selfish and blind, and I want you to say you forgive me. It was because I cared so much for you that I could not think of any- thing—I could not care for anything else in the world besides you. Don't you think you could forgive me for that?" He was sufficiently serious, yet there was a suggestion of humor in his words that marked the returning sanity of his mind, and made Emily laugh through quick-spring- ing tears, stirred by the same obscure touch in the kindred fountains of sorrow and mirth. Then she got up quickly and went toward the 191 TALES FROM McCLURE'S door; but Chauncey followed and detained her. "Emily," he pleaded, "a year is such a long time. If I get well to work before that, may I come and tell you? Say in six months?" "Well," she answered, "I suppose you will have it your own way." He took her hand from the knob and held it a moment tight in his own, looking at her earnestly. Then he opened the door for her, stood aside, and let her go away. Tom went with him to the train at his de- parture, and they shook hands warmly, yet soberly, at parting. Tom thanked him again, and expressed his determination to redeem the past. And Chauncey said: " I owe you at least as much as you owe me. We 've climbed out of the ditch to- gether, Tom. We have n't either of us got to the top of the hill or in sight of it yet; but the straight road lies before us, and we both know the taste of ditch-water well enough not to want to roll in again if we can help it." 192 al library facility B 000 002 110