^
 
 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY.
 
 all ... looking steatofastlg on fjhn, eafo 
 (us face aa it fjato teen t^e face of an angel. 
 
 "But fje . . lookrtJ up Bteatofastlg into fjeaben 
 . . . anti saitJ, Bcijolti, I 0ee . . ."
 
 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY.- 
 
 a g>torj>. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 PS 
 
 A 
 
 Si 
 
 " His MAJESTY, MYSELF," " COLONEL DUNWODDIE, 
 MILLIONAIRE," &c. 
 
 / J 
 
 V> / yC 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 1881.
 
 Copyright, 1881, 
 BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS : 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
 
 TO 
 
 fHg ISltJESt Born, 
 
 MORE TO ME THAN A SON, 
 
 MY COMPANION ALSO, AND MY INTIMATE FRIEND, 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. GERALD URWOLDT 7 
 
 II. BLACKBERRY EYES, AND WHAT FOLLOWED . . 16 
 
 III. IN COLLEGE 28 
 
 IV. TUB BIG MEETINGS 43 
 
 V. A STRUGGLE 51 
 
 VI. PERSIS PAIGE 65 
 
 VII. NEW INFLUENCES .......... 74 
 
 VIII. RACHEL BEAUCHAMP 85 
 
 IX. ONLY Two GIRLS 101 
 
 X. THE ROLL OF THE RIVER, 113 
 
 XI. LESSONS IN LIFE 127 
 
 XII. ONE OF THE CERTAINTIES 144 
 
 XIII. UPTURNING 157 
 
 XIV. FINALITIES 167 
 
 XV. A DECISION - .... 174 
 
 XVI. EXPLANATORY 185 
 
 XVII. NEW-COMERS 193 
 
 XVIII. WAR 206 
 
 XIX. GROWTH 223 
 
 XX. A VISITOR 236 
 
 XXI. NOT YET 249
 
 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAOE 
 
 XXII. PICNIC 262 
 
 XXIII. A LITTLE VISIT 2SO 
 
 XXIV. A RIDE INTO THE COUNTRY 292 
 
 XXV. RIVALS 314 
 
 XXVI. THE WINDY WAYS OF MEN 327 
 
 XXVII. EXTEMPORE 340 
 
 XXVIII. CHRISTMAS 352 
 
 XXIX. A SOCRATIC SOIREE 366 
 
 XXX. Ross AND PERSIS 382 
 
 XXXI. OCKLAWAHAW AGAIN 394 
 
 XXXII. SOLUTION 411 
 
 XXXIII. CERTAINTY ITSELF 427 
 
 XXXIV. ASSURANCE . , 438
 
 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GERALD URWOLDT. 
 
 ONE bright September afternoon, many years ago, 
 the people of Ocklawahaw were aroused out 
 of their habitual indolence by the arrival of the 
 most distinguished visitor they had ever received. 
 When I say that this was the finest horse they had 
 so far seen, I must explain myself by saying that 
 Ocklawahaw was the only trading-post of an Indian 
 Reservation in the West. It was built along the 
 crumbling edge of a bluff overhanging a great river, 
 which toiled slowly past, so heavily weighted was it 
 with red soil from the regions through which it 
 flowed. The town consisted of many score of log cab 
 ins scattered about like dice, with a frame house upon 
 the highest points here and there, -'some of them 
 painted red, with green shutters, in which lived the 
 leading men. There was a blacksmith-shop, a wagon- 
 maker, a saddle-maker or two ; but the most frequented 
 buildings were an overgrown warehouse, and a four 
 fold log cabin nearly opposite, which served as a tav 
 ern. The first -named structure was the wonder of
 
 8 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 the Keservation by reason of its size. Although built 
 of frame-work and weather-boarded, it had never 
 known the painter's brush. Two stories high, and broad 
 in proportion, its size was glory enough. Of a dark 
 brown, after years of sun and storm, the autumnal 
 ripeness of the husk told of the richness of its con 
 tents, which were pork, meal, flour, ammunition, 
 blankets, tobacco, tin-ware, domestics, calicoes, mo 
 lasses, and whiskey. But a portion of the popula 
 tion were Indian, or even half-breeds. Negroes, at 
 that time slaves, and white men through all varieties 
 of traders, horse-jockeys, speculators in land, small 
 farmers, loafers driven thither by stress of law else 
 where, gamblers, trappers, desperadoes generally, made 
 up the inhabitants. 
 
 The town stood in what had been a dense forest. 
 Barely enough of this had been cut down to allow 
 of the erection of the houses ; and the ways wind 
 ing between the houses and dotted with stumps 
 could hardly be styled streets, so thick were they still 
 with enormous trees, which strove to comfort them 
 selves for the absence of their slain by brooding so 
 much the more closely, as with verdurous wings, 
 over the homes now nestling beneath them. The 
 forest surrounded the town, slowly giving way upon 
 the northwestern side to prairies, which stretched 
 hundreds of miles away to the mountains. It was 
 in these open spaces nearest the settlement that the 
 farms of cotton and com were cultivated. In the 
 boundless grass beyond these the cattle and horses 
 belonging to Ocklawahaw were almost as much lost as
 
 GERALD URWOLDT. 9 
 
 the fish in the sea. Every spring the owners of the 
 stock, mounted upon mustangs, scoured the plains, 
 sweeping before them toward an appointed centre 
 everything which wore horns or hoofs. There the 
 living net was drawn closely about the wild and 
 frantic creatures, until, the calves and colts duly 
 branded, the struggling mass was let go again for 
 another year into the freedom of nature. The process 
 was repeated, at points of convergence twenty miles 
 apart, over the immense expanse so long as colt or 
 calf remained unbranded, and then the wild riders 
 subsided for another twelve months into their normal 
 laziness. 
 
 For hundreds of miles above and below the village 
 the river rolled its floods of liquid mire through a 
 dense forest of trees, elm and cotton- wood, pecan and 
 live-oak, bearded from their topmost twigs to the 
 earth with hanging masses of gray moss. The ground 
 was covered with centuries of decaying leaves and 
 rotting limbs, while the whole forest was woven as 
 into one immeasurable cobweb by the grape-vines 
 crossing from tree to tree like the threads of gigantic 
 and antediluvian spiders. The village mourned more 
 than one adventurous hunter who wandered into the 
 gloomy woods never to return. To such perishing of 
 cold and hunger, with eyes becoming dim in death, 
 the vines must have seemed, instead, like living things, 
 like prehistoric serpents winding themselves about the 
 blackened trunks, forcing their way through foliage 
 and moss to the tallest tops, leaping from bough to 
 bough, knotted together in deadly wrestle in the spaces
 
 10 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 between. There was something horrible to any one 
 in the way in which the anaconda-like vines seized 
 upon and coiled themselves about each other until 
 they sank into the flesh and crushed the bones each 
 of the other in their deadly strife. 
 
 And yet through the slumber of the forest, too deep 
 to be awakened by the winds, there flickered, like fool 
 ish dreams, the finer life of birds and squirrels, a life 
 flavored with wickedness in the innumerable snakes, 
 with a relish even of merriment in scolding catbirds 
 and shrill lizards, to say nothing of the conscious 
 hypocrisy of raccoon and opossum slinking by, and of 
 the chancellor-like gravity of owls enshrined as with 
 spectacles and wig in the judicial seclusion of hollow 
 trees. It was only upon the edge of the woods near 
 the village that life emerged into self-consciousness in 
 the children chattering together, laughing, fighting, 
 swimming in the river, climbing the trees, swinging 
 upon the vines, dashing about on colts whose manes 
 and tails were tangled with cockle-burs. 
 
 Next in importance to the warehouse store was the 
 log tavern, in front of which a mongrel crowd was 
 assembled, as usual, on the afternoon of which I am 
 speaking, not a man of them without his rifle and 
 revolver. When the horse already mentioned came 
 in sight along the road leading from the east, the 
 laziest there arose to his feet, the most drunken became 
 interested. It was not that hoises were scarce, 
 no man there so poor as not to own a score or so ; but 
 these were of Spanish stock, scrubby mustangs merely. 
 As the beautifully formed and spirited steed halted
 
 GERALD URWOLDT. 11 
 
 at the porch of the tavern, the crowd drew about it 
 in almost speechless admiration. Here, at length, 
 was a horse, the horse of their dreams ! The most 
 imaginative among them had never lied, during a 
 trade, in reference to his best animal to this extent. 
 With the precision of a church choir the words broke 
 in the same breath from every lip, " Morgan stock ! " 
 What with equal unanimity they thought, but did 
 not say, was, " Worth a thousing dollars, by jingo ! " 
 But it was only the most desperate among them who 
 said to themselves as they thronged about it, " If this 
 animal is to be had, foul or fair, I 'm bound to have 
 it ! " although the theology with which this resolve 
 was sealed mentally was of another phrase than 
 Amen. 
 
 When the crowd came to lift their eyes at last to the 
 rider, they saw that he was an uncommonly good-look 
 ing young fellow of about twenty-four years of age, 
 a profusion of long and flaxen hair flowing about his 
 neck from under the rim of his broad-brimmed felt 
 hat. Whoever and whatever the stranger might him 
 self prove to be, his steed had already established his 
 rank in society; but his open face, broad shoulders, 
 vigorous arms, unhesitating voice and manner, con 
 firmed him in possession of the title of Captain, 
 Captain Urwoldt it proved to be, which was be 
 stowed upon him on the spot. Nor did he refuse to 
 take a drink, when, having dismounted and tied his 
 horse to a post, he stood upon the porch of the tav 
 ern. As the first step toward cheating him out of 
 his steed, a man in the crowd asked him to do so,
 
 12 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 and he went for the purpose with the one who in 
 vited him into the house. But the supreme excel 
 lence of the horse was too great for the self-control 
 of a villanous-looking rascal hanging about the steps 
 of the porch. 
 
 " Doggon it, how grand we are ! " he exclaimed, as 
 the new-comer went in ; and there was the ready 
 laughter which awaited whatever attempt at a joke 
 anybody might risk. On the instant the one aimed 
 at turned, came out again, walked up to the envious 
 gentleman, remarked, " Are you the chap who said 
 it ? " and slapped him full in the face. Having done 
 which, the stranger stood ready, revolver in hand, for 
 whatever might follow. For an impressive moment 
 there was the silence and paralysis of utter astonish 
 ment, giving place to a laugh which arose at last 
 into a general roar of amusement. Under any other 
 circumstances the one struck would have replied with 
 a shot ; but, glancing with amazement at the comely 
 and determined face of the stranger, the man yielded 
 to the popular current, and joined in the laughter 
 louder than any. As he did so, he grasped and shook 
 with affection and respect the hand which smote him. 
 In a few seconds thereafter the crowd were drinking 
 at the bar upon invitation of the new-comer, every 
 one assenting with many an oath to the universal 
 affirmation that the owner of the horse was "some," 
 and that "he will do!" 
 
 In the end it was discovered that the new arrival 
 was a little better armed than most men, was shrewder 
 at a horse-trade than the best, could drink as deeply,
 
 GERALD URWOLDT. 13 
 
 shuffle cards as deftly, as any. In a word, it was not 
 a month before it was agreed by all that, unpar 
 alleled as the stranger's animal was, it was but in 
 keeping with the qualities of the owner himself. 
 
 When Captain Urwoldt arrived in the village he had 
 no definite intention of staying there. He was merely 
 "prospecting" with view to any locality wherein he 
 could do best for himself, and in any way, he cared 
 little what. During the first week of his sojourn he 
 learned that the headman of the Eeservation was 
 rich in lands, in cattle, in cash. He ascertained, 
 on inquiry, that this headman was already an old 
 man, and that he had but one child, a daughter, who 
 would come, at his death, into possession of everything. 
 Not knowing of any better opening in the regions 
 beyond, Captain Urwoldt slowly made up his mind to 
 remain. He had not as yet seen either the head 
 man or his daughter, but his plans were extremely 
 simple ; he would ingratiate himself with the father 
 and marry the daughter. 
 
 Concerning this adventurer I propose to say as little 
 as I can. It may be added therefore, as briefly as may 
 be, that he entered upon his schemes by selling his 
 horse to the headman for half of what he would have 
 demanded of any other person. Next, he secured a 
 clerkship in the one store in Ocklawahaw, and toiled 
 thereat soberly and steadily until he came into the 
 complete control thereof. When business, as the time 
 went by, was dull, he put up a sign to that effect, and 
 took daguerreotypes, the first artist of the kind in 
 Ocklawahaw. He did not suffer it to interrupt his
 
 14 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 regular business of trading in pork and calico, mm, 
 molasses, and ammunition, cattle and lands, and 
 charged such prices for everything that it soon be 
 came evident to everybody in the Reservation that 
 "the Captain was bound to be rich some time, you 
 bet." 
 
 One day, leaving his business in competent hands, 
 he disappeared from Ocklawahaw, but it was only to 
 come back again, at the end of two or three months, 
 from a hunting excursion upon the prairies and moun 
 tains beyond. A train of pack-horses accompanied 
 him, laden with venison, buffalo skins, and the ant- 
 lered heads of the bucks he had killed while away. 
 But he was more than hunter and daguerreotypist, for 
 during his absence he had made sketches on plain 
 and mountain-side. Fitting up the loft over his store 
 for the purpose, he stretched his canvas there, and, in 
 the intervals of more lucrative business, devoted him 
 self to painting. "When he was ready for it, the cu 
 rious public were admitted to behold the results at so 
 much a head. Not an Indian or half-breed, not a 
 white hunter or trapper coming in with pelts, not a 
 mechanic supplied by the government or a speculator 
 in horses or mines in all that region, but, sooner 
 or later, visited the pictures, and spread the fame 
 thereof far and wide. For years these works of art 
 were the wonder of the whole country, and not merely 
 because they were the first known to men in that re 
 gion ; for an amateur they were excellent, and it was 
 but proper that the Captain should become, as he did, 
 Major Urwoldt in consequence thereof. It somewhat
 
 GERALD URWOLDT. 15 
 
 perplexed the simple-minded people when they saw 
 a man so gifted harder at work than any of them, in 
 his store and along the street, making money in every 
 manner possible. " The Major," they observed, " is a 
 genius," and they were right. 
 
 But, as has been intimated, it is not with him I 
 have to do in these pages ; not more at least than is 
 essential to my story. There is mystery in the way 
 in which the rose and the lily, the peach and the 
 apple, draw from the same soil, growing side by side, 
 each its own peculiarity of juice or color, of fragrance, 
 form, and use. So with what is to follow. The Ees- 
 ervation was but the field, the people of whom I have 
 spoken but as the clods thereof, out of which sprang 
 the persons with whom we have our concern in what 
 comes after.
 
 16 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BLACKBERRY EYES, AND WHAT FOLLOWED. 
 
 WHEN" Gerald Urwoldt first came to the Indian 
 Reservation he found it under the rule of a 
 headman, or chief, whom the Indians spoke of in their 
 language as Mogga-thirvan, or Thunder-tongue, but 
 who was known by the whites as John Ross, by which 
 name he himself preferred to be called. He was a 
 very tall and spare man, over sixty, the only son of a 
 Scotch trader who, for prudential reasons, had married 
 the daughter of the then chief of the nation ; and in 
 John Ross the Indian and Scotch peculiarities blended, 
 and mutually confirmed and ratified each other. Wary 
 and silent, thrifty, economical, and unrelenting, Ross 
 was possessed of absolute control of his savage people 
 when the treaty was made with the government, in 
 virtue of which they were settled upon their Res 
 ervation. How he managed it no one knew, but, as 
 one result of the transfer of the tribe from barbarism 
 to semi-civilization, their chief had made himself rich, 
 retaining all the more his influence over his people 
 and the unbounded confidence of the government. 
 He was, in fact, a natural-born diplomat, and might 
 have made himself a Talleyrand and a Rothschild in 
 one, had his been a European area instead.
 
 BLACKBERRY EYES. 17 
 
 When young Urwoldt rode into Ocklawahaw upon 
 his fine horse, John Ross was a dry old man, wrin 
 kled, exceedingly tough, and devoted to the man- 
 a^ement of his horses and cattle, and an almost 
 
 O * 
 
 unceasing use of a stone pipe, with an unsleeping vig 
 ilance toward all new-comers. It was rumored that 
 in his earlier days he had been the most cruel of sav 
 ages, sparing neither color, age, nor sex. However 
 that may be, he was peaceful enough now, did not 
 touch whiskey, and, except for his property and 
 his pipe, cared only for the child of his age. This 
 was a little girl when Urwoldt arrived, and she was 
 - known in the village as Mitchabuna, or Blackberry 
 Eyes. Her mother had been a half-blood Indian, 
 who died when Mitchabuna was an infant ; and the 
 brown-cheeked little thing would have died also, or, 
 worse, would have relapsed as she grew up into the 
 original barbarism of her kin, if it had not been for 
 one thing. 
 
 Long before the girl was born, with the first settle 
 ment, in fact, of the Reservation, there had come 
 to Ocklawahaw a young missionary who labored faith 
 fully in the teeth of the native savagery of the people, 
 and against the sort of civilization, worse still, with 
 which the nation began its career as a ward of the 
 government. After long and almost desperate efforts, 
 the youthful apostle, Williams by name, disappeared 
 from the village, apparently in utter defeat and dis 
 gust. But they knew little of the man who thought 
 thus. He had only fallen back for a breathing space 
 upon the New England Society which had sent him, 
 
 2
 
 18 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 and in a few months he was back again, reinforced by 
 a wife out of a Female Institute there, more zealous, 
 if possible, than himself. The well-mated pair went 
 to work with zeal. Early of a Sunday morning the 
 husband would make his rounds among the tents and 
 cabins, persuading and urging the heathen inhabitants 
 to attend meeting at his cabin ; and then, his wife 
 leading in the singing with a subduing force therein, 
 unknown hitherto among the children of the forest, he 
 would preach to them in their own language. Dur 
 ing the week the husband and wife taught school to 
 old and young, male and female, gently and untir 
 ingly herding them from the utmost skirts of the 
 town into their own doors for the purpose, very much 
 as partridges are driven into a net. 
 
 Almost from her birth little Mitcbabuna had been 
 brought into the school. Parson Williams was not 
 young when the black-eyed child first came under his 
 care, and, as the years of toil and privation passed by, 
 he became an old and worn man. If Christianity 
 ever clothed itself in Kentucky jeans and yellow 
 brogans, ever crowned itself with an old w r ool hat, 
 and looked with pitying eyes upon the world through 
 brass-rimmed spectacles, it was in this instance. The 
 missionary had settled in Ocklawahaw to advance 
 civilization, too ; but, as the years elapsed, the civili 
 zation was, in a sense, forgotten by Parson Williams, 
 and only the more durable Christianity remained, 
 As he adjusted himself more and more to Indian 
 ways, the usages of a former life were laid aside, and 
 then forgotten. Not even John Eoss could speak the
 
 BLACKBERRY EYES. 19 
 
 Indian language as well as the old missionary, al 
 though his English became almost obsolete to him, 
 became ungrammatical, somewhat coarse, and not free 
 from phrases, when he did speak it, which astonished 
 people not used to life on the Eeservation. Very 
 rarely indeed, and only by compulsion of his superiors 
 eastward, did the old man show himself at their con 
 ferences. At such times he was as a John the Bap 
 tist among them, in his coarse garb, rough visage, 
 queer isolation from even the best of them. When 
 constrained to take part on Sundays and in prayer- 
 meetings, it was as if a John indeed had suddenly ar 
 rived from Judaea and the days of Christ ; and there 
 was that in what he said in his laconic fashion which 
 sent secret thrills of alarm for himself through pol 
 ished pastor and distinguished divine, even while it 
 filled their eyes with tears. But the old man was 
 always in a hurry to get away again to his Indians 
 who had come to revere him profoundly even when 
 they hearkened to him least. 
 
 To Mitchabuna the missionary and his wife were 
 more than parents, for they had but one child of their 
 own, a girl, Persis by name, a few years Bolder than 
 the daughter of the headman. 
 
 " What ails you, Blackberry Eyes ? " Parson Wil 
 liams demanded of the girl one morning, when she 
 was about twelve years old, for she had come to 
 school with an unusual color in her brown cheeks, 
 her eyes dancing with excitement. 
 
 " It is nothing," she answered in the same Indian 
 tongue, and entered upon her studies with sober 
 demeanor.
 
 20 BLESSED SAIXT CERTAINTY. 
 
 But it was something, none the less. Young Ur- 
 woldt had ridden into Ocklawahaw upon his remark 
 able horse a few days before, and, for the first time, 
 the two had passed each other under the live-oaks. 
 It was an eventful occurrence. Mitchabuna regarded 
 him as the handsomest man she had ever seen. 
 Having already resolved to marry her, it made small 
 difference to the adventurer how she looked ; but he 
 congratulated himself upon the fact that his predes 
 tined wife was both fairer of complexion and prettier 
 than he had hoped. 
 
 "They say that this region is cursed with chills 
 and fever," he said to himself that night. " But 
 the ague has not touched her, that is clear. If she 
 can stand it and look so well, I can. So here goes ! 
 I might as well try my luck here as anywhere else." 
 
 It was necessary that the fortune-seeker should be 
 as wary as possible, and one of his many and diverse 
 gifts was the possession of a cool caution which can 
 work and wait. Keeping his own counsel, he seemed 
 for the present not to know of her existence. 
 
 And yet, and from the first, the Indian girl had 
 full assurance that the new-comer thought vastly 
 more of her than either he or she allowed any other 
 person to suspect. So far she had been more than 
 contented with her moccasins and buckskin skirts 
 and leggings, her beaded belt and cap, adorned with 
 her own embroidery, and feathers dyed red by her 
 own hand ; now she affected calico instead, and a 
 sun-bonnet. Heretofore she had hardly done more 
 than to glance at herself in her little looking-glass of
 
 BLACKBERRY EYES. 21 
 
 mornings before going to school; now she began 
 gravely to study in it her complexion of pomegranate 
 brown and crimson, her white teeth, her red lips. It 
 was only when she felt sure that the handsome white 
 was nowhere near, that she laughed as loudly as she 
 pleased, shot with bow and rifle, climbed trees as she 
 had always done, swam in the river, caught and rode 
 at a gallop the uncurried, unshod mustangs, dispens 
 ing with saddle or blanket, her black hair flying upon 
 the wind. Where it was possible for Captain, and 
 then Major, Urwoldt to see her, no Eastern maiden 
 could have obeyed the manifold admonitions of Parson 
 Williams and his wife more faithfully than she. As 
 she grew older she would flush with shame, almost 
 rage, at the shade of copper in her cheeks, for 
 fear that he might not like it. Poor child ! It was 
 little he cared, so that he saw in her the hue of her 
 father's gold. He was a singular compound of miser 
 and artist, of poet and money-maker, and took his own 
 stealthy steps to carry out his deeply considered plans. 
 
 But old John Eoss was as sharp-sighted in reference 
 to his property, and in regard to his daughter the 
 heiress thereof, as he had ever been when, in other 
 days, deer or bears, a lurking foe or a possible bar 
 gain, was concerned, and one fine morning Mitchabuna 
 vanished from the village. 
 
 Major Urwoldt was not long in learning why. 
 From her earliest childhood Parson Williams and his 
 wife had so carefully instructed the girl that, when 
 she was over fifteen years of age, they agreed that she 
 was prepared for something beyond their own teach-
 
 22 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 ing. For some time now they had been urging upon 
 John Ross to give his daughter an education worthy 
 her vigor of character and future possessions, that she 
 might become a teacher and benefactress to her people. 
 It so chanced that the missionary and his wife were 
 going East, for the first time in years, and they could 
 place Mitchabuna in the institution which had edu 
 cated Mrs. Williams. And so Mitchabuna was sent 
 away. It made no difference, so far as any one could 
 see, to the energetic Major. He inaugurated only 
 a more systematic making of money at the store. 
 When summer came he went off on a hunt, return 
 ing with new pictures, loads of meat, stacks of skins. 
 Indeed, he seemed to be the soberest and steadiest 
 of men ; apparently he cared not for anything beyond 
 his merchandise and his pictures ; but who could tell 
 what so determined and exceptional a man might do 
 some day ? 
 
 The months, the years, rolled by. Major Urwoldt 
 had imperceptibly become Colonel Urwoldt instead. 
 He raised cattle these days, bought and sold horses, 
 came into possession of large tracts of land. It was 
 rumored that he had discovered valuable mines during 
 one of his hunting and artistic excursions, and had pre 
 empted or bought the whole region somewhere among 
 the mountains. With the consent of John Eoss, and 
 to the enthusiastic delight of Parson Williams, he had 
 erected an academy of higher instruction in Ockla- 
 wahaw, himself subscribing liberally and draughting 
 the plans. As a Christmas gift, he presented the 
 good missionary with plans, specifications, and eleva-
 
 BLACKBERRY EYES. 23 
 
 tions, beautifully drawn, of a new church with par 
 sonage attached, and assured him that the buildings 
 should be erected in the next two years. He set up 
 also a small weekly, the "Ocklawahaw Scout," edit 
 ing and supplying it with poetry from his own hand, 
 and copious prose. 
 
 During all these years he had managed to live on 
 good terms with John Eoss, now becoming a very old 
 man. No mention of the absent heiress had been 
 made by either. Colonel Urwoldt had grown to be 
 by this time a large, heavily bearded man, hand 
 somer than ever, peremptory of manner, and was 
 reputed to be almost as rich as the headman himself. 
 Managing' matters with steady caution, he had made 
 himself essential to old Ross, in his dealings with the 
 government on the one hand, and his own people on 
 the other. 
 
 Meanwhile Mitchabuna was receiving, at her insti 
 tute in the East, the best education the times afforded. 
 She was the one pupil there who possessed absolute 
 health, and her intellect was inferior to none ; nor was 
 there any of the girls who had quite as intense a de 
 sire to improve. Her teachers flattered themselves 
 that it was because she proposed to devote herself, 
 upon her return, to the welfare of her people. They 
 were mistaken. For some time before leaving Ock 
 lawahaw there had been a singularly clear under 
 standing between herself and Colonel Urwoldt. An 
 active but clandestine correspondence was kept up 
 ever since, and her marriage with him was the first 
 event after her coming back, with the full consent
 
 24 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 of her father, who died soon after, leaving his son-in- 
 law in full possession of his position and property. 
 
 The handsome adventurer was now General Ur- 
 woldt. There was no longer any need of a mask, and 
 he revenged himself for the past by asserting himself. 
 Portly, prosperous, positive, a marvel of energy and 
 skill in money-making, he now added hard drink 
 ing to the list of his accomplishments. The Indians 
 he openly despised, and dealt with accordingly, gam 
 bling and indulging in horse-racing as the humor 
 seized him. 
 
 Meanwhile child after child was born to him, boys 
 and girls, their skins fairer, and therefore their eyes 
 blacker, apparently, than those of their mother. Par 
 son Williams lost his wife, and was aided in his work 
 by his daughter Persis, until she married a stock- 
 raiser, who broke his neck one day while riding a 
 vicious mustang ; and the young widow herself died 
 in a year, leaving behind her a little girl, another 
 Persis, as the sole companion of the old missionary. 
 
 Then came the small-pox, ravaging the Reservation 
 with frightful fury ; and it would have been hard to 
 believe that Mitchabuna was as highly educated 
 as almost any lady in the land, had you seen her 
 during its desolations ; with her dress hanging half 
 off her shoulders, her black hair in disorder down her 
 back, it seemed as if, in attendance upon her children, 
 as they were smitten down one after another, she 
 neither ate nor slept She would fall asleep, at last, 
 from sheer exhaustion in her chair as she sat by the 
 bedside, or across the feet of a child dying upon it,
 
 BLACKBERRY EYES. 25 
 
 to wake, as it were, a moment after, her hollow eyes 
 drier, fiercer than before. Week after week she 
 fought for her children with death, like a she-wolf 
 for her whelps. But, now a boy, then a girl, they 
 died, and it was all the old missionary could do to 
 tear their bodies from her for burial. Not a child of 
 those who died but breathed its last upon her bosom, 
 and she held on to each in turn, her gaunt arms 
 locked about the corpse, her lips drawn, when any 
 one came near, so as to show her white teeth, her 
 eyes tearless and glittering with silent ferocity. 
 
 The soul of white-headed Parson "Williams was 
 stirred within him. When only one child remained to 
 her, little Ross, the old man locked the door upon all 
 beside, and, like a prophet of old, denounced her for 
 her stubborn rebellion. Then he knelt, and prayed for 
 mother and child as never before. It may be that she 
 was fain to yield from pure exhaustion. Suddenly 
 she fell upon her knees beside her apparently dying 
 child, and surrendered him, her last lamb consuming 
 in the flames of fever, a sacrifice to God. Then she 
 gave way to weeping, weeping the unshed tears of so 
 many weeks, weeping as if she would never cease ! It 
 was like the rain of a tropical storm, for, when she 
 arose at last, her sky was as clear as if it had never 
 known a cloud ; she was even bright and smiling. 
 
 To the astonishment of all, little Ross passed the 
 crisis of his disease, and, first slowly, and then rap 
 idly, recovered. The pestilence departed, having slain 
 its hundreds, and Mitchabuna was another woman. 
 Many months before, she had given her husband as
 
 26 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 serious a fright as lie had ever experienced. From 
 the hour of their marriage he had been accustomed 
 to tease her, now about this and then about that, 
 generally about her Indian blood, in the wantonness 
 of his peculiar character. One day she was seated 
 so submissively before him at her sewing while he 
 did so, that he ventured upon the one step too far. 
 In an instant she stood erect, hot, her face pale, her 
 eyes so terrible to see, that, although she said nothing, 
 he recoiled in unfeigned alarm, nor did he attempt it 
 again. She had long ago come to see that he had 
 married her merely for what she brought him, that 
 he despised her race and herself. He had fled at the 
 approach of the pestilence, nor did he return until 
 long after the danger was over, and she had for him 
 a contempt beyond anything he could imagine. Of 
 his licentious life she had long known, and it would 
 have been eminently unsafe for any one of his many 
 mistresses to have come within her reach ; but out 
 wardly, at least, she was now the most patient and 
 submissive of wives. Now she had but one pur 
 pose in life, and that was to care for and train and 
 save, if she could, her last hope in the world, her son 
 Ross. 
 
 I write what follows concerning Ross Urwoldt and 
 those so closely associated with him because it is a 
 narrative, from my sincerest observation and experi 
 ence, of the certainties upon which rests arid rolls, in 
 whatever direction, the life of every one of us. I 
 am to speak of the evil that Ross derived from his 
 father and others ; for there are certainties as inevita-
 
 BLACKBERRY EYES. 27 
 
 ble and as dreadful as the worst things in nature, 
 deep valley, roaring torrent, rocky cliff, malarious 
 swamp. But there are blessed certainties, too, and 
 it is of these and because of these that I speak at all. 
 Infinitely more inflexible and adamantine than the 
 steel rails along which a train flies, these absolute 
 and unerring certainties span, thank God ! every val 
 ley and river of our existence, pierce every mountain 
 range, bear us high and safe over every bog and 
 quicksand. "Whatever befell my friend afterward, let 
 it be recorded here, that, as he existed at all, so he 
 continued to exist now, and as through death itself, 
 in virtue of this certainty, to begin with, a mother's 
 love. It was small merit in him then ; but oh, if you 
 and I could not merely recognize but rest upon our 
 every certainty until the last ! could but so rest as 
 to let go and sleep in its arms, as he did when a 
 babe in the embrace of Mitchabuna !
 
 28 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IN COLLEGE. 
 
 A S the years rolled by, General Urwoldt left his 
 *- ^- wife arid child entirely to themselves, and 
 plunged deeper into the mire of a money-making 
 baser, if possible, than his dissolute courses. For as 
 long as he could do so, Parson Williams assisted the 
 mother in the education of her boy. obtaining after 
 that a tutor named Ainasa Clarke, from the East, to 
 aid them therein. It was at the suggestion of the old 
 missionary that Ross was first prepared, as he grew, 
 for college, and then sent thither. 
 
 In due time he came on to Old Orange, the college 
 which I had just entered, one of the youngest stu 
 dents there. We were Freshmen together, and it was 
 impossible but that I should like Ross Urwoldt, and 
 from the first. The face of the lad was only dark 
 enough to give to his aspect a certain sternness and 
 rigidity of purpose. You would not have detected 
 the Indian in him at all, unless it was in his eyes. 
 It was not that they were so large, so black, but that 
 they had a steadiness of gaze, accompanying a peculiar 
 motionlessness at times of his whole frame, as of one 
 accustomed to watch, and for hours at a stretch, and 
 with unwavering ken, the least movement of game or
 
 ' IN COLLEGE. 29 
 
 enemy far away across the prairie. Added to this, 
 there was an erectness of bearing which was as much 
 a part of his agility as the antlered head of a stag 
 thrown back upon its shoulders is part of its flight and 
 speed, the result, no doubt, of a species of health 
 so perfect as to differ in kind, not degree alone, from 
 that of those of us who spend our lives in-doors. 
 As I came, at college and afterward, to know him 
 better every day, there was so much more to know 
 and to like that I do not intend even to^ begin to 
 describe Ross Urwoldt yet. Let me say merely this, 
 that he had more of what I am constrained to style 
 clear force than any other person I have met. There 
 was a single-hearted straightforwardness in him, 
 which he derived, I dare say, and almost from in 
 fancy, from sending his soul with arrow or rifle-ball, 
 and to the very heart of squirrel or deer. Like the 
 Greek heroes, he had enjoyed a training as under the 
 centaurs, far away from cities, and there was more of 
 the Achilles in him, heathenism and all, than I, at 
 least, have found elsewhere. 
 
 " I wonder you did not injure your health by hard 
 study," I said to him, when I came to know how 
 thoroughly he had been fitted for college before he 
 came. 
 
 " No," Ross replied. " My mother was too much on 
 the alert for that also. She rides with me, goes 
 hunting with me, and has done so ever since I 
 can remember. I hit things when I fired at them, 
 but my mother " and his eyes grew proud as he 
 spoke "is a better shot to-day than I am, with
 
 30 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 bow or rifle. I wish one of your starchy ladies could 
 see her ride ! ", He laughed aloud as he said it, with 
 pride and pleasure. " She has had lots of children, 
 but if you could see her," he added, " on Maggie, my 
 mare, out on the prairie beyond the farms, and where 
 the stock grazes, a west-wind blowing, and a long- 
 eared rabbit scudding away before her for dear life ! 
 If I was lying badly hurt on the other bank of the 
 river, could your mother have plunged in," Ross 
 violated grammar to say it, " and swum across, the 
 river booming too, to save you, sir ? Not at all ! " 
 And he looked at me defiantly. " But I did not in 
 tend to speak of her," he interrupted himself. " What 
 a fellow you are, Guernsey, to make a man say 
 things ! " 
 
 I must have set him to thinking of his home. 
 That week he said to me when we chanced to meet 
 on the campus, " What do you know of nature ? " 
 for I had called his attention to a gorgeous sunset 
 which was consuming the clouds beyond West Col 
 lege. " You climb a mountain for an hour once in 
 your life. In hot summers you stand for a few mo 
 ments upon the sea-shore, look out upon water and 
 sky, and say, ' Oh my ! Is n't it lovely ? ' Guernsey," 
 he broke out, " poets are people who do more than 
 stand apart and look and listen. A fellow must lose* 
 and forget himself in things ; he must fly with the 
 birds, blow with the winds ! When you see buffalo 
 or deer grazing upon the slopes, you must have in 
 your mouth the flavor and sweetness of their mesquit 
 grass. Many a time I have been simply another
 
 IN COLLEGE. 31 
 
 horse out on the prairie with the one I rode. If you 
 want to know what luxury is, lie flat upon your back 
 on the ground, hovering with the eagle that rests on 
 its wings far overhead, moving with it in perfect 
 poise, now a little to one side, then to the other 
 But what nonsense for a fellow to talk that way ! " 
 he interrupted himself, and let his hands fall to his 
 side ; " you won't understand ! " 
 
 " Don't I ? " I asked, for he seemed half ashamed 
 of saying what he did. " Listen and I will tell you 
 something about yourself you have not thought of. 
 You told me once of seeing an oak struck by light 
 ning. The lightning did not flash so suddenly then 
 but that "you had time to leap with it. What is 
 more, and worse, when it struck the tree you struck 
 and splintered it, and with all your heart, and then 
 laughed to see how you had made the bark and frag 
 ments fly ! Your only regret was that it was not 
 Amasa Clarke." 
 
 I was almost sorry I had said it. Eoss gazed steadily 
 into my eyes with his own, which were so black and 
 penetrating. " The fellows are right," he said after a 
 while, "in what they told me about you." 
 
 " What do they say ? " I asked, pretending to be 
 alarmed, " that I am impertinent ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, not at all." Eoss hastened to disclaim it. 
 " But you know already, and I can't flatter a man to 
 his face. You ought n't to go into men, Guernsey, as 
 you do into mathematics and the languages. As to 
 Amasa Clarke you are right. I did n't know that I 
 had told you so ; in fact, I know that I did not, but
 
 32 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 I do dislike him. But you are wrong; if I was th< 
 lightning, I would n't strike a weed or a toad ! " And 
 I then saw how heartily Ross detested his teacher. 
 
 "Don ? t you remember telling me never mind 
 Clarke about your bear- fight in the canon," I said, 
 " how your dogs tore at him from behind when he 
 tried to climb the pecan-tree, and how he would whirl 
 about and knock their heads in with his paws ? Now 
 the trouble with you, Ross, is that your teeth were in 
 Bruin's fur at one moment, and the next instant you 
 were striking at the dogs, at your own dogs too, with 
 Bruin's paws, and with equal zest. You throw your 
 self so heartily into things, man, that you give your 
 self no time to be just, no time to take the right side 
 and to fight only with and for it." 
 
 " Do you think so ? That is what they call Moral 
 Philosophy, is n't it ? " he asked with disdain. " Well, 
 I have n't got that far yet, and I hope I never may. 
 You are morbid, Guernsey. What do you and I care 
 for such things ? " 
 
 Coming from the Reservation, everything in college 
 was new to Ross, and for a time he enjoyed Old 
 Orange as keenly as he always liked or disliked any 
 thing. The fact that his father was headman of an 
 Indian nation, and his own striking appearance made 
 our class rather proud of him. Moreover, we were 
 curious to see how such a man would turn out as a 
 student. Just then the two literary societies were 
 contending for supremacy as fiercely as Rome and 
 Carthage during their day, and the one I concluded 
 to join was badly disappointed when the other fellows
 
 IN COLLEGE. 33 
 
 contrived to secure Eoss. The initiation of new 
 members was, in those days, a serious matter. I re 
 member how, as some of us Freshmen were convoyed 
 that Friday night to our Hall, we heard the most un 
 earthly uproar proceeding from the other. There were 
 the clanking of chains, the blowing of horns, the jing 
 ling of bells, accompanied by crashes as of falling 
 bodies, followed by direful groans. The novitiates of 
 the rival society were passing painfully through their 
 initiation, and we trembled for ourselves. 
 
 Of our own experiences soon after I refuse to 
 speak ; but there were rumors current, for a long time 
 after, of events in the other Hall that night which had 
 not been provided for in their programme. From 
 what we could gather, the Freshman from Ocklawahaw 
 declined to submit to what, it was vaguely rumored, 
 he had regarded as personal indignities. It was said 
 that he had kicked over the source of the blue flames, 
 had torn off the shroud of a leading corpse, and had 
 an out-and-out fight with the ghost of the man whom 
 the society had been reluctantly compelled to murder 
 for revealing its secrets. The members of their Hall 
 were morose when questioned about it by any of us ; 
 but it was well known that the Sophomore who had 
 been the ghost in question was excused for days after 
 from attendance at recitation arid chapel. In some 
 way Eoss Urwoldt's face had been badly scratched ; 
 but he was one of that kind of men of whom few of 
 us cared to ask questions. 
 
 All that was forgotten as our class adjusted itself 
 like a team to the harness and steady strain of what 
 
 3
 
 34 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 was, in the case of some of us, honest and severe 
 study. We watched Ross closely, and soon saw that 
 he was bending himself to his work with a will. So 
 far as a Freshman could hope to be, he was a leader 
 in all the sports of the campus, and was always more 
 than ready for a walk, and the longer the better. 
 
 I do not know how it is now, but in those more 
 leisurely days many a student went through the inter 
 val of his four years' course with, alas, as little genu 
 ine interest in or good from it as a Russian peasant 
 through the crossings and genuflections of a church 
 service. But it was plain that Ross was studying hard, 
 because with some purpose more definite, although 
 concealed, than was true of one student in a hundred. 
 Through it all I could see that he was none the less 
 restless and dissatisfied. 
 
 " It is because I am trying to get at the results of 
 study," he explained to me one day when the term 
 was nearing its end, " that I cannot stand the way we 
 go to work." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " I asked ; for we had taken, 
 as I have said, a sincere liking to each other. 
 
 " You are the first man I Ve mentioned it to," he 
 said, bringing down his more rapid gait to mine, as I 
 limped by his side, for I was then quite lame, hold 
 ing on to his arm, " but what I mean is every 
 thing ! It may suit you fellows who have lived all 
 your lives in towns and cities, but you know," he 
 continued, " that I am different. It is not the Refec 
 tory fare I object to, for I can digest anything. Nor 
 is it having, to box myself up in a close room, for
 
 IN COLLEGE. 35 ' 
 
 that I must do if I am to learn something more than 
 how to ride, to swim, or to shoot. Perhaps the un 
 natural in-door life is telling upon my health, and 
 I am becoming too impatient ih consequence ; but I 
 cannot endure the slow and round-about stupidity of 
 things." 
 
 " Hold up," I complained, panting. We were out 
 on a Saturday afternoon walk to Jug-town, and Ross 
 had brought me farther into the country from college 
 than I had intended, and was rushing me along faster 
 and faster as he talked. " Hold up, man, and listen 
 to reason," I said. " You cannot go to college, and 
 at the same time be out upon the prairie after deer. 
 What you desire is to skim swiftly and like a swallow 
 over the mere surface. If you are to be thorough, you 
 must take time to go down into the depth of matters, 
 man." 
 
 " I agree with you," he said ; " but see here, Guern 
 sey. When I am at home I spend half almost of 
 every day, when it is warm enough, in the river. 
 To vary the fun, I throw in a Mexican dollar and dive 
 for it.. But the water is muddy, the silver sinks 
 into the slimy bottom, and I must dive down as 
 direct as an arrow from a bow if I am to grab the 
 money in my first handful of mud. It is different 
 here. When we try to know anything, language, 
 mathematics, whatever it is, we do not go straight 
 for it ; we plunge about this way and that, making 
 the muddy water muddier than ever. And they insist 
 upon it that I shall do the same. When I try to say 
 a thing in the simplest way, they want me to put it
 
 36 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 into a lingo instead, like this : I must not say I know, 
 but I apprehend ; not I value, but I estimate, appreci 
 ate ; not I live in, but I reside in, Old Orange," and 
 my friend illustrated his meaning at length. " And 
 the religion is worst of all," he added. 
 
 " Eeligion ! " But I knew, in making the excla 
 mation, what he meant. 
 
 " If people would only say in sermons right out 
 then and there, like old Parson Williams, what they 
 have to say ! " he exclaimed. " They wrap up even 
 that in words, words ! It is as if a man was dropping 
 medicine out of a vial, drip, drip, drop, drop, either 
 as if it was poison which might kill, or as if there 
 was so very little of it the supply would give out. 
 So of prayer-meeting. Fellows come into it at night, 
 used up, and what a funeral they make of it ! They 
 fall, like medicine men, into the same old tones and 
 phrases, like a cypress swamp full of frogs, and I 
 can't stand it. I won't go any more." 
 
 1 reasoned with him in vain. It was as if I were 
 trying to have him abandon his free gait for my halt 
 ing limp. There was 'that, then as ever, in Boss 
 which I could not understand, and therefore did not 
 know how to grapple with. As a general thing men 
 and rifles are made so exceedingly alike, coming as it 
 were from the same manufactory, that when y>u 
 comprehend one man or rifle you comprehend all. 
 The rawest recruit, in learning how to handle one 
 weapon, knows how to use every other rifle in the 
 army ; and, knowing how to influence one man, you 
 know how to approach every other. But, not to press
 
 IN COLLEGE. 37 
 
 the figure too far, this native of Ocklawahaw was an 
 Indian bow instead, tough and strong, and I never 
 did know let me frankly confess it how to han 
 dle him. Whether he was so tough or I was so 
 weak I cannot say ; one thing is sure, I was never 
 the Ulysses who could bend him to my way of think 
 ing or acting. 
 
 We had much talk before we got through, but it 
 did no good. " Professors and students," he said at 
 last, " you all remind me of the crowd hanging about 
 the old store in my town, Indians, ragged negroes, 
 lazy half-breeds, strangers on the lookout to cheat 
 somebody ; so you people seem to me to be loafing 
 around, waiting for somebody else to do something." 
 
 He, at least, exerted himself. He stood high in his 
 class, took more than one prize for languages and 
 natural philosophy, was the crack orator, the most 
 popular man in college. But alas for human calcula 
 tion ! As he drew near the close of his Junior year 
 an event befell. 
 
 The largest of the college buildings at that date 
 was an edifice of stone, four stories high, a brick- 
 paved corridor running the length of each story, with 
 dormitories opening into it upon either side. Ross 
 had his rooms in this building, and on the highest 
 floor. On going down the stone stairs one evening 
 to supper he found that each of the great oaken doors 
 was barricaded from within. There were no gymna 
 siums in those days, in which the wild fellows could 
 work off their superfluous energy, and the intention 
 ,of the insurgents was to keep out the tutors on their
 
 38 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 return from supper, and " have a little fun," as they 
 explained to Eoss, who was, on the whole, more of a 
 born leader of men than any one else in college. He 
 would not help them, and begged to be let out. This 
 fhey would not grant. Not to interrupt their long 
 and painfully planned arrangements, he attempted to 
 go back to his rooms up-stairs; but this also they 
 laughingly resisted. 
 
 " You must take command," they said ; " you are 
 the best man to do it." This he declined ; but his 
 blood began to warm as he saw what was going on. 
 There were scores of fellows at work heaping ammu 
 nition of bags of sand at the windows over the outer 
 doors, building fires upon the pavements of each story 
 near by, laying in supplies of water, hot and cold, 
 with which to repel assault. The ancestral savage in 
 Eoss arose within him as he was hustled about by 
 the students, swarming hither and thither in their 
 shirt-sleeves, their heads tied up in red silk handker 
 chiefs. His eyes kindled, his heart beat faster, even 
 while he remonstrated with the rest and refused to 
 take part. 
 
 As he did so, there arose a clamor, at the chief en 
 trance, of students banging at the doors outside and 
 wishing to enter. Then there was an awful silence 
 within and without; the tutors had discovered the state 
 of things, and hurried away in search of axes. Soon 
 they were back in force, and their resounding blows 
 proved how determined they were to force an entrance. 
 But the besieged were prepared. Bugles sounded 
 through the great building; drums and fifes sum-
 
 IN COLLEGE. 39 
 
 moned to arras. Still Eoss resisted the rising tide of 
 insurrection, fiercer within him than without. Nor 
 would he have yielded if a sudden panic had not 
 seized upon the garrison, and that he could not endure 
 to see. 
 
 I suppose something must be allowed for the wild 
 instincts of the lad, for he was little more. He had 
 chafed, too, for so long under restrictions to which 
 he had been utterly unaccustomed. In an instant he 
 had become commander-in-chief of the garrison. By 
 this time the assault had begun at every door, and 
 Eoss, bereft for the time of his reason, although cool 
 enough in bearing, hastened here and there, directing, 
 encouraging, assisting. I am sure he must have 
 been, for the moment, as demented as Don Quixote ; 
 for with his own scorched hands he hailed down 
 upon the head of the tutor plying his axe below, 
 ashes, coals, blazing brands. 
 
 Alas, before very long the besieged gave way at 
 other doors, and scattered to their rooms, where they 
 were discovered immediately afterward by the in 
 vading force, in the act, every man of them, of dili 
 gent study. 
 
 " It is not that I am expelled," Eoss remarked to 
 me when all was over, and while he was packing his 
 trunk for Ocklawahaw. " That of course. What I 
 hate is that there was not one of the fellows who had 
 the manliness to stand up and tell the facts ; and 
 that, although they had been planning the thing for 
 weeks ! The Faculty have gathered from their silence 
 that I was the ringleader from the first. They will
 
 40 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 not learn otherwise from me. But you cannot tell, 
 Guernsey, how I hate it!" 
 
 We were alone together in his room. He at last 
 locked and sat down upon his trunk. His eyes 
 rested upon the floor between his feet, but they saw 
 the brown face of his mother, saw the very beads 
 about her neck. I am sure he had forgotten I was 
 there, for, to my astonishment, the tears were rolling 
 down his cheeks. I had already visited the Faculty 
 on his behalf, not telling any one of it; but it had 
 been in vain, and I could have wrung their necks as 
 I saw the- deadly mischief they were doing, and un 
 justly, to the one of their pupils who was worth 
 more, or would be, than all the hundreds beside. 
 What could I say now ? He looked up and remem 
 bered that I was there. " Guernsey," he said, " if 
 you but knew ! " 
 
 " Knew, old fellow ? " 
 
 " Yes, about my father. About my mother. How 
 anxious she is, not so much for me, as for what she 
 wanted me to be to our poor people. She was to 
 have been a help to them, and and married my 
 father instead. That is why she had set her heart 
 upon me, and what I might do." This, also, I had 
 already urged upon the Faculty, for I had guessed as 
 much before. 
 
 " They intend merely to rusticate you ; in a month 
 or two you will be recalled," I said. 
 
 " As if I would return ! " he exclaimed with scorn. 
 
 I said all I could, but he had nothing to reply. It 
 reminded me of the way in which his people were
 
 IN COLLEGE. 41 
 
 said to have yielded to pestilence from the first. 
 That, also, was part of the utter nature in him, as in 
 them, and it lit up his character to me as by a flash 
 of light. As will be seen hereafter, and in affairs of 
 vastly more importance, my friend was one to whom 
 a thing may happen once, but never twice. Like 
 thoroughly tempered steel, he could endure almost 
 anything, but, in regard to any special matter, when 
 he was done with it then, like steel snapped in two, 
 he was broken clean off from it and forever. 
 
 He now shook himself, put back his hair from his 
 forehead, bathed his face, and stood before me, cold 
 and composed. "My chief feeling," he said, "is not 
 contempt for those fellows, but that I should have 
 yielded ! There is not a man of them I despise as 
 heartily as I do myself ! " 
 
 A negro came in and took his trunk. Eoss lin 
 gered a moment, drawing on his gloves ; he seemed 
 to class me with himself and all the rest, for, with 
 scorn upon his face, he added, " Contemptible ! " and 
 walked out. I was the one in college with whom 
 alone he had been at all intimate, yet he did not say 
 good-by, or even look at me as he went. 
 
 I was but beginning to understand Eoss Urwoldt. 
 "We have all observed how insects in passing each 
 other will stop for an instant, examine each the other 
 with quick movement of what children call their 
 "feelers," and hurry on, satisfied each as to the 
 morals too, I suppose, of the other. Now, my chief 
 interest has always been in regard to my fellow in 
 sects; yet so little at last do I know of people in
 
 42 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 general that I have often said to myself, "Surely my 
 antennae are the shortest, the least sensitive, least 
 accurate of any." But I came to know Ross Urwoldt. 
 Owing to what befell him, I could not help but come 
 to know him, not perfectly, but yet as one rarely does 
 any man. He was worth knowing. 
 
 To keep things straight and clear, let me add here 
 and now that I often wrote to my friend after this, 
 wrote to him so often and in such a manner that he 
 could not help replying to me from his home in the 
 West fully and freely, especially as I was the only 
 person to whom he did write. More than once he 
 varied his expeditions into forest and prairie by com 
 ing to see me on my island off the Carolina coast. 
 His visits were very brief; but it is from them and 
 from his letters that I derived my perfect knowledge 
 of what follows. But I know Eoss best from know 
 ing his influence afterward upon another person, and 
 that a woman. You measure to a hair's breadth the 
 climate of an empire by its varying effect upon the 
 silvery thread in the fragile tube of a thermometer, 
 and I came to my final knowledge of this friend of 
 mine through his power upon Persis Paige. Of her 
 I hasten to speak as soon as I can.
 
 THE BIG MEETINGS. 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BIG MEETINGS. 
 
 "T^VUPJXG the absence of Eoss at college things 
 ^^ had not been prosperous in Ocklawahaw. Par 
 son "Williams was becoming so old and infirm as to 
 have lost, comparatively, his restraining influence, 
 and his assistant in teaching, Amasa Clarke, was too 
 indolent a man to be of more than nominal help in 
 the work. General Urwoldt had abandoned himself 
 to debauchery. There was more gambling, horse- 
 racing, stealing, murder, than the Reservation had 
 ever witnessed, and an universal indolence and apathy 
 had settled upon the people like a malarious fog. 
 Then came a drought, parching the very grass of 
 the prairies, until the cattle fed, in their desperation, 
 upon the prickly pears, and perished by thousands, 
 choked to death by the thorns and the thirst. The 
 river became so low that it could be waded by the 
 children, and the wells and springs gave out. In 
 hastening, the next spring, to make up arrears, Nature 
 sent such rains and freshets that the crops rotted 
 along the banks of the overflowing river. After that 
 the grasshoppers invaded the land in desolating myr 
 iads, until the hearts of the people seemed broken. 
 Then came a change. No one could say when it
 
 44 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 began, or how, but there could be no doubt as to the* 
 fact. Ross described it to me afterward. " All at 
 once," he said, " the huge church, so long empty, 
 began to fill up on Sundays. Parson Williams would 
 have given up and died in despair, had he been any 
 other than the man he was. Now he was as much 
 astonished as any, for the people began to flock in as 
 they had never done. Then prayer-meetings were 
 appointed. After that the people insisted upon ser 
 mons during the week, too. From over the whole 
 Reservation, Indians, half-breeds, white settlers, came 
 crowding in, each man as of his own impulse, bring 
 ing tents and provisions with them. Then the fact 
 of the crowds became an event which drew others 
 from farther around to see what it meant, until, at 
 last, the church edifice was abandoned as too small. 
 Parson Williams obtained missionaries from other 
 stations to help him, and services were held two or 
 three times a day, and far into the night, under an 
 arbor in the edge of the woods. 
 
 "When I got back from college," Ross went on, 
 " I was amazed. It seemed to me as if every man, 
 woman, and child from a hundred miles around was 
 there; and when the iron baskets, swinging from the 
 rafters of the arbor and filled with pine knots, were 
 kindled of nights, I assure you it was a sight to see, 
 that densely crowded multitude. 
 
 " You have seen pictures," Ross continued, " of the 
 Deluge, in which animals of all sorts lions, apes, 
 elephants, serpents, tigers, rabbits,- doves, crocodiles, 
 eatrles, foxes, wolves are crowded together in one
 
 THE BIG MEETINGS. 45 
 
 compact and terrified mass, by the advancing flood, 
 upon the pinnacle of a mountain. I was reminded 
 of it when I saw that queer coming together of all 
 varieties of people, as if under the compulsion of 
 some dreadful and rising Deluge. They would crowd 
 in, sit through long services, go off to one side to 
 snatch a little food, to get a few hours of sleep, and 
 hasten back again as if under a power which paralyzed 
 them from even desiring to do anything else." 
 
 " Could it have been the eloquence of the speak 
 ers ? " I asked. 
 
 Eoss Urwoldt laughed. " It was not your idea of 
 eloquence, Guernsey," he exclaimed. " Cicero would 
 have been bewildered by it. Although, now I think 
 of it, I am satisfied Demosthenes would have rather 
 liked it, as every sermon began at least with a phi 
 lippic more vigorous and unsparing than he had ever 
 attempted at Athens." 
 
 " A philippic ? " 
 
 "Yes; and each hearer was himself the Philip 
 against whom the preachers thundered. Parson 
 Williams had caught from the Indians a style of 
 plain speaking which would electrify an audience 
 outside the Eeservation, and his brethren in the stand 
 beside him were not slow in following his example 
 when he had to cease for the moment by reason of 
 exhaustion. He and they had long arrears of rebuke 
 and denunciation to make up, for it had been but a 
 sparse attendance they had enjoyed before. It is 
 impossible for any man to tell another his sins more 
 definitely than the hearers were told theirs then, and
 
 46 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 it was a black list, you may suppose. From being an 
 aged and almost decrepit man, Parson Williams had 
 become erect again, young, vigorous. He was not so 
 much like one brought back again from his old age, 
 as like a dead prophet raised again to life. For 
 the moment he regarded himself as standing in the 
 place of God, of an offended God. You know how 
 little I believe in such things," Eoss said, " but to 
 listen to him it was as if he had really and truly 
 passed out of his own hands into those of a higher 
 power. Almost his entire sermon on each occasion 
 was Scripture, and spoken with, I dare say, the very 
 fury of the one who first gave it utterance. His eyes 
 were, when in the hottest heat of his message, as 
 coals of fire ; his white hair flickering, as he spoke, 
 like flames with the intensity thereof." 
 
 " In other words," I suggested, " the preacher was 
 but the drought, the flood, the grasshoppers come to a 
 climax, the wrath of Heaven taking to itself articulate 
 speech." 
 
 " Yes," Ross added ; " and Nature itself teaches us 
 that nothing but tornado and tempest can break the 
 rotting stagnation of things. Like men and women 
 everywhere, the people needed a thunderstorm, and 
 Parson Williams left them little to desire as to that." 
 
 " He could not have frightened them," I remarked, 
 " if conscience had not anticipated and assented to all 
 he could say. The axioms of mathematics are not the 
 only certainties. When a man is forced to see it, 
 penalty for wrong-doing is as axiomatically certain as 
 that twice two is four."
 
 THE BIG MEETINGS. 47 
 
 " They were terribly frightened, that is a certainty. 
 But," Eoss continued, " if the Big Meetings, as they 
 were called, began with Sinai, they ended with some 
 thing else. The thunder and the lightning gave place 
 to the story of Calvary and to In your superior 
 civilization," my friend interrupted himself, "your 
 preachers rarely venture upon the terrors, and there 
 fore they never come to such pathetic appeal, such 
 irresistible persuasion, as can follow only upon that. 
 You know," he went on, with the scene before him 
 as he spoke, " that Indians are a silent people, and 
 that all varieties of the whites who settle among 
 them become so too. Except that now and then a 
 woman would break out, unconsciously to herself, in 
 to the lament as for the dead, you could almost hear 
 each of the yellow leaves of the arbor as it fell to the 
 earth. It was very strange. To this day I cannot 
 comprehend it," Eoss went on, " but many were weep 
 ing to themselves I had no intention of saying so 
 much," he added, " and that is all. The phenomenon 
 lasted for many weeks, and ended then only from 
 exhaustion of speakers and hearers. While it con 
 tinued there was no more drinking, gambling, fight 
 ing. Hundreds joined the church afterward. The 
 schools were scoured, repainted, crowded with chil 
 dren, over the whole Eeservation. People gave 
 money like water to enlarge the church edifice, to 
 repair the academy. Of course many of the converts 
 fell away, but the meetings have left their mark upon 
 the people to this day." 
 
 I never knew how far, at the time, Eoss allowed
 
 48 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 himself to be affected by the services of which he 
 spoke. His mother was disappointed at his expulsion 
 from college, and to please her he attended upon 
 them. But one morning during their continuance he 
 arose very early ; after feeding arid chaining up his 
 dogs from following him, he took a little parched 
 corn and jerked venison, and, leaving, for the first 
 time in his life, his rifle behind him, he went into 
 the woods. The only person he saw, as he passed 
 through the village, was Persis, Parson "Williains's 
 granddaughter. She could not have been more than 
 twelve years old at the time, and had to do almost 
 the entire work of the house, they were so poor. 
 Occasional touches of the ague had left her as frail as 
 an autumn leaf. As Eoss went by, Persis was coming 
 out of her door to cut cabbage for dinner in their little 
 garden near by. She was nothing more than a thin- 
 bodjed, sallow-visaged, barefooted child in her calico 
 frock. You see scores of such country girls out West. 
 When you meet them going to school along the high 
 way, or coming in from blackberrying, chattering 
 bands of them, with lips and hands stained from 
 their work, they look as _much alike as a covey of 
 quails. 
 
 As Persis came out, Ross was striding by, his head 
 sunk upon his bosom in thoughts wholly new to him. 
 He saw her as one sees a familiar cat, and recognized 
 her with a nod. As he did so, she was in the act of 
 lifting the hand which held the knife to put out 
 of her eyes the brown hair blown into them by the 
 morning wind. A gleam of fun came into the face
 
 THE BIG MEETINGS. 49 
 
 of Ross ; he had not seen her before since his coming 
 back from college, but up to his leaving Ocklawahaw 
 he had known her from the time she, at least, could 
 remember. 
 
 " Is that you, Persis," he said, " and lifting your 
 knife at me ? You won't kill me, will you ? " He 
 threw out his hand in feigned alarm, and laughed, 
 and passed on. In ten steps he had forgotten her' 
 existence. But Persis did not forget as easily. If 
 he had not seen her before, she had seen him, looking 
 among the throngs at the meetings until she had found 
 him. 
 
 " How he has grown ! " she said to herself. " He 
 must have learned more than grandpa in his college. 
 I hope he won't go to drinking like his father. He 
 looks more like his mother, though." 
 
 And then she continued on her way to the garden, 
 lifting the old gate by quite an effort before she 
 could get it open. She took breath after she had 
 done so, and looked after Eoss, who was disappearing 
 among the live-oaks. 
 
 " He is not going off on a hunt, he has no rifle," she 
 thought. " Why don't he take a horse ? " But with 
 that she hurried on ; for Persis had more than enough 
 to do, breakfast to get ; after prayers, the things to 
 wash up, clothes to mend, dinner to put on, stockings 
 to darn, a little ciphering to do if possible, her grand 
 father's shirts to iron after yesterday's wash, the tins 
 to scour. 
 
 One morning before that, as Persis came home from 
 the old spring with a bucket of water, it had occurred
 
 50 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 to her when she stopped to rest, putting the bucket 
 down for a moment, that she would see if she could 
 not look steadily at the sun rising in the east. She 
 did it as long as she could, but, for her pains, she had 
 the image of the sun dancing before her eyes as she 
 stumbled homeward, and for some time afterward. 
 It was so now. She was an ignorant little country 
 girl with plenty to do, but somehow she saw little be 
 side Ross all that day and long after. 
 
 " I must make time to sew a little," she said to her 
 self, " on my new calico. It 's two months I have 
 been trying to finish it. I must have it by next 
 Sunday." 
 
 And so she did ; but, alas, on Sunday Eoss was not 
 at meeting to see.
 
 A STRUGGLE. 51 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A STRUGGLE. 
 
 npHERE are some matters concerning which I have 
 >** not cared to ask Ross Urvvoldt too many ques 
 tions, and what befell him during this expedition of 
 his into the woods is one of them. I will explain 
 why. 
 
 My own home is upon an island off the Carolina 
 coast. On one side it is buttressed by jagged rocks, 
 and, when the tide is in, there are secluded nooks 
 among these, in which I love to bathe as a relief from 
 hard work or severe pain. In some of these natural 
 basins I feel entirely safe. My bathing is done in 
 midwinter as in midsummer, and I do not linger a 
 moment on the brown boulders overhanging such a 
 pool, shivering in the wind, or scorching in the sun ? 
 but dash headforemost down and down to what I 
 know is the sandy bottom, clean as a carpet and as 
 smooth. But there are other stone-locked bits of clear 
 salt water into which I would be a fool thus to dive. 
 I know what they are from what I see when the tide 
 is out, basins broad and deep, but bristling with 
 cruel rocks, upon which I would be gored through 
 and through at the first plunge. And so there are 
 friends with whom I can and do venture anything as
 
 52 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 the whim seizes me ; but with this friend it is differ 
 ent. His depths are deeper than those of other men. 
 Moreover, I have been with him enough, when the 
 tide was out, to know of the jagged rocks which are 
 there, whatever sea may be in. Not that Ross Urwoldt 
 is not, as I have said, simple and straightforward ; but, 
 alas, he is so in the inmost and unalterable hardnesses 
 of his soul also. 
 
 Persis Paige had always been afraid of Ross Ur 
 woldt ; he had been dark and stern, for one so young, 
 ever since she could remember him. She had been 
 toughened by hard work from childhood, had small 
 time to think definitely of him the day she hastened 
 to cut her cabbages and go in to her other work ; but 
 she had still been a little in fear of Ross even when 
 she laughed with him. During the manifold tasks 
 of the day, whenever she did recur to the scene of 
 the morning, it was with a sense of sadness, too, 
 which she could not understand. 
 
 Even his own mother feared, I know, for Ross, because 
 she felt that she did not fully understand him ; so 
 much so, that when he had been gone for several days 
 she could not rest, and followed him. How she tracked 
 him, who can say ? But she came upon him farther 
 away in the depths of the forest than she had counted 
 upon when she left the village. By some maternal, 
 if not Indian, instinct she knew, at last, as she stole 
 along through the tangle of drooping vines and hang 
 ing moss, and around the trunks of the great trees, 
 that he was not far off. And then, creeping nearer 
 and nearer with moccasined feet and stealthy move-
 
 A STRUGGLE. 53 
 
 ment, she crouched low among the dead leaves, and, 
 parting a sumach growth between, she saw her son. 
 At the sight she could with difficulty keep down the 
 cry which rose to her lips, as of a dam after its wounded 
 young ; he had been away from her so long at college, 
 almost from his birth it seemed to her, and was he not 
 all she had ? He had made a fire which was smoulder 
 ing under a fallen log near by, and which gave out an 
 acrid smell to the heavy air from what seemed to be 
 a bank of ashes merely. On the other side of him a 
 tree lay on the earth, prostrated by some strong wind, 
 half of its roots projecting high above the pit made in 
 the black earth by its overthrow, yet struggling still 
 to live in every bough and twig ; and the quick eyes 
 of the mother marked the pouches of food stowed 
 away "therein as if unused. He had spread his Mex 
 ican blanket upon the dead leaves between the fire 
 and the uptorn tree, and, lying at length thereon, 
 he held a book in his hand, but was not reading ; he 
 seemed too tired to do so. With her keen glance 
 Mitchabuna saw how pallid he was, how exhausted 
 he seemed to be, as from a severe strife ; and she 
 understood it well. 
 
 Among all Indian nations in every savage tribe on 
 earth, in fact it is the custom for the young men to go 
 apart and spend a time in seclusion. It is an instinct 
 and the period answers to the putting on of the toga 
 virilis of the Eomans. From time immemorial, from 
 years long before Columbus discovered America, such 
 had been the custom in the nation of which Ross 
 Urwoldt was one day to be the headman. In each
 
 54 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 generation it had been the pride of the young brave 
 thus gone apart to spend as long a time as possible 
 in the depths of forest or mountain alone, starving, 
 often lacerating, himself until barely strength enough 
 was left to crawl back to camp again. When the 
 Spartans scourged their boys at the altars of their 
 gods, it was by the same instinct. Not that Ross 
 cared for the custom of his people as a custom ; it was 
 the blind instinct coming down to him along the cur 
 rent of his blood for a thousand years. Unconscious 
 that it was a custom, he had felt that he could not 
 enter upon manhood urftil after he had passed through 
 a set period of utter seclusion. Especially since his 
 expulsion from college, he felt as if he could not be at 
 ease until he knew himself better than he did. How 
 could any one rightly estimate, properly place him, 
 while he himself was utterly afloat, tossed about, be 
 wildered as to who and what he was ? 
 
 " Parson Williams told me one day," he let slip to 
 me afterward, " that a man cannot begin to live until he 
 has gone off from everybody and found out two things. 
 He must face what is called God, and find out for 
 himself whether there is any Maker, and who He is. 
 Not until he has done that can he say anything about 
 God to anybody, for how can he ? he don't know 
 Him. In the same way, if I am to assert myself to 
 others I must first find out for myself who I am. To 
 do this I must, according to old Father Williams, go 
 off by myself, lay hold upon and halt myself, must 
 look myself steadily in the eyes, and know what I 
 am. What do you think of it ? "
 
 A STRUGGLE. 55 
 
 I am satisfied that Ross was alluding to this period 
 in his experience. His mother understood all, as, 
 crouched upon the earth, motionless, except for the 
 beating of her heart, she watched him, and more keenly 
 than When she had supposed him to be dying of the 
 small-pox. 
 
 As she did so, her son seemed to arouse himself as 
 from a stupor. He arose, walked hither and thither, 
 stopped to listen, glanced with a wearied eye into his 
 book, tossed it impatiently aside, put his hair from 
 his eyes. After walking up and down more and more 
 rapidly, he stopped, his face toward where his mother 
 lay. As she gazed upon him she shuddered, for she 
 had always felt, as in the case even of his father, a 
 certain inferiority to him. For too many ages had 
 woman in her ancestry been the slave of man for her 
 to have rid herself wholly of that, and now she hardly 
 recognized him. His head was thrown back; his eyes, 
 larger, seemingly blacker than before from his long 
 abstinence, were fastened, as if in expectation of 
 something, upon the sky overhead. For some time 
 he stood, eager, motionless, expectant, his hair fallen 
 back from his forehead in dank masses. Then he 
 slowly lifted both hands, the palms open, eager. 
 
 " If you are a person, say so!" he exclaimed. "You 
 can see, can you not ? You are not deaf, are you ? 
 Since you made my ears you can hear, can't you ? I 
 understand, and you you have sense enough to 
 comprehend, do you not ? Say something. Do some 
 thing. I want to know you. Here I am, waiting to 
 know. Speak ! Act ! "
 
 56 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 He held his hands aloft, his eyes straining as if 
 he would force a way for himself into the unseen, 
 his mouth slightly apart, while he breathed deeply, 
 steadily, as if he were running instead of standing. 
 " At least, if you are a person, you can love," he whis 
 pered, not so low but that the ear of his mother could 
 hear. " If you love me, say so, and I will love you. 
 My mother would. Are you less than a woman ? It 
 is now or never ! Act ! Speak ! Here I am. Do 
 something, something ! " 
 
 To Mitchabuna, lying upon the ground, afraid 
 almost to breathe, it seemed as if hours passed by. 
 The great trees swayed their tops in the dull air far 
 overhead; the river rolled on its muddy path near by 
 with a kind of audible silence, as of time it-self flow 
 ing on. The shadow of the recluse slowly shifted as 
 he stood motionless. To his impassioned questions 
 the only reply came in the derisive tu-who, tu-who 
 of a distant owl. As the mother gazed upon her sou 
 her heart grew chill. It seemed to be impossible for 
 anything not cut out of stone to stand in that appeal 
 ing posture, the eyes fastened upon the heavens, the 
 hands still held out, so long ! 
 
 "He says I love him," the mother murmured to 
 herself, "and yet I lie here as near him, yet as unseen 
 by him, as God. Nor do I think best to answer to 
 his cry and show myself. my son, God is within 
 you ! " But she held her peace. It was as when we 
 behold a person walking in his sleep and dare not 
 stir lest we wake him. For her life Mitchabuna would 
 not have had her sou know she was there, and he
 
 A STRUGGLE. 57 
 
 continued to look upward, unconscious of the fleecy 
 clouds which came between him and the abysmal 
 blue. But at last his face grew paler as he did so, 
 his eyes grew angry, his outreaching hands clenched 
 themselves into fists, he shook them defiantly, blas 
 phemed, and fell as if fainting to the earth. 
 
 It required strong effort, but his mother lay as 
 motionless as before. Now she dared wait no longer 
 to see what would follow. With wet cheeks she drew 
 herself noiselessly backward until, pausing often to 
 listen, she could safely get upon her feet again. Then 
 she hastened back to the village, singing to herself, 
 happier than she had been since the day she married 
 the man whom she imagined to be a god. 
 
 Alas, poor soul ! in this case she knew, if possi 
 ble, even less of her son than she then did of his 
 father. 
 
 "Did you ever hold a looking-glass before a dog, 
 Guernsey ? " Eoss demanded of me one day long after 
 ward. 
 
 " No ; why do you ask ? " I asked. 
 
 " Try it with an ox, say, when it is lying down and 
 chewing its cud," Eoss explained. "The thick-headed 
 brute will chew on, looking steadily at its image in the 
 glass, regarding it no more than if it were so much 
 plank instead. The dog is a grade higher. It recog 
 nizes that what it sees in the glass is a dog, and barks 
 at and would fight it, or recoils from it with terror 
 as from self-recognition too dreadful to be imagined ; 
 but it gets, in doing so, to the utmost limit of its brains. 
 It has, it can have, no idea that the dog it se^is is
 
 58 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 itself. Guernsey, a dog is incapable of conceiving of 
 itself," Ross added. 
 
 " I have thought the same thing about you," I an 
 swered gravely. 
 
 " You have ! " Ross said it with more pleasure than 
 surprise. "Well, you do have some little insight into 
 people, Guernsey. In this case, at least, you are right. 
 Once in my life " and I knew that he was referring 
 to the time just spoken of "I set myself hard at 
 work to project myself, as the Germans say, so as to 
 stand apart from Ross Urwoldt and see what sort of a 
 fellow he is, to precipitate myself, a chemist would 
 phrase it, and analyze the residuum, isn't that it ? 
 but I could not do it. The harder I tried to grip 
 myself, the more vigorously I slipped out of my own 
 hands, like an eel. I could not grasp myself, and I 
 gave up trying. Self-examination is what theologians 
 call it ; introspection is the scientific term. I know 
 sickly sort of men who at certain set periods go in 
 quest of themselves, like detectives. Such a man 
 hunts for and chases himself down. Then, when he 
 has got a firm hold upon his own throat, as it were, 
 he lifts his prisoner from the earth, hurls him down, 
 kicks and stamps upon him. That I never try to do. 
 If I were to catch and take a good look at myself, I 
 am satisfied I would kill my mite of a self ! Do you 
 understand me ? " 
 
 "Certainly; but you exaggerate things." 
 
 " Do I ? No, I don't. It is not that I look upon 
 my inmost self as wicked, but as being so infernally 
 small. In comparison with great nature it is so small
 
 A STRUGGLE. 59 
 
 I cannot find it, can do very well without it, and I 
 intend to. You know how the Italian gypsies spend 
 half their time. Well, if I were to search my rags 
 for that vermin-self of mine, the instant I secured it 
 between finger and thumb I would crack it " 
 
 " Do be silent, Ross ! " I said. " How can you hate 
 what you say you do not look for, have no idea of, do 
 not believe in ? " 
 
 " You are right, except for this, that it is the first 
 time I have spoken in that way to any one, and it 
 shall be the last. I once set apart a time to get at 
 myself, but I did n't succeed, I was too microscopic, 
 and I never intend to try again." 
 
 " I cannot understand men and women," was my 
 reflection, made aloud. " There is Steven Trent. The 
 one defect in his really royal character is his emotion 
 alism. Well, you, Eoss, are yourself, intensely your 
 self, and yet you haven't a particle of that about 
 you. Who and what are you, any way ? No one 
 else so perplexes me." 
 
 " Listen, and I will tell you a little story. One 
 day, when I was hunting in the woods near Ockla- 
 wahaw, I heard something crashing toward me from 
 the way the wind was blowing, and slipped behind 
 an oak. By some stupidity of mine my rifle was 
 not loaded, nor did I have time to load it before a 
 buck came along on a slow leap. As it passed, and 
 in sheer deviltry, never thinking I could do it, I 
 sprang for its antlers from behind, for I was all muscle 
 and sinew and foolhardiness those days. To my own 
 astonishment I got a grip upon the base of the antler
 
 GO BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 with my right hand, and I held on until I could get 
 another with my left. I was dragged along dreadfully 
 until the buck stumbled and fell, when I contrived 
 to get myself astride its neck, locking my feet together 
 underneath. It was the grandest ride I ever took ; 
 an unbroken mustang I knew all about, but that was 
 tame to this. If I was to hear any one else tell the 
 story, I would believe it no more than you are believ 
 ing me now ; but it is a fact. I do not know how I 
 contrived to keep my hold as we tore along through 
 the undergrowth, almost dragged off by the vines a 
 dozen times. But I tied my legs in a tighter knot 
 about its throat, until I succeeded in forcing its nose 
 down at last among the leave's and mud. Then I 
 got my knife out with my left hand, for I have learned 
 to use either, while I held on with my right, and 
 struck through a white spot between the shoulders 
 and to the heart. After I had done it I lay, my legs 
 still about its neck and deluged with blood, for I 
 don't know how long, and almost as dead as it was. 
 I would not try to do it again, but was glad I was 
 fool enough to attempt it then. This illustrates what 
 I was saying." 
 
 " And quite clearly," I assented ; " but Tennyson is 
 before you. He has already told of the youth 
 
 ' Who rode a horse that would have flown, 
 But that his heavy rider kept him down,' 
 
 except that, in your instance, it was a buck. You 
 are right. It is thus that the body gets astride the 
 soul, struggle as it will. But Heaven forbid "
 
 A STRUGGLE. 61 
 
 . " That the rider should succeed at last in riding 
 down his soul, in driving his knife into it ? " 
 
 " You cannot do it ! " I exclaimed. " Eemernber 
 the saying of gallant Sir Walter, 
 
 ' Stab at the soul who will, 
 No stab the soul can kill.' " 
 
 "Very true in poetry, but," Eoss Urwoldt re 
 marked coolly, " I am speaking of fact. It so happens 
 that, in my case, the youth did more than master his 
 Pegasus from flying away with him into the clouds. 
 As I put my knife into the heart of the buck and 
 made an end of his capers, so I did then and there 
 with what metaphysicians style the inner self, the 
 soul. You need not have such a horrified look, 
 Guernsey. One day no, it took a week or two I 
 had it out, as I have told you, with my inner self. 
 I talk upon such things to no one else, and I will 
 grant you that, for a time, my inner self, as you 
 style it, proved to be rather a tough customer ; but I 
 ended the thing then, and once for all." 
 
 "Yes, it is in your blood," I said sadly. "You 
 make so furious an onset to begin with, that when 
 you do not conquer in the first rush you recoil in 
 utter defeat. I had hoped you were a stronger 
 man." 
 
 " Guernsey," my friend replied, " by reason of my 
 birth and training I am not a creature, like yourself* 
 of tradition, custom, convention. I am a perfectly 
 natural, not an artificial, man. That there seems to 
 be a struggle, as between an unborn Esau and Jacob,
 
 62 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 in every man, I acknowledge. It may be the conflict 
 of the man with the foolish fancies he has heard from 
 infancy. My own idea is that it is the uneven action 
 of the right-hand lobe of the brain and the left ; the 
 one lobe gets to acting faster than the other, gets 
 upon a contradictory train of thinking who can 
 explain it ? For my part I am sick of introspection. 
 I tried it there in the Ockla\vahaw woods as faithfully 
 as Thomas & Kempis could have done. Luther 
 attempted it in his cell until they had to break down 
 his door and drag him out half starved, unconscious, 
 almost dead ; but he could not have tried harder than 
 I did. I am too healthy a fellow for anything of the 
 sort. You want me to believe that I have in me a 
 mammoth Kentucky cave, and that I must go crawl 
 ing and groping about in the pitch darkness of it on 
 my hands and knees, and I won't do it ! I prefer to 
 walk outside in broad day. You would have me 
 eternally winding myself like a tapeworm through 
 my own bowels, and I won't ! Guernsey ? " 
 
 He had grown very serious. He looked at me 
 with his steady eyes, and spoke almost sadly : " If ever 
 a fellow tried to get at the unseen, I did when I went 
 back from college. Others may succeed, I cannot ! 
 For my life I can't get beyond what I see and hear, 
 smell, taste, and feel. Nature is big enough, beautiful 
 enough, for me. I can't get beyond it, and I don't 
 want to. You may whirl about in the empty air 
 with the torn-tits if you wish ; I prefer to walk 
 instead, and on solid ground. You can take the 
 ghosts, and I will remain satisfied with men and
 
 A STRUGGLE. 63 
 
 women instead. Whenever I hear people wrangling 
 about things unseen " 
 
 " Gravitation, for instance," I suggested. 
 
 " About what is called spiritual things, it reminds 
 me," he persisted, " of children did you ever hold 
 out your hands when a child, and whirl round and 
 round until you were so dizzy you couldn't walk 
 straight when you stopped ? If you are fond of such 
 things, go ahead. - 1 find too much to do, too much 
 to satisfy me, without going into that, and I won't 
 do it. You have told me once or twice that I was the 
 finest animal you had seen inside or out of the Zo 
 ological Gardens. Very well, I am content. Good- 
 by!" 
 
 But I could not let him off in that way. " Some 
 men," I said, " bore for oil through iron rock ; others 
 strike down a thousand feet through the strata for 
 gold. What I aim at in every study, as in my dealing 
 with every man, is to get at the central fact of things, 
 the one, chief, absolute certainty ; everything else is 
 mere drapery, if not trash. Now, my fine fellow," 
 I added, " when I grasp at things above me, the one, 
 about the only, certainty I lay hold upon is the Person 
 who made and rules me ; when I grope within me, the 
 solid certainty I get my grip upon, in the dust and 
 darkness, is that soul within me which is my eter 
 nal self. First, the everlasting God ; second only to 
 him, my everlasting self, these are the supreme cer 
 tainties." 
 
 " To you, not to me," he replied. 
 
 My friend was as sensitive to an insult as any man.
 
 64 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 He was quicker with a blow than most men. None 
 the less, having him so completely against himself 
 now, I risked whatever might come. 
 
 " Boss," I had him by the sleeve, meeting the al 
 most savage and animal steadiness of his black eyes, 
 
 " Ross," I said, " there is an old author who declares 
 of the man who says, even in his heart, there is no 
 God, that such a man is a fool. If you say that you 
 are sure there is neither Maker nor soul, if you say 
 
 listen to me that you are satisfied to live with 
 out either, then are you an immeasurable yes, liar ; 
 and no man knows that as well as you ! "
 
 PEKSIS PAIGE. 65 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 PERSIS PAIGE. 
 
 IN the earlier days of his arrival in Ocklawahaw, and 
 when he was seeking to establish himself therein, 
 Gerald Urwoldt had done more than any one there 
 toward building the church ; but he had not considered 
 it necessary to go beyond that and see to the putting 
 up of a parsonage also, as he had promised to do. 
 Why should he do so when Parson Williams, eager 
 as a child in regard to the church, cared nothing for a 
 house for himself ? And so the old man continued 
 to live in the double log cabin behind the sanctuary, 
 in which he had made his home and his school too, 
 until the academy was built, from his first coming. 
 It had never been a good structure, even for a log 
 cabin. A tall man could not do much more than get 
 in at the doors, they were so low ; but the missionary 
 had formed such a habit of ducking his head on enter 
 ing that he would have done so had the doorway been 
 twenty feet high instead. There was no difficulty 
 in his towering to his full height when inside, as 
 the two rooms and a hall between, which composed 
 the building, were open to the cypress shingles over 
 head. But the " chinking " of blocks of wood, daubed 
 inside and out with mud to fill up the spaces between 
 
 5
 
 66 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 the logs, had dried up and fallen out in many places. 
 Like the doorways, the windows were out of plumb, 
 and it was almost as hard work to lift a window as it 
 was to persuade the heavy clapboard doors to open 
 upon their oaken hinges ; for the cabin rested upon 
 eight two-foot posts, one at the corner of each " pen," 
 and they were sadly rotten. The chimneys were 
 built of logs to the level of those composing the 
 rooms, and were completed up and beyond the clap 
 board gables with sticks, the whole daubed with plen 
 tiful mud ; but the chimneys had parted company 
 with the walls outside, and were reeling away to their 
 fall. The floors were " puncheon," that is, of logs split 
 in two, the level side upward ; and it required some 
 skill to walk over them, they rocked so beneath the 
 'tread, the wind coming up anywhere between. This 
 last was an advantage in which the home of old Par 
 son Williams surpassed many of the stateliest struc 
 tures in the land, it was thoroughly ventilated; 
 the most fastidious Board of Health could have found 
 no lack of that. A remarkable thing about the build 
 ing was that what had not taken more than a week to 
 erect should have lasted half a century, the most re 
 markable thing, unless it was that an edifice so miser 
 able should have sheltered hearts happier than are 
 often housed in the palaces of kings. The cabin was 
 a miracle somewhat like that of the barley loaves, not 
 merely in this, that a tiling so mean should have held 
 out so well, but that, in this case also, the recipients 
 were filled thereby and satisfied. The cabin itself 
 could not have known this, or it would not have striven
 
 PEXSIS PAIGE. 67 
 
 so to hide itself behind the church, weather-boarded 
 and painted white by the missionary's own hands, 
 which stood before and within twenty yards of it. 
 
 One night, some time after the close of the Big 
 Meetings, old Mr. Williams sat with Persis in one of 
 the two rooms of the cabin. The meetings, and the 
 results thereof, had given him such an impulse that 
 he was full of his new life. The fact is, the good old 
 man had acquired such habit from long use, and of 
 late such fresh impetus, in preaching and exhorting, 
 that it was not easy for him to cease even when, as 
 now, his audience was merely his granddaughter. 
 He had been telling her how dismayed he was when 
 he first came to Ocklawahaw as a young and unmar 
 ried missionary. Then followed the oft-repeated story 
 of how he had gone back to the East, had selected a 
 wife out of a Female Institute for the very purpose, 
 and how she had come to Ocklawahaw to labor with 
 him. 
 
 Persis was kneading dough at the table near by 
 while her grandfather talked. It was a large batch 
 of dough, for he lived chiefly upon bread ; her arms 
 were not strong, and she panted from her exertion. 
 Then the old man told her about the one child who 
 was born to them, Persis, the mother of the girl, of 
 what a help she was to them until she married a 
 young neighbor of theirs, a raiser of stock. 
 
 Persis was breaking off bits of dough, rolling them 
 into biscuit, and putting them in a pan to rise over 
 night for the baking of the morning. "And they 
 would get married ! " she said.
 
 68 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 "Yes," her grandfather sighed; "your father was a 
 handsome young fellow, and, having done all I could 
 against it, I was obliged at last to marry them. Your 
 mother seemed to be very happy at first. They went 
 on a ranch twenty miles out on the prairie, and you 
 were born in this room, for your mother came in then. 
 Every now and then after that, Persis she was our 
 first Persis, you know would ride in from the ranch 
 on a horse, you in her lap, and a basket of eggs for us 
 hooked by the handle on the horn of her old saddle. 
 It went on that way for three or four years. No," the 
 old missionary said, " Jerome Paige did not drink, did 
 not gamble, was kind to his wife, and loved his child. 
 And he was as industrious as a man who rides around 
 all the time, looking after his cattle, branding his 
 calves, can be. But it was the most natural tiling in 
 the world, Persis, my child, when the neighbors came 
 bringing the baby, that was you, Persis, for you al 
 ways seemed a baby until after that, bringing you 
 and your mother and your father in the wagon. Your 
 father had been pitched over the head of a bucking 
 mustang, or it was by his mustang stumbling in a hog 
 wallow of the prairie, nobody ever knew which ; but 
 his neck was broken. It seemed as natural for him 
 to end in that way as it is for a bubble to burst 
 when it is touched. I won't speak evil of your 
 father, Persis, for you look so much like him too ; but 
 there was nothing in him, he had no purpose in life, 
 because he never could come to have any idea about 
 anything except his cows and calves and horses, 
 had no faith, as your grandmother said. Ah me ! 
 you do look very much like him, dear."
 
 PERSIS PAIGE. 69 
 
 His grandchild had put her bread in the pan ready 
 for the morning, placing it on a stool in a corner 
 of the gaping fireplace, with a clean towel over it. 
 Then she got her books and sat down to study. She 
 was quite grave ; but that was partly because she was 
 wearied with the work of a day which had begun at 
 dawn, and which had not known a moment's rest 
 since. Her grandfather had sunk into deep thought. 
 With his hands asleep as it were upon the pages in 
 which he himself found all his repose, he saw in the 
 coals upon the hearthstone the persons of whom he 
 had been speaking. 
 
 " Mother and I, we lived with you after that ? " 
 Persis asked, while she found the place in her gram 
 mar where she had left off. The old man returned to 
 her slowly, toiling up to her from the days a dozen 
 years before. 
 
 " Yes, my child," he said gravely, " and we were 
 more than glad to have you. But your mother never 
 got over it. Her life was broken." 
 
 " You mean her heart, grandpa." 
 
 " No ; her heart was only part of it : it was her life 
 which was broken in two," the other added with 
 almost stern emphasis. " Up to the day she fell in 
 love with that good-looking Jerome Paige," he went 
 on, " she had a steady object in life. I never knew 
 a brighter girl than your mother, Persis. She had 
 learned to read before she was three years old. 
 Whenever she was not helping about the house, she 
 was reading or ciphering. She was only a child when 
 she began to aid us first in the Sunday school and
 
 70 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 then in the day school. I almost feared she had a 
 sinful ambition, she studied so hard. She saved all 
 the money she could, and sent East for books and 
 papers. Then she wrote letters to interest people 
 abroad in the Eeservation ; and they sent her books 
 on books for herself as well as for the children. I 
 never knew a girl improve as she did. ' If I had 
 the money I would send her East and to school at 
 your Institute,' I told your grandmother one day. 
 ' There would be no use in it,' your grandma said, 
 'for she already knows, unless it is boarding-school 
 manners, all they could teach her.' Persis, your 
 mother had learned to read Latin. She could trans 
 late a chapter in the Greek Testament far better than 
 I could. She had come across my old books, you see. 
 I used to read the languages, but had grown rusty out 
 here. Persis, your mother," the old man went on, 
 " was superior to my wife, but she was not as devoted 
 a Christian. She lived in a different time, you 
 know." 
 
 " A different time ? " 
 
 " Yes, my child, sixty years ago the people about 
 us were savages of the wilderness ; their women some 
 thing lower still. They were ignorant, the squaws 
 especially, and more cruel than beasts. Now they are 
 becoming civilized, and, I hope, Christian nien and 
 women ; and the next generation will be as much in 
 advance of these as these are of their parents. Look 
 at Koss Urwoldt : you cannot imagine that his ances 
 tors were taught when boys to cut open an enemy's 
 bosom after a battle, to tear out the heart and bite off
 
 PERSIS PAIGE. 71 
 
 and eat the point of it to make them brave, yet that 
 was so ! So it is with everybody ; we are superior 
 to our ancestors, our children will be superior to 
 us. When I was born there was not a railroad nor 
 a Sunday school in the land ; " and at some length 
 he told of the progress made in discovery, invention, 
 schools, charitable societies, donations to benevolent 
 objects. 
 
 " Now, all advance," the shrewd old man added, " is 
 by the rising of the man, the' woman, to a pitch higher 
 than that of the father, the mother. Your mother 
 was superior to your grandmother, greatly superior in 
 most things. And, Persis ? " 
 
 " Yes, grandpa." 
 
 " You must make yourself greatly in advance of 
 your mother. If men are improving generation after 
 generation, women, and it is God's most wonderful 
 providence of all, women are advancing much more 
 rapidly. Rich people are building magnificent col 
 leges for them, colleges in comparison to which your 
 grandmother's Institute was but a poor little school. 
 God has some great work for them to do, perhaps 
 greater than that ever given to men ; everywhere people 
 are coining to see that. They tell me that women are 
 becoming artists, doctors, writers, heads of charitable 
 institutions of all kinds. I don't understand it, my 
 dear. On some accounts I do not like it, not at all. 
 But it seems to be the will of God. The reason I tell 
 you all this is that I have no one but you. I want 
 you to get up early, to study hard, to have a purpose 
 in life, and all for God."
 
 72 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 Having said which, the old man wandered off int, 
 the oft-repeated story of the death of his wife and 
 then of the mother of Persis. 
 
 " Since you were a little bit of girl," he added, 
 " you have had to try and take the place of both of 
 them. It seems hard, but that is the will of God. I 
 mean that, in these days, double duty is given to 
 women. You are a good girl, Persis, and have done 
 all you could." 
 
 If he had not feared to spoil his granddaughter, he 
 would have added aloud what he said only to himself, 
 " Yes, and you may be as much superior to your mother 
 as she was to hers ; at least, so I think." All he did 
 say was, "The times are changed. It is a broader 
 world these days, and it needs men and especially 
 women to match it. Do your best, my dear." 
 
 Her grandfather had often talked to her in the same 
 way, and after he was gone to bed Persis sat thinking 
 it all over, as often before. She was too young to be 
 so dealt with. Her work was beyond her strength 
 already. " If I could keep free from the chills and 
 fever, I would grow faster," she said to herself. " Is 
 it wicked to be so tired when night comes ? " But it 
 was late before she crept to bed. 
 
 None the less was she up earlier than usual the 
 next morning. She milked the cow, cooked the sim 
 ple breakfast, fed the pigs, gathered up the eggs in 
 the tumble-down stable, did some washing of dishes 
 and clothes, sewed a little. Her feet moved as swiftly 
 as her hands ; but it was not until her grandfather 
 had eaten his dinner and gone out to visit a dying
 
 PERSIS PAIGE. 73 
 
 woman that, after a bit of churning and scrubbing, 
 she could sit down. While she was drying her hands 
 at last upon the coarse roller towel, her eyes were 
 devouring her books on the shelf near by. Taking 
 her little stool under the window, she put her hair 
 away from her eyes, and bent over the well-thumbed 
 volumes at what was at once the hardest and most 
 delightful work of all. Her recitations were to her 
 grandfather after supper was over, and he helped her 
 as he and she found opportunity during the day. 
 This afternoon she applied herself with renewed en 
 ergy. She was too young for that also, but somehow, 
 even while studying, the story of her father and mother 
 ran parallel with the parsing. Her mother had done 
 very wrong to marry the young stock-raiser. There 
 was Ross Urwoldt. He never thought of her, of course, 
 but if he ever should, she would never think of him, 
 never ! Then she scolded herself for such nonsense, 
 and studied harder than before.
 
 74 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 NEW INFLUENCES. 
 
 " T HAD a time of it when I got back to Ocklawa- 
 " haw with my mother, I mean," Ross Urwoldt 
 explained to me long afterward. "She was glad I 
 was back in time for the Big Meetings, but, after they 
 had passed by, she was sorry again. More sorry 
 every day. She had hoped I would take a full course 
 at Old Orange, and become a sort of missionary to 
 our people, you would hardly suppose a mother 
 could be that much mistaken in her own son !" Ross 
 laughed as he said it, but I was not amused nor was 
 he. " She said nothing," Ross went on ; " but had I 
 been brought back in a box, a corpse, she would have 
 sorrowed so much less that in that case she would 
 have wept herself out over me and have been done 
 with it." 
 
 Ross rarely alluded, even with me, to his mother and 
 never to his father. I could easily see that poor 
 Mitchabuna had, in the expulsion from college of her 
 son, the sudden shock as of coming all at once to see 
 that Ross was, after all, to be his talented, worthless 
 father over again. But while I thought this, Ross 
 was saying : " There was but one thing for me to do. 
 I have told you of one of my expeditions into the
 
 NEW INFLUENCES. 75 
 
 forest, but that was only one of many. Every week 
 or two I took my rifle, a knapsack full of provisions, 
 and broke for the woods. My dogs had gone crazy 
 with delight on my return, but I fastened them up 
 from following me. I had an old mare, Maggie 
 by name, who had been a sort of mother to me from 
 the time I was a boy. She came capering about rne 
 those bright November days, as lively as a girl, mak 
 ing believe she was as young as ever, whinnying and 
 rubbing her old nose about my shoulder to induce me 
 to take her, but I would n't, and pelted her back from 
 coming after me. I was savage. Everything was 
 black as night. The river was up, and it moved 
 between the snow-covered banks like a big snake, 
 purple from overfeeding, sluggish, slimy, winding on 
 its way to do whatever mischief it could down South. 
 Dante put the mouth, you remember, Guernsey, of 
 his ' Inferno ' in a dense forest. But he never saw a 
 forest like ours at Ocklawahaw. The trees are woven 
 together with great vines, the moss hanging so rank 
 from the boughs that the wind cannot get at the 
 malaria, nor the sun either. When I went on my 
 expeditions I sank almost to my knees at every step 
 in the dead leaves coated with snow. The worse it 
 was the more I enjoyed it." 
 
 Now, if Ross had been in the habit of talking in 
 that way to people in general, I should have known 
 that he was a humbug. As I well knew, I was the 
 one man living to whom he did thus talk. I doubt 
 if he cared to think of such things when away from 
 me. If he had made a custom of moralizing in that
 
 76 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 style with me, even while I loved the man, I should 
 have despised him, as one does the sham heroes of all 
 grades who weep aloud in order to be wept over, pre 
 cisely as clowns in a circus laugh in their queer coats 
 and daubed cheeks in order to be laughed at, pennies 
 of some sort to be paid at the door in both cases. 
 But Ross Urwoldt was not of that kind. He was 
 thoroughly sincere, with me at least, and I rated, as 
 well as loved, him higher than I do many a better 
 man. 
 
 "Your hell was in you, not in the dank forest. 
 Otherwise," I said, " you would not have gone there. 
 But you were going to tell me, you said an hour ago, 
 about Governor Beauchamp." 
 
 " Wait a moment. I had been lifted out of being 
 a half-Indian when I went to Old Orange. Bather," 
 Ross said, " I had climbed up that high out of Ockla- 
 wahaw and savagery by my own effort. Up to the 
 moment I found myself surrounded that evening in 
 college by the fellows, wild for a little fun, all I 
 cared for on earth was to climb higher. You know 
 how it was. What with the bugle and drum, the 
 tutors hammering at the doors and the fellows about 
 you begging you to take the lead, weariness with years 
 of steady study and Nature itself boiling in my veins, 
 what could I do but go crazy ? It was my fault, of 
 course. I had lifted myself that high with my own 
 hands, and with my own hands I dashed myself down. 
 It all lies in mere circumstance, Guernsey, circum 
 stance contained in a minute, circum " 
 
 " Circumstance to be grappled with," I interrupted
 
 NEW INFLUENCES. 77 
 
 him, " in the instant, and mastered as you would a 
 \vild-cat leaping upon you. But go on, go on." 
 
 " A wild-cat ? Do you know, Guernsey," Ross said, 
 " I saw one in the forks of a pecan the first day I 
 took to the woods. My rifle went to nay shoulder as 
 of itself, I had n't had a chance for a shot so long ; 
 but just as I was about putting a bullet between its 
 eyes I lowered the rifle. ' Not a bit of it ! ' I said, ' we 
 are too near of kin, old fellow ; it would be murder. 
 No ; you go ahead, bite your best, fight, squall, scratch ! 
 What do I care ? ' Would you believe it, Guernsey, I 
 blazed away after that at every blue-jay I saw, catbird, 
 woodpecker. I had to kill deer for my food, of course ; 
 but whenever I saw a gray squirrel sitting out on the 
 Hmb of a tall tree, its tail curved over its head, a nut 
 between its paws, its bright eye glancing about, letting 
 down a fore-paw now and then to listen crack ! my 
 ball would strike the limb under it, and it would 
 whirl high into the air and come down to the ground 
 with a thud ! I did not know I could be such a sav 
 age. If I had struggled up and out a little, I had 
 taken myself by the shoulders, as with both hands, 
 and dashed myself down deeper than I had been 
 before." 
 
 " Well ? " I said ; for while I sympathized with him 
 I showed the nature of my sympathy by the way I 
 laughed at his stern face. 
 
 " That is all ! I had plenty of powder and balls, 
 and, although I was weeks about it off and on, there 
 in the woods, I fired my wrath at myself away with 
 my ammunition. But, Guernsey, there was not a bul-
 
 78 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 let that was not aimed really at myself. What a sav 
 age loves best is to kill, kill ! Only it was myself I 
 Oh, that is all ! " and I saw that he had regretted say 
 ing anything. I made no reply. What I never do is 
 to preach ; when a man's own conscience is in the 
 pulpit, I would be a fool to try to take its place. 
 
 " But what about Beaucharnp ? " I asked. 
 
 " After I settled down at last from my expeditions 
 into the woods, I went," Ross told me, "to studying 
 again under Amasa Clarke. He had remained all this 
 time in Ocklawahaw teaching. They had made him 
 President at last of the academy. He was about 
 the same man, except that he weighed a good deal 
 more. The more there was of him the less I liked 
 him, even then. But I went to work for I had 
 brought back the text-books of the whole college 
 course like a savage, with a sort of ferocity in that 
 direction, too. I almost frightened Clarke, but I 
 grew at last to be as quiet and silent as need be. 
 How I studied ! It \vas partly from the necessity of 
 being occupied, partly from love of books, chiefly be 
 cause I knew it would please my mother." 
 
 " But Governor Beauchamp ? " I asked. "You were 
 going to tell me how you came to know him." 
 
 "Was I? Well, I had heard of the Governor," 
 Ross said, " since I could remember. He was a poor 
 boy somewhere, who had managed to fight his way 
 upward, until he obtained an appointment to West 
 Point. From there he went as an army officer to take 
 charge of the Seminoles in Florida. After living 
 among them and drinking hard, it was said, for so
 
 NEW INFLUENCES. 79 
 
 many years that he became himself almost a savage, 
 he suddenly resigned and went into the practice of 
 law and politics in the State next to our Reservation. 
 There lie engaged in a duel or two, a street-fight or so. 
 Then he was elected to the Legislature, after that to 
 Congress. One peculiarity of Beaucharnp was that 
 he was either very popular or the most thoroughly 
 execrated of men. Defeated for Congress at the next 
 election, he came back to the State, and married the 
 daughter of a planter who died when Rachel, her only 
 child, was a few years old. For a while he gave him 
 self up to dissipation. Whether popular or the reverse, 
 he was always pressed for money. It was little he 
 cared, for his daughter grew up on the plantation 
 under the care of her aunt, and General Beauchamp, 
 as he was then styled, did as he pleased. 
 
 " It is too long a story to tell," Ross continued, 
 "but in some way he was smitten by another gust of 
 popularity, and sent back to Congress, to the lower 
 House. So popular did he become that he was elected, 
 after a tour of vigorous stump-speaking, to the Senate. 
 Then came another period of unpopularity ; no man 
 was so heartily cursed throughout his State as he. 
 It is wearisome to tell, but after this came a period 
 of restoration to favor. It was like a cyclone, and he 
 was made Governor of his State almost by acclamation. 
 Heaven knows why, but in a few months thereafter 
 he resigned, and disappeared from the knowledge of 
 men. 
 
 "All my life," Ross added, "I had heard of him. 
 The papers made such constant mention of him, for
 
 80 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 and against, always with vehemence, that from a boy 
 I considered him the greatest of men. The people of 
 Ocklawahaw were constantly coming and going, and 
 they sat about my father's warehouse on goods-boxes, 
 whittling cypress shingles, cracking pecans, chewing 
 tobacco, smoking by the hour. They had much to 
 say about General Beauchamp, what he did and said 
 in Washington, his speeches, his fine horses, his virtues, 
 his rascalities. With some he was a scoundrel, with 
 others he was a patriot and a statesman, but with all 
 he was a hero. You have to live in such a section to 
 know how utterly one man can be the standard, can 
 fill the talk of its people. Cotton, corn, horse, whiskey, 
 dollar, Governor Beauchamp, the language seemed 
 to be made up of those words. There was no man I 
 had heard so much about, was so anxious to see. 
 
 " All this," Eoss continued, " was up to the time of 
 my return from college. The Big Meetings were long 
 past, I hunted now only of fine afternoons, and had 
 gone to hard study. It was very rarely that I went 
 into the village. One hot afternoon I had to go to 
 my father's store for something, to mail a letter to 
 you, I think it was, for the store was also the post- 
 office. As I approached it, I heard a loud, slow, 
 steady voice as of some one rather reading aloud than 
 making a speech. The building was crowded with 
 people, but the first thing which struck me as I went 
 in was to see a large man seated upon the counter 
 which ran across the great room at the other end. 
 In front of him, and sitting upon nail-kegs, tobacco- 
 boxes, salt-sacks, half-opened cases of brogans, wins-
 
 NEW INFLUENCES. 81 
 
 key and flour barrels, about the store, were, as it 
 seemed to me, half the jockeys, small farmers, half- 
 breeds, cattle-raisers, gamblers, loafers, of Ocklawahaw. 
 Some were whittling sticks, others were chewing to 
 bacco and spitting between their outstretched legs, 
 but all were listening, as if for life, to the man 
 perched above them all, upon the counter. I knew 
 that he must be some remarkable somebody, he was 
 so very large and good-looking, and he was so entirely 
 conscious of it." 
 
 But I will repeat what Eoss went on to describe to 
 me, in my own words. 
 
 " And so you see, my friends," the new-comer was 
 saying as Eoss went in, " Andrew Jackson was the 
 same Old Hickory after he became President of the 
 United States as before." 
 
 There was a deliberate drawl in the way in which, 
 as Eoss mimicked it for me, it was said which it is 
 impossible to put upon paper. It was that of a very 
 heavy and indolent man who enjoyed his own pre 
 eminence and knew how intently every word was 
 hung upon by his admiring hearers. The slow drag 
 ging out of each syllable was an affectation which 
 would have seemed absurd in a lesser man ; now it 
 was part of the pomp of a king. 
 
 " It happened," the stranger continued, " when 
 Jackson was President. Donaldson was his secretary. 
 When Donaldson told Jackson that she was waiting 
 to see him in the East Eoom, he found the President, 
 as usual, dressed out in the ragged old wrapper he 
 brought with him from the Hermitage in Tennessee. 
 
 6
 
 82 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 He was smoking his pipe. It was a cob pipe. A corn 
 cob pipe. With a six-inch reed stem. ' You go and tell 
 the Countess,' Jackson said to Donaldson, ' you go 
 and tell her,' Old Hickory said, ' that I will be with her 
 in a minute.' ' My Lord ! ' Donaldson replied, ' what 
 are you thinking about, General ? You won't see her 
 with that old dressing-gown on, with your hair in 
 that fix, with your cob pipe between your teeth ! ' 
 Jackson's hair stood up all over his head, as you know, 
 gentlemen. ' Donaldson,' Jackson replied " 
 
 Here, as Ross related to me, the new-comer stopped 
 speaking. He was carving something out of a cypress 
 shingle, and he held it away from him to see how it 
 looked. There was an unbroken silence. Taking his 
 time to it, he resumed after a while his whittling and 
 his story. 
 
 " ' Donaldson,' Jackson replied, ' you do as I tell 
 you.' ' General,' Donaldson begged, ' the lady is a 
 Countess. Moreover, she is writing a big book upon 
 America. At least, leave your old slippers.' ' Donald 
 son,' Old Hickory said, 'I knew a man once who 
 made a fortune by minding his own business.' " 
 
 Here the centre of the admiring group paused to 
 take another look at his shingle, and then slowly 
 resumed. 
 
 " If you will believe me, gentlemen, in half an hour 
 after Jackson was in the East Room talking to that 
 woman. He was dressed out in black broadcloth, his 
 hair combed beautifully. She wrote in her book 
 that President Jackson was the most polished gentle 
 man she met in America. In her knowledge of the
 
 NEW INFLUENCES. 83 
 
 nobles and kings of Europe she had never met a more 
 refined and aristocratic person." 
 
 "You must imagine the speaker," Eoss added as 
 he told me of it. " Although he sat in a slouchino- 
 
 O 
 
 way upon the counter while he talked, he was the 
 most magnificent-looking man I ever saw. When he 
 arose and shook himself from the litter he made in his 
 whittling. I saw that he was of almost colossal height 
 
 O' O 
 
 and breadth. That he was, or had been, in the army, 
 I could see by his military bearing. His head was 
 large and in keeping with his stature and yard-across 
 breadth of shoulder ; the brows retreating, but noble ; 
 the jaws as powerful as those of a bull; the face 
 almost leonine amid its shaggy abundance of tawny 
 hair and beard. I was amazed. To me he seemed 
 in his copperas-colored suit to be an emperor in 
 disguise. 
 
 "And so he stood leaning against the counter whit 
 tling, telling anecdote after anecdote, awakening now 
 and then peals of laughter. At last, and in a mo 
 mentary pause, my father introduced me. Of course 
 all the world must know who the distinguished 
 stranger was, and all that my father said was, ' Gen 
 eral, this is my son Eoss.' Had he been at once a 
 king, a patriarch, and an affectionate grandmother, 
 he could not have been more stately, more venerable 
 in his manner, more loving. Eemoving his jack-knife 
 from his right hand to that which held the shingle, 
 he took in his own my hand, saying, ' You are a noble- 
 looking youth, young sir. As I fervently hope, you 
 are a virtuous.' He held my hand in his while he
 
 84 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 said this. Then he laid his broad palm upon my 
 head. ' May God,' he said in fervent accents, 
 ' may God Almighty bless you, my son ! ' He said it 
 with such unction that, for a moment, there was 
 silence in the room ; but then, to my astonishment, 
 beginning with a low titter, everybody gave way to 
 laughter, and peal followed upon peal, as if this was 
 the best joke of all. Wondering, I glanced around 
 the crowded store and then at the stranger. He had 
 resumed his whittling, and his broad face was benig 
 nant ; but my study of his really noble countenance 
 was arrested by the angles of his eyes, the corners, 
 under his venerable beard, of his mouth. They 
 slanted in the lines of concealed no, it could not 
 be amusement ! There was a certain indescribable 
 flickering, quivering, no, the eyes were full in 
 mine, then furtive, then fastened with grave sincerity 
 upon the bit of wood which was taking under his 
 careful carving the shape of a heart. 
 
 " And this," Ross added, " was Governor, Senator, 
 possibly President Beauchamp ! But that was merely 
 the beginning of my acquaintance with him."
 
 RACHEL BEAUCHAMP. 85 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 RACHEL BEAUCHAMP. 
 
 A ND so, when Governor Beauchamp fled from the 
 * * scene of his triumphs, it was in the Reservation 
 that he found a shelter. The habits he had formed 
 during his stay among the Seminoles in Florida had 
 doubtless much to do with it. 
 
 "They say," I remarked to Ross, when we were 
 speaking, long after, of the Governor, " that when a 
 forest is burned there springs up in its place a wholly 
 new and different species of vegetation, the seeds of 
 which had been biding their time in the soil from 
 creation. So of Governor Beauchamp. We cannot 
 understand the smallest revolution in weeds or min 
 erals ; how much less can we explain any man, and 
 the queer changes which befall him ? " 
 
 " Man is himself," Ross replied, " one of the very 
 least of the growths of the soil, the easiest understood 
 of all. What is an insect like Beauchamp in com 
 parison to magnificent nature ? We speak of the 
 magnetic force by which the sun draws the planets 
 toward itself, by which the globe compels its particles 
 toward its centre ; did it ever occur to you, Guern 
 sey, how nature drags to itself unceasingly the hearts, 
 also, of all of us ? The dullest and driest Professor of
 
 86 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 Philology will drop his dictionary, and be drawn, 
 whenever he can find excuse for yielding, to the sea 
 shore or the mountain side, it is the magnetic at 
 traction upon him of mountain and sea. A man may 
 have made himself as much of a money-making ma 
 chine as if he were the contrivance for that purpose 
 in a mint, yet, all of a sudden, he will have broken 
 away and gone, Europe has seized upon and drawn 
 him across the water, precisely as a magnet does an 
 iron filing. Did you ever observe how utterly men 
 and women, as well as children, give themselves up 
 in a picnic to the attraction of lake or forest ? Our 
 life is wholly artificial, against nature. Some take 
 opium to escape ; others, whiskey. Some fly to relig 
 ion to get away from our unnatural life. We gamble, 
 read fiction, plunge into poetry, go to the theatre, the 
 race-course, it is but a desperate effort to break 
 jail, to get out of the wretched conventionalism of 
 men and women, and back again to great nature. 
 
 " It is that," Ross continued, " which explains Gov 
 ernor Beauchamp. He was a large man, and nature 
 drew him to itself with a powerful grasp. It was the 
 surge of the sea he craved, the blowing of the wind, 
 the flash and peal of the storm, something larger, 
 more genuine, than the miserable trifles aboul him as 
 Governor. He was as glad to get away from his pop 
 ularity as from his unpopularity, more so, for peo 
 ple pressed about and stifled him more in the first 
 instance than in the last. He fled to us, and for 
 years he was the biggest, most utterly abandoned, 
 and happiest loafer in Ocklawahaw."
 
 RACHEL BEAUCHAMP. 87 
 
 " How did he pass his time ? " I asked. 
 
 "He spent it," Eoss said, "as the Orientals do, 
 as the Syrian Jobs and Isaacs did, in gravely and de 
 liberately doing nothing. He found a luxury in being 
 far away from Congress and the squabbling capital of 
 his State. Like a mariner who had escaped from 
 wreck and stormy seas, he simply sat high and dry 
 on the beach, beyond the utmost reach of the waves, 
 and in the sunshine, resting, doing nothing whatever. 
 He found a luxury iu eating as much as possible, 
 sleeping as often and as long as he could, smoking the 
 best tobacco in reach, talking when he felt like it, 
 saying nothing when he preferred to be silent, the 
 existence of a king. 
 
 " If the truth must be told," he added, " the Gov 
 ernor was a sadly demoralized Executive, in more 
 senses than one. He became very fat, I may say enor 
 mously fat, too fat to hunt, to ride, even to fish in 
 the river, as he did when he first arrived. As a rule 
 he did not wake until late in the day. I am com 
 pelled to add that he got drunk. He said it was the 
 only way he could escape chills and fever. By three 
 o'clock in the afternoon he would be garrulously 
 drunk, with a crowd about him ; by four he ceased 
 to talk by reason of the state of solemn and digni 
 fied intoxication to which he had attained, and his 
 retinue withdrew. At such times he sat generally 
 on a stone beneath a sycamore, in a condition of 
 majestic and haughty isolation from every one, refus 
 ing to pay his usual attention to anything or to any 
 body. Leaving out of account his soiled clothing,
 
 88 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 disregarding as far as I could the broad-brimmed felt 
 hat which rested at strange angles upon his noble 
 head, Governor Beauchamp was even then, and merely 
 to look at, the most commanding of men. When in 
 that stage, his great hands grasping the heavy stick 
 of bois d'etre wood which he always carried, as it stood 
 between his knees, poising himself with unspeakable 
 dignity, his eyes wide open and gazing before him in 
 solemn abstraction from all around, you could imagine 
 him a monarch awaiting an embassy ; at the very 
 least, it was easy to fancy him still in his seat in the 
 Senate, gravely considering the line of statesmanship 
 to be followed in some national emergency then press 
 ing upon him. 
 
 " When he sat in silent state upon his stone under 
 the sycamore, you would not at first," Ross went on, 
 " have imagined that he had touched liquor. Taking 
 into account the rude scenery about him and his own 
 habiliments, it was easy to imagine him some mighty 
 Montezuma of old hidden in the wilds, waiting until 
 the justice of Heaven should destroy his foes and re 
 store him to his throne. Alas ! within half an hour 
 he would slowly relax, slacken in every muscle, yield 
 as to an inexorable and mysterious doom, and, sliding 
 down from the stone upon which he sat, would lie 
 along the earth in majestic ruins, dead drunk." 
 
 " They say," I remarked, " that his Indian name 
 was ' Big-Drunk.' " 
 
 " Yes, ' Doora-Chup,' ' Big-Drunk ; ' that was the 
 name by which he was known, at least," Ross added, 
 " until she came."
 
 RACHEL BEAUCHAMP. 89 
 
 " She ? Who was she ? " I asked. 
 
 " Be patient, and I will tell you. In those days," 
 he continued, " I gave my mornings to hard study. 
 It pleased my mother. And I had an ambition, too, 
 to show her that I was not dependent upon any 
 college for my education. I must have studied very 
 hard, for I could not apply myself in the afternoons. 
 "With my dogs at my heels, my rifle in my hand, I 
 would saunter about as the fancy took me. The 
 sycamore of which I have spoken was upon the 
 outskirts of the village, where the prairie began, 
 the coolest spot, according to tradition, anywhere 
 about, by reason of a breeze which blew there, or 
 ought to blow, from the expanse beyond. When any 
 one sat upon the stone beneath the old sycamore, 
 he could not help leaning against its gnarled trunk, 
 which, worn smooth and shiny thereby, always re 
 minded me of the knees of Parson Williams's Sunday 
 suit. How often have I sat upon that stone whole 
 afternoons ! There I would remain for hours, with 
 the Governor lying at my feet, too heavy for less 
 than four men to bear away, and not a man in 
 the village who cared enough for him to make the 
 attempt. 
 
 " How well I remember those hot days in August ! 
 On one side of me rolled the river like an infernal 
 Styx, slimy, silent, not a fish leaping out of it, not a 
 bird skimming its surface, too muddy, too hot for any 
 body unless it was a boy to bathe in. When I turned 
 my eyes toward the open prairie, there was not a living 
 thing to be seen upon it, and the air between where
 
 90 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 I sat and the distant hills flickered with heat, need 
 ing but a few more degrees thereof to become flame. 
 Back of me were the woods, dark but not cool, full 
 of rotting trees ; and every now and then I could hear 
 a distant crash which told of some falling bough or 
 giant live-oak, upon which the slowly gnawing doom 
 had done its work at last. Everybody in and about 
 the village seemed to be dead or asleep. I knew that 
 Amasa Clarke was lying flat on his back on the plat 
 form in the exhibition-room of the academy, as the 
 coolest spot there, sleeping, with his foolish mouth 
 open, fat and flaccid like a stranded fish. 
 
 " And there I would sit looking at Governor Beau- 
 champ stretched out on the dead leaves, his great face 
 full in the sun, the flies swarming about him as if he 
 were so much manure. It was a lesson to me, Guern 
 sey," Eoss went on. " I said to myself, ' Here is a 
 man who has made a desperate struggle of it from 
 childhood. How hard and long he worked when a 
 lad, when a school-teacher ! This mass of bloated 
 corruption took a complete course at West Point. 
 He mastered there the toughest sort of mathematics, 
 was taught the languages, was drilled for years by a 
 stern discipline, learned how to dance, to fence, to 
 ride, to fight. Here he lies and rots, and yet he 
 fought bravely in the everglades of Florida, has 
 bought and sold with the shrewdest, has made 
 speeches, has figured in Congress, has filled the papers 
 with his name. This man, with his hanging cheeks, 
 puffy eyes, draggled beard, Roman head in the 
 mire, this man was esteemed the most perfect
 
 RACHEL BEAUCHAMP. 91 
 
 gentleman, the wisest statesman, the most finished 
 orator, nothing in the world beyond the reach of his 
 ambition, and yet there he lies.' 
 
 "I have read of the ruined cities of Asia, have 
 seen in imagination the fallen columns of glorious 
 temples, the prostrate images of the Ptolemies and 
 Nebuchadnezzars, but Governor Beauchamp lying at 
 my feet those hot afternoons was as instructive a 
 teaching as I could wish to have in regard to things, 
 because, you will observe, I got thus at the facts. 
 That is what I like to get at, the fads ! " Eoss added, 
 not savagely, but with a sincerity which was, to me, 
 exceedingly sad. 
 
 " I remember one night," he continued, " when I 
 sat with his Excellency snoring upon the earth at my 
 feet until darkness fell. There was no moon, but all 
 the stars were out, and as I stood at last, my head 
 bared to the night breeze beside the fallen monarch 
 of men, I looked up at the immeasurable blue above 
 me, and contrasted the poor worm at my feet, so de 
 based during even his brief moment of existence, 
 with the more than eighteen millions of suns known 
 to astronomers, which have burned for millions of 
 years about and around the speck of dust we call our 
 globe. Guernsey, I got an impression then of the 
 microscopic meanness of man and the grandeur of 
 nature which I shall retain forever." 
 
 "From what you have told me I should think," I 
 said, "that you might have learned something also 
 from such a life as that of old Parson Williams, as 
 your people call him." For I did not care to argue.
 
 92 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 " Yes, he was," Ross consented, " a good man. He 
 came to Ocklawahaw so long before only to do good. 
 He had worked long and very hard, and he was 
 very poor. His wife had worked even harder, if 
 possible, and she was dead. I had to pass by his 
 tumble-down old cabin on my way to the sycamore, 
 and was pretty sure always to see him at work at 
 something. He was about the only man in the 
 village who did not take a long nap of summer 
 afternoons, and when I strolled by I was very apt to 
 see him hoeing at his cabbages or his beets, fixing a 
 new handle to his axe, plastering fresh mud upon the 
 chinking of his cabin, an exceedingly plain old 
 man, whose talk was as rough as his clothes. The 
 only wickedness with which he could blame himself 
 was that, as soon as he settled himself down to a 
 book, he would fall asleep." 
 
 " And there was Persis, you told me," I began. 
 
 " Yes, Persis." It was really amazing the change 
 which came into the manner of my friend as he 
 repeated her name. His face lighted up, his tones 
 were different. "As I told you," Ross continued, 
 " she was the busiest morsel of a girl, those days, you 
 ever saw. Her grandfather kept no help, of course, 
 and the poor little thing had the household work to 
 do. She was ambitious, more so than I was, to keep 
 up in her studies too." 
 
 Ross had told me about her before. " I wonder," I 
 now said aloud, but none the less to myself, " why 
 you, why somebody " 
 
 " Did not come to her help ? " There was color in
 
 RACHEL BEAUCHAMP. 93 
 
 his face as he anticipated my question, nor conld I 
 understand why his eyes, always so steadily in mine 
 when we conversed, should fall to the earth. 
 
 " My mother had in those days," and there was 
 such unconscious gall in the accents of the speaker ! 
 " no thought except for me. Nor did she have any 
 means of her own. My father was not interested in 
 her, in Persis." 
 
 " Nor in any one else," I added, but this time wholly 
 to myself, as I well knew he had always held every 
 penny of his wife's possessions, too, in his own hand. 
 Abandoned drunkard and unfaithful husband that he 
 was, he did not relax, even at his drunkest, his iron 
 hold upon his money. How his wife managed to 
 obtain the means to prepare Ross for college, and to 
 maintain him there afterward, was a mystery which 
 perhaps some remains of Indian cunning in her veins 
 could alone explain. It was small wonder that his 
 son rarely or never mentioned his father to me. It 
 struck me, as I came to know about General Urwoldt, 
 how that, while his avarice strengthened with his 
 years, his passion for poetry, music, painting, oratory, 
 had passed into his son, giving to Boss a certain curve 
 and color, a softness even and warmth, to what would 
 have been otherwise the inflexible bronze of his strong 
 nature. So far as the father was concerned, even 
 the memory of having once possessed these gifts had 
 rotted away. Except in business matters he never 
 touched a pen. It had been a long time since he had 
 opened a book. That he had once done excellent 
 work with his brush was to him, when thought of at
 
 94 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 all, a matter of contempt as for a folly of his youth. 
 For all taste was lost in love of liquor, all conception 
 of beauty in the grossest lewdness, all that remained 
 to the man of clear-headedness and strength was 
 where the making and keeping of money was con 
 cerned. As it is, I would have disdained to give to 
 General Urwoldt a word here, or a thought, had it 
 not been for what there was in him of explanation 
 excuse, dare I say ? of and for his son. 
 
 But I did not intend to speak of the father. " From 
 almost the first month after my return from college," 
 Eoss went on, "I did what I could for Persis, in 
 her studies, I mean. There was no merit in it. She 
 was so eager to learn, so quick to apprehend, so 
 retentive of what she carne to know, that I was glad 
 to do it. Guernsey," he added, "women are brighter 
 than you or I, at least, she was." 
 
 " Be good enough," I replied, " to tell me something 
 I do not know. Have you done with Montezuma ? " 
 
 " How well I recall one particularly hot afternoon ! " 
 my friend continued, speaking as if to himself. " I 
 was resting upon the stone beneath the sycamore, the 
 mighty son of Bacchus lying at ray feet, when Persis 
 passed by, barefooted, on her way to the spring for 
 water. She had seen the sight before." 
 
 Eoss paused a moment. Almost as if he had told 
 me so, I saw that he was thinking of his own father, 
 who was as hard a drinker as Beauchamp, except that 
 he locked himself up in his store, for fear of being 
 robbed, when he gave way to his potations. 
 
 " The girl was not as much shocked as you would
 
 RACHEL BEAUCPTAMP. 95 
 
 suppose," Boss went on, " she had seen so much of it ; 
 but she looked at the fallen man so pitifully as she 
 passed that I stopped her when she came back, carry 
 ing in one hand the heavy blue bucket full of water, 
 leaning away from it, her other arm extended to keep 
 her balance, heartily ashamed of her bare feet. 
 
 " ' Persia,' I said, " is n't it a pity ? ' She did not 
 lift her eyes to me, she was looking at the drunkard. 
 ' Yes,' was all she said. She picked up the vessel 
 which she had rested for a moment on the earth in, 
 the other hand, and went on. I arose and strolled 
 toward the river, and stood out of sight from the 
 sycamore, looking vaguely at the water, and saying, 
 like a fool, to myself, 'If this water, if all rivers 
 which run, were tears flowing across the face of the 
 world for the misery in it, they would not suffice, not 
 if the brine of ocean were added thereto!' How 
 sick I was of the awful problem ! ' And how can 
 there be a Christ,' I said as I turned away, 'when 
 He stands by, if there is one, and sees this and ten 
 thousand worse things every day and does nothing ? ' 
 
 "As I muttered it, I came where I could see the 
 prostrate statesman. Persis, supposing I had gone 
 away, had returned, and was sitting on the ground 
 by his head. She had brought a book with her, and, 
 holding it in her left hand, with a leafy branch she 
 had broken from a chinquepin-bush near by in the 
 other, was keeping away the flies from the bloated 
 face. For some time I leaned upon my rifle, watch 
 ing her. She was small, thin, sallow, a little 
 country girl, sunburned, and plain as plain could be.
 
 96 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 Upon her head was a sun-bonnet of the same blue as 
 her calico dress, made, in fact, from the same piece. 
 It was tied under her chin by strings of the same, 
 and thrown back from her face, that she might study 
 the harder. Wholly forgetful of her bare and very 
 brown feet, she was conning her lesson over as she 
 sat, changing the brush for the book, and the book 
 for the brush, as her hands became tired, but study 
 ing and brushing away as steadily as a clock. 
 
 " ' Penna, Pennae, Pennae, Pennam, Penna, Penna' 
 came from her in the peculiar recitative of those who 
 are memorizing, and this over and over again. ' Pity, 
 pity,' she then added, and, laying down brush and 
 book, she wet a towel from a tin basin beside her, 
 which I had not observed before, washed off the per 
 spiration and grime from the senatorial brows before 
 her, wiped the whole purple face, like the smallest 
 conceivable mother of the largest imaginable baby, 
 did it slowly, carefully, then, resuming grammar and 
 brush, she went on more rapidly, after a glance at the 
 setting sun, ' Plural, Pennae, Pennarum, Pennis, Pen- 
 nas, Pennae, Pennis!' over and over again. As I 
 came slowly up, she snatched in her naked feet under 
 her calico skirt in alarm, hesitated a moment, closed 
 her book, her forefinger in it to keep the place, but 
 kept the leafy switch in motion. 
 
 " ' Studying Latin ! ' I exclaimed. ' Why Persis, 
 who put you up to that ? ' 
 
 " ' Nobody,' she said, ' but I want to teach when I 
 grow old enough, and I must learn first, you know.' 
 
 " ' Persis,' I said, ' listen to me. I am a man, and
 
 RACHEL BEAUCHAMP. 97 
 
 you are only a little girl. You are very young, and I 
 am years older than you. For you ever to study 
 Latin is nonsense, but for you to study it now is 
 wicked. You are too young. I am astonished at 
 your grandfather.' 
 
 " ' Grandpa knows nothing about it,' she said, 
 smoothing her skirt down over her hidden feet. ' I 
 took it up for myself.' 
 
 " ' Well, don't do so any more, that 's a good girl.' 
 But, as I proceeded, I found I could not talk in as 
 patronizing a way as I began. There was no assent 
 to what I was saying in her eyes ; they were opened a 
 little wider, that was all She was shy, but not afraid 
 of me, not as docile as I had expected, and I paused 
 to look at her afresh. 
 
 " No," Eoss said, " there was no beauty in her face, 
 none at all. She had worked too hard, was too prac 
 tical. Besides, she was at the awkward age in a girl, 
 even if she had time for those slopes and spirals of 
 leisure which are the lines of beauty. I wished she 
 could have laughed more readily, but there was noth 
 ing in particular to laugh at just then. The sadness 
 of her eyes lifted to mine were sweetened with an 
 utter sincerity which touched me. I sat down upon 
 the stone again for the purpose of looking into them 
 some more. We talked about her studies as we had 
 done before. She took up the Latin Grammar again, 
 but she did not cease keeping off the flies. 
 
 " ' This man studied Latin,' I said at last, touching 
 him with my foot ; ' Greek too, I dare say. He learned 
 all the mathematics ; he learned everything, and look 
 
 7
 
 98 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 at him ! ' Persis complied with my request, and 
 turned her practical eyes upon the wrecked politician, 
 but she had nothing to say. ' Persis/ I said, for I 
 was at just the age to do it, 'this man represents a 
 good deal. He stands for and illustrates multitudes 
 of men,' for I could not help showing off a little be 
 fore her. ' This individual is Darius after the battle 
 of Issus, is Xerxes after his repulse from Greece, is 
 Hannibal after he was driven out of Italy and had 
 taken poison, is Julius Csesar after Brutus stabbed 
 him, is this man represents all the Roman emperors, 
 every soul of them, that is, after they had reigned 
 awhile.' 
 
 " ' Does he ? ' Persis asked, her inquiring eyes fas 
 tened upon mine. 
 
 " ' He is Napoleon at St. Helena. This poor fool,' 
 I declaimed, ' is Babylon after its fall, Carthage, Nine 
 veh, Baalbec, Palmyra, Rome, a thousand empires 
 we have never heard of which nourished and perished. 
 He represents them all.' 
 
 " ' Does he ? ' Persis listened seriously, plying her 
 brush as she did so. 
 
 " ' You think his is a peculiar case ? ' I went on. 
 ' Not at all. As he lies here, so will everything 
 in the end; the paths of glory lead but to .the 
 grave.' 
 
 " ' Do they ? ' But Persis was not attending as she 
 should, for it was time to go, and she got up, keeping 
 her feet carefully out of sight under the edges of her 
 gown. My talk was too large for her undeveloped 
 mind ; she merely said,
 
 RACHEL BEAUCHAMP. 99 
 
 " ' I must go to get grandfather's supper, but I will 
 wash off his face again before I go, and I can make 
 up for it afterward by running.' 
 
 " I was so occupied with watching her do it that I 
 did not notice another girl who had stolen shyly up 
 while we were talking. The first I knew of her was 
 a sobbing, then an outcry of grief as she fell upon her 
 knees beside the drunken man on the side opposite 
 Persis. It was a girl about the age of Persis, but she 
 was as plump and full-faced as Persis was spare and 
 sinewy. Her hair was flaxen, while that of Persis was 
 brown ; but her face, freckled as it was, had more play 
 in it of white and red, and she lifted up eyes which 
 seemed to be blue through their tears. 
 
 " Kneeling beside the prostrate man, she clasped her 
 hands together, rocking herself forward and backward 
 upon her knees in utter grief, weeping convulsively. 
 Persis had stopped, and was staring at her across 
 the drunkard with great eyes ; but the surprise was 
 drowned out, as in a moment, by her tears as she^ saw 
 the distress of the other. 
 
 " We could not get a word from the strange girl for 
 a long time, she seemed to be in such a passion of 
 grief. But Persis was sitting at last flat on the earth 
 by her, forgetful of her bare and exposed feet, and of 
 supper to be got, weeping with her arms about the 
 other, and trying to soothe her in a certain sober, 
 old-fashioned way. I had an idea who it must be, 
 although I did not know before that the Governor had 
 a daughter, and I hastened away for assistance in 
 removing him, not to his own cabin, for that was no
 
 100 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 place for the girl to see, but to Parson "VVilliams's, 
 for the night at least." 
 
 " And those two girls were more to you even then," 
 I suggested, " than all the constellations of the uni 
 verse ! But I am not going to argue with you, 
 man,"
 
 ONLY TWO GIRLS. 101 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ONLY TWO GIRLS. 
 
 "\ T 7HEN Governor Beauchamp sought seclusion in 
 * Ocklawahaw, it was because the Indian Reser 
 vation lay apart from all lines of travel, was least 
 known, or, when known, the most despised, of all the 
 regions of the "West. After he came, however, a 
 feeble current of immigration slowly set in toward 
 the new lands beyond. To-day that first faint- trick 
 ling of immigration is swollen to a torrent which 
 has poured for years, and has opened a course for it 
 self broad and deep, rolling three thousand miles 
 farther northwestward. But the passing through 
 the Reservation of the first pioneers was enough to 
 uncover the secret of Governor Beauchamp's dis 
 appearance. 
 
 When he fled to the Reservation his daughter 
 Rachel remained, as has been said, in charge of her 
 aunt, upon the plantation of her father. As soon as 
 she heard of his whereabouts she wrote to him. 
 But it was in vain she sent letter after letter in her 
 large school-girl hand ; his eye was not to be pained 
 by her misspelling, nor by the blotches of ink upon 
 the page ; it is doubtful, poor girl ! if he opened one of 
 her epistles. General Urwoldt was postmaster as well
 
 102 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 as store-keeper of Ocklawahaw, and it was in vain that 
 he offered the Governor his accumulating letters. 
 
 " No newspapers, no letters for me, if you please," 
 he would reply, waving aside the documents with an 
 oratorical hand. " You will pardon me, General Ur- 
 woldt, but I did not come here to be annoyed with 
 things of that nature. I will be glad, however, to 
 take a drink with you, sir, if you have any whiskey 
 you can conscientiously recommend." 
 
 And yet, through all this neglect, there was this 
 much of her mother in Kachel that she loved her 
 father still. As she grew older, there was also so 
 much in her of her father, too, that she could not re 
 main content to live quietly on with her aunt upon 
 the plantation. She was not what is called a bright 
 girl ; in that, Persis was her superior. If she seemed 
 almost as content to go and come from the school- 
 house near by as the cows were content to come and 
 go from pasture, she brooded, too, in her slow fashion, 
 over her father's absence, and what she had better do, 
 seeing that he answered neither her letters nor those 
 written to him by the overseer of the plantation or 
 by her aunt. Who can tell what passes beneath the 
 bark, as it grows, of even a dogwood sapling ? There 
 are processes going on in the heart, if not the brain, 
 of a blue-jay which are as inevitable as anything in 
 the roll of the planets ; and, as Rachel grew older, 
 there were feelings which blindly determined her to 
 do something for her father, she knew not what. 
 
 For every appetite growing within us there are 
 parallel preparations of supply going on without us ;
 
 ONLY TWO GIRLS. 103 
 
 that, also, is among the celestial certainties of life. 
 So in the case of Rachel. The day came, neither too 
 soon nor too late, when the man who owned the plan 
 tation next to that on which she lived with her aunt 
 sold out, and was soon to go West, and to a point 
 beyond the Reservation, but by a road which led 
 through Ocklawahaw. Rachel knew of this for 
 months in advance of his leaving. Could she not 
 take Seelye, her black nurse, and go with the movers ? 
 Very slowly her purpose was formed, and when the 
 wagons started at last, Rachel had no more idea of 
 staying behind than an oriole has when the new 
 season calls it southward. And so she took her place 
 with the wife and manifold children ; and the cara 
 van of canvas-covered vehicles rolled westward, the 
 negroes, cows, dogs, following behind, for all this 
 was before the days of emancipation. 
 
 In due time the weary movers arrived at Ocklawa 
 haw, and halted in front of the tavern. The emigrant 
 planter stepped upon the porch, went to the cedar 
 bucket upon its shelf in the shade, dipped into it the 
 big yellow gourd hanging by its leather thong from a 
 nail near by, and as he raised the water to his lips, he 
 demanded of the owner of the house, seated in a hide- 
 bottomed chair, his feet upon the rails of the porch, 
 a Mr. JakeGolson byname, "Does Governor Beau- 
 champ live in this town ? " 
 
 " Governor Beauchamp ? " Mr. Golson dropped 
 his head to reflect. " Governor Beauchamp ? " It 
 was as if he had heard a name something like that 
 in his childhood. " Oh, Governor Beauchamp ? Well,
 
 104 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 yes." Since people seemed to have found it out, Gov 
 ernor Beauchainp does live in the town. 
 
 "This is his daughter," said the planter. For 
 Rachel had landed upon the porch by this time with 
 her nurse and her trunks, and stood by in trembling 
 eagerness. As the tavern-keeper let his feet fall to 
 the floor in astonishment, while he stared at her, 
 there were abundant leave-takings between the girl 
 and her friends. But there had been enmity between 
 the Governor and this neighbor of his who had 
 brought his daughter on, and, although he had not 
 told Eachel of it, he did not care to meet the father. 
 As soon as possible the wagons rolled on, and through 
 the town to their next camping-place, and Rachel and 
 her nurse were left standing upon the por*ch. But 
 the tavern-keeper had suddenly forgotten whereabouts 
 in the village the Governor lived ; his forgetfulness 
 was a credit to him, by reason of the condition in 
 which the poor girl would have found her father's 
 cabin. It was a wretched alternative, but what could 
 he do ? " The Gov'nor gin'ally spends his arternoons, 
 miss," he said at last, " under a big sycamore in the 
 fur end of the town. " And Jake Golson walked with 
 her in his shirt-sleeves, the nurse staying behind in 
 care of the trunks, until he could point out the tree. 
 
 It was there she found her father, as has been de 
 scribed. 
 
 
 
 And surely she was as deliberately constructed 
 now I come to think of it for her particular work, 
 too, as a fish is to swim, or a bird, however young, is 
 to fly. -She was, as has been said, of about the same
 
 ONLY TWO GIRLS. 105 
 
 age as Persis Paige, but of a heavier cast, both of 
 body and mind. Her forehead was not as high as 
 that of Persis, but it was broader. She had not been 
 overstrained by hard work, like Persis, nor did she 
 possess either fondness or aptitude for books, while 
 there was not in her the possibility even of ambition. 
 She loved her father, was there, as by a maternal in 
 stinct, to do what she could for him ; that was all. 
 
 Parson Williams became greatly interested in the 
 matter, and in a little while the Governor was housed 
 in one of the best of the frame buildings which 
 chanced to be standing vacant in Ocklawahaw. It 
 was the providence of the distant aunt, I suppose, 
 who knew the father too well not to do it ; but Eachel 
 was sufficiently supplied from the plantation with 
 money as she needed it, the house was painted and 
 furnished, the fences repaired, the negro woman who 
 had accompanied Eachel taking her place as house 
 maid and cook. " Old Seelye is my mammy," Eachel 
 explained to Persis, " and I could n't have come here 
 if Seelye hadn't come with me. We can manage 
 very nicely." 
 
 In the course of a month or so it was as if Eachel 
 and her father had lived together in their new home for 
 years. He was cleaner, somewhat better dressed, but 
 his intemperance was nearly the same. His daughter, 
 knowing his habits before she came, took them as 
 part of the ordinance of nature, adjusting herself to 
 them without a tear or a murmur. Her father had 
 long been accustomed to do without money, and ran 
 up accounts at General Urwoldt's store, not troubling
 
 106 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 himself upon the subject of payment. But Eachel 
 paid for the eggs, chickens, butter, flour, venison, 
 and beef like a matron who had done so all her life, 
 while Seelye cooked, swept, scrubbed, washed, ironed, 
 as if she had never known any world but that of 
 Ocklawahaw. If Eachel had no thought except for 
 her father, Seelye, who despised the Governor yet 
 more, if possible, than she did Ocklawahaw, lived but 
 for her young " missis." What time Persis and Ea 
 chel could find from their household duties was spent 
 with each other. 
 
 "And this is my little friend Persis," Governor 
 Beauchamp would remark, when he came upon them 
 seated together, of a morning, under the sycamore- 
 tree. " Eachel, my child, I am glad you have found 
 such a friend." He was as sober as a man could be, 
 for it was not until aftef dinner that lie began to 
 drink. In his hand he carried his big yellow cane. 
 His suit of jeans was beautifully clean, and neatly 
 brushed. Eachel had seen to that, as also to the 
 purity of his voluminous linen, the arrangement of 
 his abundant hair and beard. A more benignant and 
 carefully attired gentleman it was impossible to find. 
 
 "You seem to be a good girl, little Persis," he 
 would say after much grandfatherly talk, her little 
 hand, so brown and hard, still held in his own. 
 " They tell me, little lady, that you are the best and 
 most industrious person in Ocklawahaw. Bless you, 
 my child !" And he laid his apostolic hand upon her 
 head, which happened to be divested of its sun-bonnet. 
 "And you have your knitting, I see. A woollen
 
 ONLY TWO GIRLS. 107 
 
 sock ! For your grandfather, I suppose. And how is 
 he, my child ? Be sure and give him my regards. I 
 have a profound respect for clergymen, and your ven 
 erated grandfather is one of the most worthy of them 
 all. You go to school ? Ah, yes. That is right, 
 right, little lady; and what are you studying now? 
 Grammar? Geography? Latin, too? Surely not 
 Latin ! And you, my little dear, I hope that you 
 are well this morning. No touch, I hope, of your 
 fatigue now from travel ? " This last to Eachel. For 
 it was one of the peculiarities of the majestic speaker 
 that he adopted to those nearest him the same tone 
 and manner which he used to strangers just intro 
 duced. Except that he said " Yes, my dear ; no, my 
 dear," instead of " Yes, lady ; no, lady," his manner 
 had been the same to his wife when she was alive as 
 it would have been to the wife of let us say a 
 brother senator. It was so in the case of his daughter. 
 He spoke to her, whether seated on his own porch, 
 across the dinner- table, everywhere, exactly as he 
 would have done had she been the child of, say, a 
 general of the army, bringing her with him on a visit. 
 It was part of the man, and Kachel took it as her 
 mother had done before her. 
 
 " You do well, young ladies, to enjoy this cool and 
 lovely morning. And how do you pass your time ? " 
 he would say to the two girls. 
 
 Except that he had nothing on earth to do, either 
 then or, as it seemed, forever thereafter, it was as if 
 he had descended the steps of the Federal Capitol the 
 moment before on his leisurely way to call upon the
 
 108 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 President. These young ladies were friends of his ; he 
 had met them at juvenile balls in Washington, to 
 which he had been invited because of his well-known 
 love for children. All this had taken place with 
 Persis more than once before, but she could never 
 fully understand. One day she saw him lying dead- 
 drunk on the earth, and the next morning he was 
 talking with her, as now, in the most benevolent way, 
 by far the grandest human being she had ever beheld. 
 There was conflict therein which bewildered her. 
 How could a man lie in the dirt like a hog yesterday, 
 and stand upon his feet a king to-day? beneath the 
 feet of everybody in the afternoon, above the level of 
 everybody oh, far greater than General Urwoldt, 
 than any one ever seen before in Ocklawahaw the 
 very next morning ! How could anybody be so very 
 bad yesterday, so exceedingly good, benignant, ven 
 erable, to-day ? it was that which puzzled Persis 
 most. 
 
 After talking with the two girls as long as Persis 
 could find time to stay, when she broke away at last, 
 taking her friend with her, the Governor lifted his 
 hat from his head, smiled down upon her from his 
 heights of benignity as of stature, and' passed deliber 
 ately on, leaving Persis to study out her puzzle as 
 best she could ; and so from day to day. 
 
 Perhaps a day, a week, a month after, as the time 
 drew languidly by, he would stop General Urwoldt, 
 just lighting from his horse at the well-gnawed rack 
 near the store. The two had parted only at noon the 
 day before, but what else was there to do ? the
 
 ONLY TWO GIRLS. 109 
 
 Governor would demand, "Well, General, and how 
 are you ? You have been out at your ranch, I sup 
 pose ? How are your colts thriving ? If I was not 
 such a poor man, I would raise horses myself. What 
 are your prospects for the next race ? " 
 
 Whereupon his friend would stand, one hand upon 
 the pommel of his saddle, and talk to him for an hour, 
 talking over again things already told a dozen times. 
 Except that the Governor was a taller, stouter man 
 every way, the two were not unlike. But General 
 Urwoldt could no more talk as long and as well, than 
 he could drink as much whiskey as the other. He 
 had seen nothing whatever of the world in comparison 
 with Governor Beauchamp, for a long time had read 
 nothing, had not a tithe of the ability of the refugee 
 statesman. It was in vain that the General, some 
 what jealous of him, endeavored to reach the higher 
 level of his distinguished friend by the frequency and 
 violence of his oaths. 
 
 "I see that you indulge in profanity," the Governor 
 would remark to him very often, as he did now be 
 side the horse-rack ; " most I may say, all of my 
 friends do so, but I do not myself. Washington ob 
 jected to it, as do the ladies also. Personally, I have 
 no objection to it, none whatever ; but I do not in 
 dulge in oaths myself. But you were remarking " 
 
 The General was cursing him instead, but under his 
 breath, as a humbug and an infernal old hypocrite. 
 Now, as ever, the reputation of his guest weighed 
 heavily upon the headman of the nation. " This is 
 none other than Governor Beauchamp ! It is a grand
 
 110 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 thing to have such an old hero here ! Confound 
 him," the General complained every day to himself, 
 tf but I can't make him out even yet." 
 
 For that was the trouble where this distinguished 
 
 O 
 
 individual was concerned, it was impossible to 
 reckon him up with any accuracy. He made great 
 speeches in Congress ; but somehow he had never car 
 ried, while there, any measure of marked importance. 
 In the hours of his popularity he was the hero of 
 barbecues innumerable. He would take the stand at 
 nine o'clock, and speak on and on and on, interlarding 
 what he said with anecdotes, for hours, to a laughing, 
 hurrahing crowd. If the smell of the beef and pigs 
 roasting upon sticks laid across the long ditches filled 
 with fire had not drawn his audience away, he would, 
 on such occasions, have spoken apparently on and on 
 until dark. And yet nobody could make out the 
 next day what, at last, he had been talking about. 
 And however unanimously and savagely his constitu 
 ency cursed him in the days of his intermittent 
 unpopularity, they were as unable to state definitely 
 what they hated him for, as they had before been 
 able to say why they had praised him so vehemently. 
 He was " a great man," all agreed in that, a 
 great scoundrel, great statesman, great rascal, great 
 patriot, in any case he was great ! Persis was not 
 the only one who was bewildered ; he said such little 
 and yet such large things ; did, at least attempted 
 to do, things so vast, and yet things so exceeding 
 small also ! 
 Standing at the horse-rack, General Urwoldt resented
 
 ONLY TWO GIRLS. Ill 
 
 it, to-day as always, that he could not speak with the 
 unbounded license which he allowed himself with 
 every one else. He knew that his illustrious friend 
 objected to no oath he could venture, yet, all the 
 time, the portentous manner of the Governor, even 
 more than his imposing size, half daunted the head 
 man of the nation. It was like blaspheming before 
 an archbishop in full canonicals. In his impatience 
 General Urwoldt broke all bounds, as he stood talk 
 ing with him. To his oaths he added details of lewd 
 adventure ; but the Governor listened to that, also, but 
 not as if he had been talking of the crops. 
 
 " I see that you are young, still young," he remon 
 strated at last, and shook his head ; and, whittling all 
 the time at a shingle he had picked up off the ground, 
 there was that in the corners of his eyes, of his mouth, 
 an austerity of manner, which discouraged the other 
 from saying all he would ; now it was like telling 
 doubtful stories to the Pope. 
 
 " For myself," the statesman added as they parted, 
 " I have for woman the profoundest respect. They 
 nurse us in our helpless infancy, adorn our tables and 
 our homes in the times of our prosperity, minister di 
 vinely to us in hours of pain and anguish. I yield to 
 no man in my most humble devotion to them." And 
 he lifted his broad-brimmed hat from his head with 
 one hand, waving his homage toward the sex in gen 
 eral with the other, as he said it. Then, General 
 Urwoldt being obliged to leave him, the statesman 
 loitered along his aimless way, a Jupiter condescending 
 to stoop from Olympus to the haunts of men, and all
 
 112 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 the more a god by reason of the clouds in which 
 he continued to wrap himself. 
 
 But it is purely because of the influence of this 
 man upon Eoss Urwoldt at that period that I say what 
 I do concerning Governor Beauchamp. It is with 
 Eoss, not him, I have to do.
 
 THE ROLL OF THE RIVER. 113 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE ROLL OF THE RIVER. 
 
 * I ^HE rolling by of the river was as if Time itself 
 -*- took visible shape in its lapse in Ocklawahaw, so 
 slowly, steadily, did its turbid waters flow by under 
 the bluff upon which the town was built. As things 
 were to-day, so it seemed as if they always had been, 
 always would be. 
 
 So monotonous did things become that Ross, who 
 had been to see me once before since leaving college, 
 now broke in upon me again on my little island on a 
 rapid visit. 
 
 " I am reading as hard as I can," he told me before 
 he left, " in a fashion as blind as that of a pawpaw plant 
 which hopes to bear fruit some day. I am preparing 
 for whatever is to come. It pleases my mother. And 
 then, you see, it enables me to go back to nature every 
 afternoon with new zest. After dinner I stray off, my 
 dogs at my heels, into the forest, and, rifle in hand, 
 I shoot at whatever I care to have in more complete 
 possession. As often as not I lie on the ground ex 
 amining some bit of moss or mushroom through a 
 magnify ing-glass, the fang of some snake I have killed, 
 the feather of some humming-bird or woodpecker. I 
 have given time to exploring with my glass the eyes 
 
 8
 
 114 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 of an owl I wounded ; I wanted to see in them wherein 
 it differed from me. We would have made a funny 
 picture, the owl staring steadily at me, as I held it 
 from struggling between my knees, and I at it. At 
 last it knew as much of me as I did of it, more per 
 haps. When the weather is cool and I feel in the 
 mood, I mount my mare and take a twenty-mile 
 gallop across the prairie. Maggie is as much to me 
 as any woman not my mother could be. I say to 
 her, as we ride, ' Maggie, I see a long-eared rabbit ; ' 
 and she pricks her ears this way and that until she 
 sees it, and then goes off after it without a touch of 
 mine upon her flanks or mouth, and just as eagerly 
 as I. As we gain upon it she lays her ears back, 
 awaiting the crack of my revolver, and looks and 
 waits. I know she laughs when, with the report, the 
 rabbit gives a leap into the air and tumbles over. 
 So when I see a stray buffalo off on one side, or a 
 herd of does grazing. ' Now for it ! ' she shouts " 
 
 " I did not know," I said, " that a horse could talk ; 
 but it does n't matter : go ahead." 
 
 " Her heart and mine are so entirely one," Ross 
 explained, "that it is precisely as if she did talk. 
 In fact, she does not need to say anything, for we 
 have but one heart between us. Her legs are mine. 
 When I think of her as of another it is merely that 
 she is better than I, a woman who is stronger, has 
 two feet more than I, who can go faster. In Ockla- 
 wahaw we do not," Ross interjected, " make as much 
 difference between a squaw and a mare as you might 
 suppose. I have never had so absolute a friend as
 
 THE ROLL OF THE RIVER. 115 
 
 Maggie, not even in my mother." He said this last 
 with an effort. 
 
 " Sometimes I light from Maggie at the foot of the 
 mountains, that she may rest and graze a little while. 
 I climb about among the rocks, clinking here and 
 there with my geological hammer in search of speci 
 mens. I have broken many a shark's tooth out of 
 the rocky ledges, have seen in rifts of old red sand 
 stone the tracks left by gigantic birds. 'Yes, ye 
 were here ages on ages before men,' I say, and am 
 glad to say, for, with the single exception of yourself, 
 Guernsey, I prefer animals to men. 
 
 " I intended to have told you of the hours I lay 
 upon the river-banks, fishing. Fish are stupid things. 
 I have not often known even a negro to be more of a 
 fool than a catfish, all mouth. Dogs are vastly ahead 
 of both. I have sat for half a day, the nose of a dog 
 on my knee, talking to it. It was not the response of 
 its tail I cared for, but you try it ! Appeal to your 
 dog, look steadily in his eyes, and you can see there 
 his ' master, I would talk if I could ! But why 
 say it ? You know how I love you.' Guernsey," 
 Ross added, " I believe in nature ! It is the grandest 
 thing I know. Men are as uncertain as the gnats 
 which come and go about your nose on a hot day, or 
 certain only in annoying you ; but nature ! it is as 
 invariable in everything as it is in the rise and setting 
 of its suns. There is unfathomable mystery in it, 
 enough to satisfy what we call the religious sentiment ; 
 and you can rest in it with utter trust. You see it, 
 hear, taste, smell, feel it, know it ! It amuses you,
 
 116 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 look at its owls and monkeys ; and it astonishes 
 you, look at its cataracts, tempests, unfathomable 
 oceans, unbounded atmosphere ! Why should 1 delve 
 into myself to find a something in me, and call it a 
 soul ? Why should I try, poor fool, to break through 
 the blue skies and get at a Maker ? I find in nature 
 more than enough to satisfy my utmost " 
 
 " Ross ! " It was all I said, lifting my finger as I 
 did so. But my friend must have felt, too, like a fib 
 bing school-boy, for he added, 
 
 " At least, this is true. I remember especially one 
 summer afternoon when I had been lying deep in 
 the forest under a live-oak. My dogs were chained 
 up ; Maggie was in her stable ; I had studied hard 
 all the morning, and I was thinking about Governor 
 Beauchamp, and " He paused, but he did not 
 add "my drunken father," as he might have done. 
 " I was thinking about poor, hard-worked, tough little 
 Persis in her cabin ; about square-faced, equable, 
 stolid Rachel playing the mother for her distin 
 guished dolt of a father, oh, about a dozen tilings 
 of the kind ! The air was pure and motionless. I 
 co\ild see glimpses of the sky, could hear the low mur 
 mur of growing and decaying nature about me. As if 
 soothed by a lullaby, I felt what an atom I was in 
 the universe, what a merest animalcule of the myriad 
 million I was ; and, as I lay, I would so gladly, so 
 peacefully, have lapsed out of existence if I could ! 
 A thousand things were softly dying beside me as I 
 lay there, blades of grass, insects, abortive acorns. 
 It was but a question of a few years longer, and, with
 
 THE ROLL OF THE RIVER. 117 
 
 all the race, I would drop into dust anyhow. How 
 sweet to cease from living ! I was like a boy sliding 
 down a declivity on his sled smoothly on and on, and 
 if I could but slide down and down and out. Ah, 
 how sorry was I to wake after an hour's sleep and 
 find " 
 
 " I have read of you," I said gravely. " The poet 
 Gray chanced to be watching you from behind a mag 
 nolia, no, a beech-tree ; " and I quoted, 
 
 " ' There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 
 
 That wreathed its old, fantastic roots so high, 
 His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 
 And pore upon the brook that babbles by.' 
 
 You remember how, poor fellow, he drooped and 
 died. 
 
 'One morn I missed him on the 'customed hill,' 
 
 and all the rest. It is very sad ! " And I drew my 
 handkerchief from my pocket. 
 
 " Guernsey ! " Koss Urwoldt had been seated, a 
 cigar in his mouth. Now he stood up, smoking 
 still, his hands in his pockets, angry, but quite cool. 
 " You are the soul of truth, if you are sentimental," 
 he began. 
 
 " I ? Sentimental ? " I said. " Who was actually 
 dying upon the grass of sentimentality ? " 
 
 " As a truthful man, I ask you," Eoss went on, " if 
 I am a fellow of of that sort ? " 
 
 " No, you are not ! " I was compelled seemingly 
 to contradict myself. It was absurd to do other 
 wise ; of all the men I knew, Ross was, then as ever, 
 the healthiest. He was never sick in his life,
 
 118 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 after his recovery from the small-pox, at least ; and 
 that had left him unscarred, as if his was a con 
 stitution too tough for disease to mar. Even in his 
 repose Ross remained sinewy and strong. He had 
 not a 'particle of flurry or fuss about him, was never 
 nervous or thrown out by things little or large, pain 
 ful or pleasant. As I have said, he could remain 
 absolutely still for a longer period than any man I 
 know, because his rest, too, was as that of a bow 
 string drawn tense. 
 
 " I thought I might tell you" he now added. " Let 
 me add only this, to be done with it. If there is a 
 man free from toothache or rheumatism, headache or 
 indigestion, everything of the sort, I am. You know 
 that I have as keen a zest for enjoyment as you 
 have, Guernsey, except that I prefer my seas and 
 mountains, my sunsets and groups of cattle, in nature 
 itself, and you affect a relish for them on a yard of 
 canvas. I enjoy things as keenly as you do. Yes, 
 and I take my full swing of satisfaction, where you 
 halt, and throw up your lady-like hands and scream, 
 ' Oh, it is wicked ! ' I do not care a snap for the hate 
 or love," but there he hesitated perceptibly, "of any 
 one, you excepted. Well, let me say it and be done 
 with it forever ! I tell you, Guernsey, I have not 
 known an hour when I would not rather die than 
 live. I go to sleep when I first lie down, and that 
 is more than you do, old fellow, and I sleep like a 
 babe. Well, when I go sliding down, down, down 
 into the depths, I almost invariably say, as I did 
 that day in the woods, if I could but keep on and
 
 THE ROLL OF THE RIVER. 119 
 
 on and out ! It does n't pay to live. I am that 
 much of an animal, if you please, cat, eagle, pig, 
 what you will ! " 
 
 It was not because I was looking up at him in the 
 way I did, that he colored a little as he ceased to 
 speak. There was a Guernsey in the man himself 
 ten times as contemptuous of such talk as I could be, 
 and I knew ify and he knew I knew it. 
 
 "Do you go to church?" I asked him after a 
 while. 
 
 " To please my mother, oh, yes," he said, " and it is 
 very fine. You must have heard the tree-frogs, 
 Guernsey. Don't you remember ? As night begins 
 to fall, you will hear from far away a single ' Tre-e-e- 
 e-e,' as shrill as from a silver pipe. Then silence closes 
 in upon it again, as darkness does on a taper which has 
 flickered an instant and gone out. The rest of the 
 frogs know better. 'That fellow is a fool, and has 
 begun too soon,' they say to each other. In five 
 minutes or so and all nature is waiting to hear 
 another lizard for of course they are not really frogs, 
 cannot endure the suspense, and tries to start 
 things. ' Trll-1-1-1-1 ! ' ' It comes sharper, shriller than 
 ever; but it is dead failure again, the silence is 
 deeper than before. So here, there, from this quarter 
 from that, effort and failure, until at last the Mozart 
 of the era has arrived. You start at his vigorous, 
 vibrant ' Tree-e-e-1-l-e-e-l,' for now all the woods for 
 miles around join in. Not a tree-frog of the myriad 
 but is doing its best. It is as crisp to the ear, and as 
 fresh, as the best celery to the taste, and for many an
 
 120 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 hour it is kept up. It is as if the air, as far as you 
 can see upon every side, is full of fine hail, every 
 glittering atom a shrill sound. If the universal shrill 
 ceases, lulls, for a moment, the old Mozart or some 
 young Wagner aspiring to outdo him, begins again 
 with intense enthusiasm, and all the world joins in. 
 It is better than opera, now, is n't it ? " 
 
 "And it is in that way you enjoy the singing at 
 church ? " I demanded. 
 
 " Yes ; for I have got so, at last," Ross said, " that I 
 hear only the sounds, sounds wholly apart from the 
 words, the sentiments. When Persis looks at me in 
 meeting, and gives her head a little nod over the top 
 of her melodeon, for she plays it, I wait for the 
 beginning of the next verse, and strike in as heartily 
 as any tree-frog of them all. When meeting is at 
 night, we drown out the forest orchestra entirely, 
 at least while we sing. In the interval between the 
 verses the outsiders come in with a rush which 
 threatens to drown us out. I enjoy the one, as I do 
 the other, very much. But I care no more for the 
 meaning of what is said or sung, than I do for what 
 the frogs mean, than Persis does for the meaning of 
 the Latin she studies." 
 
 For the best of reasons I had become deeply inter 
 ested in Persis, as in Eachel too, for that matter ; 
 Ross had before this either written to me or told me 
 upon his previous visit so much about them. But it 
 was chiefly of Rachel that he talked to me now. 
 She took care of her father, chaffered with the In 
 dians at her gate for venison, went to the store with
 
 THE ROLL OF THE RIVER. 121 
 
 Seelye at her heels, to buy supplies ; he told me all 
 about her, and I was strangely interested. 
 
 But a letter arrived for Ross from his father, and 
 he left me as suddenly as he had come. As I after 
 ward learned, General Urwoldt cared really as little 
 for his son as he did for his deserted wife, and yet 
 he could not fail to see that Ross had grown up into 
 a son of whom even such a father could not but be 
 proud. Moreover, that son must be one day his heir. 
 That explained his letter. In a sudden fit of gener 
 osity or jealousy, who can tell which it was ? he 
 now wrote for him, and " packed him off," as he him 
 self phrased it, for a three months' trip to Europe. 
 Ross made the most of it, travelling rapidly and see 
 ing all he could. 
 
 On his return his father compelled him to take 
 entire charge of the " Ocklawahaw Scout," for, by 
 this time, alcohol had consumed in General Urwoldt 
 the last lingering taste for literature, even of that 
 kind, as it long ago had done for painting. Ross 
 held himself as independent of his father as that 
 father was of him, but he accepted the work of edit 
 ing the little sheet. He took even a pride in it, 
 writing much for it those days. But his father, driv 
 ing hard bargains still, suffering no one to interfere 
 in his management of the affairs of the natives, 
 seemed to close in, so to speak, upon himself. Iden 
 tifying his son with his quarter-Indian wife, he kept 
 up, as well as he could, a species of contempt for both, 
 saturating himself more thoroughly every day with 
 whiskey and the lowest debauchery.
 
 122 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 Rachel, meanwhile, would have studied little but 
 for Parson Williams and Persis. She did so at the 
 request of these ; but her heart was in her housekeep 
 ing instead, and she grew more matronly, young as 
 she was, every hour, feeding her hens in the back 
 yard, having old Seelye stew whatever fruit came to 
 hand into preserves, seeing about the washing and 
 ironing. 
 
 Not that Persis did not have all that to do, and 
 without any Seelye to help her, save when Eachel 
 and Seelye came over unasked and aided her from 
 pure love of Persis, and, still more, of the work itself. 
 But with Persis the household work was a something 
 to be got out of the way as soon as possible, that she 
 might return to her books. Almost every afternoon, 
 as Ross strolled by toward the forest, he would stop 
 a moment to see if he could help her. For when the 
 dinner had been eaten and the dishes were off her 
 mind, Persis sat, when the weather allowed, in a 
 certain shaded corner of the old porch which ran 
 along in front of the cabin, with her books and slate 
 heaped conveniently upon a "split-bottomed" chair be 
 side her. So seated, she studied as hard as she could, 
 when she was not helping her grandfather in the 
 academy, until the time came to prepare for supper, 
 or until some other household care as pressing drew 
 her away. 
 
 One afternoon Ross reined in his horse as he rode 
 by, and Persis looked up at him, but her eyes seemed 
 to see only the page of her book as she looked in 
 his, and her lips kept up, under a whisper, " TVTTTW,
 
 THE ROLL OF THE RIVER, 123 
 
 imperfect, ervirrov, perfect, rerix^a \ TVTTTW, CTUTTTOV, 
 TTii(f>a ! " for she appeared to be too much under the 
 impulse to stop all at ouce. But all along she was 
 aware that he was saying, 
 
 " Why do you study so much, Persis ? " 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Eoss, I have told you so often ! I am 
 fitting myself to teach." She was more than two 
 years older, and more determined now than when he 
 had first come back from college. Deep down in her 
 heart, hidden as fearfully from herself as from every 
 other, she cherished a yet deeper purpose in study 
 ing which made her wish that he would go and live 
 somewhere, anywhere, the farther off from her the 
 better, while it was being accomplished by her. She 
 was only an ignorant girl, but her purpose lay in her 
 inmost heart, as the oak lies at the heart of the 
 acorn, however blind and foolish the acorn is about it. 
 In fact, the acorn cannot help itself; no more could 
 poor little Persis. 
 
 "But you know enough already. What do you 
 think the Ocklawahaw children care to learn about 
 moral philosophy and trigonometry ? " Eoss replied. 
 " And Greek, as I live ! " 
 
 " I do not intend to stay here," she answered. 
 
 " Where are you going, Persis ? " 
 
 " How do I know ? But grandpa is very old ; 
 some day Mr. Clarke will take his place as mission 
 ary. You know he has been studying the Bible 
 under grandpa, and is going to be made a preacher 
 at the next conference." 
 
 "Yes, I know!" Eoss said it sharply, for hedis-
 
 124 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 liked Amasa Clarke more every day, missing, it is to 
 be feared, the whole meaning of the limp and colorless 
 man, as he did that of the singing, only that Ross 
 liked the mere sounds of the hymns, and he did not 
 enjoy the outer man of Mr. Clarke in the least, far 
 from it ; they were too unlike. 
 
 " No, I do not know where I will go," Persis said, 
 with lowered eyes ; " but I intend to teach. I must 
 improve myself, and I shall know well enough where 
 to go when the time comes." 
 
 " But Latin and Greek ? " he said ; and he laughed 
 aloud. " It is absurd, and for a girl so young too ! I 
 thought your grandfather was more sensible than to 
 allow such a thing." 
 
 Maggie backed from the fence as her rider said it, 
 pawed, tried to go on ; the conversation did not inter 
 est her. But she and Persis were of the same sex in 
 this, that both had come of late to recognize a certain 
 mastership in Eoss Urwoldt, sitting erect in the saddle, 
 dark, vigorous, the most efficient, at least, of the three. 
 His steady eyes would have seemed so dark as to be 
 cold, cruel, had they not been counteracted somewhat 
 by the moulding of the chin, the fulness and curve of 
 the lips. Before long the beard would hide a pleasure- 
 loving softness therein which sweetened somewhat 
 the face of the young man. He had no intention 
 of producing that impression, but it was almost as if 
 he had said, " Little girl, you are only a girl, and must 
 obey your superiors, of whom I am chief. Be a good 
 little girl, and keep to sewing and washing dishes." 
 
 At least, there was something in Persis which so
 
 THE ROLL OF THE RIVER. 125 
 
 interpreted him to her, and did it as dumbly as the 
 sun produces* its effects in a spire of gsass. By a 
 stirring within her, in consequence, as vague and yet 
 as inevitable as in the blade of grass which lifts itself 
 toward the sun, Persis also arose. Holding her book 
 in her hand, she stood up. "You have been to col 
 lege and to Europe," she said, " you are studying 
 lard now; do you think I do not want to know- 
 something too ? " 
 
 Eoss glanced at her with surprise ; he had not 
 noticed how tall she was coming to be. Who would 
 have thought Parson Williams's granddaughter would 
 put on such airs ? 
 
 " Good afternoon, Miss Persis Paige," he said, rais 
 ing his hand to his felt hat. It was the first time he 
 had done so, and, giving Maggie a cut with his switch, 
 he was gone. Maggie did not care for the blow, 
 rather enjoyed it, since it was Ross who held the 
 switch. But, brown country girl as she was, Persis 
 was the more hurt of the two. She turned away 
 with anger, and she had no more to do with putting 
 the glow on her cheeks than a rose has with the 
 redness of its leaf. But when she took up her book 
 again, it was to study harder than before, by such 
 blind forces are all we molecules impelled. 
 
 " I have given up trying to learn Latin and Greek," 
 she remarked none the less to her grandfather that 
 night. " It was silly in me to try to learn such 
 things yet. I am going back to arithmetic and geogra 
 phy, so that I can know them better to begin with, 
 know them better ! "
 
 126 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 " Are you, Persis ? That is right, my child." The 
 old man Mjpuld have said that, whatever her remark 
 had been, for he was very sleepy, and went to bed 
 early these nights. 
 
 " But I will study them some day, yes, and every 
 thing else too," Persis comforted herself amid her tears, 
 after she had blown out, that night, the tallow candle 
 of her own making.
 
 LESSONS IN LIFE. 127 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 LESSONS IN LIFE. 
 
 TN" virtue of his out-of-door life the health of Eos* 
 was more vigorous, if that were possible, every 
 day; for he was growing to be a finer man, physi 
 cally, than his father, the handsome adventurer who 
 had won the hand and possessions of poor Mitcha- 
 buna. But the Indian fibre of his mother's blood 
 was in him also, like a cordage which tightened what 
 would otherwise have been in him also the slackness, 
 moral, mental, physical, of his worthless father. By 
 reason of his abundant and elastic health, when he 
 went of mornings to his studies, he did so with edge 
 and zest as keen as when at breakfast. He reviewed 
 his college studies, edited his paper, hammered at the 
 higher mathematics, bent himself to mastering French 
 and German, so far as it could be done without a 
 teacher, but found his chief enjoyment in natural 
 science, obtaining for his reading the latest publica 
 tions therein, the first sheaves of a literature which 
 has threatened since then, like the coming* of the 
 thistle into Australia, to crowd out every other 
 growth. 
 
 " I am too old-fashioned for such things, my son," 
 his mother would say to him. Then, as so often, she 
 fastened wistful eyes upon him, fearing the beginning
 
 128 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY, 
 
 in him of the contempt for her which her husband 
 had entertained so long. General Urwoldt might have 
 been kept in bounds by her, if she had not anticipated 
 and encouraged his tyranny, under stress, poor woman ! 
 of generations of abject submission coming down to 
 her in vein and bone. Eoss was incapable of being 
 to her either slave or tyrant. As to his feelings 
 toward other women, that was another matter. 
 
 " If you want to talk about Cuvier or Comte," his 
 mother ventured, " you should try to interest Persis 
 in such things or Eachel." But she laughed as 
 she mentioned the name of the Governor's daughter. 
 
 " Persis ! " Eoss repeated the name with seeming 
 disdain, and went out. And yet he could not re 
 member when he was not more interested in her than 
 in any other except his mother, and now from des 
 perate need of some one to talk with, he undertook, 
 as the mouths passed by, to open the mind of the girl 
 to the wonders of scientific research. Persis listened, 
 asked a question now and then, but reserved her own 
 opinions. If she had not listened so well, Eoss would 
 have put her down beside Eachel Beauchamp, as too 
 womanish to care to understand. 
 
 " Why do you not make more of a companion of 
 Mr. Clarke?" his mother would ask. "That is the 
 way with men," she complained when she saw the 
 face her son made. " It is because he is not fond of 
 hunting, or dogs, or horses. Mr. Clarke is of irre 
 proachable character, he teaches faithfully in the 
 academy, he is of an affectionate nature, he preaches 
 good sermons."
 
 LESSONS IN LIFE. 129 
 
 Now, Mr. Clarke was so fair and fat, so conciliatory 
 and harmless, that the Indian scholars of the acad 
 emy had long since nicknamed him Pooga-Dooga, or 
 Mush-and-Milk ; and Ross had no reply to make now 
 to his mother. Coming events must have sown in 
 his mind their baneful seeds in advance, for the 
 young man almost hated his unconscious tutor when 
 he thought of him at all, which he rarely did. 
 
 " There is Governor Beauchamp," Ross said to him 
 self, once while his mother was praising Mr. Clarke. 
 " He knows everything. Why not learn from him all 
 I can ? It is a good idea. Yes, I will drop study for 
 to-day," for it was over the breakfast-table he had 
 been conversing with his mother, " and go and hear 
 what the old old enigma has to say." 
 
 Ross was very much the master of his own move 
 ments. His father rarely stayed an hour in his house. 
 He occupied, instead, a room over his store, kept care 
 fully locked always, and opening into his loft of dust- 
 covered paintings. By fits and starts he would have 
 his son assist him in the store, selling goods or in the 
 keeping of his books. But the two saw little of each 
 other. Even if the habits of General Urwoldt had 
 not been such, he was jealous of any interference in 
 his business affairs. For Ross to get an insight into 
 these would be as if his wife did so ; and, every day 
 and more and more, he almost confounded the two 
 into one. 
 
 " Yes," Ross communed with himself as he walked 
 after breakfast toward Governor Beauchamp's house ; 
 " there is much to learn from the old old " It 
 
 9
 
 130 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 was hard to put into words what the Governor was. 
 Scamp, man of the world, drunkard, decayed states 
 man, who could say what he was? The refugee- 
 politician did not himself know. 
 
 "He is a big and badly damaged encyclopaedia. 
 I '11 turn a page or two of him before he goes out," 
 Eoss said. 
 
 He was just in time. The one he sought filled 
 the entire doorway of his house, coming out as his 
 visitor ascended the steps of the porch. His daughter 
 had just given him a thorough brushing, and was 
 handing him his yellow sombrero hat, which she had 
 also brushed. It and his clothes needed it that 
 morning. Rachel and Seelye had contrived, since 
 they came, that he should get drunk of afternoons, if 
 possible, in the seclusion of a back porch instead of 
 beneath the sycamore. The afternoon before he had 
 eluded them. Rachel and her black ally had to 
 search far and wide before they found him at last 
 down the river-bank, prostrate, bemired. There were 
 stolid Indians and worse white men loafing about, 
 but these were hopeless of stealing anything from 
 pockets so often searched by them in vain. But 
 Rachel had the money, she would pay them ; and, a 
 negro or two doing most of the work, they had him 
 home at the end, an object from which even Indian 
 and negro recoiled. 
 
 His sodden clothes had been drying before the 
 kitchen fire the rest of the night, and Seelye hud 
 given an hour's work to cleaning them, in the inter 
 vals of getting breakfast. He had wakened perfectly
 
 LESSOA 7 S IN LIFE. 131 
 
 refreshed, had eaten a hearty breakfast, was ready for 
 the doing nothing whatever of another day. 
 
 " Thank you, my child," he was saying to Eachel 
 as Ross came near ; " study if you find time, read the 
 books I mentioned to you, improve your mind, my 
 dear ! " He laid his large left hand upon her hair 
 while he gravely settled his flapping hat upon his 
 stately head with the other. " Heaven guard you, 
 my dear ! " 
 
 Rachel had grown during these years as w r ell as 
 Persis, but she had broadened as she grew. Hers 
 was a comely face, for it had a German simplicity 
 and solidity, with fair complexion, red cheeks, flaxen 
 hair, blue and sedate eyes. As to her father, he had 
 always drank, always would; she accepted drunken 
 ness in him as she did blackness in Seelye. As Ross 
 came up the steps, she smiled upon him and nodded, 
 bravely unconscious that hers was not the most 
 virtuous parent alive, and went back into the house 
 to see what there was for dinner. 
 
 Except in the dignified, not to say haughty, stage 
 of inebriety which went before utter downfall, Gov 
 ernor Beauchamp was the most accessible of men, but 
 under his own roof his affability became cordiality. 
 Now his greeting was effusive, but it was gracious 
 too. He was a great man in retirement, George 
 Washington at Mount Vernon. So thoroughly did 
 the man think this of himself, that every gesture and 
 tone was in accordance ; so thoroughly did he think 
 and feel so, that he compelled his visitor also into 
 the delusion.
 
 132 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 "I am delighted to see you, sir. Send us out 
 chairs, my child. Sit down, sir, sit down. Glad to 
 see you, sir ! " And the statesman removed his hat, 
 insisted upon taking that of Ross also, deposited 
 them both upon the table in the hall, and came out 
 again and seated himself in the capacious hide-bot 
 tomed rocking-chair which Rachel had drawn out. 
 
 " I thank you, my child," in round, detached, well- 
 oiled, sonorous words which it is impossible to de 
 scribe, so virtuous, benignant, they were made by the 
 manner, also, in which they were given out like alms ; 
 then he turned to his visitor. 
 
 " And how is the lady, your mother ? Your father 
 and my friend, General Urwoldt, he is well, is he 
 not ? It is delightful weather with which Providence 
 has blessed us to-day." 
 
 But Ross was trying, as he sat, to get what a sailor 
 would call his "bearings." He was constructed in 
 that way; he must see clearly, must understand 
 things. "If this was Falstaff, for instance, I would 
 know how to act," he murmured to himself. "Fal 
 staff?" and one glance at the statesman refuted the 
 vile aspersion. "Falstaff? This is the Chief Jus 
 tice of England, instead, who rebuked the fat knight 
 upon London street." Ross Urwoldt was young and 
 modest, but he was strong, too, and straightforward. 
 Here were several men in one ample individual. 
 What Ross said must be without special aim, like 
 firing into buffalo in uncertain and changing mass. 
 
 " But then, all I have to do is to listen," he re 
 assured himself; for his host was talking on, in his
 
 LESSONS IN LIFE. 133 
 
 slow, affluent way, about the crops, about how much 
 per bushel corn would be likely to bring, cotton also, 
 sugar likewise. There was nothing for the visitor to 
 do but to listen. He yielded himself as, when swim 
 ming, he might for his amusement have done to the 
 flow of the river, turbid, full of cross-currents. 
 
 But what Governor Beauchamp said was worth 
 listening to. He had seen all varieties of fortune, as 
 of men. What he said was more than sensible. He 
 seemed to know men from their depths upward ; that 
 is, he took hold of them by their most hidden pecu 
 liarity first, and as matter of course, for the old poli 
 tician speedily passed from crops to men. It was 
 evident that the sugar, corn, cotton, like the sun, moon, 
 and stars, were as nothing to him in comparison with 
 these. He appeared to have known almost every 
 leading man in America of the last tw r o generations, 
 to have known him personally, perfectly. As he 
 talked on and on, one name suggesting another, it 
 struck Ross that his host was as impartial as if he 
 were forever done with men, were dead. 
 
 It was impossible to get away. As the Governor 
 talked, he produced a species of bone bodkin, and 
 used it gravely and carefully in extracting the wax 
 from his ears, examining the results as he talked 
 and talked. Next, he drew out of his vest-pocket, 
 leaning far back in his rocking-chair to enable him to 
 do so, a wooden pair of combs, clasped one in the 
 other. Holding one in his left hand, he combed 
 away at his tawny beard, relieving that hand by using 
 the other upon the other side, but talking, talking,
 
 134 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY, 
 
 talking, in the most leisurely but unhesitating manner, 
 as he did so ; stopping now and then to disentangle, 
 roll into a pellet, and cast away the hairs which the 
 implement brought away, but never ceasing to talk. 
 
 Ross listened with interest. McDuffie, Jefferson, 
 Adams, Clay, Van Buren, Jackson, Webster, Dallas, 
 Cass, Silas Wright, Nicholas Biddle, Calhoun, Amos 
 Kendall, Benton, George D. Prentice, Hayne, the 
 list seemed interminable. The Tariff, Nullification, 
 Bullion, the United States Bank, Pre-emption, Inter 
 nal Improvements, the topics were many, but these 
 were but the ligaments which held the men of whom 
 he spoke into a sort of Siamese-twinship of uniform 
 and absolute rascality. There was this to be said for 
 one man, and that for the other ; but, after all allow 
 ance had been made, the man was, at bottom, a 
 knave. "Eloquent, sir, but a rascal." "Able, sir, 
 but a thief." " A Talleyrand, sir, in diplomacy, and, 
 like Talleyrand, wholly without principle." "And 
 there was Jackson. He was a pure man, sir, Old 
 Hickory was, and yet but a mere baby in the hands 
 of his partisans ; vindictive, too, as a devil, he never 
 forgave an enemy." " Yes, sir, I knew the Senator of 
 whom you inquire, knew him well ; and although he 
 was a statesman, he was unchaste, abominably so, sir." 
 
 It was a relief to his young friend when the Gov 
 ernor took occasion to add : " As you cannot but have 
 observed, the men of whom I have spoken are weak 
 or wicked, pitifully weak, very wicked. But it is 
 not true of women, sir. No, sir ! I honor the sex. 
 They are angels, sir, angels of beauty, angels of
 
 LESSONS IN LIFE. 135 
 
 pity, angels of purity. Perish the tongue that speaks 
 ill of woman ! They have my poor, but unfeigned 
 homage, sir." And the speaker lifted his broad palm, 
 pressed it respectfully upon his ample forehead, and 
 waved toward woman his profoundest regards. 
 
 " But for them, sir, our entire world is but a frost 
 bitten sweet-potato, worthless to the core. And, pure 
 as they themselves are, they are powerless to restrain 
 our worthless sex. I honor the clergy, but they, alas ! 
 are as helpless as woman. I have known the world 
 long, sir, have known it well, have known it thor 
 oughly. It is a bad world, sir, thoroughly, hopelessly 
 bad ! You are yet a youth ; when you are as old as 
 I, you will have found it to be all I describe. I am 
 not an angel, sir, far from that, yet have I fled from it. 
 Never enter its broader scenes if you can. You have, 
 I am informed, great abilities. They will prove to be 
 but a curse to you, sir, if they impel you to forsake 
 your peaceful and virtuous seclusion. Live in Ock- 
 lawahaw all the days your Maker may be pleased to 
 allot you ; die here, sir ! " 
 
 The disenchanted statesman clasped together his 
 wooden combs, drew out of his pocket a well-worn 
 knife, and looked about in a helpless fashion. His 
 visitor understood his need, and with a "Will you 
 permit me, sir ? " he descended the steps, searched 
 until he found a half-shingle under the lee of the 
 house. Coming back, he handed it to his host. 
 It was not as clean as it might be, but Governor 
 Beauchamp received it as he would have done an 
 official document. "I thank you, sir! Accept my
 
 136 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 thanks for your thoughtful kindness." And he 
 smoothed off the edges with his knife toward more 
 elaborate whittling. 
 
 "You have had a varied experience, Governor," 
 Ross said deferentially. 
 
 But his host continued to trim the wood for quite 
 a time in silence. " Your remark is quite correct. 
 I have had a long and, I may venture to assert, a 
 diversified experience. Of men," he added, after a 
 while. " Yes, you are correct in your remark, sir." 
 
 There was another pause. Ross could hear the 
 jingle of spoons and dishes in the house, occasionally 
 the subdued song of Seelye, of which the refrain 
 was, 
 
 " De reapin' time will shore-ly come, 
 An' my good Lord will call me home," 
 
 interrupted now and then by "Yes, Miss Rachel," 
 followed by the inarticulate murmur of a household 
 consultation between the two. 
 
 "Your assertion is but the truth, sir," the old poli 
 tician resumed at last. His tones were lower than 
 usual, he appeared to be in a more thoughtful mood, 
 when, holding his shingle off from time to time to 
 see if it was properly shaped, he told, as he whittled, 
 the story of his life, from his earliest efforts as a 
 farm-hand, then as a self-taught teacher, then as a 
 cadet. From that he passed rapidly over his adven 
 tures in Florida, in political life, making no allusion 
 to his flight from the Executive chair. 
 
 " It is too long a story to tell, my experiences 
 of life," he summed up at the end, " but you can
 
 LESSONS IN LIFE. 137 
 
 gather this, my dear young friend. I was ambitious, 
 more so perhaps than you are now. I toiled night 
 and day, endeavored to perform my duty to God 
 and my country, endured every form of contumely. 
 Nor have I been without my times of recompense. 
 If men have hissed at and hounded me, they have 
 also applauded. I have often felt as if I was about 
 to be rewarded at last for all. And what is the re 
 sult ? To be impoverished ; to be vilified ; to be 
 utterly misunderstood of even my apparent friends ; 
 to eat of the apples of Sodom which turn to ashes on 
 the lips ; to accomplish nothing worthy the effort. 
 In vain, my young sir, does the infidelity of the day 
 assault Holy Writ. All is vanity and vexation of 
 spirit ! It is a bad world, as I have remarked, a 
 miserably bad world ! Save for woman, it is a botch 
 and a failure. If I were its Creator," and the speaker 
 ceased to whittle, looking at the other with a majestic 
 sadness in his eyes, " I would," and he held out his 
 great hand, examining the palm and then the hairy 
 back of it, "I would fling it from my hand," and 
 he illustrated it by a gesture, " as I would a clot of 
 abhorrent filth, yes, sir, vilest filth!" his counte 
 nance expressing in every line his disgust. 
 
 " The best man in all my knowledge," he con 
 tinued, after grave reflection, " was a Senator of the 
 United States, with whom I was intimately associated, 
 9,nd for many years. He was a monarch among men, 
 tsir, broad and vigorous. I think he must have been, 
 when of your age, very much what you now are; 
 and he grew up to be, as I trust you will remain,
 
 138 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 dark of aspect, because reticent and deep, steady and 
 strong. Of all public men in my acquaintance he 
 alone had no enemy, so modest was he and honorable, 
 so thoughtful of others and courteous. No Senator 
 had as little to say as he ; but when he did speak, his 
 few, sensible words, always to the marrow of the 
 matter, generally decided the question. Sir, Daniel 
 Webster told me one day with his own lips, that he 
 regarded the Senator of whom I speak as one who 
 was wise, pure, true, to be thoroughly relied upon. 
 'He has the strongest native sense, original good 
 judgment,' Mr. Webster observed, 'of any man it 
 has been my privilege to know.' That Senator," 
 Governor Beauchamp went on in lower tones, " was 
 rich, was secure in his seat for life, might aspire, if 
 he cared to do so, to anything higher in the gift of 
 the people. He never knew what it was to be ill, 
 to have a bodily pain. But he had worthless sons, 
 sir, sons who drank. So long as his wife was left 
 him he could endure it. But she died, sir, died. 
 The day after her funeral, he arose from sitting upon 
 the front porch of his house, as we are now seated 
 here, took down his double-barrel shot-gun, went 
 into the yard behind his house, and blew out his 
 brains ! While living he had the weighty aspect of a 
 great statesman. He was like a statue of bronze 
 which is too large for its pedestal. This most miser 
 able world was too poor, too mean, too wretchedly 
 small, for such a man ! He could not find refuge, as 
 some have done, in drink ; he found it and who can 
 blame him ? in death."
 
 LESSONS IN LIFE. 139 
 
 It was plain that the speaker was narrating what 
 was true. His eyes were moist, he was entirely sin 
 cere. His visitor arose to go. It was in vain, as 
 the dinner-bell rang, that Eachel came out and urged 
 him, with the smiling face of a housekeeper who has 
 made special preparation, to dine with them. Her 
 father added his urgency in vain. Eoss had no appe 
 tite, and his ponderous host followed him down the 
 front steps. As he opened the gate to let him out, 
 " My dear Mr. Eoss," he said, bareheaded, and retain 
 ing the hand of his visitor in his own, " I would not 
 sadden your life, and you are capable of great things 
 perhaps ; but I am an old man, have seen the world 
 through and through. It is a dirty dime lying in the 
 gutter, not worth picking up ! God bless you, my 
 young friend, and remember that the only object 
 worth living for is some virtuous woman ! Heaven 
 keep you, and good-by until we meet again. Stay," 
 he added, when his visitor had closed the gate be 
 tween them, laying his hand upon the shoulder of 
 Eoss. " I do not like men in general, but for you, my 
 young friend, I feel a deep concern ; there is that in 
 you which warrants me in so doing. Listen. I speak 
 of woman, sir. But I do not refer to all persons of 
 that sex. I have known some of the most distin 
 guished ladies of this and other lands ladies of 
 rank, wealth, beauty ; ladies learned, gifted, brilliant; 
 ladies who were leaders of fashion, artists, writers, 
 queens of society. I have not learned to like men ; 
 the ablest are often the worst ; and the ladies I speak 
 of were unfeminine, were, in my poor judgment, but
 
 140 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 abortive men at best, Voltaires in crinoline, Aaron 
 Burrs in petticoats and curls. It is not of these, it 
 is of woman, I would speak! Woman such as was 
 the wife of Jackson, of Clay, of Walter Scott ; 
 woman living not for society, for herself, but for 
 others, for her own sacred hearth ; woman, sir, gentle, 
 retiring, sensible, modest, loving, woman as God 
 made her! My wife, sir " And Eoss felt that 
 the hand laid upon his shoulder was trembling. " It 
 is of the mother of my daughter, my most estima 
 ble, wife, sir " Ross let his eyes fall ; adown the 
 broad face of the Governor the tears were flowing 
 freely. " She was the type of woman of whom I 
 tried to speak. Of her, sir, I was unworthy Had 
 she lived " And the old statesman turned away. 
 
 It flashed upon Eoss, as he walked off, that he 
 had heard something, he could not recall what, of the 
 wife of the Governor. Yes, she had been an excellent 
 woman. She had been everything to her husband, 
 who was said to have been devoted to her till her 
 death. " One can see that in Eachel," Eoss said. 
 
 Beside his mother, Eoss really knew and cared for 
 but two of the sex, Eachel and Persis. " As to my 
 mother," he now said to himself as he went, " I am afraid, 
 almost afraid " He did not put his fear into words, 
 even to himself. Was it possible that, as she became 
 older, she was losing her refinement of manner ? 
 Could an educated lady forget her education when left 
 to live in a place like Ocklawahaw ? Was it conceiv 
 able that, as the days passed, she could slowly slide 
 back again into the degradation of her ancestry, and
 
 LESSONS IN LIFE. 141 
 
 become, by -unconscious degrees, merely a squaw 
 again, a squalid squaw ! This thing and that, little 
 phrases she was coining to use, small negligences 
 about her household and her dress, almost impercep 
 tible indolences, coarsenesses, laughter at times with 
 out sufficient cause, and tears too, the son put his 
 remembrances from him with dismay. " It is because 
 I inherit from her blood and from my father my base 
 estimate of woman," he said, "that I imagine such 
 things." 
 
 Eoss Urwoldt was too healthy of body, as of mind, 
 to suffer himself to be lastingly depressed. He did 
 not care, however, to go home to dinner, and wandered, 
 as often before, along the bank of the river, until, 
 seated at last under a cotton-wood tree which over 
 hung the water, he sank into thought. The muddy 
 stream drew itself slowly along, more like a current 
 of syrup, so thick and dark it was from late freshets, 
 than anything else. A few yards to the left from 
 where he sat, a well-worn path ended at the edge 
 where the women, when any dead thing was found in 
 the village spring, came for water. Just there, as at 
 many places along the bank, the current turned upon 
 itself, making an eddy which boiled up from below 
 like a caldron. As Eoss sat he heard, with a hunter's 
 quickness, a light step along the path, and saw that 
 it was Persis, bucket in hand. She had been sick for 
 some days, and his heart smote him as he saw how 
 thin and pale she seemed to be. Surely her dress 
 was too poor and worn. She was studying too hard ! 
 She stooped over the river, and, holding the handle of
 
 142 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 her heavy wooden vessel, plunged it in. Her haste 
 was such that she did it too deeply, was leaning over 
 too far. In an instant the swollen torrent had seized 
 upon the bucket, had dragged her in after it, head 
 long. 
 
 In the same breath Ross sprang to his feet, ran to 
 a point below where Persis had fallen, and leaped in, 
 astonished as he did so at the sullen fury of the 
 water. To him, in his clothes too, it was like a flow 
 of cold but liquid lead, and it was a perilous time be 
 fore he could lay hold upon and bear out the poor 
 girl, at a jutting bank of mud a hundred feet below. 
 
 For a moment he was compelled to sit down, the 
 dripping and unconscious body in his arms, he was so 
 exhausted by his effort. Persis lay, her face white 
 and cold upon his shoulder, her hair in streaming 
 strings on either side. She was not beautiful. Her 
 pallid face was too intense, too pinched, yet, knowing 
 what her life had been, knowing the unselfish and 
 unconquerable spirit of the poor child, a sudden pity 
 seized upon her rescuer. He had seen, he now felt, 
 as she lay in his arms, how frail she was. Even in 
 her wet clothing she was so light that Ross wondered 
 at it. It was only her emaciated body he had saved. 
 " It was Persis," Ross murmured, " but it is Persis no 
 more. What a martyr Persis was, and Persis is 
 dead!" 
 
 More than once I remonstrated with Ross when 
 we were in college together. " You have less com 
 passion in your make," I told him, " than anybody I 
 know. Do you know what it means to feel for those
 
 ' LESSONS IN LIFE. 143 
 
 weaker than yourself ? " Perhaps it was because he 
 had been so unused to such an emotion, but now a 
 deep pity came upon him. It was the instant crea 
 tion in him of a new faculty ; his inmost heart was 
 changed ; the tears rushed to his eyes ; he stooped 
 down and kissed the poor lips by an impulse too na 
 tive to be resisted ; and then he arose and, forgetful 
 of his clothes wet and clinging about him, he ran like 
 a deer, the girl little more than a rifle's weight in his 
 arms, nor stopped until he had laid her upon her bed 
 beside her grandfather, who was pondering over his 
 old Concordance at a little table. Parson Williams 
 was the physician too of the town, and Ross said but 
 a word to him, and ran more rapidly still to his own 
 house to send his mother, and then to the home of 
 Rachel. 
 
 " It struck me even then," Ross told me afterward, 
 " that Rachel, I knew not why, could do more than 
 anybody else for Persis. To this hour I am satisfied 
 that it was Rachel who saved her."
 
 144 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ONE OF THE CERTAINTIES. 
 
 TF the will of Persis had been upon the same scale 
 * with her body, she would have come out of her 
 unconscious condition merely to die of exhaustion. 
 Rachel, always wise where mathematics were not con 
 cerned, was particularly so in this, that, a few days 
 after, somewhat sooner than other people would have 
 done so, she told Persis the story of her rescue by Ross. 
 It was not deliberate purpose in Rachel. There was 
 nothing more in it than her intuition, wiser than all 
 ^purpose ; but it rallied to the help of Persis, more than 
 anything else could have done, her staggering will, by 
 kindling behind and beneath it those divine fires in 
 and by which, in a woman, the will is shaped. Before 
 Rachel spoke Persis was lying too weak to move, pal 
 lid as death, wilted into utter indifference to every 
 thing, feebly wishing, so far as she could frame a wish, 
 that she had been left in the sweet rest and un 
 consciousness of her watery grave. Her eyes, half 
 opened and colorless, hardly saw the face of her friend. 
 Now, in the same breath of telling her the story of 
 her escape, Rachel exclaimed, " What is it, Persis ? " 
 
 Even Rachel was taken by surprise. She would 
 not have been had she known what Persis had cher-
 
 ONE OF THE CERTAINTIES. 145 
 
 ished in her deepest soul this many a day. Her eyes 
 opened and almost sparkled; her color came; she 
 laughed. " Kiss me, dear," she demanded of Rachel. 
 Then she tried to sit up, saying, " I want something 
 to eat. Get it, dear." 
 
 Rachel went to the pantry, wondering ; but Persis 
 was disappointed of her desire to be by herself if but 
 a moment, for first her grandfather came back into 
 the room, and then Mitchabuna. They were aston 
 ished at her appetite. It was a craving for the 
 strength food brings, that Persis suddenly experienced. 
 She had not been without will before. It was so 
 much clearer now and stronger ! Beneath it had lain 
 before but a quivering spark, now the spark had shot 
 up into a steady fire. For her life the girl could not 
 have explained it to herself, was almost frightened at 
 it. We have little to do with the processes within 
 us ; they are certain because they are divine. 
 
 As to Ross, he was astonished at himself that he 
 should be so shy of seeing Persis, and that when there 
 was nobody he wanted so much to see. What reason 
 could there be for it ? It was but once that Persis be 
 gan to thank him. She did not try to do so again. 
 
 " I suppose it is because it is such a fine day," Ross 
 explained to himself as he went out one morning, 
 many weeks after Persis was able to get about, and it 
 was of his almost extravagant spirits he was think 
 ing. It was the fall of the year. The sky was cloud 
 less and of a steel blue. There was an exhilaration 
 in the air, as if it also had ripened with the maturing 
 apples, as if it had, like wine, grown stronger with the 
 
 10
 
 146 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 passing of the seasons. Although he did not suffer 
 his enjoyment to show itself, so to speak, even to him 
 self, he never had felt quite so happy. 
 
 It may have been nature, but, if so, the happiness 
 it awakened sank suddenly inward as he came upon 
 Persis going toward the sycamore, book and slate in 
 hand, for a quiet but more determined effort than 
 before with her neglected algebra. A gentleness fell 
 upon both as Eoss walked beside her, pained to see 
 how frail she still seemed to be, but saying, 
 
 " Do you notice what a deep green the grass puts 
 on, and the leaves, before they turn brown ? See how 
 it is brought out by the lighter green of the pine- 
 needles overhead, the darker hue of the mesquit-bush 
 sparkling with its red berries. Look, Persis, at the 
 tender gray of the moss swinging from the trees, the 
 bronze of the live-oak leaves, the iron blackness of its 
 trunk and limbs level with the earth. Did you ever 
 observe," Ross was surprised to hear himself say it, 
 " how the colors of nature help each other out ? You 
 play and sing, and you ought to understand such 
 things ; it is like the varying chords, is it not, in 
 music ? " 
 
 Persis glanced keenly at him, and then let her eyes 
 fall ; if he was clearer of vision, as in every other 
 sense, than before, so was she. But all she said 
 was, 
 
 " I did not know you were a poet, Mr. Ross." 
 
 She had become, young as she was, almost a woman, 
 and he a man, all at once. 
 
 " A poet ! never ! I detest poetry," he replied. " I
 
 ONE OF THE CERTAINTIES. 147 
 
 love nature instead. It is a weakness to love it so 
 much. That is for women to do." 
 
 " Here is the old sycamore. Good morning," said 
 Persis ; " I must study hard." And, strange to say, she 
 was glad when he was gone. " No," she had replied 
 to his offered help ; " I want to do my problems by 
 myself and for myself." For, almost as strong as her 
 love for Eoss, the purpose of Persis was becoming in 
 her a passion. She knew how women were regarded 
 in Ocklawahaw, what General Urwoldt thought of his 
 wife. Was not this his son ? 
 
 " I will be more than a squaw," Persis said, as she 
 settled herself to her work. What Koss would come 
 to be, she had never a doubt. Come to be ? He 
 already was ; it was she who was not. As to his 
 future, one might as well ask of the sun in the morn 
 ing, "Do you propose to rise higher?" No; just 
 now it was in herself she was most interested, most 
 interested, young as she was, for his sake. We know 
 how blind must be the aspirations of a girl like 
 Persis; yet all things were adjusting themselves in 
 her toward one question in which her life was to be 
 swallowed up, " He being what he is, and growing to 
 what he will be, how can I make myself into some 
 thing worthy of him ? " She had always been ambi 
 tious ; henceforth love added to ambition its deeper 
 and more enduring flames. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, but Eoss did rot care 
 to go to church. His mother said nothing, and went 
 her way to the meeting-house. It was the only day 
 on which she took any pains with her toilet, altogether
 
 148 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 too negligent of it at other times. Eoss had become 
 reluctantly accustomed to her wrapper loosely girded 
 about her waist, to her black hair in disorder about 
 her cheeks, and whom did she care to please except her 
 son ? Little did she know how much, and more of 
 late than ever, her negligence was affecting, almost 
 terrifying, him. But this was Sunday, and it was like 
 civilization emerging from savagery when she came 
 out of her room arrayed for church. With her black 
 silk and lace neckerchief, her beautiful teeth, her 
 hair cared for and a becoming covering for her head, 
 her fine eyes and elastic carriage, she was a striking 
 woman to look at, and Eoss took more pride in her 
 then than it had ever occurred to him to express. 
 
 Certainly Governor Beauchamp thought so as he 
 met her that day on her way home from church. 
 
 " My dear lady ! " he exclaimed, and removed his 
 enormous hat, " I had not flattered myself that I would 
 have so great a gratification ! Pardon me if I detain 
 you. You are looking remarkably well ! " 
 
 Not Turenne or Marlborough could have presented 
 a more chivalrous aspect than the magnificently 
 formed cavalier, cane in hand, as he stood bareheaded 
 in the sun, the wind playing with his hair and beard ; 
 not Leicester himself, nor Walter Ealeigh, could have 
 been more courtly had it been Elizabeth. Mrs. Ur- 
 woldt knew everything in regard to the Governor, yet 
 she smiled and blushed as he continued to converse 
 with her in the most deferential and respectful man 
 ner. The manner of the man was out of place, but 
 not more so than was the man himself. His sin-
 
 ONE OF THE CERTAINTIES. 149 
 
 cerity made even his extravagance of courtesy natural, 
 and he was so grave too. He complimented her 
 upon her son. Never had he known a more intelli 
 gent and promising young gentleman. She would be 
 proud of him yet. 
 
 " He is devoted to you, lady. Extraordinary as he 
 appears to be in point of talent and attainment, you 
 can trust him, lady. Do I not know men ? Yes, you 
 can rest in him your hopes, he will not deceive or 
 disappoint you. And how handsome Mr. Eoss is ! 
 But with such a mother," with a respectful inclina 
 tion and a wave of his hand, " it were impossible he 
 should be otherwise ! " 
 
 Kabelais tells a story of the wandering of his heroes 
 around the world in search of that which, upon the 
 whole, it is best for a man to do. After innumerable 
 defeats at insufficient oracles, they are brought, at last, 
 and as at the end of the world, to the sacred shrine 
 from which, as all agree, the highest wisdom taber 
 nacling in clay shall announce that which alone it is 
 best for mortal to do if he would be happy. To the 
 astonishment of the seekers, the supreme oracle proves 
 to be a Bottle, and from its neck gurgles the sum of 
 wisdom in the one word, "Drink!" To that point 
 had the retired statesman arrived. To do him jus 
 tice, he held, and sincerely, to his faith in woman ; 
 neither the bottle nor Ocklawahaw would have known 
 him had his wife lived. He had not met Mrs. Ur- 
 woldt for a long time ; he seemed unwilling, unable 
 almost, to part from her. 
 
 " I congratulate you," he said once more, and with
 
 150 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 all respect, "upon your appearance this delightful 
 day." 
 
 Poor lady ! She was but a woman. By reason of 
 the lingering in her veins of ages of female subjec 
 tion, she was, in some things, but a weak woman. So 
 long was it since she had heard a compliment that 
 she could not but be pleased with it. And this was 
 the Governor who spoke! He might be a drunk 
 ard, but he was a gentleman. That he was a great 
 man everybody knew. Her eyes sparkled; her color 
 came. 
 
 "And if," the Governor added, "and if (which 
 may Heaven forbid !) my friend, General Urwoldt," and 
 he laughed as he said it, " should be taken from us, 
 you, madam, would have small difficulty in marrying 
 again." But the gravity with which it was said did 
 away with the coarseness of the compliment, and the 
 courtly speaker, lifting his hat for a final wave before 
 he replaced it upon his head, walked away greatly 
 refreshed. 
 
 Not so much so, alas ! but that he resorted to other 
 sources the same afternoon. To Rachel nothing in 
 nature had become more a matter of course, and she 
 sat by his side, as he lay stretched out upon a pallet 
 on the floor of the back porch, dressed in her Sunday 
 clothing, matronly to look at, her hands lying power 
 less in her lap, and wondering if it would not be well 
 to get in the winter's pork as soon as it should be 
 cold enough. 
 
 Governor Beauchamp had spoken lightly to Mrs. 
 Urwoldt, but King Saul also is at times numbered
 
 ONE OF THE CERTAINTIES. 151 
 
 among the prophets. Eoss had passed what was to 
 him the most pleasant of mornings out upon the 
 prairie. He had lain upon the fragrant grass en 
 joying the luxury of existence. Maggie, his mare, 
 had spied him, and, after smelling out with her white 
 nose about his cheeks that he had no use for her just 
 then, had gone to grazing again near by. There was 
 a pleasure to her master in her enjoyment of the grass, 
 and of the ocean-like abundance of it to the far 
 thest horizon. He had not disdained to watch a cloud 
 of insects hovering in the air, objectless in their cir 
 cling flight, and purely for the pleasure of being in the 
 air together. The wind rose and fell like the regular 
 breathing of the peaceful scene. A cloud floated far 
 overhead, a flock of crows flew cawing through the sky. 
 He cared nothing for the past, for the future, for any 
 body except Persis ? Why should he ? 
 
 But the sun began to beat too hotly upon him. 
 He got upon his feet and loitered toward the cover 
 of the woods. 
 
 As he did so he heard the sound of wheels, and saw 
 that it was his father driving rapidly by in his buggy 
 along the road. To his surprise General Urwoldt 
 hailed him, reined in his horse, a spirited bay, the 
 best he owned, called him to his side, insisted upon 
 his getting in, and drove furiously on. A man had 
 stopped at the store that morning, journeying by on 
 foot. After he was gone, General Urwoldt missed a 
 Mexican blanket which had been lying upon the 
 counter, and w r as in pursuit of the thief. " I think I 
 know where to catch him, and I wanted some one to
 
 152 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 hold ray horse," he said, "when I do." Boss had 
 never loved his father. How had it heen possible 
 for him to do so ? This portly, purple-faced, boister 
 ous man had never shown any special interest in 
 him. He had lived at his store and among his squaws. 
 His business matters, his horses, his quarrels with 
 Indians, half-breeds, rough settlers from among the 
 whites, had taken up his time. To him the studies 
 of his son had always been the nonsense of a foolish 
 mother and an idle boy. Secretly he was prouder of 
 his son, thought more about him, than he had ever 
 expressed; but Ross did not know it. Like his 
 mother he had grown accustomed to doing without 
 this bloated man who outswore, outdrank, outstormed, 
 any man in three hundred miles around. 
 
 As the two rode together, Ross could not but smell 
 the effluvia of the perspiring drunkard, who never 
 washed his body these days. His wrath against the 
 thief caused him to steam visibly as he cursed and 
 swore, and told what he would do when he caught the 
 offender. "For I gave the old scoundrel a plug of 
 tobacco to be rid of him," he said with many oaths. 
 " Let me catch him, that is all ! " 
 
 In the course of a few miles the man grew more 
 malignant as he grew outwardly cooler. At last, 
 drawing near a fringe of timber which ran across the 
 road, he checked his horse to a walk, grasping the 
 heavy whip more firmly, peering out from side to 
 side as the road descended to a stream. Sure enough, 
 there was a white-headed foot traveller seated by the 
 brink of the water, rolling up his trousers to wade
 
 ONE OF THE CERTAINTIES. 153 
 
 ross, the bright- colored Mexican blanket lying upon 
 the ground beside him. 
 
 To Ross it seemed as if it were all over in a mo 
 ment. His father placed the reins in his grasp, 
 jumped out, whip in hand, with an oath, ran upon 
 the man, knocked him down as he rose to his feet, 
 and began beating him with savage fury, cursing him 
 as he did so. The son drove nearer, got out, and, 
 holding the bit of the struggling animal with one 
 hand, he laid the other upon his father's shoulder. 
 
 " You will kill him ! " he said. 
 
 Even as he did so, the whip fell from the hand of 
 the infuriated man ; he reeled to one side and fell 
 heavily to the earth. Eor an instant Eoss was sure 
 that the thief, who had now struggled to his knees, 
 had stabbed his father. But no; the wretch, his 
 face streaming with blood from the blows, had not 
 even a stick in the hands with which he had 
 tried to ward off the whip. There was a moment of 
 horror while Eoss stooped over his father. The 
 purpled face was turned upward, the eyes were start 
 ing from the sockets. As the son let go the head of 
 the horse, the thief, rising staggeringly to his feet, 
 wiped the blood from his eyes, took in the state of 
 things, then dashed across the stream, leaving his 
 hat and stolen blanket behind him. As he climbed 
 painfully up the ascent on the other side of the water 
 he turned his bloody face for a last look, and cursed 
 his pursuer as only men of his kind can curse. Then 
 he paused a moment, took another good look at the 
 prostrate man ; a grin of joy settled upon his counte-
 
 154 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 nance. " Damn you, did I say ? You are, damned, 
 you old rascal ! " he chuckled, and then hastened on 
 lest the son should send a bullet after him. 
 
 It is the peculiarity of men like Eoss Urwoldt to 
 become cold and silent where other men grow flurried. 
 Getting up from beside his father, he walked toward 
 the horse, which was backing away from the fallen 
 owner, its ears pricked up, snorting with distended 
 nostrils. In vain he spoke to it. Almost upsetting 
 the vehicle as it whirled around, it flew up the decliv 
 ity, and when Koss reached the summit it was running 
 away toward the village, the vehicle bounding into 
 the air at every rut and stone. 
 
 There was nothing else to be done but to wait until 
 help should come. He returned to his father, undid 
 his vest, loosened his necktie, supported his head on his 
 knee, while he bathed the death-struck face from the 
 water which murmured by as peacefully as before. 
 
 It was but too evident that General Urwoldt had, 
 in his wrath, broken some blood-vessel, for the blood 
 was gushing from his mouth as he lay. 
 
 For two hours his son sat beside him powerless to 
 do anything but wait. He had often shot a buck 
 when it was dashing along in the beauty of its speed. 
 He had seen the antlered thing spring, at his shot, 
 as if in desperate effort to overleap the sudden leaden 
 obstacle in its way, high into the air, to fall to the 
 earth in a confused and sprawling heap, its grace 
 gone from it with its life. In shooting a bull buffalo 
 the animal, he remembered, always stumbled forward, 
 struck its nose against the ground, and rolled over.
 
 ONE OF THE CERTAINTIES. 155 
 
 But this was the first time Eoss had witnessed 
 the death of one of his own kind, and there was to 
 him a something more ignoble as it was more terrible 
 than in the case of deer or buffalo. The years of 
 debauchery, insolent self-assertion, cruel bargaining, 
 raging passion, unreasoning vehemence in regard to 
 miserable trifles, there had been nothing of that in 
 the beasts ! A moment ago General Urwoldt was the 
 rich headman of the nation, possessed of what was 
 almost genius too, as painter and writer, in every 
 way gifted beyond the average of men ; and there 
 he lay in a death more disgraceful than the dead- 
 drunkenness of Governor Beauchamp, a drunken 
 ness out of the mire and shame of which this man 
 would get up again no more. With the man as with 
 buck and buffalo, this was the end of things forever ! 
 Eoss looked steadfastly at his dead father, shuddered, 
 and in turning away from him turned that much the 
 more away from all men. 
 
 At last a number of people drove up from Ocklawa- 
 haw, Mitchabuna and Parson Williams with them; 
 for the horse, with fragments of the buggy at its 
 heels, had arrived at its stable coated with foam 
 and dust, telling thus the tale of some disaster. The 
 wife wept silently as they drove the wagon home, the 
 dead man lying upon the Mexican blanket in the 
 bottom. But Eoss sat cold and still. Like the rocks 
 among the canons, which hold the track of bird and 
 beast made in them ages before, his was a nature 
 that, hardening every day, was to retain forever the 
 impressions then made.
 
 156 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY, 
 
 " Eeward, sooner or later. fitting reward, exact as 
 to date, level as to measure, to the worst man as to the 
 best, to General Urwoldt as to Parson Williams, 
 this also is," I said to myself when I heard of it, 
 "one among the solid certainties we can count confi 
 dently upon."
 
 UPTURNING. 157 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 UPTURNING. 
 
 'THHE death of General Urwoldt changed every- 
 -*- thing at Ocklawahaw. There was not in 
 Europe a monarch more absolute than, in the limits 
 of the Eeservation, its headman had been and for 
 so long, and his death was as that of a king in its 
 effects. It was the passing away of an era, since, in 
 this case also, the advance of the times made it im 
 possible that his son and successor should be a sov 
 ereign of the same sort. By universal consent, the 
 death of General Urwoldt was regarded as the greatest 
 good luck which for many years had befallen Ock 
 lawahaw and its dependencies, since, as all agreed, 
 Ross was an unspeakable improvement upon his 
 father. 
 
 Governor Beauchamp was, of all the mourners on 
 the morning of the funeral, the most conspicuous, 
 not to say the most affected. Clad in his best broad 
 cloth, draped still more deeply in the aspect of re 
 spectful grief, he occupied a front seat during the 
 services at church, added his voice to the singing of 
 the funeral hymns, was among the last who lingered 
 at the grave. After dinner he escaped from his
 
 158 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 daughter by saying that he intended to visit Father 
 Williams. 
 
 He found the old man returned to his week-day 
 clothes, and engaged outside his cabin in mending a 
 tub. 
 
 " Yes, reverend sir," he remarked to the pastor at 
 the end of manifold moraliziugs upon the uncertainty 
 of life, "as I have often observed to you before, I 
 honor your sacred calling. No one can regret more 
 than I do that I attend church so rarely. I hear 
 your sermons, as also those of your coadjutor, Mr. 
 Amasa Clarke, so highly spoken of that I the more re 
 gret it. But I am glad, even while absent, that the gos 
 pel is being proclaimed. May God bless your labors ! " 
 
 There was more of the same talk, but the aged 
 missionary did not cease his work to listen to it as 
 attentively as he might. The distinguished reprobate 
 was too large a problem for the preacher. If he was 
 not edified, the Governor was, and he walked away 
 in the end as if he had been listening to a sermon. 
 It did not prevent him from becoming, if possible, 
 and by sunset of the same day, more deeply intoxi 
 cated than ever. 
 
 From that time Eoss had more than enough to do. 
 It took some months of hard work over the accounts 
 and among the assets of General Urwoldt, before he 
 found out how matters stood. When he did he was 
 astonished to see how much wealthier his father had 
 been than he had thought. For the late headman 
 loved money so much better than liquor, that he 
 never allowed the drinking of the one to interfere
 
 UPTURNING. 159 
 
 with the making of the other. But it was a property 
 almost as hard to reckon up and manage as were the 
 multitudinous "brands" of cattle and the herds of 
 horses in which it partly consisted, and which were 
 at large over the prairies for two hundred miles 
 around; the Indians and half-breeds who attended 
 iipon, and at regular seasons corralled and branded the 
 stock, being the hardest to control of all. 
 
 Hiring clerks to take care of the store, and who 
 had themselves to be closely watched, the new owner 
 almost lived in the saddle, while he learned not 
 merely the condition of his live-stock, but the quality 
 of his large, carefully selected, and widely separated 
 tracts of land, upland, river bottom, cedar brake, 
 Pecan forest, mineral. Whenever, in exploring the 
 live-oaks, he heard the rush of animals through the 
 dense undergrowth, it gratified him, even in the act 
 of bringing his rifle into readiness, to see that instead 
 of deer it was a drove of hogs, the ear slits of which 
 showed that they, with every pig following them 
 fast, were his own. So, when halting upon a knoll 
 of the prairie, he unslung his glass and swept the 
 horizon carefully around, deer, buffalo, antelope, ver 
 durous grass waving in the wind, and golden clouds 
 dotting the distance, were impertinences now, since 
 it was first for stock he was seeking, and then for 
 the big U on the flank of cow or horse, which 
 proved the stock to be his own. So of his land. 
 
 " A man can no more grow and develop than can a 
 tree, unless," he said to me one day, " he is rooted in 
 soil of his own."
 
 160 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 General Urwoldt had held his possessions so ex 
 clusively in his own panther-like claws that the mere 
 ownership was for a long time a new sensation to his 
 son, who, really, had not thought much about it 
 before. Often, in riding across the prairie, he would 
 rein Maggie in upon the top of some eminence, and, 
 after examining the expanse for stock, would try to 
 realize that the earth itself, and as far as he could 
 see in every direction, was his own. As he did so he 
 sat more erect in his saddle, drew deeper breaths of 
 the air and sunshine which there at least were his 
 own likewise. It was as if he felt the sap ascending 
 from the soil along every vein, as if every pore of 
 his body drew in a stronger life. 
 
 It was natural that this Antaeus, too, should 
 thrive by touching the earth, as lie did ; and he 
 throve indeed. I do not know if he ate on a 
 larger scale, but he slept more profoundly, grew 
 deeper of chest, broader across the shoulders, wore 
 the graver aspect, as of a many-acred earl, as the 
 months wore by, especially as there were posses 
 sions of his which were not so passive in his hand as 
 lands. There were all sorts of men in his employ, 
 not one of whom did not wear revolver and butcher- 
 knife in his hip pocket handy to his grasp, and whom 
 he had not to pay only, but to guide, compel, control, 
 sober or drunk, content or discontented, pleased or 
 growling vengeance through their beards ; and the 
 condition of remaining master of these was, that Eoss 
 should, under all circumstances, remain master of 
 himself. It was excellent discipline.
 
 UPTURNING. 161 
 
 " It was easy to confront such men," Ross explained 
 to me afterward, " easy to knock them down if neces 
 sary, easy to anticipate them in shooting. The diffi 
 culty lay in so speaking, so acting, as to govern them 
 without an oath, a blow, or a bullet. I had to have 
 long patience and practice, severe drill, in a word, 
 with and over myself, before I came to it." 
 
 Many months were gone before Eoss was aware. 
 When one event befalls a dozen follow. While the 
 new master was accustoming himself to the scep 
 tre and throne, Governor Beauchamp was suddenly 
 smitten, swept out of Ocklawahaw, and far along, by 
 another of those gusts which were as much a matter 
 of course to him as breezes, or, at best, trade-winds, 
 are to barks of lesser tonnage. 
 
 "As I told you," Eoss wrote me, "his entire life 
 has been but a series of sudden changes. Either he 
 is lying flat on his back in contented obscurity, or he 
 is the Julius Caesar of some great triumph; with 
 him and he is as quiescent through everything as 
 a baby any middle condition of things seems to be 
 impossible. I used to see him loafing about Ock 
 lawahaw, talking to whatever group happened to 
 form around him, accepting with affability whatever 
 homage was rendered to him in hand-shakings, offered 
 tobacco, proffered drinks. I used to see him here and 
 there about the place doing this day after day, week 
 after week, month after month, until it was hard to 
 imagine he had ever done anything else all his life. 
 There was not a child in Ocklawahaw that was not 
 as familiar with his colossal size, dilapidated yellow 
 
 11
 
 162 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 hat, broad brows, copious hair and beard, courtly 
 manner, drawling speech, everlasting whittling, as it 
 was with the sycamore at the end of the town. Ten, 
 fifty, a hundred times, it seems to me, have I seen 
 him in his garrulous, then in his solemn and digni 
 fied, intoxication. 
 
 " One September day, more than a year after my 
 father's death, he had been struck by drink away 
 from the house, and lay, as of old, upon the grass 
 under the sycamore. I had not noticed that Persis 
 and llachel were with him, or I would not have gone 
 nearer. As I went up to see if I could do anything 
 for him, I saw them seated on the stone with their 
 books and their sewing, and pretended not to notice 
 the Governor lying prostrate on the earth, a little 
 apart, the broad-brimmed hat over his face. 
 
 " The girls were young ladies almost by this time. 
 They had grown larger, but were the same : that is, 
 llachel was as mute and motherly as ever; Persis 
 Paige, quiet enough, but, if possible, more energetic 
 about her housework and her studies than before. 
 They were talking together in a low tone when I 
 came up ; at least, Persis was speaking in her eager 
 way, quiet as she was, telling what she had read, what 
 she wanted to read. But there was silence when I 
 sat down ; they seemed almost shy of me. Although 
 I did try to be a brother to them." 
 
 " Did you ? " I sympathized with him smilingly, 
 as I read his letter. 
 
 "Beside my mother, they are all the society I 
 have," Pioss wrote. " Busy as I am, I need some
 
 UPTURNING, 163 
 
 companionship. But I cannot understand them. 
 That is, I can understand Eachel. She has that kind 
 of broad, clear, open, old-fashioned face which I sup 
 pose Mary and Martha Washington had. When I 
 talk with her it is like standing outside of an open 
 window in summer time ; almost as if you were to 
 lean your arm upon the window-sill and look in and 
 see everything in the room. It is different with 
 Persis, very different ! But it is of the Governor 
 I was speaking. As I sat trying to get Persis to say 
 something, the sleeping man moved his arm, his hat 
 fell from off his face. His hair had grown whiter of 
 late, and it was tangled, as he lay, with bits of moss 
 and dead leaves. The face was exposed to the glare 
 of the sun, and he made, with his immense and 
 utterly relaxed length, the great palms lying open 
 upon either side of him, a Silenus in the last stages 
 of degradation, and many sizes larger than life. 
 Rather, he was like a whale thrown high up upon 
 the beach. I could almost detect in the air the efflu 
 via of his speedy dissolution ; and then I glanced at 
 Eachel sitting there so young, yet so sedate. 
 
 " ' You old sinner ! ' I said, almost aloud ; ' it is 
 time you were dead and buried ! ' And I strolled away 
 to send somebody who could carry him home. 
 
 " And yet," Ross added, " in three days after that 
 the Governor was gone ! There was a political revo 
 lution in his State, as I learned soon after. His own 
 party had long ago cast him off with horror to save 
 their reputation as the party of law and respectability. 
 In a dearth of leaders of their own, the opposite
 
 164 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 party saw a golden chance lying neglected in the 
 former Executive. A delegation came in haste to 
 Ocklawahaw. Governor Beauchamp received them 
 on his front porch, as an exiled monarch might have 
 received an embassy from his repentant subjects. 
 He was, he said, wholly satisfied where he was, had 
 no desire whatever to return to public life. For some 
 time, however, he had known and bewailed the mad 
 ness of the party with which he had heretofore acted. 
 As a wholly impartial spectator, he was free to say 
 that those who sought him represented the only hope 
 of the State in its present serious emergency. He 
 hoped they would carry the next elections, hoped so 
 as a mere outsider. I need not add that he yielded 
 at last to return with them." 
 
 " For the first time I am reading the papers with 
 interest," Eoss wrote next. "They are full of the Gov 
 ernor, abusing or praising him. He is making stump 
 speeches over the State. There are columns upon 
 columns detailing the processions which go forth to 
 meet him, the barbecues with thousands in attend 
 ance. His speeches are given at length, filled from 
 end to end with parentheses of laughter, applause, 
 vociferous cheering. It is another Napoleon returned 
 from Elba." 
 
 That was all Eoss could then write. In a little 
 while, as I saw in the papers for myself, Governor 
 Beauchamp had carried the State for his new friends 
 by overwhelming majorities. He was elected Gov 
 ernor by a larger vote than ever, and the papers rang 
 with eulogies upon his eloquence, his statesmanship,
 
 UPTURNING. 165 
 
 his inflexible adherence to principle ; upon the self- 
 sacrificing sublimity of his return from dignified and 
 opulent retirement to overthrow the base, ignorant, 
 and corrupt minions who had fed themselves fat upon 
 the vitals of the people ! 
 
 " I had already learned many things from the Gov 
 ernor," Eoss wrote me soon after, " from what he was 
 as much as from what he said. Now I learn another 
 lesson, and that is, that everything lies at last in op 
 portunity, in mere circumstance." 
 
 " Circumstance ? Yes," I wrote, reminding him of 
 it again. " Circumstance once leaped upon you from 
 a pecan-tree in the shape, I remember your telling 
 me, of a wild-cat. Unless I mistake, you had quite a 
 time of it that day with circumstance. Instead of 
 yielding to circumstance you fought with and killed 
 and afterward nailed up the striped skin of circum 
 stance upon your stable door. Sometimes it comes 
 in the horns and hoofs of the devil, and sometimes in 
 the person of an angel. Persis is a circumstance, so 
 is Rachel. Don't let us argue about it, man ; every 
 thing lies in resisting or in yielding to what befalls 
 us, and you know it." 
 
 " Oh, well," Ross replied, " have your way ! But this, 
 too, I gathered from the case of the Governor : first, 
 how low a man may fall, how very low, and from 
 what heights ; second, that although a man falls as 
 from the stars, and into the gutter, the fall need not 
 slay him. I had not imagined that there was such 
 toughness in humanity, such elasticity, so much 
 bounce ; India-rubber is nothing to it ! "
 
 166 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 " My dear fellow," I wrote back, " some day you 
 will learn that a man is so exceedingly tough as to 
 endure when all nature beside, having served him, 
 shall perish, every forest with its dead leaves, every 
 ocean more utterly than the spray it casts into the 
 air. Out of all we behold, man and his Maker are 
 the only things which survive ; and as to the power 
 in a man of rebound, yes, and from a depth deeper 
 than even the Governor reached, and not only to the 
 stars but beyond them But we won't argue about 
 it ; tell me in your next what Eachel thinks of 
 affairs."
 
 FINALITIES. 167 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 FINALITIES. 
 
 I_pOE very many years now had Parson "Williams 
 * labored in the Reservation. From his earliest 
 manhood, by day and by night, teaching, preaching, 
 visiting from house to house, he had given his life in 
 every faculty, during every hour, to his work. It was 
 he who did what he could to counteract the evil in 
 fluence of General Urwoldt, to settle the quarrels 
 continually arising among the people, to urge them, 
 and by the example too of his own unwearying hands, 
 to industry. He it was who acted as umpire in every 
 case of dispute, whether it had reference to an acre of 
 land or to an unbranded colt or calf. Wherever was 
 sickness there was the good old man also, to heal 
 if possible, to prepare the dying for death, to bury 
 the dead, to console the survivors. Against a thou 
 sand discouragements, as poor as the poorest, he had 
 done his utmost, his very life prolonged by the steady 
 intensity of his purpose, which had never for an in 
 stant a reference to himself. 
 
 As his granddaughter sat sewing beside him one 
 afternoon, she was saddened to see how very, very in 
 firm he was. His old Bible lay open upon his knees 
 as he sat, the spectacles placed so as to mark the
 
 168 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 verse upon which he had been meditating. But he 
 was thinking of Persis. She changed color as she 
 looked up, he was gazing so intently upon her. " I 
 am afraid to leave you," he said to her almost 
 sternly. 
 
 " Afraid, grandpa ! " 
 
 " You are too ambitious, my child ; you study too 
 hard. Women should not want to know too much, 
 Persis ; that was the sin of Eve which ruined the 
 race." 
 
 Persis ceased sewing in astonishment. " And you 
 yourself have always urged me," she said, " to study 
 as hard as I could in order to teach others." 
 
 " Yes," he replied ; " but that was when you were a 
 child. What I desired to do was to give direction 
 to your path. I ought not to have said as much as I 
 did. You are going along it too fast ! I wish you 
 were a little more like Rachel. A girl should not 
 read too much. It is as if a weak stomach should 
 take too much food, my dear. A man can stand it, 
 but God has made women differently. You should 
 know only enough to love wisely, and to help in a 
 woman's way, mind ! those you love. That is all. 
 I am afraid for you, Persis ! " 
 
 She should have had more regard to the words of 
 the good old man, since they were almost the last he 
 spoke. For, one day, it became known through Ockla- 
 wahaw that Parson Williams was dead. He had done 
 all the good which had been done in the Reservation, 
 even if he had not made saints of the savages. 
 
 The whole Reservation came to his funeral, the
 
 FINALITIES. 1G9 
 
 women with outcries of sorrow; the worst men silent 
 with a deeper grief, consternation almost. " It is as 
 if we were burying God," one of them said. Amasa 
 Clarke officiated at the grave, taking thereafter, so far 
 as he might, the place of the dead apostle. " But 
 he is only Pooga-Dooga, Mush-and-Milk," was the 
 unanimous remark. 
 
 Long as Persis had looked forward to it, the blow 
 smote her heavily, or would have done so if she had 
 not been so busy with the additional care and work 
 it brought her that she did not find time, at first, even 
 to weep. 
 
 And then the old cabin in which the two had lived 
 so long had held itself up only, it was evident, until 
 the aged missionary was done with it ; for it almost 
 tumbled down the day after the burying. Mitcha- 
 buna begged her to come to her house ; but Ross lived 
 there, and she would not. Moreover, Rachel took the 
 poor girl into her motherly heart and home from the 
 first. Then came the reaction. For weeks Persis lay 
 ill under the care of Seelye and Rachel, who became, 
 as in a moment, the oldest as she always had been 
 the strongest. For a while Persis, weeping and worn 
 out, clung to her friend, as if she were a mere babe. 
 
 There had long been years of trouble impending 
 between the North and the South ; and Ross Urwoldt 
 was called away, the day after the funeral, to attend a 
 political conference in regard to it in a distant city. 
 Almost alone in that he took strong ground there 
 against secession, he exerted himself to his utmost to 
 prevent it; hardest of all, he had to keep himself
 
 170 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 cool under pathetic appeals, vehement accusations, 
 from the overwhelming majority who opposed him. 
 What tried him most was that the power had already 
 passed into the hands of mere passion ; he might as 
 well have endeavored to stem a thunder-gust; and 
 he returned homeward before the conference closed, 
 more alarmed at what the South might suffer through 
 its own folly than what the North might accomplish 
 by force. 
 
 The last few days of his journey back were upon 
 horseback. He had often ridden by himself, for hun 
 dreds of miles scarcely seeing a human being, and 
 the habit had come to him, thus, of slow, steady, con 
 tinuous reflection, for the conclusions of which he 
 must rely upon himself alone. The war which threat 
 ened brought back his mind to that which had al 
 ready exercised it so long, Persis! Now that the 
 country was being precipitated into a strife of which 
 no man could see the end, what ought he to do 
 in regard to her ? He loved her with all his heart. 
 Perhaps she would marry him ? She was so young 
 he regarded it as almost brutal to speak to her about 
 it, even yet. What ought he to do ? 
 
 And then he thought of his mother. He knew 
 only too well the way in which women were regarded 
 in Ocklawahaw. When they were young and pretty, 
 they were petted very much as if they were kittens. 
 Sometimes a young wife, if very pretty, and when 
 first married, would put on her poor little airs, would 
 scold and wheedle, would venture even to pout at and 
 vex her husband. Alas ! the first curse from his lips,
 
 FINALITIES. 171 
 
 the first blow from his hand, struck her back into 
 what she knew all along was her place, a place 
 hardly higher than the dogs, by no means as exalted 
 as that of a blooded horse. Having the father he did, 
 it was impossible but that Koss should be at least 
 uncertain in regard to women, doubtful of them, even 
 vigilantly suspicious of them. He had loved his 
 mother, had gloried in the fact that she was an edu 
 cated woman. In his struggle against his hereditary 
 estimate of the sex, she was the one woman upon 
 whom he rested his faith. Persis he loved, but in his 
 mother he had trusted from his birth. But now 
 
 As he rode through deep forests, day after day, in 
 solitary thought, he strove against any doubts in 
 regard to her, with the double dismay that they 
 involved Persis also. He reached his result at last. 
 With it came a sudden gladness. He put spurs to 
 his horse and rode on more rapidly till he reached 
 Ocklawahaw. 
 
 When, the day of his arrival, he stood upon the 
 porch of the house in which Persis lived with Rachel, 
 his heart bounded as he saw Persis herself, seated, 
 book in hand, in the corner where the vines grew 
 thickest. The girl held her book from force of habit. 
 She did not know what book it was. Her tears were 
 all wept. What work was to be done she had finished. 
 Her past was as hazy to her as her future. She was 
 still weak from illness. The one thing she did was 
 to go on thinking of Ross. 
 
 When she looked up and saw him standing before 
 her, she could not control herself. There was that in
 
 172 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 his eyes which would have frightened her had it not 
 gladdened her so much. She sprang to meet him. 
 Rachel would not have lost herself for an instant, 
 whoever and however much she might love. But 
 Rachel was not Persis, and it was a Persis so weak 
 from long suffering, so electric with intense feeling 
 long suppressed ! She had to say something. In the 
 sheer foolishness of her joy, " Ross," she exclaimed, 
 " it will distress you so much ! " 
 
 " What is it, Persis ? " He overmastered her, she 
 was so happy, so weak ; he stood there so strong, loving 
 her she could see that so much. The matter 
 she alluded to had filled her talks with Rachel for 
 many days. Except Ross, she had thought of noth 
 ing else. It was the childishness of a young, a very 
 young girl, too happy to know what she said. She 
 took for granted Ross must have heard her news be 
 fore this. No ; Rachel would not have said it. There 
 was the utter surrender in it of a too impulsive child 
 to the man she loved so well, the man who was there 
 to take her to his heart. 
 
 More than frightened now at her folly in doing so, 
 She told him all. He had not imagined such a thing ! 
 Not even Ross himself could have supposed that the 
 event would have struck him so hard. There was a 
 revulsion in him of feeling. He almost reeled before 
 it. Persis was forgotten. There came into his face 
 a change from which she recoiled with a cry. He 
 stood motionless for a moment, his eyes darkening as 
 they fastened themselves upon hers. Then he turned, 
 and, without a word, was gone.
 
 FINALITIES. 173 
 
 For what Persis had to tell him was that his mother 
 was married. to Amasa Clarke, the indolent and 
 apathetic man whom, for so many years, Ross had 
 disliked and despised beyond all men ! She had not 
 dared to tell him of her intention, and had seized the 
 opportunity of his absence to carry it out. 
 
 What took place between mother and son in regard 
 to the marriage, who can say ? No one cared to speak 
 to Ross of it. People were almost afraid to enter the 
 house of the mother after it was known that her son 
 had broken with her. At their coming in, her eyes 
 flashed upon them like those of some wild animal. 
 She had her fits, too, of girlish laughter, of violent 
 weeping. But it was long before Ross saw Persis 
 again. He had made an idol of poor Mitchabuna, 
 and, with her, his faith in the sex was gone. 
 
 Then came on the war between the North and the 
 South. Ross went to another political conference, 
 and on his return he gave himself up, colder and 
 sterner than ever, to raising a regiment of men for 
 the war.
 
 174 BLESSED SAINT CEKTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A DECISION. 
 
 TT was little that Ross, or any one else, had said to 
 *- Persis or Rachel concerning the impending war. 
 When he should go into the army it might be different, 
 but so far his chief feeling was a sense of resent 
 ment against all politicians, a sullen anger such as 
 a drop of the ocean might have against the billow 
 which was gathering it up to dash it upon the rocks. 
 But he could no more resist it than he could the 
 marriage of his mother; and he was glad when he 
 called upon the girls the day before he left and found 
 them not at home. It was better so. 
 
 The next day, as he rode out of town, he dismounted 
 at their door, fastened his mare Maggie to the fence, 
 and came in merely to say good-by. Having reached 
 the certainty of things, he had lost his wearied look. 
 Perhaps he was the more erect by reason of his new 
 uniform, his captaincy, his sword and pistols. More 
 over, if he was sterner when with men, he had now 
 the aspect, rather, of gladness, as of one who feels 
 fresh and strong for a great journey which lies before 
 him. Persis was by herself upon the porch at the 
 moment, for her friend had been seized with a quiet 
 mania for knitting innumerable socks for the soldiers,
 
 A DECISION-. 175 
 
 and had gone to the store to buy all the yarn which 
 was to be had. "While Ross waited her return, he and 
 Persis said everything to each other but that which 
 lay nearest their hearts. When on the prairie, rifle 
 in hand, Ross could pick out of a herd of deer, 
 grazing in the distance, the one deer he wanted, could 
 pick it out because it was so much the best of all, 
 and yet he could not now see that Persis was as much 
 superior to poor Mitchabuna as is gold to copper, as 
 is Cordelia to Cleopatra. But his mother had been, 
 and ever since he could remember, the chiefest of 
 women to him, and with her the sex had perished. 
 Persis knew it. She could do nothing now ; but it 
 deepened into a religion within her, the purpose to 
 prove to him some day what she was. 
 
 " By the by," he said, as he rose at last to leave, 
 "my mother knows how much you wish to go on 
 with your education, and that Ocklawahaw is no place 
 for it. That is the chief thing I came to say. She 
 begs that you will consent to take a full course at the 
 Institute where she was educated. She has money, 
 and will gladly pay all your expenses. What can 
 you do here during this foolish and horrible war ? 
 I know of people who are going North while they 
 can. You must go with them. And you must get 
 ready right away." 
 
 Persis arose. It was always more natural for her 
 to stand than to sit, to move about than to remain 
 still. She now stood, her clear eyes in those of her 
 visitor, her sunburned hand upon the top slat of the 
 high-backed, split-bottomed chair in which she had
 
 176 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 been seated. While he spoke she stood straighter, 
 took her hand from the chair, and put her hair hack 
 from her forehead with it. If her color freshened a 
 little, it was merely because she saw Koss through and 
 through. But she was practical enough. 
 
 " Thank you, Ross. I mean," she corrected herself, 
 " I thank your mother. Yes, I want to be educated. 
 I intend to be educated some day. And I intend to 
 go East to do it since I cannot do it here. But I 
 cannot go in that way, even if I could leave now. 
 I 'm going to educate myself," she said simply. There 
 was no sentiment about it. She spoke as if it was 
 of a pie she was about to bake, a dress for herself 
 she was intending to make. 
 
 " But you have no relations, Persis," Eoss persisted. 
 " And you have no " 
 
 " Money ? No, not a cent. I don't know now how 
 I will do it. But I will know some day. I 'm going 
 to learn everything girls learn or ought to know. 
 But," and she looked at him, steadying herself to do 
 it, " I 'm going to do it for myself. That is the best 
 part of it. You will see." 
 
 " But, Persis " he began. 
 
 At this moment Rachel came up the steps, her big 
 bundle of yarn in its blue paper wrappings in her 
 arms. There was as much more, but that was to be 
 sent after her, and she wanted to begin at the socks 
 at once. Rachel was sick at heart to see Ross go, 
 for was he not like a brother to her? The tears 
 began to trickle down her face the moment she seated 
 herself, she could hardly see to put the first stitches
 
 A DECISION. 177 
 
 upon her needles. Eoss went down the steps and to 
 his mare tied at the post. " Maggie is eager to be 
 going," he explained as he came back, "and I was 
 afraid her halter might work loose." But he did not 
 care to remain. Rachel might have complained of 
 his parting with her, it was so evident he was think 
 ing of something else as he bade her good-by. As he 
 held the hand of Persis in parting, " You will do as I 
 wish ! " he almost commanded. 
 
 " Thank you, I cannot." It was said in a gentle 
 voice ; but her face, her manner, must have suggested 
 something to him he had not thought of before, for 
 during all the days which followed, whenever Persis 
 thought of Ross, and that she never ceased to do, 
 what she saw was his great blaqk eyes fastened fix 
 edly upon her in sudden, searching, perplexed, almost 
 insolent inquiry. There was something about her 
 he could not understand. 
 
 He mounted his mare, rode rapidly away; the 
 sound of the hoofs was dying away in the distance 
 when Persis lifted her head suddenly, listened, and 
 arose in agitation, white and trembling. 
 
 " Eachel ! " she exclaimed, "he is coming back ; " 
 and while she said it he was dismounting again at 
 the gate. It was cruel to subject her to another part 
 ing, but she strengthened herself to endure it. 
 
 When he carne in he seemed not to see that she was 
 there. " I forgot one thing," he said to Eachel. 
 
 " What is it ? " she asked, with doubtful eyes. 
 
 " Only a gourd of water, if you please." 
 
 At the shadiest end of the porch was a shelf 
 12
 
 178 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 scrubbed white, on that a cedar pail, the wood and 
 brazen hoops doubly scoured until the red of the 
 cedar and the glitter of the brass was as of a utensil 
 sacred to the gods. Over this hung, trebly scrubbed, 
 a long-handled gourd, pure yellow without, pure white 
 within. With eyes full of doubt, Rachel dipped it 
 into the cool water, lifting the white oak cover which, 
 like a more solid flake of snow, hid the water from 
 dust, to do so, and handed it to Ross, who remained 
 standing. He drank and held the gourd in his hand. 
 
 " By the by," he said to Rachel, " you are deter 
 mined, are you, to stay in Ocklawahaw ? " 
 
 " What do you mean ? Why," she asked in won 
 der, "must I tell you again ? Of course I intend to 
 stay. I told you that Persis and I will be happy 
 together." What she did not tell Ross was that she 
 had endeavored in vain to induce Persis to go East 
 with her to some place in which their education could 
 be completed, but Persis would not. She earned her 
 bread, as it was, by helping Mr. Clarke in the acad 
 emy ; she had no money, she resented the idea of 
 depending upon her friend. All this Ross knew very 
 well. 
 
 " It is impossible for anybody to understand you ! " 
 He turned almost angrily upon Persis. " When you 
 know that Ocklawahaw is no place during such times 
 as these for girls like you two ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " Persis was surprised out 
 of her grief. 
 
 " You are so fickle. I can remember when you were 
 eager to go East, eager to be educated."
 
 A DECISION. 179 
 
 Persis could not comprehend him. Her aston 
 ishment held her silent. It was easy to check her 
 tears. Her long and bitter weeping of nights, weep 
 ing so bitterly over the loss of everything uow, had 
 drained them dry. She looked full in the eyes of 
 Boss at last. " I can study where I am," she said. 
 
 " But it perplexes me," he insisted, "that you should 
 value land as you do in comparison with education." 
 
 " Land ? " Her eyes grew larger as she asked it. 
 
 " Yes, land. Your grandfather's property is yours- 
 Since you wish," Eoss continued, " to go East, why not 
 sell your river tract ? It is heavily timbered ; the 
 soil is rich ; it will be valuable some day when emi 
 gration is coming in. Sell it to me. I can pay cash 
 for it, and I will hold it for speculation." 
 
 The colors as of a new life were flushing the face 
 of Persis ; her lips parted ; her eyes sparkled. " I did 
 not know grandpa owned any land. Why did n't he 
 tell me about it ? Are you sure ? " She could hardly 
 speak. 
 
 " That is the objection I had to Parson Williams," 
 Ross said angrily. "He was so taken up with his 
 preaching that he forgot everything else ! I can 
 pay you enough on it for you to go East and make 
 a beginning, at least. After a while you will be 
 prepared to teach there ; the money will hold out 
 with economy until then. At least I would suppose 
 so." And he entered rapidly, but at length, into how 
 many acres there were, what it was worth now, how 
 much he might be able to sell it for hereafter. He 
 did not say so, but the impression he produced in
 
 180 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 Persis was that, in some way, very long ago her 
 grandfather had come into ownership of the land by 
 virtue of being one of the first settlers of Ocklawa- 
 haw. Ross had much to add as to the danger of 
 their remaining in Ocklawahaw, as to the advantages 
 of schools elsewhere ; he seemed to have forgotten 
 how important it was for him to be off. Persis 
 was not listening to him, although she stood with 
 drooping eyes ; the surprise of her joy was gone. 
 How could she go so far away when Eoss might any 
 day be brought back to Ocklawahaw, brought back 
 perhaps to die ? 
 
 " Curse Ocklawahaw ! " he ejaculated irrelevantly, 
 savagely. " For my part, I never intend to enter the 
 place again ! " 
 
 Persis lifted her gaze to his face in a wild conflict 
 of feeling. Tears were in her eyes while she almost 
 laughed. Then her eyes fell again. 
 
 When he first spoke, Rachel drew back a little and 
 looked at him. His face, already dogged, became more 
 so as he felt that her wise eyes were upon him, and 
 he talked on. Long before he was done Rachel 
 dropped her eyes; she understood sufficiently, and 
 kept her secret forever after. Had Persis not been 
 of so excitable a nature, she might have suspected, but 
 at first she did not. The change in her plans was so 
 sudden ! She was lifted from her feet, bewildered. 
 Was it possible that her one life-long wish could really 
 be fulfilled ? It was only of that she thought, except 
 of this, that Ross was evidently so glad to get her 
 land ! He had long wanted it, he told her ; he would
 
 A DECISION. 181 
 
 make money on it. Even then, sweetest of all to her 
 was it, that she had it in her power to let him have 
 what he wanted. It must be a matter of great im 
 portance, he had been in such dreadful haste to leave. 
 Bachel went into the kitchen to hurry Seelye about 
 the supper, for now Eoss must ride all night to make 
 up for lost time. He left her, and went to drag the 
 chicken trough out through the gate. Then, without 
 taking the saddle off his mare, he brought from the 
 crib behind the house an armful of ears of corn, at 
 sight of which his mare began to whinny, pawing the 
 earth with her impatient hoofs. Persis stood in the 
 porch, her hand upon the railing, watching him as if 
 in a dream. She saw him throw the ears upon the 
 ground at his feet, saw every motion as he picked 
 them up one by one, stripped off the husk and threw 
 the corn into the trough. She heard the noise made 
 by the mare while it ate, was keenly aware of every 
 line of Ross's face as he stood at last beside the 
 animal, his right hand upon the pommel of the saddle, 
 his feet in the litter of yellow shucks, looking down 
 into the trough. He seemed struck for the time into 
 the bronze of a statue, so still he became. His face 
 was almost sharp, it was so worn and thoughtful in 
 comparison with what it used to be. 
 
 Then Persis was filled afresh with the vague horror 
 of a war which nobody could understand, why it 
 was, what it was, how long it might last, how it might 
 end ; war coming irresistibly on like the shadow of an 
 awful night. And Eoss was so utterly cut off hence 
 forth from everybody.
 
 182 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 " But he is sufficient for anything," Persis thought, 
 her eyes upon him, " sufficient in himself ! " And 
 with the glow of pride in him came the new resolve 
 deeper than ever, " Thank God, I am going where I 
 can make myself into something beyond what he 
 thinks " 
 
 After a while Ross went into the house, asked Ra- 
 chel for pen and ink, not looking her in the eyes as 
 he did so, and wrote out a long paper for the signa 
 ture of Persis. The girl did not read a line of it, 
 signing it with a hand which trembled. 
 
 " What a fool I am ! Why should it ? " she asked 
 of herself, pretending afterward to read the document, 
 but not making out a single word. 
 
 " Ross ! " She said it suddenly, sharply, planting 
 herself before him. 
 
 " Are you not deceiving me ? " she asked, endeav 
 oring to hold her eyes very firmly to his. 
 
 " Deceiving you ! " He was astonished. " If I 
 have not given you enough, say so," he remonstrated. 
 " I buy on speculation, you know. As it is, I may 
 lose money." 
 
 " No, no ! " she said impatiently, " not that ! Did 
 my grandfather really and truly own the land ? Why 
 did n't I know of it before ? Are you sure " But 
 Rachel was calling them in to supper. Their guest 
 talked rapidly of everything else as they ate, and 
 before Persis had emerged from her amazed condition 
 he had shaken hands with them, had mounted his 
 horse, and was gone, this time for good. 
 
 Persis watched him with such intentuess that she
 
 A DECISION. 183 
 
 noticed ho said something to Rachel, in the act of his 
 hurried parting with her. It was merely good-by, 
 Persis supposed. The words so smote upon Rachel, 
 low spoken as they were, that she looked up astounded. 
 And yet they were only, "For God's sake, Eachel, 
 take good care of her ! " and he was galloping away. 
 
 At last, Persis was but a girl. With the next day 
 came the very desperation of getting ready to go be 
 fore the war would make it impossible. Again and 
 again she stole to her room to count over and over 
 the little buckskin bag of gold Ross had left as the 
 first payment on her land. " I did not know I loved 
 money so ! " she laughed, catching herself kissing 
 each coin as she took it up, and again as she laid it 
 in its own row. " And, O you darlings, how can I 
 bear to spend you!" Then she laughed and cried, 
 conscious mainly of who had paid her the gold. 
 
 Mitchabuna, now Mrs. Clarke, did what she could 
 to assist the young girls in their packing. She was 
 dressed like a bride of eighteen, and was laughing 
 and chattering accordingly. " I am glad to have 
 Seelye," she said. " Mr. Clarke likes good cooking." 
 And she blushed a little. " And, oh, how sorry I am 
 that you are going away ! " But it was very evident 
 that it was of her new husband, so many years 
 younger than herself, she was thinking. Having 
 him, it was little she cared for any one beside ; it 
 brought color into even the placid face of Rachel to 
 listen to her. 
 
 " Who would have thought it ? " Rachel said to her 
 self a dozen times a day, in the little while left her
 
 184 BLESSED SATNT CERTAINTY. 
 
 before leaving Ocklawahaw, said it, but not of the 
 bride, for Persis seemed another person. She could 
 not be got to bed before midnight, and Seelye found 
 her up before her, when she arose at daybreak to get 
 her " salt rising " ready for the baking. All day Persis 
 \vas in and out of the house, up stairs and down, 
 helping and hindering Eachel, now full of their plans, 
 then silent for long spaces, and seeming to hear little 
 that was said to her. She had moods of sudden 
 affection for Eachel, hugging and kissing her, then 
 she would steal away and lock herself into her own 
 room for a cry, or slip on her sun-bonnet and hasten 
 out on a remorseful visit to her grandfather's grave. 
 After that her face would beam out more brightly 
 than ever, and she would laugh and talk until even 
 Seelye felt compelled to say, " Law me, Miss Persis, 
 how you do carry on ! You act like as if you was 
 possessed. Look at Miss Rachel ; she is goin' too, an' 
 she is as still as a mouse. An' you is goin' out into 
 de wide an' weeked world ; you better be sayin' your 
 praars, Miss Persis ! "
 
 EX PL AN A TOR Y. 185 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 EXPLANATORY. 
 
 T DO not intend to go into any detail of what befell 
 *- my friends or myself during the war between 
 the North and the South. Like every man, South 
 and North, I had a general idea, before it began, of 
 the political questions involved; and, with almost 
 every soul of us, North and South, I was unprepared 
 when the smooth flowing of our national life so sud 
 denly quickened toward the cataract. The wholly 
 unexpected rush of things whirled my little bark, 
 also, round and round, and made my heart as dizzy as 
 my head, like most people, the country over, in this 
 also. 
 
 Although born of New England parents, and in the 
 North, my home had been from infancy upon a little 
 island off the coast of South Carolina ; and whatever 
 ripening of character I have known has been under a 
 Southern sun. Old Orange was, at the time I was 
 there, largely attended by young men from the South, 
 although it was across the lines ; and as any one, in 
 making a wreath, would naturally and for very vari 
 ety's sake weave together oak and olive, palm and 
 pine, so I chose my friends from the one section or 
 the other, according merely to their diversity of ex-
 
 186 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 cellence. After leaving college I was in Europe for 
 a while, and spent my time thereafter in North or 
 South, as nature worked in me toward the same 
 variety of enjoyment. 
 
 Up even to the first shot of the war I was almost 
 as ignorant as a baby of the possibility of such a 
 thing. I dare say I had studied the question as 
 much as any man of my age, yet / had no intention 
 of cursing, much less of killing anybody, as a step in 
 the direction of settling it. And so it happened that, 
 one day, before that first shot was fired, I was lying 
 at length upon the sandy side of my island, dreamily 
 solving, as well as I could, the political conundrum, 
 when a low sullen sound came to me over the water 
 from toward Charleston. Understanding on the in 
 stant what it meant, it fell upon me, that single 
 sudden sound, like a great drop of blood, the first 
 of the rain that was to follow. Let me change the 
 figure. When I was in college, our professor of chem 
 istry held before the class, one morning, a goblet of 
 what appeared to be muddy water. Holding up the 
 glass with his left hand, he tapped upon the edge of 
 it with the little finger of his right. It was but one 
 slight tap, but in an instant the floating sediment 
 had crystallized into a solid substance, leaving the 
 water transparently clear ; and there it was at the 
 bottom of the goblet with angles mathematically ac 
 curate and sharp as steel. So it was with me, as 
 with millions more on the one side and the other, 
 that eventful morning. The moment before, my mind 
 was merely a bewilderment of floating and conflicting
 
 EXPLANA TORY. 187 
 
 opinions, and I had as little to do with what befell to 
 me thereafter as the professor with his chemical 
 results. Yet, as the distant cannon struck my ear, I 
 rose to my feet, my soul crystallized into exceedingly 
 accurate shape, and in the clearest of atmospheres. 
 
 The next day I turned everything over to the care 
 of my overseer and came North, remaining there, ex 
 cept as I was employed in the sanitary service occa 
 sionally, during the whole war. I did not fight, an 
 infirmity of heart as of health preventing that ; but I 
 had acquired, before the strife began, some little repu 
 tation as a writer, and I did what in me lay, for what 
 I thought the right, both upon the platform and with 
 my pen. And I will only add that I did not know 
 before that I had as much soul to put into anything 
 as I had then. There was not the smallest merit in 
 it. I simply yielded to what was my conscience in 
 the matter, as a man does to gravitation. 
 
 Among the most intimate of my friends is Dr. 
 Steven Trent. We were classmates in college ; but it 
 was his marriage to a Miss Revel Vandyke which 
 brought us into the close relation in which we stood 
 to each other ever after. Not that she was of kin to 
 me, or that I had enjoyed any measure of acquaint 
 ance witli her before her marriage. I venture even to 
 doubt whether I could have come to like her as I did, 
 if she had remained single, charming as she must 
 always have been. The fact is, she was one of those 
 women to whom marriage makes all the difference 
 in the world. It may be that it was her union to 
 precisely such a man as Dr. Trent ; but, as a result,
 
 188 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 she bloomed out into what I must always consider 
 as, one woman excepted, the flower of all the wives 
 I have known. I like people in general; but Mrs. 
 Trent had this in common with her husband, that 
 she suited me exactly, minutely, mathematically ; 
 and there is only one person beside of whom I 
 can say that. Unless I am grievously deceived, the 
 Doctor and his wife like me " only a little less " 
 they have solemnly assured me " than we like each 
 other." 
 
 " As to Jean," Mrs. Trent has added in regard to 
 their little daughter, " I am afraid she loves you more 
 than she does her own parents, because you spoil her, 
 as you do your namesake also ; " for their little boy, 
 when he came, was named after me. 
 
 It happened that, almost from the hour of the 
 marriage of Dr. Trent and his wife, I was a visitor, 
 off and on, in the city in the East in which they lived. 
 Whatever literary successes I had were enjoyed by 
 them more than by Inyself ; for I found it impossible 
 to estimate either my books or myself as highly as 
 they did. 
 
 During my years in college I suffered terribly from 
 a malady which caused me to receive, because I 
 craved it so thirstily, a larger measure of sympathy, 
 interest, affection, than is given to people in ruder 
 health. After leaving college I slowly recovered 
 from it by my trip to Europe ; by living a simple 
 life upon my island; most of all, I think, by hard 
 and enthusiastic work. But it left a certain impres 
 sion upon my character. People persist in making a
 
 EXPLANA TOR Y. 189 
 
 difference in my case. I enjoy without fully under 
 standing it; but I am singularly favored somehow. 
 Perhaps it is because I have so sincere an interest 
 in them ; but people do manifest an interest in me, 
 the more as we know each other better, which is very 
 delightful. 
 
 Dr. Trent was a medical man by diploma of nature, 
 too, and had achieved an extensive practice as a 
 physician. He would never have made himself rich 
 as such. 
 
 " Steven's interest in a patient," his wife was wont 
 to say, " exhausts itself in caring for and curing him. 
 As to being paid for doing so, / have to see to that." 
 
 The family were poor enough, as I chanced to know 
 only too well, when, not long before the war, an old 
 uncle of the Doctor died. Donald McGregor \vas his 
 name, and he was very rich. He bequeathed Mrs. 
 Trent a handsome amount ; but the bulk of his fortune 
 he left to little Jean, appointing her father as almost 
 sole trustee. 
 
 " I can see now," Mrs. Trent told me, " why it was 
 better that Steven should care more for his practice 
 than for money. Now that it is not necessary he 
 should be paid anything, he has gone into it with 
 more interest than ever. He is so ardent, you know, 
 in regard to whatever he undertakes. Now he can 
 be independent, can take only the worst cases if he 
 chooses. But I tell him that he would never have 
 been made Professor in the Medical College if people 
 had not an idea that he was rich." 
 
 Mrs. Trent laughed as she said it. I liked to hear
 
 190 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 her laugh. She was not a slight and delicately 
 framed woman, neither was she so large as to sug 
 gest coarseness. Without an atom of mere senti 
 ment, singularly sensible even in regard to the Doctor , 
 and her children, she had a power of loving which 
 fascinated me with her as one is in the smooth 
 and silent flowing of a deep river. Her husband had 
 been driven almost beside himself during the days of 
 their poverty, for he was the most sensitive of men, 
 you could see that in the cut of his lips. It was his 
 keen sensitiveness to suffering which made him the 
 physician he was, it put him so completely in the 
 very place of his patient, it gave him such intuition 
 as to remedy. So terribly did he suffer when poor 
 and crushed with debt that he would have killed 
 himself or gone crazy if it had not been for his wife. 
 And it had been good practice for her, having to sus 
 tain him then as she did. When they became rich, 
 and suddenly, with the long habit there came to her 
 a vast power, now, of helping whoever needed help, 
 and she yielded, governed by her native sense, to her 
 liabit of loving, to her love of loving, to a degree 
 which made her the happiest woman I knew. Her 
 health, also, was such that one day I rehearsed it 
 over to be able to say to her, " Mrs. Trent, I know 
 a black woman of about your age down South who, 
 from sheer animal perfection, cannot cease at least 
 to smile from dawn to dark. You ought to hear her 
 laugh and sing ! Now, disrobe Gorilla that is her 
 name of her color and excess of flesh, purify her of 
 her ignorance and frivolity, make her happiness to
 
 EX PL AN A TOR Y. 191 
 
 be free from the faintest taint in blood or spirit, and 
 you yourself are Gorilla over again ! Pardon me, 
 madam, but the sugar on the plantation is dark, I 
 know, and even dirty, and yet the article upon your 
 breakfast-table, as pure and white as drifted snow, 
 what is it but the same plantation sugar refined ? 
 Yes, Mrs. Trent, you are Gorilla refined. In heaven 
 you will have been put more thoroughly through the 
 same process." 
 
 I say, I went over this remark in my mind, intend 
 ing to say it to my friend, but, on the whole, con 
 cluded not to do so. Some day we can be franker of 
 speech to each other than, now and here, we dare to 
 be. Allow me to record it, however, toward explain 
 ing things. 
 
 The only reason I have spoken of myself at all is 
 to say that I was in the city in which Dr. Trent and 
 his wife lived when Persis -and Rachel came thither 
 from Ocklawahaw. Boss Urwoldt had told me a 
 great deal about his home when he was with me in 
 college. Moreover, I was, as I have said, his only 
 correspondent afterward. My long and frequent let 
 ters may have stirred him up to it ; but he wrote me 
 often from Ocklawahaw, and always informed me 
 concerning the two girls in his letters. 
 
 And so it was that I came to have quite a part in 
 Persis and Rachel before I saw them. The fact that 
 they had come from such a dismal region at such a 
 period, especially that they came for such a purpose, 
 made me almost eager to meet them. 
 
 I think you will like them, Mr. Guernsey," Mrs.
 
 192 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 Trent said to me before I called on them. "Dr. 
 Trent does. I do not know when I have seen any 
 persons in whom I have taken such an interest." 
 
 There is not a more sensible woman than Mrs. 
 Trent, and we are sworn allies; but the scientific 
 accuracy of the times prohibited me from accepting 
 blindly what she said. She was so round and rosy a 
 matron, because, as any one could see, her heart, warm 
 and abundant, came readily to the surface in behalf 
 of whoever had any claim upon her. The more help 
 less such persons were, so much the more promptly 
 did she class them with her two children, Jean and 
 Guernsey, and become as a mother to them right 
 away, as she was also to me, and that although she 
 was, by some years, the younger of the two.
 
 NEW-COMERS. 193 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 NEW-COMERS. 
 
 it was that I called so soon upon the 
 young ladies. Now, to me the dreariest abode 
 on earth is a city boarding-house. " Poor things ! I 
 hope," I murmured to myself as I went to make my 
 visit to them, "that there will be an exception in 
 this case." But there was not. The building, when 
 I reached it, was what is styled, with unconscious 
 sarcasm, " a swelled front," that is, a brick five-story 
 house, the face thereof toward the street protuberant, 
 and with windows like eyes starting from their 
 sockets as if straining itself in envious emulation of 
 the structures upon the left hand and the right. 
 There were few better streets in the city ; you could 
 see that the house was conscious of that. As I 
 feared, there was a highly scoured condition of pave 
 ment in front, of door-steps and bell-pull, which 
 assured me that the building was not a home, but a 
 public institution prepared for inspection. The col 
 ored man in a white apron who answered the ring 
 was, as I expected, a public functionary ; and I was 
 let in as one of the many restless atoms coming and 
 going in and out as of a post-office or a custom-house, 
 was one more troublesome thing, not a person, and 
 
 13
 
 194 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 I knew that my death in some upper room, had I 
 boarded there, would be less, except for the additional 
 bother it caused, than the breaking of the pier-glass 
 of the front parlor into which I was ushered. 
 
 " There are the same marble-topped tables, the 
 identical lambrequins to the windows," I complained, 
 as I took a seat upon the extreme edge of a linen- 
 covered chair. " Beatrice Cenci, of course, over the 
 bronze clock on the mantel. If she would but turn 
 her everlasting head a little farther around and twist 
 it off ! Yes, and yonder is the Whatnot, the Syn 
 onym, it should be named, with the same china 
 images, gilded vases, books for show. No children 
 are allowed in this institution, that is evident. Yon 
 der, behind the half-opened folding-doors, is the 
 drawing-room, smaller, darker, gloomier than this. 
 Is .this Sahara ? or is it that, from living on my 
 island, and in the open sun and air, I am become a 
 Tiji savage ? " 
 
 But at this point I checked all tendency to lounge 
 upon my starched seat, for the inevitable lady of the 
 house dropped in, with the same snowy puffs on 
 either side of her face. She was a widow, I knew, 
 one of the best of women, I made no doubt ; but how 
 could I help knowing, too, that it was not to let in 
 the lawless air that she lifted the sash an inch, nor 
 was it to correct a tidy upon a corner chair that she 
 gave it a twitch. Had I been a book agent she would 
 have known it. Were I a gentlemanly sneak thief, 
 she would have had the police in forthwith. If I 
 had* called as a lover I would have assured her, un-
 
 NEW-COMERS. 195 
 
 questioned, she had such investigating eyes, that 
 my intentions were honorable. But nothing gratifies 
 me more than to see, or fancy I see, how even hard and 
 suspicious faces, of women also, soften a little as they 
 glance at me. I like them, whoever they are, and I 
 dare say they see it in me. Had the prim lady been 
 forty years younger, she would have been perched 
 upon my knee in two minutes, perhaps allowed me to 
 kiss her before I left. 
 
 I was glad that the ladies I came to see were not 
 in at the moment, but had left word that they soon 
 would be. That I understood. " They are new 
 comers to the city," I reflected, " and cannot keep 
 within doors. They are right." And then I went 
 back in memory to the dull town in which they had 
 lived so long, as Ross had described it to me, its pon 
 derous live-oaks draped with gray moss, its dense 
 river bottoms, its lounging population, its ignorant, 
 contented stagnation. " It must be like heaven to 
 them," I said, " these bright streets and busy people. 
 They will be as new to me as everything here is to 
 them. One likes to open a letter, to cut the leaves of 
 a magazine just out, to untie a bundle " 
 
 At this moment a young lady came into the parlor. 
 I have a positive zest for people, not when they are 
 before me in the mass, like the sea, but singly, like 
 pure water in a glass to a thirsty man. Now I mod 
 ulated myself to the proprieties of a first acquaint 
 ance, as I arose and took the hand, which, according 
 to the custom of her own region, she held out to me. 
 
 " Dark hair," I rapidly enumerated to myself, " dis-
 
 196 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 posed, Greek fashion, upon the small head. Bru 
 nette in complexion, too. Fine eyes. Good features. 
 Intelligent face. Voice in keeping." And I con 
 tinued to hold her hand. 
 
 " I am delighted, Miss Fersis, to see you again," I 
 said ; for she seemed a little afraid of me. 
 
 " Again ? " she asked, her eyes kindling. 
 
 "Certainly," I said, and went on to tell her how 
 often Eoss had written or told me, on his visits, about 
 her. " It is as if I knew you in Ocklawahaw, for 
 years now. Had I met you on the streets, I do not 
 see how I could have failed to recognize you ! " 
 
 Her eyes fairly shone with pleasure. It would not 
 have been as flattering to me at the time had I known 
 that she was enjoying a surprise. Not in regard to 
 me ! Eoss had been enough interested in her, and 
 for so long now, as to write, to talk, about her. She 
 had not thought of that! 
 
 "He used to read us your letters, used to tell 
 us so much about you. Eoss," she added gravely, 
 " thinks more of you than he does of anybody." And 
 she looked at me shyly, with a species of curiosity. 
 Dr. Trent and his wife must have exaggerated fear 
 fully in what they too had said to her about me, her 
 way of regarding me was rather that which one be 
 stows upon a landscape, a cathedral, whereas it is 
 impossible for a boy of ten to feel smaller than I do. 
 
 " I insist from the start," I said in the end, " that 
 our friendship shall begin from your earliest child 
 hood. Let us take our time to it." And, entering at 
 once into the spirit of the thing, she laughingly con-
 
 NE W-COMERS. 197 
 
 sented. In a little while, assuming our acquaintance 
 from that date, we gradually talked ourselves up 
 through the years between to that hour. It is 
 pleasant to see how rapidly a mutual liking can ripen 
 where there is sun enough. Besides, Ross Urwoldt 
 had told me so much, had written of late so many 
 details, that, apart from what the Trents said, I was 
 in sympathy with my new friend from the first. 
 
 " You have come here to study ? " I remarked at 
 last. 
 
 " As hard as I can," she assented. " My life so far 
 has passed in the Reservation. I have had no oppor 
 tunities. Now I intend to make up for lost time." 
 
 " You have learned everything already, Ross writes 
 me," I said. She opened her eyes, looked at me as 
 if to detect a jest. 
 
 " Even what little I have learned," she said, " has, 
 my teachers now tell me, to be unlearned. No ; I am 
 at the beginning, with everything to do. There is so 
 very much to know. I had no idea how ignorant I 
 was until I came here. All the methods are different, 
 and I am learning in order to teach, to teach here 
 if I can. I must study hard, very hard. Rachel and 
 I have not begun yet." By this time I was allowing 
 myself to look away from her to what she wore. 
 What a lady's dress is made out of, the name for 
 it, I mean, how should I know ? But I fancied, 
 from something in the pleating of it here and there, 
 the sharpness of the edges of the rufflings and puck- 
 erings, that it was new. Coming so recently from 
 where she did, it was reasonable to suppose the dress
 
 198 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 was made since she came to the city. Now, the love 
 of dress, of ornamentation, is a quality which God 
 puts into the nature of every woman. It is sometimes 
 carried, like everything else, to excess ; but a faculty 
 and a fondness for such things is as inseparable from 
 her as is her sex. Somebody sings that 
 
 " The world, which knows itself too sad, 
 Is proud to have its women glad." 
 
 I, for one, like to see a woman indulge herself and 
 me in dressing as beautifully as she can. And to 
 me the freshness now of my friend's clothing had the 
 charm of the first leaves of spring. Surely the crocus 
 enjoys breaking out of the earth, the cold, the dark 
 ness, into the silent laughter of its golden petals; 
 and, knowing how much this new-comer took pleasure 
 in the newness of all she saw and heard and wore, I 
 enjoyed it too, enjoyed it the more 'by reason, per 
 haps, of a longer, deeper practice and experience of 
 other people's satisfactions. 
 
 We conversed all the better for it, I exhilarated, 
 through her, by the novelty of everything, until I 
 made, as I am too apt to do, a longer call than I in 
 tended. As I rose to go, begging pardon for having 
 stayed so long, Rachel Beauchamp came into the 
 room, and I sat down again, having and I was 
 not sorry for it my whole visit to make over 
 again. 
 
 Now, I have not said that Persis Paige was beauti 
 ful, not even that she was pretty. I do not think 
 I would have been specially struck with her appear 
 ance had I seen her in, say, the saloon of a steamer
 
 NEW-COMERS. 199 
 
 upon which I happened to be travelling. Because I 
 like people, women and children chiefly, in general, 
 it may be easier for me to deepen like into love when 
 I come to know any one in particular. Miss Rachel 
 was not in the least like her friend, but what I have 
 said of beauty was equally true of her. In this 
 instance we were something more than fellow-passen 
 gers on a boat, and, as we talked, I did not have to 
 study her fair face and pure eyes very closely to see 
 that she too, like her friend, was well worth becom 
 ing better acquainted with. There was in her, too, 
 the same dew of freshness. The change from Ock- 
 lawahaw to the famous city was very great, and if she 
 was not as intellectual in her tastes as Persis, she too 
 showed her pleasure in their new life. Many a time I 
 have taken Trent's little Jean to a show, have given 
 her a new book, purely to watch the sudden dawn as 
 of a new morning in her eyes. Heaven knows there 
 are sadder sunsets to be seen in the eyes of people 
 than anywhere else, and thank God for the brighter 
 sunrises than the east knows which can be seen in 
 happy human eyes. So now. 
 
 "How can a peach refrain from its down, the 
 flower at dawn from its evident gladness ? " I thought, 
 as I observed in Rachel, too, the same exhilaration 
 under the novelty of things. But she did not have 
 as much to say as her friend, was not as quick to an 
 ticipate. I could see the reply coming in the eyes of 
 Persis, could see it before it parted her lips to be ready 
 to speak when I ceased. Not so with Rachel. She 
 listened with placid eyes, heard me entirely through.
 
 200 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 Not until I was done did she begin to frame her 
 answer. I could study the freshness of her toilet, 
 too, while I listened, for she spoke slowly, putting 
 a certain definite weight of good sense in what she 
 said which was as pleasing to me as the more rapid 
 utterance of her friend. When Eachel came into 
 the room, Persis was talking almost eagerly with 
 me, her spirits were so high, the topic of what she 
 had to learn from this teacher and that was so inter 
 esting to her. With the entrance of her companion I 
 saw that she quietly checked herself, silenced herself, 
 at last. She did more than leave the conversation to 
 Rachel instead ; she listened with interested eyes to 
 what her friend was saying, helped me to draw her 
 out. It pleased me, the way the more brilliant girl 
 of the two did this, better than anything she herself 
 had said. 
 
 The war made me, as it did many a better and 
 richer man, very poor. Coming North when it began, 
 I was obliged to work very hard. My daily bread 
 was earned as a writer, but I never touched my pen 
 after dinner. It was in the afternoon I made my 
 visit. A first call should have been shorter, but 
 I am ashamed to say I stayed until the tea-bell 
 rang. 
 
 " Mrs. Trent could not come with me until to-mor 
 row," I explained to the young ladies, as, hat in 
 hand, I lingered in the doorway of the parlor ; " but I 
 could not wait, and came to-day. One ought not to 
 postpone a pain, and why should I put off a pleasure ? 
 I am, although Northern born and a Uniou man, from
 
 NE W-COMERS. 201 
 
 a questionable part of the country, and people are shy 
 of me ; at least, I know very few of them. On that 
 account, except in the mornings, I have more time 
 than I can use. Whenever I can be of any service, 
 please be so kind as to command me. If you will let 
 me speak of myself, I would say that I feel old enough 
 to be your grandfather, Miss Persis, Miss Rachel, and 
 young enough to go into whatever you may wish me 
 to do, as if we had come here from Ocklawahaw to 
 gether upon a picnic." 
 
 I think that we had at least begun, when I left, to 
 be good friends. 
 
 Within a week after my first call upon the young 
 ladies I met Dr. Trent arid his wife rambling about 
 with their children in a gallery of art. I told them 
 of my visit, and of how much interest I was com 
 ing to take in our new friends. Mrs. Trent had an 
 hour's worth of talk with me about them then and 
 there. 
 
 " Steven's care for them will begin when they are 
 taken sick," she laughed. " To him well people are 
 the most stupid of mortals. I have warned them not 
 to get sick." 
 
 " There is not a healthier city than this," I sug 
 gested. " In comparison to Ocklawahaw, low, damp, 
 with its malarial river bottoms and dense forests, it 
 is as Paradise for pure air ; the trouble is that there 
 is too much oxygen in its bracing atmosphere, it is 
 too stimulating. But the young ladies have lived 
 simple lives, have laid up reserves of strength not 
 withstanding some severe shakes of the ague."
 
 202 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 " It is that," Mrs. Trent remarked, " which helped 
 determine them to come East. Would you believe 
 it ? Persis thinks that her early sickness out "West 
 has done more than interrupt her studies. She has 
 an idea that it has weakened her intellect almost. 
 That is one reason which urges her to study ; she has 
 to make up for lost time, has to restore the tone of 
 her mind. She is very ambitious." 
 
 " I saw her on the street yesterday," Dr. Trent ob 
 served. " It was where the crowd of cars, wagons, 
 carriages, was thickest. She was waiting her oppor 
 tunity on the curbstone, with her friend, and suddenly 
 she left her and ventured across. It was a risk, 
 but she managed it very well, looking up street and 
 down as she went, darting hither and thither between 
 the vehicles. When she reached the other side she 
 beckoned to her friend in triumph. But Miss Each el 
 was more prudent ; she waited deliberately until a 
 policeman had halted the torrent of wheels, and then 
 she walked across as slowly, her skirts in her hands, 
 as if she were attending a reception. I went over to 
 admonish Miss Persis," Dr. Trent added, "but she 
 laughed at me. ' I do it for the exercise,' she said. 
 ' I am training myself in athletics. I want to get 
 strong and well for what I have to do.' She is a 
 bright girl. I think we will be proud of her some 
 day. But she must not overdo it." 
 
 "Kachel told me," the Doctor's wife interposed, 
 " that the severest exercise she took was to go into 
 one of our largest and finest dry-goods palaces, and 
 then tear herself away from the display, which must,"
 
 NEW-COMERS. 203 
 
 
 
 Mrs. Trent added, "be something wonderful to one 
 who has not seen anything of the kind before. Like 
 every genuine woman," Mrs. Trent laughed, " she 
 loves such things dearly ! It will take a long time 
 to become .an athlete in that. Miss Persis is eager 
 to learn. When she is not studying she is to go with 
 me to every art-gallery, lecture, reading, concert, she 
 can. It is part of her education." 
 
 " I hope I may have a chance," I said, " to help 
 you. You know me of old, madam. One man finds 
 his pleasure in the growth of a new variety of roses, 
 in producing a more delicious strawberry, a larger 
 apple, than Horticultural Fairs have ever beheld. 
 Some men have a passion for pug-dogs, for rearing 
 swift horses. As one is most like the Creator he re 
 gards men and women as the most interesting objects 
 in the world. If these two country lasses had been 
 lads instead, we would have been interested, under 
 the circumstances, in them; but girls are so much 
 more flexible, pliable, you know. There is a divine 
 possibility in a young girl which one does not look 
 for in a boy. You cannot help hoping for her what 
 a music-master does for the girl in whom he sees a 
 possible Jenny Ljnd, a Grisi, a Mlsson, a something 
 greater, perhaps, than men have ever known. That 
 is the interest I shall come to take in our new 
 friends ; who knows what we may be able to make 
 them ? " 
 
 Mrs. Trent was interested, but she was looking, 
 while I spoke, at a life-sized painting near by of a 
 Judith.
 
 204 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 " Look at her, Mr. Guernsey," she said. " See how 
 the muscles stand out in the delicate arm with which 
 she holds up the heavy head of Holofernes. It is 
 terrible, her face, is n't it ? " 
 
 " She looks," I said, " like an older Miss Persis." 
 
 Dr. Trent, standing by us, muttered something to 
 himself as he glanced discontentedly at the aspect of 
 the bronzed heroine. 
 
 " What is it, Trent ? " I asked. 
 
 " Your Judith had better look out," he growled, 
 "that she does not play the devil with her own 
 head ! " 
 
 "You are studying too hard, man," I exclaimed. 
 " What can you mean ? You are growing mor 
 bid." 
 
 " Am I ? Well, perhaps I am," he said. But Jean 
 and Guernsey, worse than indifferent to paintings, as 
 children, curiously enough, always are, bore down 
 upon us at this juncture. They were hungry and 
 wanted to go home. Now that they suggested it, we 
 all were, and went away together. 
 
 " Men like yourself, with large heads and compara 
 tively small bodies," Mrs. Trent remarked, as she 
 pressed upon me another slice of beef at her hospita 
 ble board soon after, " ought to see to it that the rest 
 of the body, as Steven here says, keeps abreast of the 
 brain. Electrical people cannot eat too much pud 
 ding," she further suggested at that stage of our 
 repast. 
 
 " Meaning me ? No, madam," I said. " I am the 
 most stupid of men ! " For I was trying in vain to
 
 NEW-COMERS. 205 
 
 puzzle out what in the mischief Trent meant by his 
 remark about Judith. The more so as the Doctor is a 
 man who, from long accuracy with drugs and surgical 
 instruments, is very apt to mean something in what 
 he says.
 
 206 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 WAR. 
 
 "D OSS URWOLDT went into the war in his way, 
 -*-^- and I went into it in mine. He raised com 
 pany after company, contriving, when he had used up 
 one, to have another ready for the slaughter. No 
 captain on that side fought harder, endured more 
 defeats, won more victories. After a while he found 
 himself a colonel, was wounded in the battle of Pitts- 
 burg Landing, was captured, made his escape, fought 
 again, was again taken prisoner and wounded so 
 severely this time that he could not escape. It so 
 chanced but not at all. I do not like the word ! 
 Let us adopt the divine Hebraism and say, It came to 
 pass that my work had taken me South just then 
 with my medicine-chests, boxes of books, hampers of 
 clothing, and such delicacies as convalescents require. 
 One day, as I limped about among the wounded in an 
 extemporized hospital, I saw my friend. We had not 
 met more than once or twice since he left college, 
 and Ross was one of the very few men whom to know 
 once is to know forever. Drained of blood as he 
 was, I recognized him at sight. The great battle had 
 been fought just before; the surgeons had followed 
 upon it with their passionless fury, so to speak, of 
 steel, cold and swift, and the place was like a butcher's
 
 WAR. 20? 
 
 shambles. Ross was lying upon a pile of army over 
 coats for which their late owners had now no longer 
 any use ; many of these last stretched out here and 
 there, quite young, most of them, but passed into a 
 winter where neither youth nor health, thick clothing 
 nor the frenzy of fight, would avail to warm them any 
 more forever. In the act of recognizing Ross I knelt 
 beside him, confident that he was one of these. The 
 college stripling was grown into a vigorous manhood, 
 not large but sinewy, not robust but singularly com 
 pact of body. His hair was cut close, and it and his 
 mustache were of a deeper black because of the pallor 
 of his gaunt face. I must have mentioned it before, 
 it was such a characteristic of the man, but he had 
 beyond any one the faculty of becoming at times 
 stone-still. I dare say he inherited it from genera 
 tions of ancestors who had learned to become like 
 logs or rocks for stillness when lying in wait for game 
 or foe ; but Ross became absolutely motionless at 
 those times when other men are most agitated. The 
 sudden peril, the instant exasperation, which shook 
 other men like an aspen leaf, or hurled them about in 
 a rage, petrified him instead ; he became silent, intent, 
 ready to put forth his best strength in the moment 
 and manner only in which he could effect most there 
 by. It was so with him in lesser things. He gave a 
 more fixed attention to a friend in ordinary conversa 
 tion than was common ; but when he was profoundly 
 interested he fastened his black eyes upon the person 
 speaking with a certain statue-like intentness which 
 held the other also as in a vise.
 
 208 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 It was so now. He lay so still that I was sure he 
 must be dead. It was only exhaustion, however, for 
 he was terribly worn also from a forced march all 
 night before the battle. He had fought, too, with his 
 usual ferocity till, at the end of the stubbornly con 
 tested conflict, he had fallen badly hurt. Whenever 
 he slept it was with the motionless repose of an image 
 of stone or iron thrown to the earth from its pedestal, 
 and it was natural it should be so now. In camp he 
 could be as hard, as cruel, as any. If there was good 
 to come of it to the cause for which he fought, he 
 could lie with eyes steadier than any other, could 
 have a coward drummed out of his regiment as coolly 
 as he could hang a weeping and shrieking spy. From 
 exchanged prisoners I had learned that, while other 
 Confederate officers expended their wrath upon their 
 own panic-stricken soldiers in oaths, Ross had 
 stemmed their retreat in silence, but with cold lead 
 and dripping sword, colder still. Had hate and rage, 
 the brute fury of battle and the intoxication of vic 
 tory, or the deeper excitement of defeat, had these 
 aroused in him passions baser yet ? But had he 
 ever been other than himself ? If he had so much in 
 him of the native savage, I was enough of one my 
 self to like him all the more that he was a variety 
 upon the stereotyped fashion of men, that he was 
 thoroughly sincere and true to his wild and sturdy 
 self. 
 
 I did not disturb him at first. For a long time I 
 sat on the floor by his side, thanking Heaven that the 
 law by which the planets roll was not more accurate
 
 WAR. 209 
 
 than that which had seen to it that we two should 
 come thus together once more. They used to tell me 
 that my severe malady had overquickened my brain ; 
 perhaps it may have caused my heart to beat too full 
 and too fast ; but at last, and as there was no woman 
 there to do it for me and to do it better, I could re 
 frain no longer, and bent over and kissed him upon 
 the bronze-like forehead. 
 
 What windows for the soul the eyes are ! Eoss 
 awoke at the touch ; awoke, and I could see him, in 
 his eyes, coming to me, coming to me through all 
 the years since we had met last ; coming to me through 
 the smoke, since the war began, of the battles. Yes, 
 I saw him coming toward me in his eyes ; coming to 
 me through, first, the haze and daze of weakness and 
 weariness, through the momentary bewilderment as 
 to where he was, through the fierceness of fight flar 
 ing up in him; coming at last to see that I was 
 Guernsey, that I was the one man he had cared 
 most for. What followed between us concerns no 
 one but ourselves. This only I will say, that what 
 came after, and before he could help himself, w T as a 
 revelation to him far more of himself than of me. 
 
 I obtained permission, as soon asI could, to take 
 him, by slow stages, away with me, to the nearest city 
 in the South, but within the Federal lines. Securing 
 comfortable rooms at a hotel therein, I gave up every 
 thing else and nursed him until he recovered. We 
 could not be always playing chess, nor could I always 
 think of something new to tell him concerning Rachel 
 and Persis. He would not allow me to mention him, 
 
 14
 
 210 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 in my letters to Dr. Trent, lest they should know of 
 his wounds ; nor did he ask me in regard to the young 
 ladies, not, at least, after his first inquiries. I was 
 surprised at it. I did not know he had hecome so 
 cold and hard. I was disappointed in Eoss, was 
 indignant. Afterward I came to know him better. 
 The fact was, that he had come to care for nothing in 
 the world but Persis ; but he was by no means certain 
 concerning her. His experiences were compelling 
 him toward an utter distrust of everybody, as of 
 everything. Persis was little more than a mere 
 country girl when he saw her last ; he dared not trust 
 himself to what she might come to be. He knew 
 that she must grow into a woman of marked character, 
 but of what character ? There was nothing for him 
 in the future but Persis ; meanwhile he must wait. 
 If he was not killed in battle, he would some day 
 see for himself who and what she was. So deeply 
 did he feel, that he was, at this date, afraid to ask 
 me about her. 
 
 " I believe you would rather not hear about them," 
 I said one afternoon when he turned almost impa 
 tiently away, as he lay, at the mention of Persis. 
 
 "You took your course," he replied irrelevantly, 
 "under stress of conscience; with me it was con 
 science plus circumstance." 
 
 Had I understood then, I would have known that 
 Persis Paige was to him as to the beggar is the last 
 coin left sewed up in his rags, and who dares not 
 examine the coin, not knowing whether it be gold or 
 copper, good or counterfeit ; but I fell into his mood.
 
 WAR. 211 
 
 "There was no merit in it," I said. "When the 
 war began, a something in me stronger than myself 
 came upon me, lifted me, powerless to desire even to 
 resist, off my island, and took me North. As a tree 
 is torn up, so this something tore me up and out of 
 my soil, roots and all. Why talk about it ? " 
 
 " That is it," Eoss exclaimed. "You will indulge 
 your imagination as to this, that, and the other, as 
 to phantasmal somethings apart from yourself. You 
 believe in a silent tornado which tore you up, a 
 tornado riot yourself, yet peculiar to yourself ! Now, 
 I do not believe in anything apart from myself." 
 He was lying upon a lounge which I had drawn into 
 a bay-window looking southward over the suburbs of 
 the city, and then over the gardens, orchards, fields, 
 and so toward the distant hills. We were very quiet, 
 for the war had rolled far down toward the southeast, 
 and the city in which we were lay like a bunch of 
 sea-weed, no longer torn and tossed by the ebbing tide. 
 Ross had regained his vigor of mind ; but a shattered 
 leg was very slowly recovering, and he had use for 
 his faculty of holding himself still. Now, I am so 
 constituted that I cannot have motion enough, and it 
 was a pleasure to me to have to move about for my 
 friend also. 
 
 " That is where we differ," he persisted. " You are 
 mastered by ghosts, I am not. When the war be 
 gan there was an outside pressure upon me to do as I 
 did. It surrounded me on every side, pressed upon 
 me like the atmosphere. What did, or do, I care ? 
 In this world one thins is about as bad as another.
 
 212 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 I did the easiest thing to do, I yielded to the pres 
 sure. If I had cared to fight it, I could have done 
 so, the fiercer for the pressure. But I don't care. 
 "Why should I ? You have your baggage of princi 
 ples, theories, you thought so and so, didn't be- 
 lieve in slavery, did believe in one great republic, and 
 so on, and so on. I am as naked of such things 
 as a Comanche. I am simple, unencumbered, move 
 straight forward. I found myself in the war. Very 
 good. There I was. I raised men for it, marched, 
 lay down at night, and slept. When morning came, 
 there was breakfast to cook and eat. I ate with ap 
 petite, drank, marched, camped, encouraged the men. 
 When a good joke came up, I laughed at it ; when a 
 bridge was to be built, a railroad to be torn up, I did 
 that. When a fight was on hand, I fought. Do you 
 understand ? Why should I stop to argue ? I stick 
 to nature ; what else do we know ? The more I am 
 like a mere part of nature, like a river, a bird, a buf 
 falo, a cinnamon bear, the easier everything is. Why 
 should I bother myself ? Whatever lies nearest, that 
 I do. Whatever is to be done, at that I go, with all 
 the force I have, until I break or am broken, till I 
 wear out, till I die and there is an end of me ! You 
 will make me talk. Nobody else can do it ; and I 
 have nothing to do until I get well. As of this war, 
 so is it of everything else in this infernal world. 
 The one thing I am glad of is that there is no other ! 
 Csesar told the Senate, you remember, that to believe 
 
 a man lived after death was all nonsense : the thing 
 
 to do was to take this bit of life as it is, enjoy your- 
 
 :
 
 WAR. 213 
 
 self, lay on with all your might, if that is the thing 
 in hand, then die and be as dead although he did 
 not say that as Julius Caesar ! Cicero was one of 
 your philosophers ; but, you remember, he sprang to 
 his feet when Caesar sat down, and said that Ca3sar 
 was right." 
 
 He had spoken more to himself than to me, with 
 his face to the wall as he lay. I made no reply. A 
 rooster crowed, a clock struck. After a while a brass 
 band went by in full blast. They were playing " Hail 
 Columbia," with the breath of battle in their horns ; 
 the drummers were whacking at rebels rather than 
 sheepskins ; there was a sudden uproar of cheers, then 
 the bells began to ring. It was plain that rumors of 
 a victory somewhere had arrived ; yet I am sure that 
 Ross cared little more for it than he did for the buzz 
 ing of flies on the upper panes of the window at which 
 he was lying. But it proved to me how dissatisfied 
 he was with his own conclusions ; for, after a long 
 silence, he contrived to roll himself over, and looked 
 at me as I sat. 
 
 "Why, Guernsey, will you indulge yourself," he 
 demanded, " in lies ? " He had seized upon me, lying 
 motionless as he did so, with his strong black eyes 
 as with the hands of a powerful, but drowning man, 
 They were such famishing eyes, too, that the tears 
 would have come to my own but that I thought it 
 best to look down at him and laugh instead, as at a 
 friend who must be humored, seeing that he is sick 
 arid not himself. 
 
 " Mine are the only certainties," I said, " and you
 
 214 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 know it. You are passing, now as every day, through 
 the gymnasium which fits you for your eternal exist 
 ence after this little bug-like life is ended. There is 
 no endurance apart from that, no happiness. It is 
 the only thing which assures you that you are not 
 altogether a bug. Listen, old fellow ! " 
 
 I think there was something in my face which held 
 him to me as I said it, and I talked away at a great 
 rate. A man knows when he is dealing in facts ! It 
 was wine I was pouring out to the weak, and the 
 aroma was in it, not in me. However small a win 
 dow may be, however dusty its half-washed panes, it 
 knows when the sun is shining through it. For the 
 moment I thought I could see its light lying upon 
 the cold face of my friend, but I was careful to say 
 too little rather than too much. 
 
 "It is little I know of the One who rules the 
 world," 1 said, " but among my surest certainties in 
 regard to him is this, that he is mathematically accu 
 rate in his dealings, unswervingly precise in regard to 
 nations as to planets, unlimitedly just to the race as 
 to the individual. From the beginning so far he has 
 always compelled things from the lower to the higher, 
 and I have, can have, no shadow of a doubt as to the 
 result of this war ! " But it was not in good taste for 
 me to be as exultant as I was. 
 
 " flic certainty to which I have come," Eoss groaned, 
 "is that men are invariably knaves or fools." 
 
 " But the King is strong enough," I said, " to con 
 trol even fools and knaves to his own ends ! " And 
 there the topic dropped from between us.
 
 WAR. 215 
 
 It was easy to see that the fierceness of his fight 
 had not been with the Federals only ; but why should 
 we talk about men, whether in gray or in blue, at 
 all? 
 
 " Of all living creatures," I said to him at the end, 
 " I suppose the cuttle-fish is the most horrible. And 
 yet every red fang of its diabolical jaws, every lens 
 of its goggle eyes, every peculiarity of its swarming 
 and snake-like arms, is constructed with a wisdom as 
 wonderful, as that which gives the colors of the rain 
 bow to the harmless dolphin. I do not know what 
 it was made for, but I do know that it is as essen 
 tial to whatever the purposes of its creation are, as 
 Shakespeare is to his." 
 
 " So of this war ? " asked Eoss. 
 
 " So of this abominable war," I assented. " There 
 have been worse ones in history, but, like every 
 other, this, also, is essential to the final results. Every 
 man will receive his own results in himself; but, 
 thank God, my faith is not based upon the whirlwind 
 of miserable men, but in the Person who makes and 
 knows, loves and manages, them all. Down with the 
 prince of doubt and of darkness ! Ave Optimus Au 
 gustus, Imperator I " 
 
 " I care little for your theories," Ross replied. " I 
 confess that I wish I could be as serene and happy 
 as you are. It lifts and rests me merely to look at 
 you." 
 
 Let me say here that Eoss Urwoldt was afterward 
 one of the best known of public men. As such he 
 mingled among men of all sorts. So far as he could
 
 216 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 accustom himself to do so, he associated with them 
 on equal terms, laughing, talking, suggesting and 
 receiving suggestions, saying vigorous things and hav 
 ing to endure energetic replies, outwardly the most 
 affable so far as he could compel himself to be 
 and practical of men. When he got inside my door, 
 it was as when a man pulls off a mud-bespattered 
 overcoat, kicks off dirty boots, and takes his ease in 
 dressing-gown and slippers. What he tried at such 
 times to hide from me was merely what he tried to 
 hide from himself. But, bless me ! what good did it 
 do ? He may have known me better than I knew 
 myself. I certainly knew Eoss as I hardly think 
 even Persis, not to speak of Eachel, ever came to 
 know him. I knew him at his best, but it was be 
 cause I knew him at his worst that I loved and took 
 most interest in him. 
 
 That was the way in which, one afternoon during 
 his long confinement, he came to talk to me about 
 his mother. He would not have done it had he not 
 been enfeebled by having me with him ; that under 
 mined him, I think, more than his wounds. 
 
 "You have no idea, Guernsey," he said at last, 
 "what a woman my mother once was. The first 
 memory I have of anything is of her. She nursed 
 me through the small-pox when I was a baby, and 
 my first recollection is of looking down at her one 
 day, when I was getting well, as she held me with her 
 strong arms high in the air above her head. All the 
 other children had died ; I was the last that was left 
 her. She was almost worn to death herself, but she
 
 WAR. 217 
 
 had saved me as from the very grave, and I have an 
 idea now that she was holding me up, giving me to 
 God, or something of the kind. Yes," he added in 
 softer tones, " I remember it perfectly. I can look 
 down now, as I hang suspended in her lifted hands, 
 and see her head thrown back, her hollow cheeks, her 
 black and eager eyes ! She had everything then and 
 after that to bow her to the earth, to break her spirit, 
 and she would neglect her dress, her appearance. 
 But once or twice, when I was not much more than 
 a child, I have seen her angry. How erect she be 
 came, how her eyes flashed ! When I brought home 
 on my mare, before me, the first deer I had shot, how 
 well I remember her ! I had ridden up to the door, 
 and, before I could get off, my mother ran out of the 
 house like a girl, her long hair down her back, her 
 cheeks as red as a rose, her eyes so full of love and 
 pride Guernsey," Ross added, "I can see, as I 
 tell you of it, the very whiteness of her teeth as she 
 laughed, she had beautiful teeth! 1 do not know 
 how she managed it, but she fairly lifted me out of 
 my saddle, held me up, kissed me, and then she put 
 me down all at once, turned pale, shrunk from me as 
 if she had thought of something, was suddenly afraid. 
 I understood afterward what that meant ! 
 
 " It makes a fool of me to be with you," he added 
 almost impatiently. " What I intended to tell you is 
 this. We did not say as much to each other as is 
 common to mother and son elsewhere, it isn't our 
 nature to talk much ; in fact, the more we feel the 
 less we talk. I used to think my mother was the
 
 218 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 best woman in the world, fit to be a queen. I wish 
 now I had told her so ! What I am coming at is 
 that I hated to have her marry anybody. But, of all 
 men living, I despised Amasa Clarke most. That she 
 should marry him was the hardest blow I ever had. 
 About a year after the war began I was sent back to 
 Ocklawahaw to beat up recruits. I had to see her. 
 Guernsey," he said, " I used to worship my mother, 
 but I never want to see her again ! " Had I known 
 it, he had ceased, as he spoke, to think of his mother ; 
 he was thinking of Persis instead, but of Persis Paige 
 dragged down with the rest of her sex into what he 
 regarded as the downfall of his own foolish delusion 
 of what a woman might be. 
 
 After that he went on to tell me of some of the 
 uncleanness and of the atrocities common to both ar 
 mies. He did not seem to care in regard to it him 
 self, and I am sure he enjoyed shockfng me, as he 
 assuredly did. But what would I have ? It was the 
 downright devil in Koss which made me try to hold 
 on to him the harder. And I wanted to save Koss 
 Urwoldt; I had a strong purpose to save him if I 
 could, because, of all the men I knew, he seemed to 
 me to be the man best worth saving. 
 
 As is the case with everything, whether it be a 
 tree, a lion, or a man, which possesses a natural and 
 therefore perfect health, my friend recovered almost 
 as rapidly from his wounds as Homer describes of 
 the stricken Mars. 
 
 Upon the afternoon before we parted we were 
 seated together for the last time in the bay-window
 
 WAR. 219 
 
 of which I have spoken. Eoss, now entirely re 
 stored, except that he was somewhat paler and thin 
 ner than was, I suppose, usual with him, had been 
 looking out upon the landscape for a long time, smok 
 ing his cigar in silence. His father was, as has been 
 said, in his younger days at least, a poet and a painter, 
 and he - asserted himself now, so I fancy, in his 
 son, taking advantage of the mood of Ross as another 
 father had of the midnight leisure of Hamlet. In 
 a word, this Confederate colonel from Ocklawahaw 
 yielded for the instant to the sentimental, which gen 
 erally he despised. 
 
 " It has been a great contrast," he said, " the life I 
 have led of late to what went before; after such 
 experiences of swamp and struggle, of the worst sort 
 of moral mud and all kinds of murder and brutality, 
 to be here, and with you, Guernsey. But the other 
 is the rule ; this is the brief exception. I have got 
 up here out of this horrible war but for a moment ; 
 to-morrow I plunge into it again, and deeper than 
 ever, for who can say how long ? " 
 
 Very rarely did he speak thus, even to me. I said 
 nothing in order that he might say more. 
 
 " Not that it is all bad in camp," he corrected him 
 self. " In our army, as in yours, some of the hardest 
 cases show, when the time comes, a courage, head 
 long yet cool, which Murat would have envied. Bet 
 ter still, I have seen in many of our worst fellows a 
 patience, endurance, self-sacrificing devotion, equal to 
 what one reads of Christian martyrs. Guernsey," he 
 added, " I have often wondered, even in the heat of
 
 220 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 battle, at the joyous disdain of themselves with which 
 my men dashed into certain death. A man tosses 
 away his life then as coolly as if it were a squeezed 
 lemon, does it rejoicingly. It proves what a little 
 thing life is. It is all a man has," and he tossed the 
 end of his smoked-out cigar through the open window, 
 " but it is such a miserably small thing at last." 
 
 It was because he was so free from all humbug 
 that I respected even his self-contempt. " Is it not 
 queer," he went on, " that a man cannot get used to 
 the low and rascally course of things ? The discon 
 tent at it, the loathing of it, is not that the oddest 
 thing of all ? A snake, an alligator, might as reason 
 ably object to the stagnant pool in which, like its 
 ancestors, it has always lived, always will live. But 
 there is another thing which astonishes me yet more. 
 Fancy an eel or an alligator passing its time in im 
 agining itself to have a soul, a Creator, and all that, 
 making its dirty pool ten times dirtier, its vermin 
 estate a hundred times more offensive to it, by such 
 contrast and contradiction ! Why will you imagine 
 such diabolical nonsense ? " 
 
 It was said angrily, for what he put into words was 
 but a small part of what he thought. Very little did 
 I argue with him ; it was with himself the fury of 
 the argument lay. 
 
 " You talk about a God and a hereafter ! What do 
 you get out of it all ? Nothing but what you have 
 first put in, and you know it ! " 
 
 " What I see, hear, taste, feel, smell, that is all I 
 believe in! Certainly!" I mimickecL my friend's
 
 WAR. 221 
 
 tone as well as his frequent assertion. " Ross," I 
 added, " do you suppose even an eagle ever saw a 
 flower or a star ? Does an elephant admire a laud- 
 scape lying in full view before it ? What do you 
 suppose a lion cares for a sunrise, a sunset ? except 
 to slake its thirst, what does it care for the cataract 
 which thunders to its very paws ? We see things 
 which these cannot, because we are more than these. 
 Now " 
 
 " I am speaking of spiritual things, things you do 
 not see ! Don't let 's discuss it, Guernsey. I 'm glad 
 I go to-morrow. For myself," and he stood up erect 
 and vigorous, " I deliberately prefer to be merely 
 what I am, an animal, one of the finest animals liv 
 ing, if you say so, but an animal only. I want no 
 more. I would n't be any more if I could. I am sat 
 isfied to live, to die such, as fifty generations of my 
 fathers have done before me." 
 
 A new idea smote me as I considered the face and 
 bearing of my friend. A man can extinguish his in 
 tellect by drinking alcohol enough. Nero is not the 
 only man who has rid himself of his heart. There 
 are dozens of people a day who, with rope or razor, 
 free themselves of their bodies as easily as one does 
 of a nail-paring. We are free agents, frightfully free. 
 Who knows but a man can rid himself of his soul 
 also ? It was a foolish notion, but, as I looked Ross 
 full in the face, he was so sincere in what he said, 
 that I had no more to say to him upon the subject 
 than if he was, as I have already said, a leopard or a 
 lion. But, being a man and not a brute, I know
 
 222 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 myself to be the master where the finest animal on 
 earth is concerned, and how could I help the silent 
 exultation of face which goes with such a certainty ? 
 Eoss was conscious of this in me, and resented it. 
 Yet why should I say anything ? His quarrel was 
 not with me, it was with himself. 
 
 He had already arranged his exchange, and the 
 next day he was gone, to plunge, as I was soon to 
 learn, into the thick of the fight again. From the 
 first, I had not said a word to prevent, it was so evi 
 dent that he had rather go South and fight than stay 
 with me and argue.
 
 GROWTH. 223 
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 GROWTH. 
 
 IT was impossible for me not to like Persis and 
 Eachel more as the days wore on. I was such a 
 stranger to the city that I was glad enough to add 
 these girls to the home I had made for myself in 
 the society of Dr. Trent and his household. Of 
 course I was selfish in the matter. The admiration 
 one has for a landscape is but an expansion of the 
 pleasure he has in the trees and grass of his own 
 yard, and I am quite sure that I admire a wheat- 
 field more for the solid satisfaction which I get out of 
 a loaf of bread. Especially was this a reason for the 
 growing interest I took in Persis. She had, from 
 her first coming, an eagerness to know all she could 
 about the city and region in which she found herself, 
 and who could tell her more about it than I ? Her 
 eagerness awoke within me again that which I too 
 had felt on my first coming there, and I enjoyed 
 everything over again, renewed and redoubled, in 
 going about with Rachel and herself. Although but 
 a dozen years older than they, I was as a father who 
 lives his childish pleasures over once more in the 
 companionship of his children. 
 "Wliile I had a very wide acquaintance with men
 
 224 BLESSED SATNT CERTAINTY. 
 
 and women in audiences when I lectured, in hospitals 
 where I served ; while I was not without a sense of 
 the friendship between a wide circle of readers and 
 myself, my personal relations were with so very 
 few, that I could not help studying these two when I 
 was with them as closely as it was unconsciously. To 
 me they were new types of their sex, also, and wholly 
 unlike each other. In her more silent way Rachel 
 was glad of her new world, but she allowed Persis 
 to say almost everything for both. The only thing 
 which seemed to elate her was the enthusiasm of 
 Persis. More than once, when Persis was prevented 
 by her studies from going with us to see pictures, or 
 to concert and theatre, Rachel sat by my side, happy 
 but quiet ; yet, when Persis was there too, the very 
 happiness of her friend gave a new glow to her cheek, 
 a brighter light to her placid eyes ; she had more to 
 say, smiled more, was so much the prettier in her 
 simple toilet, because Persis, the more demonstrative 
 of the two, was with us. 
 
 Not that Rachel did not have decided likes and 
 dislikes of her own. Where books and authors, for 
 instance, were concerned, she did not always agree 
 with Persis and myself. 
 
 " The thing I have looked forward to," Persis told 
 me soon after coming, " next, that is, to my studies, 
 is to knowing the men and women who wrote the 
 books I like best. I have read some books," and she 
 mentioned them, " over so often that I almost know 
 them by heart. You have taken us to see the monu 
 ments, parks, public libraries ; please, Mr. Guernsey,
 
 GROWTH. 225 
 
 can't you arrange it so that we can make the ac 
 quaintance of " And she mentioned hesitatingly 
 the names of several authors of note who lived in 
 or near the city. " We would rather see them than 
 anything else, would n't we, Eachel ? " 
 
 I cannot conceive why it is, but sincerely as I 
 admire distinguished people, I have an aversion to 
 attendance upon them. From the day almost of her 
 coining Persis alluded to her wish ; it so chanced that 
 I was the only person at that period who could gratify 
 her, and, sorely against the grain, I arranged at last 
 to do so, Mrs. Trent abetting me. 
 
 One day, within the first few months of their 
 arrival, I called in a carriage at the house of the 
 young ladies, by appointment, to take them to see a 
 celebrated authoress. Eachel declined to go. At the 
 moment she had something in hand a music-lesson, 
 I think it was, which interested her more, but her 
 friend was delighted at the opportunity. 
 
 " I would rather see her than Victoria," she said as 
 we went ; and I noticed that, so far as her wardrobe 
 allowed, she was arrayed as if she was going to Court. 
 For which reason I could not understand why Persis 
 was so silent when, after what seemed to me a very 
 pleasant visit, we rode back. No lady could have 
 been more affable than the one upon whom we had 
 called, but my companion seemed almost ashamed of 
 herself for taking me there. 
 
 It was cruel in me to do it; but, when science 
 demands, even vivisection is a virtue. " Lady teach 
 ers," I reflected aloud, " cannot, I am told, endure to 
 
 15
 
 226 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 have a lady principal over them. How strange ! 
 Ladies prefer to do their shopping with masculine 
 clerks behind the counter. It is very singular ! " 
 
 " Women can write," Persis fired up, " as well as 
 men. Some day they will do almost everything as 
 well as men, perhaps better ! " She made it as an 
 assertion, but her troubled eyes fluttered about mine, 
 making it an interrogation rather. 
 
 " I sincerely hope so ! Men," I replied, " have 
 made a horrible bungle of it for sixty centuries. 
 Who knows but that woman is to take the world out 
 of men's miserable hands and complete things ? " 
 But my companion watched me so closely to see if I 
 was not laughing, that I could not keep from doing 
 so. 
 
 " Men always joke when a woman is concerned !" 
 
 She said it in such a manner that I could not help 
 replying, with the accents, and, as far as I could, the 
 eyes of a grandfather, " What do you care, my dear 
 Miss Persis, for such things ? " For she was so young, 
 had been shut out so completely from the world ! 
 Moreover, she was giving, of late, promise of becom 
 ing so pretty, perhaps beautiful. " It amazes me," I 
 continued to meditate aloud, "how swiftly an idea 
 becomes universal. Here is this question of what 
 women may yet be and do. The time was when 
 chivalry had no more existence than telegrams or 
 steamships. Queens of beauty, knightly devotion to 
 woman, do you know, Miss Persis, that the entire 
 sex was elevated with the Virgin Mary ? There is 
 more in it than there was in the worship of the
 
 GROWTH. 227 
 
 Virgin, or woman would not hold her throne while 
 the worship of the Virgin is perishing from Christen 
 dom. The position of man has always been a some 
 thing clearly defined ; but of woman ? Somehow, as 
 for ages past, so now, she is still upon the stairway of 
 unceasing ascent. Don't you see it, Miss Persis ? If 
 you and your sex are not to slip off the steps and 
 back into something lower, you must go on climbing, 
 you must come to be something more than you are ! 
 I believe with all my soul in the new chivalry to 
 ward woman; my trouble is that I do not wholly 
 understand anything about it except this : heretofore 
 woman has been lifted by the hands of men, here 
 after she is to lift herself. I accept it in advance. 
 
 queen, live forever ! " 
 
 My companion had forgotten her authoress. It 
 was very flattering to me that her eyes a slight 
 suspicion still about her lips were drinking in what 
 
 1 said, and growing brighter as they did so. 
 
 " People do have a new idea, then, of what we can 
 do ? I hoped so," she said, " but I was not certain." 
 
 " Certainly ! " I assumed the prophet in addition to 
 the grandfather. " There is a new conception coming 
 in of what your sex can be and do, must and will 
 do and be, which is swelling so much like an ocean 
 tide along the entire coast, that I can no more measure 
 than I can understand it. Whatever you or I or 
 anybody may think or say, Miss Persis, it is rolling 
 in all the same. But that you should know of, or 
 care for it " 
 
 " Because I was in Ocklawahaw ? " she demanded
 
 228 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 modestly enough ; but she was not afraid of me, ven 
 erable as I was. " We had books, we read, we " 
 " Does Miss Rachel care for such things ? " 
 
 o 
 
 It was an impolite interruption. If the face of my 
 companion fell, it was but for the moment. " Each el," 
 she said a little defiantly, " is the sweetest, most sen 
 sible girl alive, but she cares more for other things." 
 And I could see that her friend had very likely 
 laughed at Persis about it. And then, by some odd 
 association of ideas, Persis added, "That is because 
 Eachel had such a father." And she went on to tell 
 me, knowing that Ross must have already informed 
 me of it, the whole story of the drunken statesman, 
 and how he had been for so long like a big baby in 
 the hands of his daughter. 
 
 I had observed long before that if I wanted to make 
 Rachel talk, I had but to mention Persis ; and now, 
 with the devotion of Rachel as a topic, I had never 
 known Persis to converse so eloquently. 
 
 I cannot give date or circumstance to my association 
 with these girls. My life was a very irregular and 
 uncertain one during the war. I almost lived on the 
 railroad, coming and going thousands of miles, North 
 or South, East or West. It was a hard, and often, if 
 I had yielded to it, a most trying and unpleasant life. 
 One is hurled about, at such periods, almost as if he 
 were a dice. Mine was a mission of mercy, and I 
 went rapidly in this direction and that, having al 
 most as little to do with the sending of myself as if I 
 were a carrier-pigeon. On which account I was very 
 glad when I could rest for a while in the house of
 
 GROWTH. 229 
 
 Dr. Trent, and in the companionship of the young 
 ladies. 
 
 It was not often that we spoke of the war then 
 raging. Living as they had done for so long in the 
 Eeservation, neither Persis nor Rachel had grown up 
 with deep convictions as to North or South. Parson 
 Williams was no politician. I doubt if Ross had ever 
 spoken to them on the subject. Rachel was deeply 
 anxious in regard to her father ; but to that she had 
 been accustomed since she could remember. Know 
 ing him to be opposed to secession, although in the 
 South, it was not unnatural that she should share his 
 views. But to be calm, to await the inevitable, to 
 endure without unnecessary worry, this had be 
 come her nature. 
 
 As to Persis, it was different. For quite a while 
 after her arrival she could be as enthusiastic as any 
 one for the old flag, where it was spoken of in general; 
 but people learned not to stir up either Rachel or 
 herself by too much mention of the iniquity of the 
 South. That Persis was intensely anxious for news 
 from Ross, I knew very well It was an additional 
 motive with her to hard study, that she could thus 
 divert her mind from his perpetual danger ; but no 
 one was more eager to know the latest news from the 
 war than herself. 
 
 Dr. Trent and his wife, beginning with mere in 
 terest in them, grew into esteeming and loving them 
 exceedingly, doing all they could to make them happy. 
 Persis did not care to talk about Ross, even with 
 Rachel. By one of the marvellous intuitions of her
 
 230 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 sex, she seemed, in her strongest moods at least, to 
 count confidently upon his coming out of the war 
 unscathed, and he remained, as he had been for so 
 long, the chief impulse with her in all she did. 
 
 This I pass over lightly, for the reason that it was 
 impossible for me to know, during the w T ar, much 
 about it. Until afterward, my chiefest interest was 
 in them as in young girls in a strange land, thrown 
 largely upon themselves, making the best they could 
 of their opportunities. 
 
 I recall distinctly how each looked the day I first 
 saw them, but not, stage by stage, the process in 
 them afterward of change, as I was thrown sometimes 
 with one, then with the other, during my intermittent 
 visits to the city in which they lived. What helped 
 to interest, and aided me toward understanding them, 
 was their growing divergence of character as the 
 years rolled by. One day, for instance, I arranged to 
 take them with me to see an author, whom, of all her 
 favorites, Persis had long been most desirous to see. 
 As before, Rachel excused herself. Wearied out as 
 the author was with many years of homage, I was 
 more interested in his evident interest in Persis than 
 in anything else in his house or himself. Had he 
 been an emperor, she could not have enjoyed it as 
 much ; and the almost tremor of her enthusiasm was 
 so pleasant to him that, when we came to leave, the 
 old monarch, holding her hands in his, gave her a kiss 
 upon the brow which flushed her face with pleasur 
 able pride. 
 
 " I could not have imagined it," I told her, as we
 
 GROWTH. 231 
 
 rode back to the city, "of the great authoress whom 
 you remember we called upon." 
 
 " That she, should kiss me ? Certainly not ! " It 
 was said so indignantly that I laughed aloud. 
 
 "But why not? She was old, old enough to be 
 your grandmother," I insisted ; but Persis only drew 
 herself back still more, as if from the distinguished 
 lady in question, and deigned no reply. " It puzzles 
 me, too," I went on, " that Miss Eachel did not care 
 to go." 
 
 " Not if you knew her as well as I do," Persis said. 
 " She is different. You forget what a father she has. 
 It makes her very shy of men, especially of men who 
 have a great reputation. She cared for her father 
 apart from all that, against all that. Eachel loved 
 her father, loved him, Mr. Guernsey, a great deal 
 more," Persis said almost angrily, " than / could love 
 any man." 
 
 I laughed outright, she was so much in earnest, as 
 always, and it was merely to turn the conversation 
 that she added, " That is the reason, Mr. Guernsey, 
 why Rachel is so shy of you" 
 
 "Of me ? What do you mean ? I cannot," I said, 
 " see any connection " 
 
 " She does not care for authors as girls naturally 
 do. And then," Persis continued with archness, " her 
 father was a distinguished man. He was a genius, 
 too, Mr. Guernsey, but," my companion said with 
 mocking lips, " men of genius do not stand as they 
 should with Eachel. From her experience of her 
 father, of the father of Eoss too, I believe she has
 
 232 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 almost a horror of them." She laughed merrily, see 
 ing how much I was teased at being considered to 
 belong to the illustrious class specified. 
 
 " It is the absurd exaggeration of Mrs. Trent in 
 talking of me to Miss Rachel," I protested. " Unfor 
 tunately Mrs. Trent measures me, as she does every 
 body, by her liking. And so Miss Rachel imagines," 
 I added with an uncomfortable laugh, " that, when I 
 am out of her sight, I am lying drunk somewhere." 
 But my companion would give me no further light 
 upon the subject. 
 
 In fact, she went on spoiling me instead; she seemed 
 to like to talk with me. Whenever we met, at her 
 house or elsewhere, I had but to mention a book for 
 her to ask eagerly about it, if she had not read it. 
 It was a pleasure to talk to her in regard to it or 
 anything, she listened with such zest, anticipating 
 what I was about to say, quickened into suggestions, 
 assenting, dissenting, praising, at times almost scold 
 ing. To converse with her about an author or a 
 book was to interest me in writer or volume much 
 more than I ever thought I could be. So of what 
 she had read, of what she intended to study, she was 
 so full of attention, so rapid in reply arid remark, 
 her color came and went, her fine eyes never wavered 
 from the topic. 
 
 As the time rolled on, her growth was as by an 
 unceasing succession of summers of enthusiasms. 
 Her eyes were larger, darker, more full of soul and 
 purpose, she had richer color, her tones were fuller 
 and sweeter, her hair seemed to be darker and more
 
 GROWTH. 233 
 
 abundant, as her cheeks became more rounded, her 
 form developing into that of the complete woman. 
 
 I knew, when I began, how difficult it would be to 
 tell all this ! The worst of it was that she gave me, 
 when we met, an impression that I knew so much, and 
 that she w y as so glad to learn. For my life I could 
 not help feeling as if she was a fine painting which 
 was growing what a fool I was to think it ! un 
 der my hand. Not that I ever said so to myself. 
 
 And then she did so sincerely believe in me ! Not 
 so much in me for myself, but for what she rated me 
 as having done. No, not as having done ! Heaven 
 knows that my ideal of what I hoped to do was 
 immeasurably beyond all I had so far accomplished, 
 and, in her eagerness, she did not see me as I was, 
 but as I would be some day, a day, alas ! which so 
 far has never dawnefl. 
 
 As the war slowly drew its bleeding length along, 
 the girls derived, I feel sure of it, a goodly part of 
 their education from it. They had a complete course 
 of study always in hand. Every day, every hour, 
 seemed to be systematically given to lessons of one 
 kind or another. Teachers came to them, and they 
 went to teachers. They were members of classes, 
 they belonged to conservatories of music, they took 
 courses of lectures. And yet the war was the great 
 instructor. There were periods of municipal depres 
 sion, of hilarious exultation, as the banner fell or rose 
 upon the distant fields. Orations were frequent, lec 
 tures from returned philanthropists ; societies arose to 
 devise means ; sanitary fairs were held. It was im-
 
 234 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 possible to hear so much military music, to see the 
 flag so often, to read the daily papers, to live in such 
 ever-varying enthusiasm, to take part in so much 
 vigorous conversation at table, in parlors and every 
 where, and not be developed by the contest as by a 
 perpetual and powerful impulse. For the period, at 
 least, the bullets slew idleness in the city as surely 
 as it did soldiers at the front. Frivolity perished at 
 the cannon's breath, as surely as did slavery. To 
 Rachel and Persis, as to all of their age, the war was 
 a Spartan education which would leave its pupils, 
 nobler, more unselfish, stronger, and better every way 
 than they could otherwise have been. 
 
 For there was, as we were to learn afterward, more 
 of Spartan broth in the fare of Rachel and Persis 
 than even Mrs. Trent imagined at the time. Even if 
 Persis had been careless as to money matters, Eachel 
 possessed both an experience and temperament which 
 insured a wise economy. Notwithstanding their ut 
 most thrift they found it hard to keep out of debt. 
 Ross Urwoldt, as we were to learn afterward, had 
 elected himself their guardian and treasurer. It 
 must have been the hardest work of his warfare to 
 keep his charges supplied, thrown hither and thither 
 as he was, with sufficient money. I do not know 
 what fictions he resorted to as to proceeds due Ra 
 chel from her property, as to instalments on her land 
 which he was owing to Persis. What I do know is 
 that he kept himself stripped to the last penny of 
 even his depreciated Confederate money that the girls 
 might not suffer. I used to wonder at times as to
 
 GROWTH. 235 
 
 why Rachel seemed so sober, why Persis had, even 
 in our most animated interviews, an absent manner. 
 Poor things ! Being often in so tight a place myself, 
 I might have guessed, from the intuition of sheer 
 sympathy and fellow-feeling, why it was. But they 
 kept the story of their needs as closely to themselves 
 as I kept my own. With all her feminine wit, under 
 the impulse even of her heart, Mrs. Trent no more 
 found out their secret than she did mine. Not until 
 afterward. 
 
 And thus the war drew to its close ; and, upon the 
 whole, I am inclined to think that, more than the 
 mere war, more than their books and lectures, it was 
 the privation Persis and Rachel endured, on occasions 
 at least, which had most to do with their education 
 at that date. 
 
 Even now I do not understand Ross well enough 
 to know why he should write, as he did, to me, and 
 not to them. Military discipline may have had much 
 to do with it, but his remittances to them always 
 passed through the hands of Dr. Trent or myself. To 
 us he said, in enclosing it, all he could say ; to them 
 he merely sent his regards. But, as I write, I recall 
 that where he was most intent, there, as I have de 
 scribed, he was most silent. In regard to nothing in 
 the world was he as intent, these dark days through, 
 as in regard to Persis. Yes ; that, I feel sure, accounts 
 for his course. He was as a scout who leans forward, 
 silent, motionless, because he is looking, is listening, 
 for his life.
 
 236 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 A VISITOR. 
 
 noon, some months after the war was over, I 
 lounged in the doorway of a bookstore in the 
 city, catching a glimpse of every person who passed 
 me, going up or down. There were portly men among 
 them and comely women ; but I was struck to the 
 heart as I saw how many of the women were invalids. 
 Dr. Trent had suggested the fact, and now each pallid 
 face of these confirmed his almost savage remarks. 
 Why should the cheeks of the woman of thirty, who 
 has just passed, be so very thin ? Here again comes 
 a pigeon-chested girl ! This is a buxom lass, but evi 
 dently Irish. A girl with the beauty of health and 
 refinement in her aspect passed by, but not often. 
 Here is a colored woman, overdressed, and stout 
 enough in all conscience ! Alas, with the next wo 
 man who went by, began a new series of the sallow, 
 the fragile, the languid. "If these, when dressed 
 for the streets, are so sickly of appearance," I thought, 
 " what must they seem when in the undress and 
 negligence of home ? And what is the cause ? hard 
 work ? poverty ? care ? consumption ? neglect ? Do 
 they lace too tightly ? eat too little ? Can it be 
 possible that they exist upon pies or doughnuts ? 
 Through what have these women passed that so
 
 A VISITOR. 237 
 
 many of their faces are as worn as that of Liberty 
 upon the current coin ? " 
 
 I was looking up street as I thus reflected, when I 
 saw coining toward me a man whose aspect arrested 
 my eyes by its unlikeness to the generality of the 
 men. People glanced at him a second time in going 
 by, so foreign did he seem. Except for the unkempt 
 look of his clothes, the slouch of his felt hat, and 
 that he was taller, darker of visage, with blacker eyes, 
 hair, and mustache, there was nothing to distinguish 
 him beyond a military bearing so military as to be 
 that of a soldier among enemies. His foreignness 
 appeared to be deeper than that of land or language ; 
 it was not disdain so much as it was an unconscious 
 ness of the crowd among which he moved. He 
 looked, as he came, neither to the right nor to the 
 left, but straight before him over the heads of the 
 people, and with a steadiness of gaze which I never 
 saw in any other. 
 
 Now I knew a little of what had befallen Eoss 
 Urwoldt since I last saw him. From what I had 
 noticed in the papers, from what Persis and Rachel 
 told me, I was aware that he was one of the best 
 known of the Confederate officers in his region, popu 
 lar for the ferocity with which he 'had fought through 
 the war. Since the war he had removed from Ock- 
 lawahaw to the State of which Governor Beauchamp 
 had been so often the Washington or the Arnold. 
 There he had been dragged, as by his ardent and 
 restless temperament too, out of planting, into the 
 practice of law, and out of that into politics.
 
 238 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 He would not have seen me in passing if I had 
 not stepped out of the doorway, taken his arm, and 
 limped for I am still a little lame along beside 
 him, as if he had come that way on purpose. He 
 returned my salutation, but I was hurt to see how 
 cold in manner he remained even after he saw who it 
 was. 
 
 " I live," I said to him, when we came to the next 
 corner, " at the hotel near here. For many a day I 
 have wanted your strong arm to help me along. You 
 were a long time coming. I am glad to see you." 
 And I adopted a tone as indifferent as his own while 
 we talked of what had befallen us since we parted. 
 But he hesitated when he had seen me to the hotel, 
 had helped me up-stairs and to the door of my room. 
 
 " I am here for merely a short time, on business," 
 he said, giving me his hand for good-by. 
 
 I suppose, confound it ! that I am too much of 
 a woman. Otherwise I cannot understand what he 
 saw in my face, for I said nothing. He came in, 
 pitched his hat upon the sofa, sat down as if he 
 was tired. Then he straightened himself up again, 
 consented to a cigar, and seemed to be thinking. It 
 was not agreeable to see that I was little more to him, 
 I fear, than a poodle. If I had not known the man 
 better than he knew himself, I would have dropped 
 him from memory and heart. Looking at him as 
 he sat, I weighed him to an ounce, as if in scales. 
 He was clothed from head to foot in prejudice, igno 
 rance, utter mistake about almost everything ; but his 
 clothes were not the man, they could be changed,
 
 A VISITOR. 239 
 
 would wear out of themselves. Upon the whole, I 
 knew no man intrinsically more valuable, I could not 
 afford to lose him. More than that, he could not 
 afford to lose himself. 
 
 By slow degrees he told me of how he was situated 
 in many things, and it was disagreeable enough. 
 Then I offset what he said by certain matters wherein 
 I too was sorely tried. " At last it is," I said to him, 
 " only temporary circumstance. Ten years hence to 
 day's circumstance will have perished ; just now it is 
 scaffolding about us, scaffolding essential, Heaven 
 knows why, to our upbuilding. You, Ross, are more 
 than the war, more than the region in which you live, 
 more than the miserable politics in which you are 
 mixed up." He had informed me enough concerning 
 his present position for me to say that much. He 
 looked at me, stroking his mustache with a hand 
 which, I now observed, was slashed across the back 
 with a scar. 
 
 " You are Guernsey still," he said. " Has n't the 
 war beaten your metaphysics out of you yet ? Theo 
 rizing still ! I never could do it, never will. For 
 my life I cannot help seeing things as they are. My 
 eyes are too strong to wear glasses. Why can you not 
 be sensible, practical ? " 
 
 " That is a fact," said I ; " let 's go down to dinner." 
 There is no better cooking in Christendom than at 
 that hotel, and I am sure Ross enjoyed his dinner ; 
 men of his health and unceasing exercise always do. 
 We took our time to it, and by the end of dessert we 
 were back again to and with each other as we were
 
 240 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 when he lay wounded under my care during the war. 
 When he lounged, at last, in ray easy-chair up-stairs, 
 cigar in hand, we had got back pretty much to what 
 we were when together in college. 
 
 " You know my opinion of men in general, North, 
 South, East, West," he said to me in course of con 
 versation. " I wish I could delude myself about them 
 as you do. Not until my imagination has mastery of 
 my reason, is that possible. Not that you are a sen 
 timentalist, Guernsey; we all know " And he must 
 needs go into the exaggerations in which Steven 
 Trent, too, was apt to deal, as to my powers. 
 
 "Thank you," I interrupted him, " but 1 am too prac 
 tical a man to puff myself up or to be puffed up. 
 Measured by the money I have made, I am next to 
 nobody. Estimated by any influence I have exerted, 
 my severest critic, alas, cannot rate me lower than I 
 do myself. But let us speak of other things." 
 
 "The trouble with you, Guernsey," Ross persisted, 
 " is that you will not confine yourself to iron facts. 
 It may be from excess of force in you, but you will 
 not keep to the solid soil. So long as you walk the 
 earth I can keep company with you, but you are sure 
 to leave your legs and take to your wings, and then 
 we part. No, Guernsey, I can't fool myself about 
 things as you do. I hate to undeceive you. It is 
 like corrupting a child." 
 
 " Never mind me ; go on," I said. 
 
 He did so at length. I verily believe it was the 
 first time he had talked unreservedly to any one since 
 we parted. He told me everything that had hap-
 
 A VISITOR. 241 
 
 pened to him in the chaos which came upon his 
 region with the collapse of the Confederacy. My 
 purpose does not lie in that direction in these pages. 
 It is with Eoss Urwoldt, and those associated with 
 him, that I have exclusively to do. It would be 
 worse than useless to detail what he told me. He 
 had more to say, and it was newer to me, than if he 
 were just ashore from a long sojourn across the At 
 lantic. Never mind the items ; the upshot of all was 
 his deepening disgust with his kind. 
 
 " As you know," he summed up, " I could not live 
 in Ocklawahaw. Especially since Persis and Eachel 
 left, what business had I there ? "When the people 
 where I now live urged me into politics, I told them 
 they would be sorry for it. Guernsey," Eoss added, 
 " you can have no idea how, from the start, I talked 
 to my people. If I had not fought as I did, they 
 would have hung me." And, with that, he went over 
 again the miserable catalogue of folly and blunder 
 against which he had striven, and striven in vain. 
 " That is one reason I am here," he wound up. " ^ 
 have come like a doctor outside of a sick room to get 
 a breath of fresh air. They are a noble people, but 
 it is too close down there ! " And he drew in a deep 
 breath as he sat. " Not that it is not worse up here," 
 he hastened to say ; " but, then, with these people I 
 have nothing to do." 
 
 "Yes," I assented. "AYe are not as lazy as your 
 people are, but we are too sharp, too greedy for gain. 
 You have the freedmen, and here we have the dregs 
 of Europe. With you political murders prevail ; here 
 
 16
 
 242 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 are the murders of unborn children, brutal massacres 
 for gold ; lust, revenge, rum, have their victims. The 
 community fails with you to punish crime; here 
 criminals escape by the use of money or politics, even 
 when convicted. When I was a little boy I remem 
 ber," I added, "standing on tiptoe at the kitchen 
 table to see our old fat cook make cake. She would 
 roll out the yellow dough, and then cut it into shapes 
 for the oven with tin cake-cutters, round, square, 
 heart-shaped, star-shaped. Ross," I urged, "into what 
 ever shape we happen to be cut we are all from the 
 same dough. But I must say that I think, on the 
 whole, we up here have the advantage of you." 
 
 " In situation. Yes," Ross assented ; " the highway 
 from Europe to Asia lies across the continent and 
 past your doorsteps. If we are off the track to the 
 southward, so is Canada to the northward. There is 
 no merit in situation." 
 
 " Of course not. But it is not merely that, as you 
 say, the Broadway of the planet runs through our 
 part of the country ; it is because the ventilation is 
 better ! Whatever topic comes up here is so thor 
 oughly discussed, is so severely thrashed and sifted, 
 that we get, at last, down to the clean grain of what 
 ever is good in it. A man ought to climb to where 
 he can take a wide look all around. Pull your feet 
 out of the mud, old fellow, and try to get up toward 
 the way God looks at things." 
 
 " I don't believe in God," he growled. 
 
 " Very well," I said. " Take_ the separate sections 
 of the globe as you do the manifold squares of the
 
 A VISITOR. 243 
 
 multiplication table ; bless you, the same arithmetical 
 working runs through the whole." But I saw in his 
 eyes how, as I said it, he was lying in wait for me. 
 
 " That is what I believe," he exclaimed. " That is 
 what Buckle and Comte say, what every sensible man 
 is coming to see. It is all nations, religions, civil 
 izations merely a vast machine. Suns, planets, 
 winds, waters, men, lower animals, vegetables, min 
 erals, all grind together, but parts of the same com 
 plexity of wheels, and wheels within wheels. We 
 originate, we live our brief moment, we perish alike. 
 The greatest, the only certain, thing I know of is the 
 sublime order of nature ; the meanest of all things is 
 man. Not that I do not recognize the intellect by 
 which he comprehends nature ; it is the miserable 
 meannesses which invariably accompany this of which 
 I speak." 
 
 " Of course. And," I said, " what then ? " 
 
 " If a man is ambitious, let him enjoy himself that 
 way. Most likely he prefers," Eoss added, " to eat 
 and drink and die. Every man to his taste." My 
 companion suddenly checked himself. " What is the 
 use of talking ? " he said. " I am tired of talk ; only 
 do not try to fool me at least with fancies of vice and 
 virtue, God or devil or soul. I live upon what I see 
 and know. I am a Positivist is the word, is n't 
 it?" 
 
 " You know nothing about men ; what," I asked, 
 " can you know about God ? Don't be such a bigot. 
 Don't disgust me with you, Eoss ! " 
 
 He looked up at me as I stood over him where he
 
 244 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 sat. In his silent way he was very angry. I saw 
 that. What a fool I was to discuss such topics, any 
 topics ! My friend was so chafed by long years of 
 disappointment that little was left of him beyond the 
 original savage ; so to speak, he was worn down to 
 that. His ancestors learned, ages before his day, to 
 grow cool also as they grew hot, cool that they might 
 strike, wlien they did strike, to the heart ; and Eoss, 
 I long ago had observed, grew slower and darker as 
 he became more angry. He arose to go, arose very 
 deliberately. If he did go, we would be done with 
 each other forever. 
 
 " Eoss," I said, and, reaching up, I grasped his 
 shoulder, looking with as bright a face as I could into 
 his sullen eyes, " Eoss," I repeated, " don't go. I 
 want to tell you about the young ladies." 
 
 " Young ladies ? Ah, it is Persis and Rachel, you 
 mean." And it gave me a new knowledge of him, 
 the coldness with which it was said. 
 
 Ross was the most aboriginal man I ever knew. 
 His education neither altered nor obscured that. 
 There are crystals which must be dug up, broken in 
 two, and the surface ground smooth, before the native 
 angles and colors can be seen. So with Eoss ; educa 
 tion and trouble had ground him until the nature of 
 the man, hard and brilliant as crystal, was revealed, 
 not changed. 
 
 Yes, I got a deeper glimpse into the man in the 
 coldness he showed as to the two girls he had known 
 so long. It was to me as to the Arctic sailor is the 
 lifting of the fog which reveals new regions of bound-
 
 A VISITOR. 245 
 
 less ice. But such a sailor knows nothing of the 
 boiling geysers which may be at the heart of those 
 realms of winter, and what I did not know then was, 
 that it was the very intensity of his interest in regard 
 to Persis which held him silent. Really that was his 
 sole business there, to see her. During the whole 
 war, through his growing disgust with everything 
 else, his love for her was the one hope of his life ; so 
 much so that, brave in everything beside, he was a 
 coward in this. He was positively afraid to see her, 
 to ask after her. Who could say what changes the 
 long absence might not have wrought in her ? Most 
 probably she had, like his mother, gone the way of 
 her sex, and fallen into some womanish whim which 
 had ruined her for him. She must have studied her 
 self by this time into who knows what affectations, 
 new-fangled notions, bookish eccentricities ! He had 
 not seen her since she was a girl, an Ocklawahaw 
 girl, and now she was a woman, a city lady, an edu 
 cated lady, while he had lived in camp, among savage 
 men. Moreover, how could she fail, by this time, to 
 have fallen in love with some college professor, some 
 long-haired monkey of a music-teacher, who could 
 say? 
 
 I did not know then what he thought, but I went 
 on to tell him how faithfully the . young ladies had 
 toiled, how greatly they were improved. He stood 
 before me as I did so, yielding to me from head to 
 foot the same motionless attention which fastened 
 upon mine his steadfast eyes. Not one word had he 
 to make in reply, but he could not hide from me how
 
 246 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 pleased he was. The next day, and afterward, it was 
 of Rachel he spoke, never of Persis. The same after 
 noon I went with Eoss to show him where they lived, 
 asking him, as I did so, " Do you happen to know a 
 Major McAllister ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said ; " I know at least of a man so 
 named. He was an official under Governor Beau- 
 champ when Secession began. When the convention 
 of his State deposed the Governor, McAllister disap 
 peared. It was known that he went over to the 
 Federals." 
 
 "It is the same man. He held," I said, "some 
 appointment in the army which enabled him to grant 
 or refuse permits to wagon cotton through the lines. 
 It was a post of great trust, and was given him for 
 the sake of his friend the Governor. Let me tell you 
 a noble thing of him. One day, during the war, a 
 well-known adventurer came into his office, to secure 
 a permit. There were grave reasons for hesitation in 
 his case, and Major McAllister told him he would 
 consider the matter and let him know next day. 
 The other man bowed, looked at him in a meaning 
 way, laid a brown paper parcel on his desk, and was 
 about leaving, when the Major beckoned to him to 
 halt. The room was full of army people. The Major 
 opened the parcel before them all, found it to be, as 
 he had conjectured, a roll of greenbacks. Springing 
 to his feet, he hurled it with an oath at the head of 
 the one who tried so shamelessly to bribe him, and 
 ordered him never to show his face there again. The 
 bills flew all over the office, many thousand dol-
 
 A VISITOR. 247 
 
 lars, I was told. The man gathered them up, and was 
 not seen again. It made quite a sensation at the 
 time, the army correspondents were full of it. I am 
 glad to know the Major." 
 
 " Is he here ? " Boss asked indifferently. 
 
 " That is the reason I spoke of it. He is a medium- 
 sized man," I said, " middle-aged, somewhat bald, with 
 side whiskers, and the appearance in general of a well- 
 to-do banker. It is because he boards at the same 
 house with Persis and Kachel that I tell you of it. 
 Mrs. Trent hints to me that he is showing devoted 
 attention to the young ladies. He knew Eachel when 
 she was a child. Of course he honors her for the 
 sake of her father, with whom he was associated so 
 closely in those dark and trying times. It is said 
 that he is quite wealthy. I think he is a stock-broker 
 in the city. Mrs. Trent has a woman's keen scent in 
 such matters, and thinks it quite likely he will pro 
 pose to one of the ladies." 
 
 I did not say which. My reason in telling Eoss of 
 this bit of gossip was as I said ; only I had another 
 in addition. But his bronzed face told no tales. He 
 said nothing. 
 
 " It was noble in him, was n't it ? to refuse the bribe, 
 especially as the war had stripped him of everything. 
 I admire such a man," I remarked with warmth. 
 
 " Do you ? He is rich, is he ? Guernsey," Eoss 
 said dryly, " I chance to know that the scene you 
 describe did take place. Alas, my trusting friend, 
 it was but a bit of melodrama arranged beforehand. 
 It succeeded. The spotless virtue of McAllister was
 
 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 placed thereby so entirely beyond suspicion that 
 from that day he grew rich fast, very fast." 
 
 " Here is the house," I said by this time. " You 
 will find the ladies in at this hour, I hope. I will not 
 go in. You will have much to talk about." And I left 
 him upon the step waiting for admittance.
 
 NOT YET. 249 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 NOT YET. 
 
 TT may be supposed that I was eager to see my 
 friend when he came that night to our room at 
 the hotel. What had taken place was not written in 
 his face, at least, and he fell, almost as soon as he 
 had lighted his cigar and settled himself in his seat, 
 into talking, to my surprise, of Rachel, always of 
 Rachel. 
 
 " I had," he said gravely, " to tell her the details of 
 her father's troubles since she saw him last." As he 
 smoked, Ross told me the whole story of the last days 
 of Governor Beauchamp. 
 
 On leaving Ocklawahaw before the war began, as 
 has been described, the old politician entered upon 
 another of the many intermittent stages of his career. 
 The astute wire-workers knew well enough what they 
 were about when they returned in triumph from the 
 Reservation bringing the exiled statesman with them. 
 He was made Governor in a whirlwind of enthusiasm. 
 But it was the old story over again with him of alter 
 nate popularity and yet greater unpopularity follow 
 ing swiftly thereupon. In this case there was good 
 reason for it. Hardly had he been inaugurated before 
 the secession of the South came. During the earn-
 
 250 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 paign Governor Beauchamp had dealt in generalities. 
 No man could have been more eloquent than he as to 
 the usurping purposes in general of the North, that is, 
 if this, he said, and that, and the other were so. But 
 when Governor, and called on to take an active part 
 for secession, he first hesitated, then halted, then en 
 gaged in vigorous resistance. To the utmost of his 
 ability he threw his ponderous person against the 
 whole movement. Not a drop of liquor did he touch. 
 There was no indolence now ; never had he shown 
 the energy he now put forth. Wherever he was, 
 whether in his parlor, at the Governor's mansion, 
 talking at the door of the post-office with a group of 
 trembling adherents about him and plenty of scowling 
 foes hovering around, perched upon the counter of a 
 friendly store with every straggler along the streets 
 dropping in to listen to what he had to say on the 
 supreme topic of the time, whittling, as he sat in the 
 Executive Department, at whatever white pine or bit 
 of red cedar he could lay hands upon, from the 
 beginning to the end did he pour out, in his slow 
 and drawling fashion, one unceasing tide of anecdote, 
 argument, ridicule, denunciation against secession, 
 with prophecy exceedingly definite as to its certain 
 and disastrous ending. But he was only one man 
 against many thousand. Deposed from office, he re 
 tired to his plantation, and lived there for a year or 
 two in deepest obscurity and ignominy. His intense 
 hatred to secession may have furnished alcohol in 
 itself more than sufficient, for he never drank again. 
 Theje was something unspeakably affecting in* the
 
 > NOT YET. 251 
 
 devotion of the old hero to the Union he had 
 always loved so well. Cast out by those who had 
 once flattered and fawned upon him, his white hairs 
 streaming as it were upon the midnight tempest of 
 the war raging about him, absolutely alone in his un 
 shaken faithfulness to what he regarded, against every 
 personal advantage, as true and right, he was as King 
 Lear bearing in his arms the dead Cordelia. Not a 
 man in his region as large of stature, as vigorous, 
 seemingly, and notwithstanding his years, as he, yet 
 the pure agony of the thing was too much for him. 
 He hoped against hope ; with every breath he pre 
 dicted the destruction of the Confederacy; but, when 
 the cause he so detested seemed sure of success, he 
 could endure it no longer. In his devotion to the 
 Union he seemed to have forgotten the existence even 
 of his daughter, ajjd died at last of a broken heart. 
 
 It was after his death that Ross contrived to wring 
 enough money out of the neglected plantation to re 
 mit to the daughter ; for she was the only heir. Let 
 it be added that, with the downfall of secession, the 
 Governor entered, all the more that he was dead, upon 
 a greater popularity than ever, and one which prom 
 ises, in the pages of history, to endure forever. 
 
 Ross rehearsed the story to me as he had to Rachel. 
 " That man, McAllister," he went on, " will use his 
 old-time companionship with the Governor to advance 
 himself with her. It is natural that she should for 
 get everything now, except the really grand and noble 
 traits of her father, and McAllister, the rascal, will 
 profit by it."
 
 252 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 My friend should not have evaded me in my desire 
 to know how he was pleased with the changes in 
 Rachel and Persis, if I had known then, as I did after 
 ward, the depth of his interest in one of them. It 
 may have been intended to throw me off from learning 
 this ; for he went on to speak of the condition of things 
 in the State in which he now lived, and of which 
 the old Governor had been the alternate idol and 
 abhorrence. That led me to urge upon him to use 
 his popularity, as one who had fought as he had done, 
 for the best interests of the State, now sorely in need 
 of wise leaders; although I would much rather have 
 talked of Persis instead. 
 
 From the moment of his coming I could not but 
 see how shy he was in speaking to me of her, nor 
 could I bring him to do so while he was with me. 
 He told me instead, of his plans, so far as he had any, 
 for, like everybody else in his region, all business for 
 some time to come was broken up. The fact is, for 
 the present, my friend was, although he said nothing 
 to me about it, an almost penniless man. There was 
 reason enough in that for holding himself aloof for 
 the time from even Persis. He was in no condition 
 to talk to any one of marriage, nor could he tell when 
 he would be. Since I have come to know things, I 
 am very sure it must have drained him for the time 
 of his last cent to have made the long journey to see 
 her. But it was little he said to me about her or 
 himself, and in a day or two he had gone. But I 
 could not understand why he seemed to be so reluc 
 tant to allude to Persis ; it was as if there was some 
 thing in me which prevented !
 
 NOT YET. 253 
 
 I was unusually busy those days. In sucli intervals 
 of my hurried life as I could get, I wrote some of 
 it on the cars, most of it in hospitals such a book 
 as the times prompted. When Ross arrived it was 
 passing through the press. Now, a thing looks in 
 print very different from what it does in manuscript. 
 You may be very comfortable in your chosen apart 
 ment while the blinds are shut and the curtains are 
 down; but putting your scrawls into print is like 
 tearing open shutter and curtain, and letting in the piti 
 less sunshine ; the revelation of litter and flying dust 
 is remorseless. It was this prevented me from seeing 
 my friends for some time after Eoss departed. As 
 soon as I could get away from my work, I called upon 
 Mrs. Trent. 
 
 " I have understood," she said soberly, " why you 
 did not call before." Her general aspect was as if I 
 had lost a father or a mother since she saw me last, 
 except that she could not condole with me as openly. 
 There was a tender sympathy in her silence, an 
 avoidance as of something which must be painful 
 to me. More than once, when I spoke of Eoss or of 
 the young ladies, she lifted pitying eyes at me, and 
 proceeded to tell me how Jean had hurt her hand, 
 or some recent and surprising smartness of little 
 Guernsey. 
 
 "I happened to be with them," she remarked at 
 last, and when she could escape the topic no longer, 
 "with Persis, I mean, arid Eachel, when Colonel 
 Urwoldt called." Mrs. Trent would not have been 
 a woman had she not been more eager to speak about
 
 254 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 that than anything; but she did so hesitatingly, as 
 if she feared to pain me. " Knowing how busy Persia 
 always is," she said by piecemeal, " I never go up to 
 their room. That day I was with them in the parlor, 
 about to leave after a short visit, they are generally 
 so busy, when the door-bell rang. Rachel was look 
 ing out of the window, Persis was unusually bright 
 and well. She was telling me what she intended to 
 do. A fine situation as teacher is .soon to be vacant, 
 and she was making every effort to secure it. She is 
 a remarkable girl, Mr. Guernsey, but already too 
 tensely strung by temperament, and our atmosphere 
 exhilarates her like wine. Dr. Trent says that, con 
 sidering the excitements of the city, the air is too 
 stimulating for enduring health. I have never seen 
 her looking as well Eachel is the picture of health, 
 in her way, you know. Persis was positively brill 
 iant. She seems to develop substance, too. I hope 
 so; she is always so excited, enthusiastic. Rachel 
 must have seen to it, for Persis was dressed that day 
 plainly, but in admirable taste. Her cheeks were all 
 in a glow of hope of securing the situation ; her lips 
 were like scarlet, her eyes were very bright. She has 
 fine eyes, Mr. Guernsey." 
 
 " Very fine," I assented, not altogether understand 
 ing why my friend mentioned it as if it were a 
 calamity. 
 
 " I think she has improved more than she would 
 have done had she been born here." My companion 
 did not lift her eyes from the fancy work she was do 
 ing as she said it.
 
 NOT YET. 255 
 
 " Yes," I assented ; " it is as when one has to ran 
 before taking a leap, it gives that much more impulse. 
 It is better for her that she was born and had lived 
 so long in Ocklawahaw. The newness of everything 
 here, the contrast with all that went before, is itself 
 an influence upon her. It develops a rosebush to 
 transplant it, you know." 
 
 " Yes ; she has an energy, a fire, beyond what I 
 hoped for when she first came. You do think her a 
 really remarkable woman ? " Mrs. Trent looked at 
 me as a mother might at an ailing child. 
 
 " I have not met a lady whom I admire more, nor," 
 I added, " of whose future I am more confident. A 
 new order of your sex is coming upon the stage, my 
 dear madam, a race of more highly educated women 
 than has yet been seen, and she is growing to be as 
 fine an instance of it as I know." 
 
 Mrs. Trent gave a little shiver, or was it a shudder ? 
 " She has always seemed to be so interested in you 
 and in your books, Mr. Guernsey ! " And my friend 
 worked steadily on, her eyes upon her work. 
 
 "Much more than I or they deserve. It is her 
 kindness, her enthusiasm for books in general. I 
 have enjoyed her society very much. But you were 
 there," I asked, " when Colonel Urwoldt called ? " 
 
 " I told you long ago how much the Eev. Mr. 
 Adair admires her. It must," said Mrs. Trent, stop 
 ping to think, " have been five, no, eight months ago, 
 that I told you about that." It was as if she were 
 defending herself. "You do remember that I told 
 you, Mr. Guernsey ? "
 
 256 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 " I do. Everybody knows that. But," I demanded, 
 " you have not told me about " 
 
 "The visit of Colonel Urwoldt?" Mrs. Trent inter 
 rupted me. Evidently she was in haste now to tell 
 me and be done with it. "As I said, Rachel was 
 standing looking out of the window. She is a fine 
 girl, Mr. Guernsey. In her way, you must consent 
 to it, she is also a very excellent girl. She is more 
 matronly in her ways than Persis. I am afraid she 
 does not care for literature in general, not as much 
 so as Persis. You find her interesting company, do 
 you not ? " 
 
 " Certainly I do," I replied, and my friend added, 
 
 " So far as physical development goes, I think she 
 is very beautiful, more beautiful than Persis. And, 
 then, she has such excellent sense. It is a pity she 
 does not take to books, but then " There was almost 
 a pathos in Mrs. Trent's manner as she pleaded 
 with me for Rachel. " Mr. McAllister," she con 
 tinued, "almost worships her. He is an old friend 
 of her father's. They say he is very rich. I am told 
 he takes her driving very often. He is getting up a 
 superb monument to the memory of Governor Beau- 
 champ. Rachel showed me some of the designs. 
 Persis is full of enthusiasm over the Governor's last 
 days. Yes," Mrs. Trent weighed the matter slowly, 
 and settled it with a conclusive nod forever, " Rachel 
 is much more beautiful than Persis ! It may not 
 be a purely intellectual beauty, but she is the most 
 evenly balanced girl I know. You are not going, 
 Mr. Guernsey ? Wait a moment and Steven will
 
 NOT YET. 257 
 
 be in. But I was telling you," and Mrs. Trent also 
 arose, "of the day Colonel Urwoldt called. As I 
 told you, Persis was in full career, laughing, talking 
 of her plans, her face turned from the door toward 
 me, when the bell rang and the stupid servant 
 showed the visitor into the parlor without a word. 
 I saw a dark-visaged, handsome, stern-faced military 
 man standing there, and touched the arm of Persis. 
 I wish," Mrs. Trent said it very sadly, "you could 
 have seen her face as she turned and saw who it was. 
 I am sorry to tell you, but I feel that I ought." 
 
 "What do you mean?" My face must have ex 
 pressed something more than I intended, for I fan 
 cied that the eyelids of my friend grew moist. 
 
 " How could I help seeing it ? " she said. " How 
 can I help telling it now ? As soon as Persis saw 
 him her eyes fairly glittered, her hands went out 
 toward him, she made a joyous movement forward, 
 checked herself, flushed, turned pale, was terribly 
 confused. It looked as if all her years of education 
 were gone in an instant, as if she was only a poor 
 little country school-girl again ! And the moment 
 before she seemed," Mrs. Trent said indignantly, " to 
 be so erect and strong." 
 
 Dr. Trent came in at the moment, and his wife 
 made no attempt to detain me, when I left soon 
 after. 
 
 But even good Mrs. Trent did not knoAv everything. 
 It was Persis she was most concerned for when I 
 saw her next. " I cannot understand you men ! " she 
 said to me as sharply as if I had been doing some- 
 
 17
 
 258 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 thing wrong. She was mortified, angry. " There is 
 no understanding you," she said, " no comprehending 
 one of you ! " 
 
 " Is that so ? " I sadly assented. Little Guernsey 
 was standing beside me with his wonted grasp upon 
 my trousers, and I lifted him between us as a shield, 
 kissed him and set him down. " Why will you cut 
 his curls off?" I complained. "Is it to keep him 
 sheared of all mystery ! Poor little fellow, your 
 head is as round as a billiard ball." 
 
 " Why did you not bring Colonel Urwoldt to see 
 us ? " Mrs. Trent eyed me with suspicion. " I gave 
 him a special invitation to do so that day before I 
 left him to the girls. And Steven was his class 
 mate. I had arranged to have Persis and Rachel 
 meet you at tea. Why was it ? " 
 
 "He would not come, ma'am," I said, humbly 
 enough for the two ; " events have soured him a little. 
 He does not feel at home among us yet. But we 
 shall see him again. Unless I am mistaken, he will 
 take a high position. In his own region he is con 
 sidered the ablest, the most energetic of men." 
 
 "Mr. Guernsey," Mrs. Trent spoke in an injured 
 manner, " I had hoped you had known me long 
 enough to make a friend of me. Do you suppose 
 I am blind ? I know you, sir, better than you know 
 yourself. No man has a more loving heart. You 
 have worked hard, have been tossed from post to 
 pillar, are cut off from your own home. I know no 
 gentleman who is more domestic than yourself, more 
 keenly sensitive to the joys of a home life. Nothing
 
 NOT YET. 259 
 
 more natural ! I would have been astonished, un- 
 ler the circumstances, if you had not ! " 
 
 " Had not ? " I had the aspect of an idiot ; inwardly 
 I knew only too well what she meant. 
 
 " Had not fallen in love with her. It was natural 
 you should come to love her." Mrs. Trent grew rosy 
 red, with temper too, as if defying somebody. " What 
 could be more natural ? Persis is of an ardent nature. 
 She worships genius. And then you have been more 
 than a brother to her since she came. Do I not 
 know how highly she esteems you? Rachel is as 
 good, as beautiful, as excellent a girl as lives, but 
 Persis can sympathize with you ! " 
 
 "My dear madam," I gasped, my cheeks uncom 
 fortably warm, " you forget. Colonel Urwoldt " 
 
 "Colonel Urwoldt !" The name became an epithet as 
 she spoke it. " That is your weakness, Mr. Guernsey. 
 You can no more appreciate yourself than if you 
 were a child of three years old. Colonel Urwoldt ! Is 
 he, ignorant, uncultured, a mere soldier as he is, is 
 lie fitted to make Persis happy ? Mr. Guernsey," the 
 eyes of the good lady lighted up with the sudden in 
 tuition, " that is the reason he dared not bring affairs 
 to a point. He saw how superior she was ; he dared 
 not, dared not!" 
 
 " You are prejudiced, madam." I hastened to say 
 that at least before I made my escape. "Colonel 
 Urwoldt is nearer my idea of the original man, the 
 native gentleman, than " I saw in Mrs. Trent's eyes 
 that she demanded exception to be made for her 
 husband, but I would n't do it " than any man I
 
 260 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 know ! He has been disappointed in people. Unless 
 I mistake, he has set his whole life upon Miss 
 Persis ! " It was said at a venture, for I did not 
 dream then how much this was so. " If he is dark 
 and stern," I went on, " he is also the sincerest, most 
 self-sacrificing of men. At heart he abhorred slavery 
 more, because he knew it better, because it was his 
 own region it cursed, than any one even in this city 
 dreamed of doing. If he could have done so, he 
 would infinitely rather have fought against it and for 
 the Union ; that I do know ! As it is, he is like a 
 man in a swamp who has struggled, is struggling 
 desperately to plant his foot upon solid ground. If 
 you but knew how hungrily he yearns toward what 
 he has not!" Mrs. Trent looked at me in amaze 
 ment I spoke so warmly, but how little either of us 
 imagined the tragic facts of the case ! " The day is 
 coming," I added, " when he will be one of the best- 
 known men in the land. Persis will be proud of 
 him ! " 
 
 There was no use of saying anything. Mrs. Trent 
 had fallen back into the arctic intrenchmeuts of a 
 woman's sense of infallibility, in comparison to which 
 that of the Pope is a trifle, and she smiled pityingly 
 upon me as I tried to break away. But she added, 
 
 " I will not detain you a moment. And I know 
 that Persis does have, as I said, a certain girlish feel 
 ing for your friend. But that is not her true self. 
 She has really outgrown all that. Consider, Mr. 
 Guernsey, that she is one of the most accomplished 
 of women, and she is developing into something higher
 
 NOT YET. 261 
 
 every day. It is to you she is suited ; she will be a 
 living and powerful impulse to you as long as you 
 live. From the first, Steven and myself have set our 
 heart upon it. You owe it to yourself, you owe it to 
 her." 
 
 Never had I seen Mrs. Trent so much in earnest. 
 I was half out of the door when she laid her hand 
 upon my shoulder. " So much is involved," she said. 
 " I have always been to you as your own sister. If 
 you will tell me one thing, I will never trouble you 
 again. Mr. Guernsey, solemnly now, have you not 
 fallen in love ? " 
 
 Only a woman like Mrs. Trent would have asked 
 it. Years before I had been tempted to a wild pas 
 sion for a Mrs. Thirlmore, a married woman, but that 
 was a fever from which I recovered. I suppose I am 
 a child, for now I liud fallen in love, for really the 
 first time in my life, as desperately in love as a man 
 can ! I do not know what Mrs. Trent saw in my face, 
 but in the act of my leaving she kissed me impul 
 sively upon the forehead. It was the woman in her, 
 not the sister, but that which is most purely and in 
 tensely the woman of a woman, the mother in 
 her, which made her do it. 
 
 " I knew it ! " she said in triumph, and let me go.
 
 262 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTEK XXII. 
 
 PICNIC. 
 
 NOT another syllable passed between Mrs. Trent 
 and myself upon the subject which had inter 
 ested us so much. I think she was sorry she had 
 gone as far as she had, for she tutored her eyes, too, 
 that nothing might remind me afterward of how she 
 had forced my secret from me. I think she had a 
 more tender interest in me, as in Persis, thereafter ; 
 but she was doubly careful, was comparatively cold 
 toward us, the more effectually to make us feel at 
 ease. 
 
 Persis and Eachel seemed to be about the same. 
 Speaking of the last, it is due her to say that she was, 
 as Mrs. Trent said, improved in every sense since 
 coming among us ; she was more refined, if not more 
 placid. The contour and color of her cheeks, the 
 deepening interest and attention in her serene eyes, 
 the very poise of her rounded person, was reaching 
 a repose, too, of manner which was to her sterling 
 sense as the motionless transparency of the water of 
 a little loch, such as one sees among the hills of 
 Scotland, is to its granite bottom. 
 
 Persis was developing, also, along the lines of her 
 nature. When it first occurred to me that she was
 
 PICNIC. 263 
 
 not unlike a racer of the best blood, I cast out the 
 suggestion with scorn. And yet no better illustration 
 has come to me since. I have a fondness for a horse 
 of the purest breed and training such as I have for 
 the sea, because both are in unceasing motion. It is 
 .iot the sleek sides, the arched neck, the delicate pas 
 terns, the clear eyes, the fine ears, the thin nostrils, of 
 this animal, the next of all to man, which I care for, 
 except as these indicate and answer so easily to its 
 excess of life. There are times when you see the 
 speed of a spirited horse ; you can always feel it strug 
 gling against your rein. Now, with deepest respect 
 for Miss Paige, I could no more refrain from recog 
 nizing this resemblance in her than I could from 
 noting the likeness of a fox to one man, a jackal to 
 another, a leopard to Eoss Urwoldt, we will say. 
 She possessed a sinewy, even intense intellect, to 
 begin with. Her hard life with her grandfather had 
 developed it, and from too early a period. The long 
 waiting in Ocklawahaw had deepened her purpose 
 while it quickened her impatience. Now that she 
 had opportunity, she had given herself to that op 
 portunity with what would have been called excess 
 had it been an affair of dress, fashion, going into 
 society, instead of education. Moreover, she grew 
 by what she fed upon, until she was coming to feel 
 that a certain repression, almost suppression of her 
 self, was at once her hardest and most essential duty. 
 It was this that I noticed in her, toward me espe 
 cially, after the visit of Colonel Urwoldt. 
 
 " I think that even Eachel has studied too hard,"
 
 264 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 Mrs. Trent said to me one July morning, a month or 
 two afterward. " You, too, are worn out, Mr. Guern 
 sey. Dr. Trent cannot take the time, but your book 
 is out now ; we need a vacation, all of us. If you 
 will take us to the Island, we will go. You know 
 that you can imagine yourself at your own island 
 home again when you are there, and this island is 
 not two hours away." 
 
 Of course I assented, and it was thus that we came 
 to go together upon the picnic of which I am now to 
 speak. Good Mrs. Trent took along a large hamper, 
 and her colored coachman to carry it; but I knew 
 that she took with her, also, some leading motive in 
 having the girls and myself with her, which I re 
 frained from looking into ; like the closed hamper to 
 my incipient appetite, it satisfied me, for the present, 
 merely to know that it was a good and sufficient mo 
 tive, and that it was there. 
 
 The island to which Mrs. Trent referred was a 
 dozen or so of acres of rock and sand and straggling 
 grass and huckleberry-trees, down. the harbor. As 
 yet it had escaped the eye of enterprise ; not a hotel 
 was erected there, not a steamer touched at it. A 
 lighthouse stood upon its highest point, but I doubt 
 if a kid slipper had ever pressed its lonely sands. 
 Dr. Trent and I discovered it long before when upon 
 a fishing- excursion, but we had sworn the skipper 
 of the sailing-boat which took us there to tell no 
 man of its advantages ; and it was he, his boat 
 scrubbed for the purpose, who carried us there on the 
 occasion of which I am now speaking.
 
 PICNIC. 265 
 
 By agreement we met on the appointed hour at the 
 boat after a very early breakfast and before the sun 
 was up, Mrs. Trent and her children, Miss Rachel, 
 Miss Persis, and myself. Already it gave promise of 
 being a perfect day. 
 
 " I knew it, " Mrs. Trent said, as we settled our 
 selves, hamper, coachman, and all, in the boat, and 
 pushed off from the wharf, " knew it as soon as I 
 woke. One feels what sort of day it is before the 
 shutters are thrown open." 
 
 She was right. There are some mornings when 
 one does not like to be too closely looked at before 
 ten o'clock by one's most intimate friend, when you 
 refrain from bestowing upon the one next you at the 
 breakfast-table more than a glance and a curt good- 
 morning. The weather is to be reckoned by what it 
 does within rather than without you, and the measure 
 of your inner sunshine is that you love to see and 
 speak to everybody, that you see clearly, and do not 
 shrink from being seen. Nobody said so, but I think 
 we all felt this as we took a look at each other and 
 then at the sea opening out before us. For some time 
 we were almost entirely silent in our contentment 
 with the hour. There was breeze enough to fill our 
 sails, but the water was smooth, the sky clear. Over 
 coats and shawls were in use, but the coolness was 
 not more than enough to give edge to our pleasure. 
 
 "I dare say," Persis remarked at last, "that the 
 novelty of being up and out at such an hour has 
 something to do with it." 
 
 " Yes," Rachel said slowly ; " it reminds me of how
 
 266 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 it is with me when I am asleep. I always sleep 
 sweetly, but I love to wake about midnight, and 
 change my position, and go to sleep again." 
 
 The eyes of Jean grew rounder as she listened to 
 the words. " Miss Kachel ! " she said, in accents 
 of reproof, and the laugh which followed helped to 
 wake us up. 
 
 "What I meant," Rachel explained with rising 
 color, " was that one likes a change. In little things, 
 I mean. You love to walk after sitting, to sit after 
 walking, to rest after studying. I enjoy it." 
 
 " And to study after resting. Vacation is only be 
 gun," Persis went on, " and I am already looking for 
 ward with pleasure to books again. See how crisp 
 the water is ! " Little Guernsey, holding firmly to 
 me as he knelt upon the seat, was looking where she 
 pointed, at the foam made by the boat as our speed 
 increased. 
 
 " Is it soda-water ? " he asked of me in confidence ; 
 but Jean, on the other side of me, heard it, and her 
 laugh had in it the same freshness as of sea and air. 
 For what is the peculiar charm, of the dawn of a 
 beautiful day but its likeness to childhood ? There 
 was a tender veil upon the coming clearness, a creamy 
 hue on sky and water. It may be because one rises 
 refreshed by sleep, because every sense is hungrier 
 and more sensitive at that hour ; but nature meets you 
 then as if it also had awakened from darkness and 
 slumber to a new life. There is a tremor in earth 
 and air as of eagerness to enjoy and be enjoyed. 
 The colors of nature, lavender, ashes of roses, dewy
 
 PICNIC. 267 
 
 pink, were delicate and variable like those of infancy. 
 Toward noon our sunburned skipper would have 
 something to sav, but even he was as silent now as 
 
 O w * 
 
 the coachman beside his hamper in the prow. The 
 silence and the colors seemed to go together ; it was 
 an enjoyment as delicate as the changing hues about 
 us. We tacked this way and that, as we went down 
 the harbor, passing now a fisherman's scrap of an 
 island upon the one hand, and then a fort with can 
 non threatening and sentinels pacing the ramparts on 
 the other, and upon all rested the same silence as of 
 sleep slowly passing into wakening. Fishing-boats 
 sailed by us coming in from the sea, now singly, now 
 in little fleets ; but these too were as silent as if in a 
 picture. Then the glow in the east grew rapidly 
 from gray to gold, giving us the royal reason thereof 
 in the sun rising out of the sea. As if some pro 
 hibition was lifted therewith, we laughed and talked 
 freely enough until we reached, and landed upon, our 
 island. 
 
 On the instant we were Robinson Crusoes, every 
 soul of us, with the peculiarity of pleasure which 
 belongs to nothing else, and we climbed the rocks 
 with the old, old enthusiasm which is ever new. 
 After that we visited the keeper of the light, climbed 
 his tower, and inspected his lanterns. 
 
 " He is so lonely," said Persis as we went, " that he 
 will be delighted to see us. We will be a joy to him, 
 a glad surprise." 
 
 She at least should have been such to him, so over 
 flowing was she with an almost feverish enjoyment :
 
 268 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 but she was mistaken ; we were nothing of the kind ; 
 indeed, I fear we were little more to him than the 
 sea-gulls. To us the island was a temporary Eden. 
 To him it was so many rocks, such and such strips 
 of sand covered and uncovered by the tide, a few 
 stunted trees, so much work tending his lamps, so 
 many dollars' salary. He had been there for many 
 years; had grown tall and lank and silent as his 
 tower. We were conscious of being frivolous in com 
 parison, as we moved about him asking questions. 
 Evidently he despised our laughter ; what was there to 
 laugh at ? We could arouse no enthusiasm in him 
 by our questions as to the terrible storms he had 
 experienced, he had grown so used to everything. 
 The only smile which broke like a ray of sunshine 
 upon the wintry coast of his aspect was when, before 
 we left, we shared our dinner with him. 
 
 " It would kill me to live here, but," Persis said, 
 "it would suit Rachel admirably." 
 
 "Except that it would break Major McAllister's 
 heart, we might," Mrs. Trent laughed, " marry Rachel 
 to the lighthouse-keeper. He is so useful a man. 
 Rachel might love him for that." 
 
 " He would do as well as Mr. Adair." Rachel said 
 it with all simplicity, but it was something new to 
 me, the way in which Persis colored, while Mrs. Trent 
 laughed so heartily that I asked who Mr. Adair was. 
 As if I did not know ! 
 
 "He is keeper of another lighthouse," she ex 
 plained ; " but his lantern is of a newer fashion, arid 
 revolves more rapidly ! "
 
 PICNIC. 269 
 
 I fear there was a spice of spite in Mrs. Trent, for 
 I knew very well everybody knew him that 
 Mr. Adair was a clergyman of a more liberal school 
 than hers, and who, as I had long heard, was paying 
 Persis much attention, being himself unmarried. 
 
 " I am hungry," Persis suggested ; " suppose we eat 
 our dinner." 
 
 We made the entire round of the island, first, that 
 we had resolved upon, peering into every nook and 
 cranny as we went. Then we dined upon the highest 
 point of rock. Our skipper must have made a sat 
 isfactory disposition of the share of dinner we sent 
 him, for we could see how sound asleep he was after 
 ward on the deck of his boat anchored out from the 
 shore. Jean and little Guernsey were off fishing in 
 the landlocked pools under the care of the coachman, 
 after he had himself eaten his dinner, and taken to 
 the man in the lighthouse, with our compliments, 
 what was left of Mrs. Trent's superabundant supply 
 of ham and tongue, corned beef and jelly, pies and 
 cakes. " I think he will despise our sardines," Persis 
 said. " They are an insult, they are such little fish, 
 to him and to his ocean. But why is it," she added, 
 when we had settled ourselves, after eating, upon the 
 rocks, " why is it that one enjoys a rock so when 
 the sea is dashing against it ? Is it a sense of security 
 as against danger ? " 
 
 " Yes," I replied ; " but we enjoy it most because 
 it is the contrast of stillness and solidity with eternal 
 motion and variety." 
 
 As I said it I glanced from Persis to Kachel, from
 
 270 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 Rachel to Persis. The latter was all the more energetic 
 in that she was taller, but weighed little more than 
 when she came to the city. Her eyes seemed larger, 
 if her cheeks were a trifle thinner. By a strange 
 blending of the two, she was paler and yet more 
 brilliant of color than I had observed before. Al 
 though she was evidently tired, she could not be at 
 rest. She had on a neatly fitting dress of some drab 
 material, but she threw aside her hat at the earliest 
 moment, and was reckless as to her dress in clamber 
 ing among the rocks, her hair breaking from its con 
 finement as she went. Nor was she without plenty 
 to say. 
 
 " You know I had not seen the ocean until I came 
 East," she explained ; " to see it every day is the best 
 part of my life here. Rachel says that she could live 
 in Ocklawahaw again ; I could not. It is so small 
 there, so close, so shut in and dull and dead ! I feel 
 as if I began to live when I came here ; everything 
 going before is like a blank." 
 
 I saw Mrs. Trent looking at me from behind where 
 Persis stood, for she could not sit still Persis, I 
 mean for an instant. What Mrs. Trent said with 
 her eyes was, " She is growing very pretty, is n't 
 she ? " What I meant by my nod was, " Yes, she 
 is indeed. But she will be much more so some 
 day." I was aware next that the question had gone 
 out of Mrs. Trent's eyes, and the pitying look at me, 
 the hovering look, had entered instead. I turned to 
 glance at Rachel. 
 
 "I prefer to walk around these big boulders in-
 
 PICNIC. 271. 
 
 stead of climbing over them," she had said from the 
 outset, and now she remained where she was when 
 she first sat down to dinner. I do not think her dress 
 was of a finer material than that of Persis, but there 
 was greater care displayed, I should say, in the ruffs 
 about her throat, the cuffs about her quiet hands, the 
 nameless pleatings and arrangements of ribbons. 
 There is a perpetual change about such things, a 
 diversity of cut and color, but I class it with the 
 bewildering variety one sees among flowers, leaf and 
 petal, stamen and pistils. I enjoy it, but I would 
 break down if I were a dry-goods clerk and had to 
 name and put a price upon it inch by inch. What 
 ever her dress was, Eachel had composed it carefully 
 around her ; it had an almost liquid flow about her per 
 son as she sat, her hands in her lap, looking out upon 
 the sea with calm eyes. Yes, she was becoming, as 
 Mrs. Trent remarked, so far as face and form went, 
 more beautiful than Persis, and she merely sat and 
 smiled and listened, when Persis, incited by Mrs. 
 Trent, began badgering me about my books. No one 
 would have thought or spoken about them anywhere 
 else; it was part of the picnic freedom, and a going 
 back to our childhood on the part of us every one, to 
 allude to them at all. We had simply nothing else 
 just then to do. 
 
 "You have a bad habit of changing the subject 
 when any one speaks about your books," Mrs. Trent 
 said. " It is not polite, is it, Persis ? Besides, we 
 are off among the rocks, far away from people." 
 
 " If you will count," I said, " it is every seventh
 
 272 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 wave which comes against this rock with the greatest 
 force. There is rhythm in nature, and seven is the 
 number of perfection. Count ! One, two, three, four, 
 five, six waves look out for the next whish ! 
 boom ! Did you ever notice it before ? Keep off' the 
 edge of the rock, Miss Persis ; it is slippery." 
 
 " Which is not the question," the young lady ob 
 served. "Tell us about what you have written." 
 
 There may have been some small conspiracy, but 
 there was sucli persistence in the matter that I said 
 at last, " Once for all I will tell you everything. I 
 don't want to talk about my productions for this 
 reason. When I begin at a book it is because I have 
 a mustard-seed of an idea of something I want to 
 say. It is a very small seed, microscopic, but it 
 grows. You would n't believe it, knowing the result 
 as you do, but, as I write, I fall into the absurdest 
 infatuation. Day after day I tear away at it until 
 it is ended. One becomes merely the secretary and 
 slave of the men and women in the book, a hard- 
 worked amanuensis whose very existence they ignore. 
 They do what they please, say what they like ; one 
 has nothing to do with it except to write it out. 
 Friends blame me for making my characters, as 
 they call them, act in this way or the other. How 
 can I help it ! I have for them the yearning of a fee 
 ble and helpless parent. It pains me, shocks me, for 
 them to do this and that. I know it is not artistic 
 for them to act as they do. Moreover, I love them 
 dearly, the worst of them the most, although they 
 care nothing for me. As to controlling them, I never
 
 PICNIC. 273 
 
 attempt to do so. There is the pleasure, as of a 
 faithful slave, in toiling after them ; that is all. I say 
 as I work, Surely these people are living people, will 
 live forever. Alas, as soon as I stop writing they are 
 dead.- So is my hope." 
 
 " I do not understand," Persis said. She had seated 
 herself near me with an eagerness which had to do 
 with something quite beyond what I was saying. 
 " Your hope ? What do you mean ? " she asked. 
 
 " It is hard," I said, " for a mother when her baby 
 boy turns out to be an idiot, and I suppose it was 
 the wildness of my hope ; but no man, not an author, 
 can tell how bitterly I, at least, am disappointed in 
 the baby of my brain when I come to get a square 
 look at it ! The disgust you have for your completed 
 manuscript was deep enough. To compare small things 
 to great, you remember how Sheridan wrote under the 
 last line of his ' School for Scandal,' ' Thank God, I 'm 
 done with this detestable thing at last ! ' So with me 
 in my poor way, my bitterest critics could not dislike 
 my book as sincerely as I do, except that I have more 
 pity than they, knowing, as I do, the ideal, and the 
 effort toward it." 
 
 I talked very freely with my friends ; but then I 
 have very few intimate friends, exceeding few, and it 
 is only with such that I can be said to talk at all. 
 This was the first time I had spoken even to these 
 of my books, and I determined it should be the last. 
 So I added, 
 
 " A writer must have enough of what is called the 
 dramatic instinct to put himself in the place of his 
 
 18
 
 274 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 characters. But it is into the shoes of my unfriend- 
 liest critic I put my feet most easily. ' Dear enemy, 
 if you only knew ! ' I say to him." And then I 
 lifted an honest hand against the kind things the 
 ladies were trying to say. " Being personal friends, 
 you take an interest where," I said, " others care, of 
 course, nothing at all. Do you remember what 
 your ugliest rag doll was to you when you were chil 
 dren ? To you it was alive, and, homely as it was, 
 it was your own. So with me. Ah, if you did but 
 know how real to me are my people until they 
 leave me. And then to see, as they go out into 
 a hostile because clear-seeing world, how little they 
 resemble what I intended them to be. They wander 
 out, hand in hand, like noodles, when to me they were 
 so real, so noble, so true ! ' It is not your fault,' I 
 cry after them; 'it is because I could not put you 
 into the decent clothing of such language as would 
 help people of the world to see you as you are. But 
 I did my best. Good-by. I will hear of you no 
 more.' " My friends only laughed at me, and asked me 
 for " more." 
 
 " Da you see that cloud on the edge of the Atlan 
 tic ? " I said. " It is smoke ; the steamer which makes 
 it is under the horizon." 
 
 " Is it ? But what," Rachel said in her matter-of- 
 fact way, " has the boat to do with your books ? " 
 
 " We assert that only man has sinned. If so," I 
 demanded, " why are those little crabs fighting as they 
 are ? " and I called the attention of all to the pool left 
 by the tide in a fissure of the rocks at our feet ; " are 
 crabs wicked ? "
 
 PICNIC. 275 
 
 I am sure that the others would have let me alone 
 had Persis allowed it. Then, as always, she was so 
 eager to know, to understand ! During the time of 
 her regular studies she worked as in a groove ; but this 
 was vacation ; we were on an excursion for pleasure. 
 She was out of the groove, but the excess of effort 
 under which she had toiled so long and so hard re 
 mained. She was reacting already from rest; she 
 was restless beyond her wont, nervous, excitable. " / 
 would like to write books," she said. 
 
 " It must be such an easy thing to do," Eachel 
 added. 
 
 " To men of great powers I dare say it is," I as 
 sented. " Not to lesser men. You can judge some 
 what of a statue by the heaps of marble chippings and 
 dust out of which it arises. So of a book. It is a 
 little thing, but you have no idea out of what a mass 
 of blotted manuscript and corrected proof it emerges. 
 Only last week one of our best authors told me how 
 he was annoyed by certain words which, in writing, 
 he strove in vain to be rid of. They insisted upon 
 coming to the tip of his pen in almost every line. 
 Each writer has the parasitical words peculiar to 
 himself." 
 
 " As a rose has its own aphidce" Persis suggested. 
 
 I made no reply ; but what the distinguished author 
 really said was : " Those accursed tautological phrases 
 are to rne what lice are to a beggar. I comb my man 
 uscripts of them as well as I can, I comb what I have 
 written over again in proof, and yet the first thing I 
 see, when the volume comes to me from the press, is
 
 276 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 that every page swarms with the infernal vermin 
 still ! " I did not put it in that way to my friends, 
 but I drew comfort at the time from what lie said. 
 
 " But the reward," ejaculated Persis, " think of the 
 reward ! " 
 
 If Mrs. Trent or Eachel had said it, I would have 
 allowed the talk to end there. It was Persis, how 
 ever, and there was that in her manner which made 
 me add : " Reward ? Of course my knowledge as to 
 that is very limited. One thing every writer soon 
 comes to understand. He may have friends, may 
 make friends. These will like his productions, possi 
 bly, for the sake of the productions themselves. But 
 these like an author because they are like the author ; 
 because he is a man of their own school of thought, 
 opinion, feeling, above all, peculiar taste. What 
 he tries to say is merely what they, too, think and 
 feel, even if they do not say it. Alas, Miss Persis, 
 the world is painfully wide and diversified. There 
 are other schools of thought, too ! These are truer, 
 possibly, to what all men will think and feel in twenty 
 years, and these may be as hostile as the friends are 
 favorable. In fact, it is these who put most energy 
 gall is more vigorous than honey into what they 
 have to say of a book and its maker. A man is an 
 idiot if he does not see that he is a prejudiced person 
 concerning himself, that, in all likelihood, what his 
 enemies say of him is the truest of all that is said." 
 
 " But they, too, are partisan," Persis remarked. 
 
 " Yes ; there is," I said, " some comfort in that. But, 
 at last, what can any man do but simply perform
 
 PICNIC. 277 
 
 whatever is put in his hands to do, and as well as he 
 can ? Whatever I do must show the botch of my 
 clumsy fingers. If we could do better work, God 
 knows how gladly we would do it." 
 
 " And now," I said, getting up, " I at least have had 
 far more of Guernsey for dinner than I bargained for 
 when I sat down. Let me add only this ; no one can 
 be quite as conscious of his failures as the man him 
 self. The critic cares not a penny, but, oh, how much 
 lie, does ! Unless the desire is beyond control, Miss 
 Persis, don't don't ! " 
 
 " Don't what ? " Persis asked, a trouble in her eager 
 eyes. 
 
 " I do not know. Be a a woman." I knew it 
 was a meaningless thing to say, but I could not say 
 anything else at the instant. " Miss Rachel ? " I 
 turned as I said it to her. She was seated as when 
 she made herself comfortable from the first at the 
 table-cloth spread beside her upon the volcanic rocks. 
 Her hands still slumbered in each other upon her lap. 
 She had listened with her invariable kindness and 
 evident good sense, her eyes as steady in their soft 
 ness as were those of Ross Urwoldt in their stern 
 ness. " Miss Rachel," I said, " I want to ask a favor 
 of you." 
 
 " What is it ? " she said, with freshening interest as 
 I stood nearer to her. 
 
 " Please," I said, " please, "please do not become 
 a Madame Genlis, Recamier, De Stael ! " 
 
 " I won't," she assented smilingly. 
 
 " They were noble women, grand women, powerful
 
 278 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 women, but," I persisted, " do not allow your coming 
 to our city to make a Madame Dudevant, a George 
 Eliot, a Mrs. Somerville, least of all a Miss Martiiieau, 
 of you. You will promise me, Miss Rachel ? " 
 
 " I promise you." She said it with a sincere laugh, 
 her eyes lifted to mine in a questioning way, doubtful 
 as to how far I was in joke. Persis was looking 
 fixedly at me as I turned away and began gathering 
 up our scattered things toward going home. As I 
 came to know, she made a point to hunt up and read 
 to Rachel all she could lay her hands on afterward of 
 the lives and books of the women I mentioned, of 
 other women, also, whose names were suggested as she 
 read. She began to read them to Rachel, I should 
 say, but she could not wait to do so at last, so eager 
 was she and so rapid, so much time did she give to 
 such things. 
 
 Our skipper had been shouting to us to come for 
 some time ; the coachman and the children were al 
 ready on board the boat. The lighthouse-keeper might 
 have strolled Mrs. Trent suggested that he probably 
 would down from his rock for a moment to bid us 
 good-by, but he did not. That was his loss, as well 
 as ours. We talked about fifty things as we adjusted 
 ourselves on the boat to thwarts and boom and centre 
 board. 
 
 " We have neglected the children shamefully, and 
 for things of less interest," I said, as we went bowling 
 before a good breeze up the harbor homeward. Jean 
 and little Guernsey had their strings of fish, their 
 demoralized clothing, their renewed appetite to be
 
 PICNIC. 279 
 
 attended to. It had been a charming day to us all, 
 but we endured also the mild disappointment which 
 comes like a quieting hand upon the close of every 
 excursion. There was a conflagration in the west 
 over the setting sun, perishing like an Indian Rajah 
 upon his funeral pyre. The water darkened through 
 all shades of gold and umber, as we went, into a deep 
 bronze. Steamers were coming in from excursions, 
 with swarming decks, brass bands, flying flags, and 
 surely an extravagant use of their whistles. Pleasure- 
 boats of all sizes, sail-boats and skiffs, flitted to and 
 fro upon the water as we neared the wharves, with 
 here and there a company who yielded to the dispo 
 sition to sing which, somehow, comes upon every man 
 even as soon as he is afloat. As we sped along, and 
 the darkness began to fall, I saw that Eachel was 
 seated in the stern, her hands clasped in each other, 
 gazing peacefully upon the scene. But Persis was 
 standing in the bow of the boat, holding firmly by the 
 mast, looking into the crowded way we were going, 
 her garments on the wind. 
 
 " I wish the young lady would sit down," the skip 
 per grumbled at his helm. " I can't see how to clear 
 the craft hereabout." It was a little odd, but I was 
 thinking something of the same kind myself.
 
 280 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A LITTLE VISIT. 
 
 TN" calling upon Persis and Rachel I often saw lying 
 -*- about their parlor not only the paper which Ross 
 Urwoldt edited in the State where he now lived, but 
 other journals of the same region. Mrs. Trent ex 
 plained it to me. " Colonel Urwoldt is an old friend," 
 she said, "and the young ladies take, naturally, a 
 deep interest, also, in the condition of that part of the 
 country. From what they tell me I should say that 
 he has his hands full in trying to bring order out of 
 confusion down there." 
 
 " I keep myself as well informed as I can," I re 
 plied, " and no name is mentioned in connection with 
 affairs in that section as often as his. He writes 
 with an almost savage energy, judging by the editori 
 als of his which I have seen. He seems to be a 
 leading speaker at the conventions held there ; if he 
 speaks with as trenchant a force as he writes, he must 
 be a power for good among his people. I dare say, in 
 his public speaking as in his editorials, he is the more 
 powerful in that he indulges in personal abuse of no 
 man. For this is," I added, "an odd thing about 
 Urwoldt, he rarely alludes to persons, to persons for 
 or against him ; it is of lines of policy he speaks.
 
 A LITTLE VISIT. 281 
 
 More than any one I know he disdains, despises men ; 
 so much so that he does not express his contempt, it 
 is assumed as silent matter of course. To him great 
 Nature is everything, Nature and what he regards 
 as its unswerving laws in states as in stars. Men and 
 women are less to him than insects ; they are that 
 species of them which, unlike all other creatures, are 
 untrue to the laws of nature in them, and are there 
 fore as foolish as they are miserable. But he does 
 not say so. He is Indian in his silence also, Indian, 
 too, in his unswerving endurance and persistence 
 toward his end. In all the South I know of no man 
 who has clearer views of what is essential to its wel 
 fare, or who toils toward it with such clear-headed 
 energy. If he lives he will be among the first men 
 there of the coming times ; he may climb into recog 
 nition by the North also, who can tell ? " 
 
 " I am glad to know it, glad for her sake ! " My 
 excellent friend looked at me, as she said it, as one 
 does at a wounded man ; but I did not ask whether it 
 was of Rachel she spoke, or of Persis. " I fear," she 
 added, " that, unconscious as she may be of it, Colonel 
 Urwoldt is the chief motive to her in her studies. 
 What a girl she is ! " 
 
 " So she is," I said as I rose to go. " But it must 
 be an extraordinary woman who can capture and hold 
 in bonds such a man as my friend. I am glad to 
 know that she is improving, developing. She has 
 need to do so if she is to outrun the degree in which 
 he is every day becoming more intensely Eoss 
 Urwoldt."
 
 282 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 Now Mrs. Trent is one of the happiest of women 
 in her married life. Indeed, it is impossible to think 
 of such a woman as unmarried. Wherever you saw 
 her comely face, you would say, " I not only know 
 that she married young, but I can tell what kind of 
 husband and children she has." You would be right 
 if you were to add, " That lady, whatever her name may 
 be, takes the pleasure in matching people no one 
 more ladylike in her way of doing so that another 
 style of woman does in matching silks. Pleasure ! 
 there is nothing on earth which she enjoys quite so 
 much as drawing together and marrying the right 
 man to the right woman, if they be of the very few 
 whom she cares most for. Any one can see that in 
 one glance at her charming, matronly face." "Which 
 is all very true, so true that I knew what she meant 
 when she now met my remark about Colonel Urwoldt 
 and Miss Persis with the defiant demand, " What do 
 you mean, Mr. Guernsey ? " I understood her. She 
 was defending not Ross and Persis so much as she 
 was her plans concerning them. 
 
 "My dear madam," I explained, "I have known 
 Colonel Urwoldt for many years. No man knows 
 him so well. I have said that he thinks little of men. 
 Alas, my dear lady, he thinks even less of women ! To 
 him they are, I fear, little more than so many squaws. 
 It is worse than that. In his eyes, so far as women 
 are whiter than their red sisters of the West, by that 
 much are they the weaker of the two. As your hus 
 band has told you, as you see every day along the 
 streets for yourself, nine women out of ten have at
 
 A LITTLE VISIT. 283 
 
 least the appearance of invalids. I have observed it 
 for myself at the suggestion of Dr. Trent. When 
 Colonel Urwoldt was here I could not help mention 
 ing it to him as we walked the city. All that he 
 replied was, ' Who does not know that ? ' with hardly 
 a glance at them." 
 
 "Yes, but," Mrs. Trent broke in, "ours are educated 
 women, educated, sir ! Squaws, indeed ! " She was 
 almost angry. 
 
 " Yes, dear madam," I replied, I was in her 
 parlor at the time, "but my unfortunate friend 
 thinks that as increase of ease to women is but in 
 crease of indolence, as more money is to them merely 
 more dress and jewelry, so of their education even, 
 the more they know, only by that much the more 
 are they shall I call it artful ? no, artificial is the 
 word." 
 
 "He is worse than Mr. Adair, and he is bad enougli ! " 
 Mrs. Trent said ; but I will not repeat what she added 
 in that connection. It was not safe to accept her 
 version of that clergyman. She was one of the best 
 of women, but a born partisan, and the very warmth 
 of her nature gave her a mortal aversion to one 
 whose preaching, she averred, was as cold as it was 
 brilliant. " It is as uncertain," she explained, " as 
 many-colored, as variable as the Aurora Borealis." I 
 led the talk back to Eoss ; but Mrs. Trent was so full 
 of what she feared might prove the seductive power 
 on Persis greater than any other, that I had difficulty 
 in drawing my friend from Mr. Adair to Eoss 
 Urwoldt
 
 284 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 " He is a savage ! " she exclaimed when I was 
 through. 
 
 "He is Eoss Urwoldt," I said. "As to that, 
 pardon me, madam, but his mother was carefully 
 educated. Do you know, Mrs. Trent, education is 
 not always a thing which lasts. A woman can put it 
 on and off like a muff, or a pair of six-button gloves, 
 they have six buttons sometimes, don't they ? I know 
 men who took a thorough course in college, and yet, ten 
 years after, you would not be aware of it. Sometimes 
 it is drink which burns up the brain and everything in 
 it. In others, gluttony, greed of money, pure laziness, 
 uncultivated companionship, de-educated them." 
 
 I might have told her, but I did not, that I knew 
 at least one man, a fine scholar at college, out of 
 whom licentiousness had rotted his Latin, Greek, 
 mathematics, as utterly as it had his purity. What I 
 added was only this: "Few women are better edu 
 cated than was the mother of lioss Urwoldt; few 
 women have more native intellect, not one in a thou 
 sand has such health, and yet she slid back, as she 
 grew older, into very nearly what she was before she 
 went to school. Persis knows it, knows what Ross 
 thinks of women in general ; and it is this, too, which 
 exasperates her into the effort she is making." 
 
 Thereupon I fell to asking myself how far Ross 
 had yielded to his almost Mohammedan estimate of 
 woman during the demoralization of the war. God 
 knows ; I did not. I came nigh asking myself, also, 
 how far Persis could have thought of such things. 
 She was the one woman who, knowing the life of his
 
 A LITTLE VISIT. 285 
 
 disreputable father, knowing Eoss himself so long and 
 so well, was capable of leaving nothing out of con 
 sideration. It made all the difference in the world 
 that her home had once been in such a place as Ock- 
 lawahaw, and not in the city where she now was ; 
 that the strands of her peculiar strength had been, if 
 I may so speak, spun and woven by her own hard 
 hands there, while other girls were growing up under 
 soft showers and loving dews, mere flowers which 
 toiled not neither did they spin. But I said nothing 
 of this to Mrs. Trent. 
 
 " Don't go," she said, as I kissed Jean good-by and 
 put his hat on the head of little Guernsey to take 
 him with me. And then she resorted to a subterfuge 
 to accomplish things she thought more important. 
 
 " How well your new book is succeeding ! " she said,, 
 and added many kind words. To me any topic was 
 better, for the present, than the one we had been upon. 
 
 " Thank you," I said. " Come here, please ; " and as 
 I said it I opened the front door to go out. It was 
 winter again. There were six inches of snow on the 
 ground, and the flakes were filling the air as they fell. 
 
 " Do you know," I said, as she looked out beside 
 me, " that each flake is a wonder of beauty in its 
 angles and curves ? " 
 
 " So Steven showed me once with his microscope," 
 she said, drawing her shawl closer about her bosom. 
 " What of that ? " 
 
 " Try to pick out with your eyes and follow to the 
 earth any one of those flakes. Now, my dear 
 madam," I said, "any one of the mass of ordinary
 
 286 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 authors is a ninny if he does not know that his little 
 book is, at best, but as one flake among those myriads. 
 He does not come, do the utmost he can, within rifle 
 shot, as Ross would say, of even his idea of excellency. 
 However he may toil at the making of his own par 
 ticular flake of snow, striving at least toward perfec 
 tion of curve and angle, what is his handiwork, at 
 last, but one of a storm, so to speak, of books ? 
 These have their seasons as brief as that of these 
 fluttering flakes. After that what befalls ? Look at 
 the snow on the ground. Can you pick your favorite 
 flake out of that ? In a week the whole mass of sep 
 arate flakes, lost into the rest, will have been ground 
 under wheels, sleighs, hoofs of horses, feet of men, 
 into a dirty slush which will disappear before the 
 . first rain. What is one book ? How long does it 
 live ? What definite end does it serve ? " 
 
 " Our talking about Colonel Urwoldt has made you 
 resemble him," Mrs. Trent laughed. " Suppose your 
 flake is lost in the mass, it does its part, does n't it ? 
 to make grass greener next spring. It is Rachel who 
 said that." 
 
 " Rachel ? Persis, you mean." 
 
 " No, Rachel Not that she has read your book as 
 yet. She does n't care very much for books. When 
 Persis reads them to her, she listens. Persis reads 
 to her a great deal while she sews. She reads so 
 well it would be hard not to listen. Yesterday," 
 Mrs. Trent went on, " I was with them, and Persis 
 was saying what a pity it was there were so many 
 books. ' So there are/ Rachel said, ' but I suppose
 
 A LITTLE VISIT. 287 
 
 each book does its share.' And then she said that 
 about the snow and the grass. She is not as ambi 
 tious a girl as Persis, but," Mrs. Trent insisted, as 
 so often before and after, "a more sensible and a 
 more lovely girl I never knew. If Mr. McAllister 
 succeeds in winning her, he will have an admirable 
 wife. Sometimes I think he is only making good 
 friends with Rachel in order to have her help him 
 secure Persis. For Persis is becoming a really brill 
 iant girl. I never saw any one improve so fast." 
 
 I tried to bid my friend good-by. " You may catch 
 cold standing in the air, and," I remonstrated, " what 
 will the Doctor say but that I made you do it ? 
 Come, Guernsey. What you need is a new sled, 
 and one as red as money can buy ; let us go." 
 
 But Mrs. Trent would not release us yet. 
 
 "You would have laughed, as I did," she said, 
 clasping her hands together under Guernsey's chin as 
 he stood with his back to her, and impatient to leave. 
 " I happened to drop in on Persis and Rachel last 
 week, and " here she kissed her boy to quiet him 
 " I chanced to open the door of their parlor softly. 
 Persis was seated, her face from me, reading one of 
 Robert Browning's poems which I am sure nobody can 
 understand. For that reason, I dare say, she had se 
 lected it, and she was reading it aloud. Rachel was " 
 
 " For that reason ? What reason ? " I asked. 
 
 " Persis thinks," Mrs. Trent explained, " that what 
 is hardest to do is, for that reason, the thing of all 
 others which she must do. She took up German 
 during her last vacation to keep herself awake, for she
 
 288 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 said, she was very sleepy almost all the time. But I 
 was speaking of the day I called. While Persis was 
 reading Eobert Browning, Rachel was seated opposite, 
 ripping up, if you care to be told, an old dress, for she 
 is very economical. There are hymns one never tires 
 of, and so," Mrs. Trent was so kind as to inform me, 
 " there are old dresses which women like Rachel and 
 myself never tire of making up again and again. 
 Never mind about that. Persis was reading in her 
 animated way, and Rachel, her eyes on her work, was 
 listening faithfully. Yes, faithful is the word. It 
 does not matter whether she likes a thing or not. 
 Except that books are not such to Rachel until Persis 
 imposes them on her ; whatever is a duty, that Rachel 
 is faithful to. She reminds me almost of a yes," 
 Mrs. Trent hesitated, " of a dog in that. When she 
 saw me standing in the door she said like a child, 
 ' Oh, I am so glad ! ' and it was the way her face 
 brightened that made me laugh ! ' It is very good in 
 Persis to read to me/ she told me when her friend 
 left us for her music-lesson. ' Persis likes it. I can't 
 say I like poetry. I do not like it simply because 
 it is poetry. At least, not very much of it at a 
 time. If poets would only put what they have to 
 say in fewer words ! Why can't they tell right out 
 what they mean, and be done with it ! I know it is 
 wrong in me to say so, but I cannot help it.' The 
 poor, dear, good girl had," Mrs. Trent laughed, " such 
 a penitent look as she said it that I kissed her and 
 told her she felt exactly as I did. And I, too, Mr. 
 Guernsey," Mrs. Trent said defiantly, " would rather
 
 A LITTLE VISIT. 289 
 
 any hour hear what my Jean has to say, what little 
 Guernsey will chatter about when he comes back 
 to-day from walking with you, than any poet dead or 
 living." And with that, she let us go. 
 
 As has been said before, all the property I pos 
 sessed consisted of my island cotton-fields off the 
 Carolina coast, which I leased at the close of the war 
 to an East Tennessee man, a Mr. Adkins. For a 
 time I was alarmed lest I should have beggared that 
 gentleman thereby, for, instead of sending me my 
 rent at the times appointed, he wrote me so cogent 
 a set of reasons why he could make nothing out of 
 my fields and former slaves, that my chief regret 
 was for him. I was afterward to learn that he so 
 applied himself to his new venture as to wring 
 from my property a return which must have paid 
 him far better than years of peddling before the war, 
 and extortionate sutlership during it. This I knew 
 nothing of at the time. I could have done nothing 
 then if I had known it. What did it matter ? Not 
 a bit of a fatalist am I, and yet, as I might have 
 known then, the corn and tobacco, the bacon and the 
 beans, upon which he was to feed were in a process 
 of growth for him not more inevitable than that of 
 the switches if I may so phrase it which were 
 to whip his nakedness in due time. No certainties 
 more certain than that ! Poverty was in the end to 
 be a greater blessing to me than his ill-gotten gains 
 were to Mr. Adkins, a blessing to more than myself. 
 If the roar of cannon stimulated Southern men to des 
 perate bravery during the war, I thank God that, as 
 
 19
 
 290 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 in my own case, the dire necessities of their case 
 when the fight ended were such as to keep them 
 aroused, to impel them to yet stouter struggles in the 
 way of hard work for bread. Shocking as it may 
 sound, I -am glad that Southern women, also, were 
 awakened thereby to an exertion which lifted them 
 to and left them on a higher level of beauty and of 
 force of character than before. 
 
 Like many a better man from among them, I was 
 obliged to work very hard. Possibly my being of 
 New England blood and birth enabled me to accept 
 and adjust myself more readily to matters. I lectured 
 far and near, wrote for the daily press, was secretary 
 of a benevolent society, put out a book or two when 
 I could, was very busy from January to December ; 
 with the blessed luxury, as the result, of having a 
 few dollars to give away to those who were worse 
 crippled than myself by the war. Mrs. Trent had set 
 her heart upon marrying me to Persis Paige. I often 
 wondered that it did not come into her mind that I 
 might be too poor to marry, it would have been 
 miserable folly for me to speak as yet of marriage 
 to any one. 
 
 When I returned to my hotel after seeing little 
 Guernsey home at the time of which I have just 
 spoken, I found a letter lying on my table from Ross 
 Urwoldt. He wrote very rarely, and it must have 
 been his letter which, in connection with my visit to 
 Mrs. Trent, produced the absurd dream I had that 
 very night. I thought I was among the throngs 
 which crowded the benches, tier on tier, of the
 
 A LITTLE VISIT. 291 
 
 amphitheatre at Rome. And yet it could not have 
 been at Rome, for we were come together to see a 
 foot-race, and it ought to have been out in the fields 
 at Scyros instead, for it was Atalanta who was to run, 
 against Hippomenes, I suppose. As is always the 
 case in dreams, it was all over in an instant. It 
 is not impossible but that I had eaten too much 
 supper, for the Romans crowded me dreadfully as 
 I sat, and there was a haze as of dust and I know 
 not what difficulty and painful effort upon the scene. 
 Hippomenes flashed past me as I looked. And yet it 
 could not have been he, for I could see no golden 
 apples in his hands as he ran. His face was too 
 cold and dark for that of a lover, and he seemed to 
 be borne on like an image in the hands of an invisible 
 force, without effort or eagerness on his part. As he 
 passed out of sight in the difficult distance, Atalanta 
 sped before me, upon his track. She was kilted for 
 the course, her hair knotted upon the back of her 
 head, her arms bare to the shoulders, a dart in her 
 right hand. Her eyes were sparkling, she bent for 
 ward, her fair forehead was beaded with her effort. 
 It was but an instant, and she disappeared. Then 
 came another moment of hushed suspense. Then 
 something took place along the way they went. I 
 could not see what it was ; the dust, the difficulty, the 
 pressure upon me of the crowd, was such. It was 
 something that filled the amphitheatre with was it 
 a shout or a shudder ? and I awoke. The only 
 things clear to me were the set faces of the runners \ 
 one was Ross Urwoldt, the other Persis Paige.
 
 292 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTEK XXIV. 
 
 A RIDE INTO THE COUNTRY. 
 
 T WAS absent from the city for some time after Eoss 
 -* Urwoldt left us. Months fled by without my 
 seeing, hardly hearing from or of my friends. At 
 last I happened to have a day or two to spare during 
 one of my swallow-like returns to the city, and my 
 heart, too, came back to those for whom I cared most. 
 The habit, however, of motion was still upon me, and 
 I went one day with an open carriage and driver to 
 see if the young ladies would not like a ride. It was 
 an afternoon in the early spring, cool but summer-like. 
 I could not content myself in-doors even with them, 
 and I knew that they, too, ought to be as eager to be 
 out as any bird or bud. 
 
 I found the Eev. Augustus Marston Adair waiting 
 to see Miss Persis. Like everybody else, I had seen 
 perpetual mention of him in the papers, had heard 
 people speak of him very often. I had not met him 
 before, and was glad of the opportunity, so much the 
 more as he was generally believed to be a devoted 
 admirer of the lady upon whom he was calling, a 
 fact which made Persis somewhat of a city celebrity. 
 Mr. Adair was an undersized but admirably propor 
 tioned gentleman. His clothing fitted him like a
 
 A RIDE INTO THE COUNTRY. 293 
 
 glove, as did his peculiarities of tone and manner. 
 He had small quick eyes, sharp and black ; his hair 
 was cut short about an oval forehead ; mustaches of a 
 raven hue, and waxed to a point upon either side, 
 adorned his upper lip. He had a breadth of chin out 
 of proportion, and the aid lent to his tongue in con 
 versation by his eyes and hands gave fourfold force 
 to what he said. 
 
 I record it of Rachel with gratitude that she never 
 kept me waiting. 
 
 " Persis is very sorry," she told Mr. Adair and my 
 self after our greetings were over, " but she cannot 
 come down to-day. She is not well." 
 
 " I hope she is not seriously sick ? " Mr. Adair 
 asked. 
 
 Rachel hesitated a moment. " As a rule," she said, 
 " Persis was never so well as she is now. I did not 
 think she could endure so much hard work. It seems 
 to do her good. You would be surprised to see how 
 strong she is, what color she has ; but to-day she is 
 suffering from one of her terrible headaches. Last 
 night, as is often the case, she could not sleep. She 
 has to go to a Teachers' Institute at five, and has 
 bandaged her eyes and lain down till then, so as to be 
 able to go. She will be very sorry to miss seeing 
 you." 
 
 Immediately upon her coming in, Mr. Adair, in a 
 very gentlemanly manner, turned from me to her. "We 
 had introduced ourselves, and he was talking rapidly 
 to me ; but his interest in Persis was evident from the 
 many questions he now asked Rachel concerning her.
 
 294 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 Interested as I was for Persis myself, it gave me, all 
 the more, an opportunity of understanding her lover. 
 In his anxiety for her he was at his best, for he was 
 his genuine self. Inquiry upon inquiry, he poured 
 them upon Eachel in regard to her friend iu measure 
 so fluent and copious that I could see it was but 
 his nature to do so when, instead of Persis, it was a 
 religion he was questioning into. So interested was 
 he to hear and accept what Rachel had to say of Per 
 sis that he allowed her time to answer, listened to 
 her with his eyes also. "When she left the room to 
 bear a message from him to Persis, his change of bear 
 ing, as he took me in hand from where he had dropped 
 me, was great. The trouble with him seemed to be 
 that he had been everywhere and very often, that he 
 knew everybody and everything already and to the 
 utmost. Although his unceasing talk consisted largely 
 in asking questions, he did not care for any reply. 
 Even when he courteously paused, and, for courtesy's 
 sake, to let me say a word, it was so plain I could tell 
 him nothing he did not know already, and perfectly, 
 that I soon subsided into silence, glad to have him 
 say all there was to be said. He was well informed, 
 spoke admirably, putting his sentences into epigrams, 
 which were axioms also. His talk was like cham 
 pagne, his eyes and hands adding so much of sparkle 
 and movement to what he said ; it was not until after 
 ward the doubt came that possibly it was at best but 
 the effervescence of soda-water. 
 
 In a little while Piachel came back, and, after some 
 words of unfeigned regret at not seeing Persis, Mr.
 
 A RIDE INTO THE COUNTRY. 295 
 
 Adair withdrew, and we were free to take our ride. 
 This much I can conscientiously say for my com 
 panion that, so far as toilet was concerned, she was, 
 apparently, always as ready for company as, let us 
 say, a dove. My impression was that she dressed as 
 much for her own comfort as she did according to her 
 own taste. It was her nature, and one could detect as 
 little to criticise in her simplicity of raiment as in her 
 sober way of saying and doing things. That was the 
 feeling I had when I shook hands with her, that there 
 was nothing in or about her which could distract my 
 attention from her best self. I was glad of it, for I 
 had but a little while to be with her, and I wanted it 
 to be as much a time of quiet, of restful enjoyment, 
 as possible ; which may be pardoned in me when it 
 is considered that I am too restless myself, that I had 
 been all winter on the strain of travel, lecturing, writ 
 ing, mingling with unceasing people. 
 
 " I wish "I began, but controlled myself until 
 Rachel and I were seated in the carriage and it was 
 rolling away. But she asked me directly, 
 
 " What do you wish ? " That was another pecu 
 liarity of my companion. When Persis or Mrs. Trent 
 when almost any one else was present, she devolved 
 the conversation upon some one else and listened. 
 What she did say was the word, if it was but a word, 
 which needed to be said, and then she stopped. I 
 think she paid the close attention of her eyes as of 
 her lips to any one who happened to be speaking, on 
 the same principle ; she counted upon it that every 
 
 trd would be worth hearing. Her attention always
 
 296 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 had the effect upon me of causing me to say less than 
 I otherwise would, and to make what I did say bet 
 ter worth the expectant eyes which so waited upon 
 them. " You said you wished " she repeated. 
 
 "If it were not that it would make it too blue," I 
 replied, " I wish the Teachers' Institute were sunk in 
 the sea." Her eyes demanded explanation, but also 
 smiled assent. I only added, as we wound our way 
 through the crowded streets, " Please notice one or 
 two things, peculiar, I think, to this city, as we go. 
 Look at the drivers of trucks, carriages, express- 
 wagons, that long, low vehicle, for instance, coming 
 this way laden with machinery, every horse pulling 
 with a grave, determined step, as of a dignified gentle 
 man, each of these, every driver of a street-car also, 
 acts upon the rule of going ahead himself, and leaving 
 the other man, who is about to cross his track, to do 
 the reining in. The dirtiest-faced driver of them all 
 shows an unhesitating assertion of self which you 
 would not see in, say, Brazil." 
 
 " And yet," Rachel said, " when the other man does 
 halt the instant before the wheels would otherwise 
 strike against each other, did you ever notice with 
 what firmness he does that too ? " 
 
 " That is another thing ; that," I said, " is the habit 
 of obedience, too, to the inevitable. Look at this 
 police-officer at the crossing, how he arrests the cur 
 rent of carriages and wagons until the crowd accumu 
 lated at the corners can go over ! The blue-coated 
 Moses has but to hold out his silent switch, and the 
 Red Sea of hurry and confusion parts before it as
 
 A RIDE INTO THE COUNTRY. 297 
 
 by miracle. Nowhere do I find self-assertion so de 
 termined, and yet so obedient to law, as here." 
 
 " Yes," Rachel said, for we had to stop awhile, the 
 throng was so great ; " and I often wonder at the man 
 lier in which people give way to each other along 
 the crowded sidewalks. Men and women are all in 
 such haste, mixed up, going in opposite directions, 
 yet they curve in and out, and just miss striking 
 against each other beautifully. It is like " 
 
 " A kind of music," I said for her ; for when one 
 has to talk to an audience so much, one's facility 
 of wording things becomes too prompt for politeness. 
 " Another thing, please notice," I went on, " and that is 
 that the women outnumber the men thirty to one." 
 
 " That," Rachel explained, " is because the women 
 are shopping, or out for exercise ; the men are in 
 offices, shops, factories, ships. Many of these are 
 countrywomen who have come in to buy things ; their 
 sons, brothers, husbands, are at work in the barns and 
 fields. Then there are more women than men in this 
 part of the world ; at least, so they say. You don't 
 object to that, do you, Mr. Guernsey ? " 
 
 " Not at all. But that brings up a question we 
 won't spoil our ride by talking about. Look at those 
 people," and I motioned with my head toward a man 
 and woman who were going by; "you never saw 
 rougher folk than those even in Ocklawahaw." 
 
 " No," she said ; " but then we did not have as nice 
 people there as you see here. Men and women grow 
 old here more beautifully than they do there. Persis 
 and I were talking only yesterday of how many
 
 298 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 noble-looking old gentlemen we see eveiy time we 
 are on the streets, they are so erect and fresh-colored. 
 Not a day but we see some dear old grandmother 
 with a complexion like that of a girl of sixteen." 
 
 " Her hair," I added, " upon either side of her fore 
 head in puffs of drifted snow. I fall in love with 
 such every time I take a walk. They belong, I fear, 
 to a generation which is going out." 
 
 By this time we were beyond the more crowded 
 streets, and were rolling along rapidly toward the 
 country. I changed my seat so as to sit opposite 
 my companion. It was delightful to me to find 
 myself with an audience of but one ; but I remained 
 didactic. " If you were to put," I said, " what this 
 city used to be into flesh and blood, it would stand 
 before you in the old lady, the stately old gentleman, 
 we have been speaking of. Even now it is, in many 
 respects, the best town I know of." 
 
 " Is it ? " Eachel asked it with interest, yet com 
 posure. When in Ocklawahaw she was entirely con 
 tented, could have lived and died there without a 
 wish to get away. She felt in the same way about 
 her present abode. Hers was a nature which adjusted 
 itself as silently and perfectly to its situation as water 
 to a cup, and, from the first, she took her new life 
 so much as matter of course that, except for the 
 use of a peculiarly Western word now and then, you 
 would have said she had been born here. " Yes, I 
 like it," she now added, sinking back upon her seat 
 with an air of comfortable possession ; " its streets 
 may be crooked, but they are clean. There are so
 
 A RIDE INTO THE COUNTRY. 299 
 
 many school-houses. "What fine large horses they 
 have even in the street-cars. I like sleek horses. 
 And there are such nice policemen. And the con 
 ductors on the cars, too ; you see some of them who 
 are genuine gentlemen, who seem as if they were 
 taking fares for a week or two until they could get 
 back- into the higher positions to which they be- 
 long." 
 
 " Out West," I added, " you can tell whether a re 
 gion is malarious or not by a glance at the first child 
 you meet. In the same way you can judge of this 
 city by its boys ; they appear to the merest stranger 
 who passes them along the street to be unusually in 
 telligent and yet under wholesome control. Every 
 ragged, barefooted little Irish Mickey even seems to be 
 in the grasp of an unseen hand, is it the police or 
 the public school ? perhaps both. But why is it," I 
 demanded, for my mind was running too much upon 
 that subject at the time, " why is it that so many of 
 these women seem to be invalids ? Notice, as we 
 go, how many girls wear eye-glasses. There is a 
 child of ten in spectacles. Yonder is a lady who 
 is the picture of health ; but she is in a carriage, her 
 coachman in livery. Must a woman be rich to be 
 well?" 
 
 My companion did not know it, but in that case 
 there was no lady who seemed to be richer than her 
 self. Her Scriptural name helped toward it, I sup 
 pose ; but if she had worn a coal-scuttle bonnet and a 
 drab silk you would have sworn that she was the only 
 child, so healthful and serene was she, of a wealthy
 
 300 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 Quaker. Her eyes were gone from me with an atten 
 tion which clung about each woman in passing. 
 
 " Why are there so many sick women ? " 
 
 It was of myself I asked it, but Eachel answered 
 thoughtfully, " I suppose it must be the climate. Per 
 haps it is hard work, anxious care. Often it is heredi 
 tary. Sometimes they study too hard." 
 
 She was thinking of Persis. So was I. For the 
 present, however, my interest was, by contrast with 
 the overtasked women of whom we had been speak 
 ing, with Eachel herself. As it always did, her dress 
 became her, especially her hat or bonnet. To me a 
 badly arrayed woman attains to the climax and sum 
 mit, in every sense, of wretched taste, when she 
 crowns the Himalaya of her heaped-up hair with 
 one of the barbarous hats common then and now. 
 But Eachel wore a head-dress of which I only knew 
 that it answered its ends and completed her attire. 
 " I should n't wonder if Mrs. Trent told her how 
 much I would like just that style of hat," I said to 
 myself in my self-conceit. " But how could anybody 
 have known that I would call upon Miss Eachel to- 
 day?" 
 
 " Eachel is ruled by Persis in her studies, but she is," 
 Mrs. Trent had told me one day, " more determined 
 than you would think in everything else. In her 
 toilet, for instance, she will not listen to a soul. In 
 everything except their studies it is she who rules 
 Persis." 
 
 There was a smile upon the lips of Eachel as I 
 was thinking cf this, and her eyes were full of fun.
 
 A RIDE INTO THE COUNTRY. 301 
 
 After a while it broke into a laugh. " Mr. McAllis 
 ter was telling us last night," she said, " of something 
 he saw in the city yesterday. A drove of cattle was 
 landed at the wharves. One of them escaped. Mr. 
 McAllister's office is in an upper-story front, and 
 he saw it all. The ox came up the street in a fury. 
 Mr. McAllister never before saw such horns, he said ; 
 they were so long, so wide apart. The animal tore 
 along, emptying the street before it. The police-offi 
 cers fled, men in wagons put the whip to their horses 
 and galloped them, the wagons bumping over the 
 cobble-stones. Women ran out to pick up their chil 
 dren. Men, women, boys, shrieked, dodged into door 
 ways and down alleys, and fled every way for dear life. 
 The great brute was master of the situation. With 
 its tail in the air, dashing right and left with its 
 frightful horns at dogs and men, it disappeared up the 
 street, clearing out the city before it. Mr. McAllister 
 said it was infamous ! " 
 
 Rachel told about it demurely enough ; but there 
 was a mirth in her lips, an almost triumph in her 
 eyes, which gave me a new idea of her. " It was a 
 shame for me to do so, Mr. McAllister was shocked ; 
 but I only laughed," she went on, " when he told me. 
 The ox was direct from the Southwest. I could not 
 help taking sides with the ox. I would not have it 
 hurt anybody ; but," she laughed, " it was not accus 
 tomed to anything but prairies, it did not understand 
 cities. Was it very wrong in me ? " 
 
 " But what has that," I assented, " to do with " 
 " With the advantages of the city." She carne back
 
 302 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 to sobriety in an instant. " Only this. Persis never 
 wearies of saying what an admirable place it is. Such 
 schools, lectures, concerts, art institutions, public libra 
 ries, intellectual people. She says that the atmos 
 phere is electric. So it is. No city is more fortunate. 
 I am glad we came. But, Mr. Guernsey," she pleaded 
 like a child, " do you not sometimes think I am 
 not a student like Persis, as you know. I try very 
 hard, but I cannot like philosophies as much as she 
 does. It may be my lack of intellect ; but, Mr. Guern 
 sey, do you not think " 
 
 I was curious to understand her more than to com 
 prehend merely what she was objecting to, and left 
 her unassisted. " What I mean," she said, " is this : 
 do you not think that in this city education, the esti 
 mate of intellect is carried too far ? " 
 
 " In one city," I suggested, " money is everything ; 
 in another, the denomination of Christians you be 
 long to ; in another, good birth. What you mean is 
 that here the extreme to which people go is the ex 
 cessive appreciation of talent, literary ability, school 
 ing in all its degrees. Miss Rachel," I exclaimed, 
 and her face brightened at my energy, " you are right ! 
 I am glad you agree with me." And I launched into 
 denunciation of excessive study, especially for women, 
 in a way which would have ruined me for life had I 
 been upon the platform instead. " Don't you think 
 so, Miss Rachel ? " I asked in the end. " Provided 
 no one was more than badly scared, you would not 
 care if something fresh, like your big ox, from nature 
 were to dash in upon things and scatter them for 
 a while. Is n't that so ? "
 
 A RIDE INTO THE COUNTRY. 303 
 
 My companion laughed, agreeing with me with her 
 eyes, but shaking her head. " Is not that a delightful 
 home ? " she asked, pointing to a house we were pass 
 ing, and reverting, as she always did, from people, 
 unless they were being praised, to things. Our road, 
 hard, white, swept, and watered, was perfection itself, 
 and the hoofs of our horses rang merrily upon it as 
 we went. On either hand were residences, each in 
 its own environment of spruces or elms, horse-chest 
 nuts or apple-trees, which told, some of them, of 
 ancestors extending back through four generations. 
 
 " When the house," I said to Eachel, " like this 
 next one, for instance, destitute of trees, is particu 
 larly large and fine and new, it tells us of an owner 
 who blends in himself the grim industry of a century 
 ago with the taste and expenditure of to-day. The 
 suburbs are the best half of the city. They are to 
 the city, what his charming wife is to her husband, 
 the red-faced, quick-mannered, energetic business 
 man. You see that the wife is beginning to put on 
 her spring attire. See the tender gray green of the 
 leaves about to unfold on the tips of wayside shrubs. 
 And what a peculiar hue the grass has ! In compar 
 ison to 'what it will have as the summer comes, it is 
 like the colorless water at the edge of the sea along 
 the sands, in contrast to the darkening blue as it 
 deepens into the depths. There is the same uncer 
 tain tremor, as between winter and summer, in the 
 air also. You feel as if you wanted to throw yourself 
 summerward, and help it in the struggle." 
 
 " I like it," Eachel said, " without " I had to
 
 304 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 wait for her to end the sentence. She was unlike 
 Persis in that. Persis completed in her own mind 
 what you had yet to say before you got through. Her 
 reply waited almost impatiently for you to be done. 
 Not so with Rachel. She went with you to the very 
 end of your remark. If it was in answer to the 
 simplest question, she did not reply on the instant, 
 there was a moment's hesitation before she spoke. I 
 could see her answer coming in her eyes, on her lips, 
 before it framed itself into words, and I enjoyed her 
 slowness as one does a lisp. It had weight in it as 
 of value ; it rested me to tarry for it. 
 
 " I like the season," Rachel said, " without imagin 
 ing things about it, without putting what I think into 
 
 thoughts. Persis reads poetry. When she sees 
 anything which interests her very much, it always 
 reminds her of what some author has said about it. 
 I know I ought to take more pleasure than I do in 
 what gifted people have written. As it is, I like 
 things," she colored a little in trying to phrase it, 
 
 " like things," she said, " as they are. Yes." 
 
 It was all she added by way of assent, as the driver 
 reined in on the top of a hill, and I waved my hand 
 as I stood up toward the landscape. To our left were 
 villages by the dozen, homes peeping by the hundreds 
 through the trees and from behind the hills. I wanted 
 to tell my companions that the church spires here, 
 there, everywhere, were like marks of interjection, 
 exclamation amid the unheard life going on so abun 
 dantly below us ; but I was held silent by her silence 
 as she feasted upon the scene. Off, and from our very
 
 A RIDE INTO THE COUNTRY. 305 
 
 feet, toward the right, was the ocean, entering into and 
 receding from the land, to come again in bays, inlets, 
 harbors ; while, farther to the right, the watery ex 
 panse was diversified with little islands, and a mos 
 quito swarm of sailing craft, large and small, through 
 which a black-hulled steamship from Europe was 
 intent upon its way, leaving behind it a long wake 
 of smoke above and billows beneath. Here and there 
 a flag fluttered from masthead or fort, mere vibrant 
 dots of color, the sky of fleecy blue over all, until 
 ocean and air blended into one in the dim horizon. 
 
 Had it been Mrs. Trent, more so, had it been 
 Persis, we would have talked to each other without 
 ceasing, pointing out this and that, demanding admi 
 ration for one thing or another. Persis would have 
 been in a fever of enjoyment, new color in her talk 
 as in her cheeks, but Rachel sat and looked upon the 
 scene in silence. Keenly as Persis enjoyed music, I 
 had observed, when we were at the opera together, 
 or in the concert hall, that the very best music merely 
 stimulated her the more to speech, as it did me. 
 Then, as now, Rachel could not do two things at a 
 time. She had such a fashion of giving herself 
 utterly up, now as always to what was in hand, that 
 I left her to herself. Her face, I noticed yet again, 
 was broader, the brows particularly, than that of 
 Persis ; her large eyes rested upon what she looked at, 
 not glancing hither and thither, as those of her friend 
 would have done. The hands of Persis would have 
 been as active as her eyes, but I never knew Rachel 
 to gesticulate. If I did not know how much more 
 
 20
 
 306 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 efficient she was in nursing the sick, in housekeeping, 
 in everything except books, than Persis, I would have 
 said she was but a Circassian beauty, fair and round 
 and lazy. 
 
 " Upon the whole," I remarked, " I like this city 
 beyond any I have visited in Europe or America. It 
 is inhabited by people each one of whom is a distinct 
 individual, and yet the blending of all into one is so 
 perfect that the city, as a city, is, beyond any other, 
 itself a definite and very distinct person. People 
 have their faults here as everywhere. You cannot 
 help seeing that a little success in literature, for 
 instance, has the effect upon some which wealth has 
 on others ; they hold themselves as aloof as possible, 
 touching you with but the tips of dainty fingers. 
 Courtesy is cultivated as sugar is in Cuba. Yet the 
 preoccupation is so intense at times that it will show 
 through. It may be because it contains treasure, but 
 how often it is a man's house and heart here are as 
 a fortress ! It reminds one of the rich Jews in Ori 
 ental countries. When it is a question of buying 
 and selling, the Jew lives in the open doorway of his 
 shop, is upon the sidewalk, eager to greet whoever 
 comes. So far as business goes, a man is as accessi 
 ble in his counting-house here as men are anywhere. 
 As to his home, that is another affair. The Hebrew 
 makes the exterior <rf his house as unpromising as he 
 can, from dread of tax-gatherer and thief. Ouce 
 within it, you are dazzled by the display of wealth 
 and enjoyment. So of these people. Apart from 
 business, the aspect of the man in this region is cold
 
 A RIDE INTO THE COUNTRY. 307 
 
 and almost repellent ; but if you are welcomed within, 
 to his home, to his heart, you are delighted at the 
 wealth you will find there, the wealth of friend 
 ship and love. Except in externals, it is absurd to 
 say that they are a cold people. They are so intense 
 at first in regard to any matter which interests them 
 that, in a little while, they are as intensely tired, dis 
 gusted even, with the whole thing. Woe to the sen 
 sation, whatever it is, man or thing, which imagines 
 it can have and lose and then have again the popu 
 larity it once enjoyed ! The city is like a boy who so 
 gorges himself at first with a new kind of candy 
 that he sickens forever after at the very sight or 
 smell thereof." 
 
 "Not where principle is concerned," Eachel in 
 sisted. 
 
 " Certainly not ! And it is very curious ; I know 
 npthing like it elsewhere. Here principle means 
 person. In political matters, for instance, at the 
 first blast of the trumpet it is not merely that every 
 man of them falls into line, eager for the fray ; if you 
 look at the warriors, lo,' it was the resurrection trump 
 instead, for here, as if in cocked hats and knee- 
 breeches, are their revolutionary sires once more ! 
 The youngest man reverts instantly to his great-grand 
 father, is himself that ancestor to the tips of his 
 fingers ! " 
 
 " Is that true in religion also ? " Eachel demanded ; 
 but slowly added, " I think that in regard to books 
 these people are almost would it be too strong to 
 say it ? almost fanatical. Persis and I are thrown,
 
 308 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 in our classes at the conservatories of music, in the 
 art-rooms, libraries, and the like, with girls who are 
 destroying their eyes by night study. They know it ; 
 they know everything ! " Rachel sighed. " But they 
 say they cannot help it. They will no more stop, 
 they can no more stop, than if they were opium- 
 eaters. Many of them are ruining their health ! I 
 am so afraid for Persis. I used to have influence 
 over her ; in this I have none." 
 
 " Yes," I said ; " we agree that greed of money is 
 sordid. As if greed for knowledge, except as a 
 means to some noble end, is anything but another 
 kind of gluttony ! It is vulgar for a man to get 
 drunk on whiskey, yet I know men and women who 
 intoxicate themselves more utterly on the champagne 
 of excessive literature, excessive science, excessive 
 intellectual stimulus, it does not matter of what 
 kind. Do you know what has become of their old- 
 time fanaticism in religion ? " 
 
 My companion put so much of deepening interest 
 in her eyes that, as our vehicle toiled slowly up a long 
 hill, I could not refrain from becoming a bit of a ped 
 ant. " The great discovery of our times," I said, " is, 
 as you have had lectures enough since you came 
 here to know very well, the conservation and cor 
 relation of force. That is, there is the same amount 
 of force in these people, for instance, as always, only 
 it takes different forms, goes in different directions. 
 A century or two ago, they rushed with excessive 
 energy toward things divine. To-day, there is the 
 same measure of desperate effort to know. The only
 
 A RIDE INTO THE COUNTRY. 309 
 
 difference is of direction, of object. What they ve 
 hemently attempt now is to know anything, every 
 thing, except what was accepted by their grandfathers. 
 The intensity, the fanaticism, of effort is the same." 
 
 " You think then," Kachel asked it almost timidly, 
 " that a person can try too hard to know things, to 
 be highly educated ? " 
 
 " Miss Rachel, 5 ' I said, " you ought to use, ought to 
 develop all you can, the vigor of your arm and hand. 
 Now, your intellect is but another sort of arm and 
 hand, by which you can reach after, can grasp and 
 hold, certain things. It is your duty and mine to 
 develop our intellect so far as we can do so without 
 neglect of any other part of us. If I attend to my 
 body to the neglect of my mind, I am a fool. If I 
 care for my intellect in such a way as to neglect and 
 injure my body, I am but another species of fool. Be 
 sides, the highest objects of desire are as much beyond 
 the reach of the intellect as they are of the hand. 
 Surely I am the greatest fool of all if I become so 
 absorbed in the care of either body or intellect as to 
 neglect that noblest part of me, for which body and 
 intellect exist, by which I alike feel and know in a 
 way and to a degree beyond everything body and 
 mere mind are capable of." 
 
 I could see that Rachel was not thinking of her 
 self nor of me. She did not look at the houses or 
 fields on either side of our road as we rolled smoothly 
 along. 
 
 " You were speaking," she said, " of the fanaticism 
 of excessive education. People used to be fanatics
 
 310 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 for faith ; is it not possible that they may grow to be 
 fanatical against faith ? Mr. McAllister was saying 
 so last week He has no interest in matters outside 
 of his office. He does not believe, I am afraid, in 
 anything; but we have all sorts of people at our 
 boarding-house, and they will get to discussing things 
 at the table until the lady of the house has to beg 
 them to go up-stairs and let the servants clear the 
 cloth. Last week, after listening awhile, they became 
 so violent that he said to them, ' You know I do not 
 go with any of you, but I 've made the rounds of your 
 halls and circles, and you radicals are the most dog 
 matic of all the people I know. It is a blessed thing 
 that no two of you agree, or you would burn us be 
 lievers in a twinkling ! ' He meant himself and me," 
 explained Eachel ; and I fear that the Major said it 
 largely to conciliate her. " But I am so sorry, Mr. 
 Guernsey " 
 
 She said no more, but Mrs. Trent had told me 
 about it, and I exclaimed, " So am I, Miss Eachel ! 
 very sorry ! " 
 
 " When we first came," she went on after a little, 
 " Persis could not go to church often enough. She 
 must hear this wonderful man and that until she had 
 heard everybody. For a long time she took great 
 interest in it. She would come back full of enthu 
 siasm ; whatever she heard was something so new, so 
 deep, so beautiful, so brilliant. And no two of the 
 speakers were, she said, in the least alike. ' It is part 
 of my education to hear them/ she said. Now she is 
 through with it all."
 
 A RIDE INTO THE COUNTRY. 311 
 
 " And does not go anywhere on Sundays ? " 
 
 " But she is so very tired," Rachel said. " If you 
 knew how hard she works all the week ! She has a 
 high position as a teacher now, is paid a good salary ; 
 but the text-books change almost every terra, she 
 must keep far ahead of her pupils. On Sundays she 
 always has a headache. Dr. Trent has given her 
 medicine. And you cannot think how he talked to 
 her ! " Rachel said to me with large eyes. " He 
 scolded her until she cried. But she must work ! She 
 is the most conscientious girl I ever knew." 
 
 " I 'in afraid," I said gravely, " that hers is some 
 thing like the diseased conscience of a devotee, Catho 
 lic or Buddhist." 
 
 " Oh no, how can you say so ! " And my companion 
 went into the warmest praise of her friend. I had 
 never seen her so earnest. She did not hint such a 
 thing, but I had gathered from Mrs. Trent that the 
 terror of Eachel was lest Persis should lose her 
 Christian belief. " If there ever was a Martha," Mrs. 
 Trent had told me, " it is Persis, a Martha who toils 
 with her brain, I mean. She is not consciously self 
 ish," Mrs. Trent explained, " she is so eager, so igno 
 rant she thinks, there are so very many things to 
 learn, so very, very many things to do, that, beyond 
 any housekeeping Martha I know," laughed Mrs. 
 Trent, " she is careful and cumbered about much 
 not serving exactly, but work, harder work than the 
 Syrian Martha ever dreamed of. Rachel," Mrs. Trent 
 mused aloud at the time, "is Mary instead. But it is 
 in Persis you are chiefly interested. Mr. Guernsey,"
 
 312 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 she said with new energy, "if God ever made a 
 woman for a man, he made Persis Paige for you ! 
 Your tastes, your interests, are the same. I am sure 
 she will do anything you say. Dr. Trent can do noth 
 ing with her. There is no man she admires as she 
 does you. Use the authority of of the affection 
 you must feel for her, Mr. Guernsey, and insist upon 
 her having more mercy upon herself. I want her to 
 be a true wife to you for many a long year ! " But 
 it was nothing less than her motherly care for me 
 which allowed Mrs. Trent to say as much. 
 
 But I was suddenly brought back from thinking of 
 what she had said. 
 
 The one serpent in the Eden of the suburbs through 
 which we were returning is the Railway ; its trail is 
 over it all. Our driver must have been new either to 
 that fact or to his horses. As we made a sudden 
 turn, a locomotive thundered by on one side, the driver 
 fell off the box in the swerving of the vehicle, and our 
 horses ran away with us ! I am not strong, but I 
 used at least to be something of a squirrel in alert 
 ness. With a word of caution to Rachel, I clambered 
 into the vacated seat, and gathered up the reins, 
 which, fortunately, had not quite slipped off the dash 
 board. I dare say it was more oats than alarm which 
 inspired the horses, for they were making, although 
 at full speed, for the city. The instant problem with 
 me was how to hold them in, yet keep my seat ; but 
 in that instant it was solved. My companion had 
 climbed into the front seat below, had snatched off a 
 shawl she wore as protection against the coolness of
 
 A RIDE INTO THE COUNTRY. 313 
 
 approaching evening, had passed it about me as I sat, 
 and, kneeling upon the seat, was pinioning me by the 
 shawl to my post with a grasp as of iron, and all 
 without an exclamation. If it had not been for that, 
 I must have been rocked off my perch by the swing 
 of the carriage, or pulled under the heels of the horses 
 by the reins to which I clung. As it was I was* en 
 abled, planting my feet more firmly, to put such a 
 steady strain upon the reins as at last to draw the 
 animals down into a trot, a walk, a halt. 
 
 The whole affair was like a landscape seen by a 
 flash of lightning ; there was a good deal of it, but it 
 was soon over. I did not look into the carriage until 
 our driver came limping up, all the broader of brogue 
 for the accident. As he mounted upon his box he 
 was, to conciliate me, I suppose, as loud in his praises 
 of my dexterity as in anathemas upon the locomotive, 
 the horses, and especially himself. 
 
 I was almost as curious to see Rachel as if, since I 
 last saw her, she had been in Europe. Yet, on look 
 ing at her as we sped along, there was nothing to see 
 beyond her former self. She was seated as comforta 
 bly as before. Her shawl was thrown back from about 
 her shoulders, since she was warm enough now with 
 out it. There was less color in her cheeks, but her 
 eyes were the same. I had all the disposition a some 
 what excitable man would naturally have, to say a 
 good deal by way of commendation, explanation, con 
 gratulation, joke even, but I know that I said most 
 of it to myself, and not aloud. She, I think, had less 
 to say than I.
 
 314 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 RIVALS. 
 
 T HAD my own reasons for urging Ross Urwoldt to 
 -*- visit me. There came an adjournment of Con 
 gress, I believe, an arrest of some sort upon his busi-J 
 ness in Washington, where he happened then to be, 
 and, at last, he came. A few days after his arrival 
 we called upon the young ladies, but found that they 
 were not in the city. Persis had been compelled to 
 lay aside her work and they had gone into the coun 
 try with friends for a little rest, but I took Ross with 
 me to see Dr. Trent and his wife. 
 
 The instant we entered the house I saw that Mrs. 
 Trent was almost as much upon the alert as if my 
 friend were a savage intent on slaughter. It was not 
 because he was of Indian lineage. There was really 
 so little of any other than the blood of the white man 
 in his veins that it was only the higher qualities of 
 character and few of the mere bodily traits of the 
 Indian which Ross retained. No gentleman in her 
 knowledge was more thoroughly such, few had his 
 intellect, none the experiences of men and of war 
 which made him what he was. His silent and fixed 
 attention to Mrs. Trent when she spoke took the place 
 in him of that deference to her sex which, I fear, he
 
 RIVALS. 315 
 
 did not possess to the degree he should have done. 
 Had I known it then, I might have seen that he was 
 so attentive to her because, for the moment, she was 
 to him his nearest approach to Persis. But, now as 
 always, it was never of Persis he spoke, it was always 
 of Rachel. 
 
 I think it was this which alarmed Mrs. Trent most. 
 
 It was not for him she intended Persis. Her whole 
 
 heart, dear lady, was up in arms for me instead. She 
 
 j.>was alarmed at his coming. Persis was away, but 
 
 %,,she must be on her guard to defeat his nefarious 
 
 schemes. 
 
 " Persis and Rachel have made many friends during 
 their stay here, many warm friends," she said with 
 some emphasis. " I am glad that some of these have 
 taken them, it was almost by force, to their farm. 
 Rachel does not need it; she looks well, is well 
 always ; but she will enjoy herself there as she does 
 everywhere. Persis was in great need of a change. 
 What with teaching and being taught, she is like a 
 factory girl tending her loom ; she has to be on her 
 feet all day, and must be on the alert always, lest any 
 of her many threads should tangle or break. You 
 will be delighted to see Rachel," Mrs. Trent added 
 with sudden interest ; " she is looking so well, Colonel 
 Urwoldt, and she will be delighted to see you. Persis 
 has time from her studies for hardly anything ; but 
 I have heard Rachel speak of you very often. As to 
 Persis, it is a pity " 
 
 " Yes, it is a pity," Dr. Trent began ; but his wife 
 frowned at him, laughed, shook her head. The mild-
 
 316 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 mannered physician was a tyrant among his female 
 patients, gentle as he seemed to be in tone and touch ; 
 but Mrs. Trent avenged her sex, for I doubt if his 
 most submissive patient yielded to him as he did to 
 her. 
 
 I turned Eoss over to Mrs. Trent for the rest of our 
 visit. She was such a warm-hearted, frank-spoken, 
 bright-humored matron that, with little Guernsey on 
 one side of her, and golden-haired Jean on the other, 
 she could not fail to interest my friend, she was so^ 
 much interested in him and in Rachel. It was little 
 he cared for any woman but one, yet Mrs. Trent, with 
 her happy face and ready laugh, was, in comparison 
 to city ladies in general, as an open wood fire is to an 
 iron-latticed register highly polished and set in mar 
 ble. If any one could make him feel at home, she 
 could. 
 
 " Yes, it is a pity." Dr. Trent finished what he was 
 intending to say when he and I were by ourselves in 
 his study that night. " I am called in occasionally to 
 minister to nuns in convents. Their sickness, poor 
 things, is because, neglecting body and mind, they 
 abandon themselves too much to the care, as they call 
 it, of their souls. More frequently too than you 
 think, a foolish girl so gives herself up to loving some 
 perhaps worthless fellow that her excess of affection 
 in and by itself disturbs the balance, and, while 
 over-developing her heart, as it is styled, she endan 
 gers herself in every other way. Look at Persis. 
 Almost from the hour of her coming I have had 
 her under treatment. This mania for self-culture
 
 RIVALS. 317 
 
 is often as much an epidemic as measles or whooping- 
 cough. The vessels of the brain can be over-distended, 
 over-stimulated, by excess of study as by whiskey. If 
 the stomach is not equally inflamed, it is greatly 
 weakened ; but the injured organ is, chiefly, the brain. 
 The veins are so habitually distended by the excess 
 of blood during application too great, too long con 
 tinued, that when the stimulus of study or liquor 
 ceases they cannot contract. That in either case is the 
 -cause of reaction, of craving for excitement. If we' 
 i'liad time," and the Doctor unlocked the rosewood case 
 thereof as he spoke, " I could show you under my 
 microscope a section, my dear fellow, of a drunkard's 
 brain which proves what I say. What do you sup 
 pose that is ? " And he took from a shelf and held 
 up before me a small jar of liquid with something 
 suspended in it. 
 
 "A pickled clam, I should think," was my con 
 jecture. 
 
 " A clam ! That, sir," the Doctor said in triumph, 
 "is a section of the brain of the inventor of" and 
 he named a patented discovery too well known to 
 allow of its being mentioned in this connection. 
 " He had a large brain, the veins were beautifully 
 distended ; but there were a good many of us students, 
 and it had," he added regretfully, "to be divided 
 among us. He devoted years of severe study to his 
 contrivance, succeeded in it, was swindled out of it. 
 In a burst of rage he slew the man whom he supposed 
 did it, was imprisoned, killed himself, and his body 
 came into our hands. Had he been an intemperate
 
 318 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 man, the alcohol would have consumed the stomach 
 and hardened the brain. As it was, the blood aban 
 doned the stomach to dyspepsia, and so habitually 
 enlarged the vessels in the brain that they could 
 not recover themselves. You have felt ennui from 
 somewhat the same cause ; if," suggested my friend, 
 his finger and thumb upon the stopper, " you would 
 like to see ennui under the microscope " But 
 I declined. 
 
 " Guernsey," the Doctor complained, replacing the 
 jar and putting the key of the case in his vest pocket, 
 " I at least ought to know something about women." 
 
 " If any man does ! " I was right in exclaiming it. 
 The truth is, it was sympathy for suffering which had 
 led this friend of mine into medicine. Once in it, he 
 had given himself to the study of feminine maladies, 
 because he found that it was women who suffered 
 most. With his study and practice, his sympathy 
 had grown into a science so clear that a female pa 
 tient could no more resist him than a school-girl can 
 resist, distasteful as it may be, the Rule of Three. I 
 dare say, had he not been rich, and therefore inde 
 pendent of his practice, he would not, with all his 
 sympathetic certainty, have dared to be as peremptory 
 with women as he was. People knew that he was a 
 physician largely from love of and success in his pro 
 fession, and none of his brethren had a reputation, in 
 that region, and in his own line, to compare with his. 
 Had female practitioners been as common then and 
 as well qualified as they are now, they could not have 
 been as successful as was Dr. Steven Trent; for under
 
 RIVALS. 319 
 
 no conceivable circumstance can a woman fear and 
 obey a woman as she does a man. 
 
 " I do not understand the sex," he now proceeded, 
 " but I know as much of it as most people. Now, a 
 woman has within her two citadels, into either of which 
 she can retreat and defy the world. The one is her 
 heart, and, back of that, her will. If you can enlist her 
 heart against her will, or her will against her heart, you 
 may persuade her, induce her, I mean, to persuade 
 herself. Let a woman, keeping her health, and con- 
 ' sequently her beauty, up to the highest point, carry 
 on, also, and carry out the equal development of her 
 heart and her mind, and she will become that of 
 which Aspasia was, I presume, but a feeble prophecy, 
 a human being worthier of love, respect, adoration 
 almost, than any other object on the planet. But 
 but," argued the Doctor, "if her heart be held, by 
 herself or by circumstances, in abeyance while her 
 life runs almost entirely into the expanding and in 
 forming of her intellect, then her will, already strong 
 enough in virtue of her sex, gets to be so strong that 
 she is beyond argument. A theory, it matters not a 
 straw what it is, takes to her the place of a babe ; 
 she exaggerates it, idolizes it, spoils it, will fight to 
 the death for it, as she would for an only child. 
 
 " No man," said the Doctor, " has a higher estimate 
 of woman than myself. My wife, for instance, is " 
 for Mrs. Trent was his one weakness ; I did n't blame 
 him " as superior to myself in sense as she is in 
 personal beauty. But truth is more to me than even 
 my own wife ; and I do know that there is no loveli-
 
 320 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 ness in a woman, any more than in a circle, unless 
 she has symmetrical development. We call them 
 angels. Whatever we do not know about angels, we 
 do know that they are not lop-sided. Crop one of the 
 wings of a dove or eagle, and you will see, when it 
 tries to fly, what I mean." 
 
 " But what about Miss Persis ? " I asked. 
 
 "Persis is a favorite case of mine. On some ac 
 counts," the Doctor remarked with the coolness of the 
 dissecting-room, "I hope she will continue to disregard 
 what I say. I want to study the inevitable result. 
 No, I don't mean that ! She is a noble girl, a gifted 
 girl. Her improvement delights me, as it does us all ; 
 but I wish she would hold up a little. If she were 
 less of a student, and more like my wife, like Miss 
 Rachel, it would be better for her." 
 
 " I do not know about that. Listen. Last Wednes 
 day afternoon I was riding," I rejoined, " in the street 
 cars. It was sufficiently pleasant, and we rode in 
 an open car. As usual, we were all of us, the men 
 at least, in a hurry, some to get home, some to 
 keep business appointments, some to catch the train. 
 There sat a little terrier-faced man beside me, you 
 can count their sharp noses by the thousand all over 
 the city, and once, when the bell struck and the car 
 stopped, he said, ' Confound her ! ' with so much vigor 
 that I looked up and saw who he meant. It was 
 Miss Each el. She was standing upon the curbstone. 
 If she had been in a drawing-room instead, she 
 could not have been more cool, composed. She was 
 not going to risk her clean skirts, to say nothing
 
 RIVALS. 321 
 
 of her person, among the rush of wheels. Not until 
 the car stopped and the way was clear, did she leave 
 the curbstone. I helped her on, seating her pur 
 posely beside the growling terrier." 
 
 " Yes ; that is it ! " my friend broke in. " We agree 
 that Americans are thin and haggard because they 
 run themselves down, eat too fast, talk too fast, go 
 too fast in everything. Everybody acknowledges that 
 dyspepsia and defalcation, heart-disease and softening 
 of the brain, speculations, panics, and suicide are the 
 result. Why, sir," exclaimed the Doctor, "it is for 
 that women are made ! When they go as fast as the 
 men, God help us ! Now that religion seems to be 
 loosening its grasp upon men, rather now that men 
 are breaking from its hold, if \vornan cannot restrain 
 them, if she swaps her sex for theirs, like the miser 
 able girls who used to drag coal-trucks on all fours in 
 English mines, and plunges into the pell-mell with 
 men, then are we gone indeed to the devil ! 
 
 " But no, sir!" cried the Doctor; "antidote always 
 accompanies poison. Cinchona grows in the centres 
 of chill and fever ! Because Americans are the most 
 excitable and headlong of people, therefore is it 
 tli at and it is becoming our sole safeguard in 
 America women are most had in reverence. I like 
 Miss EacheL She represents the staying power, 
 the " 
 
 " She stopped our street-car, at least. And," I said, 
 " as she stepped deliberately on board and seated her 
 self, not a man of our perspiring crowd but was the 
 better for it. It restored every soul of us to civiliza- 
 
 21
 
 322 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 tion simply to see her." And so the doctor and I 
 turned the conversation into a discussion of the chances 
 in reference to Miss Rachel of her persistent admirer, 
 Major McAllister. It was easy to see that Dr. Trent 
 took as gospel whatever his wife had imparted to him 
 concerning that, and it was a good deal. 
 
 " How does Mr. Adair succeed with Miss Persis ? " 
 I demanded, after a little ; for, through his wife, Dr. 
 Trent could not help knowing about that also. 
 
 " I would think," the Doctor said in the end, very 
 innocently, " that, of all men, Mr. Adair would be 
 most to her taste. Like herself, he grew up far from 
 cities and under the most old-fashioned of influences. 
 He also has educated himself through poverty and 
 struggle. You can see how determined he is by a 
 glance at his chin. It is a queer combination ; look 
 here !" And the doctor made a rapid sketch with pen 
 cil, upon the blotter of his table, of the head of the 
 gentleman. " See," he said, " what a towering cra 
 nium he has, egg-shaped like Shakespeare, like Haw 
 thorne. Phrenology is a humbug ; none the less, that 
 oval head signifies imagination, ideality. But look 
 at the jaw going with it ; it is that of a bull-dog." 
 
 " Some one told me his history, the other day," I 
 said. " When he began he was an ardent, even big 
 oted preacher of the old-fashioned faith. He was a 
 handsome fellow, unmarried, fond of society ; he had 
 read everything, was an able man and unusually elo 
 quent. Slowly came a change. He was praised, 
 thronged about, quoted. I suppose you would say, 
 Doctor, that it was a struggle between brain and jaw ;
 
 RIVALS. 323 
 
 your wife would tell you that the strife was between 
 head and heart. According to your craniology, while 
 the massive base held him down, the top of his head 
 lifted him like an inflating balloon. But the ap 
 plause increased until it prevailed, and lifted him out 
 of and clean over his ecclesiastical fence. He has 
 landed a dozen times since. Each time he is sure he 
 is finally right, for, wherever he goes, he takes those 
 vigorous jaws, you would say, with him. Now you 
 mention it, he is, although of small frame, like a 
 mastiff, an unsleeping mastiff in vigilant charge of 
 the premises. It has come to be the law of his life 
 that affirmation arouses denial. Assertion, almost 
 any positive assertion, is to him a burglarious tramp 
 which he assaults on sight. His incessant ' Not so ! 
 not so ! not so ! ' is more monotonous than the bow 
 wow-wow of Towser. Alas ! bark as fiercely as he 
 may, he backs and backs, as he barks, toward the end 
 and edge of everything, is forced backward as by 
 the incessant violence of his denials. The first thing 
 he knows, over he goes, falls whirling round and 
 round through the empty air, and is forgotten from 
 among men. Meanwhile he reads everything, goes 
 everywhere, meets everybody, knows to its last anal 
 ysis positively every opinion men have ever held. 
 Old-fashioned folk slumber upon their assumptions, 
 and there is an energy in his pugnacity which people 
 like. He is said to be very good to the poor." 
 
 " It amuses me," Dr. Trent laughed, " the horror 
 my wife and Miss Rachel have of him. And yet," and 
 his face sobered, "I hardly blame them. Once only
 
 324 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 did I meet Mr. Adair. It was by the bed of a dying 
 lady, one of his parishioners. When I came in she 
 had hold of Mr. Adair's hand with both of hers, and, 
 her hollow and eager eyes fastened upon his face, was 
 listening to what he was saying to fit her for death. 
 While combating something said by the dying woman, 
 Mr. Adair assumed that her fears were purely phys 
 ical, that the old-fashioned religion was so utterly 
 obsolete these days that nobody believed in it. I 
 thought of the hundreds of millions the world over 
 to whom that religion is the chief motive in life, the 
 sole consolation in sorrow, and wondered at the cool 
 assumption of the man. Because he did not believe 
 no man did. Having shut his own eyes, there was 
 nothing seen by anybody ! 
 
 " Mr. Adair," added the Doctor, " shows excellent 
 taste in admiring Miss Persis as he does. He would 
 marry her if he could. His latest and strongest con 
 victions are in reference to her. It is no laughing 
 matter that she is breaking away from all persuasion. 
 Guernsey," he continued, " Miss Persis has been seri 
 ously affected. Her nervous condition has alarmed 
 me more than once. What good does it do to cut off 
 her tea and coffee, to limit her to raw beef and stale 
 bread, to warn her against drinking too much water 
 at her meals and taking too little exercise ? She 
 merely tries to make up for obeying me by more in 
 tense application. She will not be controlled." 
 
 " If a lover were eloping with her," I said, " we 
 might stop her, you think ; when it is an Idea which 
 is running away with her, we can't, especially if her
 
 RIVALS. 325 
 
 Idea takes the shape of eloquent Mr. Adair. But no, 
 sir, I have a plot to prevent it which I will not con 
 fide to you ; you could not keep it from your wife to 
 save your life. For we cannot afford to have her 
 marry Mr. Adair. If she were to marry a Methodist 
 preacher, her life would be one of perpetual change, 
 but change of that sort would be a trifle compared to 
 the breaking up and change she would have to un 
 dergo as Mrs. Adair. Did you ever see a picture, 
 Doctor, of Francisca di Rimini and her lover, Dante's 
 Francisca ? " 
 
 " Of course I have," he replied. 
 
 " The pathos of it is not," I explained, " that the 
 erring couple are linked forever together, but that, as 
 Dante puts it, the two are afloat forever upon scorch 
 ing winds. Imagine a hell of that sort, the unrest 
 of ardent and eternal guessing, each one sufficiently 
 aflame already with consuming intellectual effort, and 
 yet mutually exciting each other to more desperate 
 conjecturing still !" 
 
 At this moment a messenger came in haste for Dr. 
 Trent ; a lady was taken ill somewhere. He bade me 
 good-by and went out merely to come back again. 
 
 " I am the most forgetful of men ! Mrs. Trent has 
 told me of it a dozen times, but I have so many 
 things on hand I forgot it ! Guernsey," the Doctor 
 said, taking my hand in his, " you must excuse and 
 pardon me ! " 
 
 " Pardon you ? " But I felt that the blood was in 
 my cheeks as he stood there. 
 
 "Yes, yes. I forgot completely," apologized the
 
 326 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 Doctor, " for I am so busy, what my wife told me 
 about you and Miss Persis. Forgive me. I ought not 
 to have spoken of her case so freely. Aha," he 
 laughed, " that is why you are so hard upon poor 
 Adair. And you have a plot to defeat him, have 
 you ? Good, I congratulate you, my dear fellow ! " 
 He shook me cordially by the hand. " What a fool I 
 was to forget such a thing ! It is so natural, too. She 
 is a splendid woman. She is intellectual, almost a 
 genius herself. No woman is better fitted to stimu 
 late and sympathize with you. It is the wisest thing 
 you could do ! " And he shook me again by the hand, 
 but his smiling face clouded as he did so. " I have 
 made a bungle of it, talking of her to' you as I did. 
 Since I have done so, let me add this. Neither 
 Rachel, Mrs. Trent, nor I can influence her. You 
 can ! Use your authority over her, I mean, her love 
 for you. Don't allow her to study so hard, my dear. 
 Tell her to spare herself for your sake, if not for her 
 own. I am glad I did tell you. Good-by ! " And 
 the Doctor was gone.
 
 THE WINDY WAYS OF MEN. 327 
 
 CHAPTEK XXVI. 
 
 THE WINDY WAYS OF MEN. 
 
 UPON the first Sunday of his coming, Eoss in 
 sisted upon going to hear the Eev. Mr. Adair. 
 I did not know then, as I did afterward, of the depth 
 of his devotion to Persis Paige. Really it was to 
 see her, to place himself at last in her hands, and 
 to rest there, that he came at all. From Mrs. Trent, 
 most likely, he had heard of Mr. Adair's admiration 
 for Persis, that when she went to church at all it was 
 to hear him, and he wanted to see the sort of man 
 Mr. Adair was. In the absence of Persis he might 
 judge of her by that ; for although I was not aware 
 of it then, Eoss was eager to know, even while he 
 almost trembled to do so, wherein the changes in 
 Persis lay. 
 
 One rarely hears a more pleasing speaker than Mr. 
 Adair proved to be. He appeared larger in the pulpit 
 than out of it ; there he had free and uninterrupted 
 opportunity of letting himself out, and he did so. 
 Eoss was a person of such striking appearance that 
 the preacher may have noticed him in the congrega 
 tion, perhaps knew who he was, for Mr. Adair knew 
 everything. This may have stimulated him to greater 
 effort. As usual he was engaged in denying, dis-
 
 328 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 proving, vigorously resenting something, I forget what 
 it was, for I was myself interested only in the clear 
 diction, the terse and clean-carved sentences. Unless 
 I greatly mistake, his congregation cared no more 
 than I did for the subject-matter of what he said. 
 He was to them, as to me, but an extremely skilful 
 musician : it was wholly in his brilliant execution 
 they were concerned ; for the sentiment of the piece 
 they did not care a pin. And Mr. Adair was very 
 much of an expert in what he did. Nor was it 
 merely in his effective anecdote, sarcasm, ridicule, 
 superb contempt, that his skill consisted. Purely as 
 a quality, I may say that he had great dramatic force 
 of scorn ; it was a more corrosive scorn than I ever 
 saw in the best actor ; he took such pleasure in it, so 
 evidently from the very heart of the man did it come. 
 His rhetoric, too, was as the scarlet of a cardinal, he 
 was so dogmatic, so infallible. Against, not for, any 
 thing in particular. His highest power was in hatred 
 for and assault of something; what it was he opposed, 
 what it was he held to instead, nobody thought of 
 that a second time. 
 
 " As sword-play it was splendid," Ross said, as we 
 came away. " The curious thing about it is, that the 
 adroitness of the man is by reason of a sincere detes 
 tation of, an almost desperate determination to slay, 
 the pei-son upon whom his sword is drawn." 
 
 " The person ? " I asked. 
 
 " Guernsey," my friend said in what seemed to me 
 to be a species of contemptuous despair, " you people 
 who profess to believe most really believe as little,
 
 THE WINDY WAYS OF MEN. 329 
 
 almost, as the rest of us. Look at it. So far as this 
 Mr. Adair is certain of anything, it is that Christ 
 was, if he ever existed at all, a good man who said 
 and did some admirable things there in Judaea, was 
 killed for it, and has been dead and dust for near 
 twenty centuries. On the other hand, you, and 
 Christendom with you, profess to regard Christ as 
 more than man, as alive to-day as much as ever, as 
 present on earth now, and more actively engaged with 
 men than before. You say so ; really you believe it 
 almost as little as he ! Mr. Adair don't believe in a 
 living Jesus : but the amazing thing is, that he acts 
 as if he did ; that is, he strikes, when you get at the 
 core of his fury and his assault, not at the rabble of 
 disciples about their Lord, but at the Christ himself. 
 He does n't care for the mere men, them he despises 
 as I do ; it is the Christ he attacks, the living present 
 Christ of Christendom. He persists, whatever he may 
 deny, in considering Jesus a living, a powerful, an 
 exceedingly active foe, and fighting him furiously. 
 That is the reason he never tires, is so vigorous in 
 his cut and thrust. No man could fight as he does 
 unless with a feeling, under all, that it is with a liv 
 ing, yes, and a very dangerous enemy. I wonder you 
 do not understand ! The Roman soldier was content 
 to thrust his spear into the side of the crucified Naza- 
 rene but once ; this warrior can never, for all his 
 efforts, be quite sure he has at last killed the 
 Christ." 
 
 But Persis was absent for some Sundays longer, 
 and Ross went with me the round of the churches.
 
 330 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 As I came to know afterward, be did so with a de 
 spairing desire to see, as a last resort, if there was 
 anything among us upon which he could rest as with 
 final assurance : to win Persis and to learn that were 
 the objects of his coming, and he was almost as in 
 tensely desirous of the one as of the other. 
 
 One of the speakers Ross liked, in his way, very 
 much. He was a broad-browed, earnest, apparently 
 sincere and philanthropic man. 
 
 " He is a noble soul," my friend told me as we 
 walked home from his church. " I enjoyed what he 
 said. His church is what a church has to be, I sup 
 pose, these days, nothing more than a lecture-hall. 
 The preacher is a clear-headed demonstrator in science. 
 He makes experiments. I could almost smell the 
 chemicals upon the air. With a dead doctrine upon 
 the table before him, he is very good at dissection, 
 explanation. He made some striking suggestions, 
 some daring guesses. He and his people are intel 
 ligently interested in conjecturing, experimenting. 
 Who knows, they think, but something may come of 
 it some day ? I will go again next Sunday and see." 
 
 We did so, but could scarcely believe it was the 
 same speaker. He must have had some severe sorrow 
 during the week before in his household or among his 
 people. Perhaps he had read something, heard some 
 thing. For some reason he was not in the mood for 
 speculating that day among the uncertainties. To 
 our surprise he stood as upon rock, was almost im 
 passioned in assertion of those things upon which men 
 must rest if they are to rest at all. I was so delighted
 
 THE WINDY WAYS OF MEN. 331 
 
 that I told Mrs. Trent of it. After Rachel's return 
 from the country she and Mrs. Trent hurried there 
 to hear him and to rejoice that his experiments had 
 arrived at last at some result. They came away in 
 dignant, not so much at him as at me. He had 
 reacted to something more radical than before. " He 
 was worse than Mr. Adair! You ought to be ashamed," 
 Mrs. Trent scolded me, " of playing us such a trick ! 
 People should not make practical jokes, Mr. Guernsey, 
 of serious matters. I am grieved that you should do 
 such a thing ! " 
 
 During his short stay Eoss and I gave every Sun 
 day to hearing some minister. Our review could not 
 but be as limited as it was superficial. " In no city," 
 I told him, " is there a larger number to the popu 
 lation of able, eloquent, devout, successful pastors. 
 Nowhere are there, perhaps, more thriving churches, 
 or members who work harder or give more to all be 
 nevolent objects." There was much during our rounds 
 that I heartily liked. So, although in a wholly dif 
 ferent sense, did my friend. He listened closely, gave 
 to each speaker his due award of praise for logic, illus 
 tration, pathos, rhetoric, personal appearance, but to 
 Ross it was so much enjoyment of a varied eloquence, 
 that was all. 
 
 " Whatever thorough training, vigorous talent, fierce 
 competition, can do," he said to me, " for men, your 
 speakers of every kind have long possessed. All that 
 men anywhere can do as the result thereof, they do. 
 They do it most admirably. I have heard things I 
 knew before strongly put. It is when they try to tell
 
 332 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 me of the things I do not know, of the underlying 
 forces which must make a man do what he already 
 approves but does not want to do, it is when they try 
 to get at the things which I would die to be assured 
 of, that they break clown. Do you think," Ross said 
 almost violently, " that I care a snap for the opinions 
 of Tom, Dick, and Harry in regard to things unseen ? 
 Here are men straining themselves to stand on tip-toe 
 and look over the wall. For thousands of years men 
 have made nothing at that. I am as tall as any of 
 them, can see as far into the invisible. Poor fellows, 
 they do not see anything, and yet they want to lift me 
 to look ! I am sick of everlasting conjecture." 
 
 " In regard to much of it, somebody," I remarked, 
 " has said that, at last, it is but the swing to and fro 
 of a pendulum which can tick only an unceasing Eyo, 
 Ncgo ! Ncgo, Ego ! You may take, if you will, the 
 spluttering electricity of Voltaire and his race ; I pre 
 fer the steady fires of St. Paul, the glow of heart and 
 intellect fed by the unchanging certainties." 
 
 " Do you ? One hears," Ross groaned, " so much 
 speechifying ! I might have known it was so before 
 I came. I must fall back on the tree lizards and cat 
 birds ! 
 
 " While 7 am talking let me tell you one thing. I 
 admire," Ross added, " your famous city more than 
 I have confessed. It is magnificent. Your business 
 blocks, philanthropies, city management, libraries, 
 public schools, free baths, ships, factories, inventions, 
 are wonderful. More amazing still is the persistent, 
 highly skilled, I may say overflow of, intelligent
 
 THE WINDY WAYS OF MEM. 333 
 
 force. Nowhere on earth is it more concentrated 
 than here. Your success in regard to things mate 
 rial strikes me, as a stranger, very much, but not so 
 much as the pitiful failure of the vast effort in re 
 gard to everything else. As soon, I mean, as you 
 bund yourself to things unseen, I am your equal. I 
 can speculate about God and the soul as successfully 
 as the best of you ! 
 
 "Guernsey," Ross went on, for he had cherished 
 small expectations, but they had ended in a large de 
 spair, " your people bring to their guessing in regard 
 to the unseen an energy more desperate than to their 
 daily business. In the last they accomplish every 
 thing ; in the other nothing, nothing, absolutely noth 
 ing ! The results in the one case and in the other 
 come too close together for the contrast not to amaze, 
 if it did not amuse. That is all ! " 
 
 On account of the connection too in which it took 
 place I shrink from speaking of myself. My excuse 
 is that, really, it is not of myself I speak. The facts 
 were these. Before the coming of Ross I had pro 
 duced a lecture which aroused more interest than any 
 as yet, because I was myself more interested in it 
 than in anything, so far, of my handiwork. What it 
 was ahout does not matter. It was timely, but what 
 ever force it had lay in its undeniable truth. Every 
 body had been saying the same thing to himself for 
 some time ; my sole merit was in speaking out what 
 many felt even more clearly than myself. It so 
 happened that I delivered the lecture in one of the 
 city halls during the sojourn with us of my friend.
 
 334 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 When the audience heard what I said, tried to say, 
 in my lecture, it was listening, in fact, merely to its 
 own deepest intuitions. My words were less than 
 their own conceptions. 
 
 I was glad, the night of my lecture, to find myself 
 at last off the platform and with Ross in his room at 
 the hotel. He was kind enough in what he said, but 
 we were sufficiently stimulated to get away for the 
 time from ourselves. " It is odd," I said to Ross, 
 "how matters happen. Listen. Once on a time I 
 was in a barren region out West where a man was 
 boring for oil. My interest was not in the work, but 
 in the man. Day after day for months had his drill 
 forced its slow way down and down through what 
 seemed to be the unending variations of gravel, clay, 
 sand, rock. One day, at last, a strong torrent of oil 
 spouted up from below, driving like straws the tools 
 and the man himself before it. So it is with all of 
 us. We toil on, for years it may be, but some day we 
 strike the deepest and richest fountains w r ithin our 
 selves. You knew as little as any man what was in 
 you, but you are beginning to see, at last, what you 
 may arrive at. But, listen ! A man says and does 
 and is his best not uutil he drills his way through 
 the accursed crusts of things, and gets at the central 
 certainties. That will do ; tell me something about 
 yourself," for a man is never so apt to say foolish 
 things as immediately after a successful address. 
 
 But the character and enthusiasm of my audience 
 that night had excited Ross beyond his wont. 
 
 " That explains ! " he said. " For your success lay
 
 THE WINDY WAYS OF MEN. 335 
 
 not so much in what you said as in your joyful con 
 fidence. You assumed that every one agreed with you 
 in his inmost heart, and " 
 
 " The clapping of their hands was," I said, " but an 
 outer pulsation of their hearts assenting to undeniable 
 facts. That is so, because I tried to travel only on 
 solid certainties. When there are such fragments of 
 rock all along for my feet, why should I flounder in 
 the mud, or flutter upon feeble wings ? ' The Devil is 
 an Ass ' is the name Ben Jonson gave to his play ; 
 for the Devil is the supreme fool of the universe, 
 always thwarted in the end, because he prefers lies to 
 certainties. Eoss, dear old chap," I said, my hand on 
 his shoulder as he sat, " why will you plunge forever 
 on, as through a cypress swamp? Plant your feet, 
 man, on the everlasting certainties ! " 
 
 " Certainties ? " he asked. 
 
 " I am not speaking of the notions of Tom, Dick, 
 Harry, Aryan or American ; as you say, we can guess 
 as well as the best of them. The unseen certainties 
 only God knows, only God can make known. He has 
 done so ! We have had them for eighteen centuries, 
 and no more are to be told us. They suffice ; look 
 at them, God ; the soul ; life, a gymnasium for the 
 development of eternal character; every worst event 
 overruled for our highest good ! " 
 
 " How can there be a good God," Ross demanded, 
 "when there is so much rascality and wretchedness 
 among men ? " 
 
 " I don't know. It hurts me as much as it can any 
 man. All I know," I said, " is that God come to us
 
 336 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 in Christ accepts sin and suffering as tremendous facts; 
 endures them for a lifetime ; suffers all any man can 
 suffer under them ; undergoes the utmost that mob 
 law, civil law, church law, God himself can do ; dies 
 crushed to death under them. When God comes in 
 flesh, and takes, endures, survives that, I try to take 
 the Christ, to cling to the Christ, without knowing 
 anything else, as the supreme and sufficient cer 
 tainty. In him I rest, and am contented to wait and 
 see ! " 
 
 " I can understand," Ross said, after a long silence, 
 " that when a man does stand upon your absolute cer 
 tainties, as you call them, he stands very firmly. The 
 forefathers of the people living about here had such 
 hold upon your certainties that they have sent them 
 down with amazing force. Their personal notions 
 everybody laughs at ; these certainties of theirs and 
 yours are in the blood and bone of their children. Can 
 a man grasp a thing so vigorously," Eoss asked of him 
 self, " unless it is a, fact ? You can hang on to a bit of 
 gold ; if you grasp a bubble, it breaks. Anything but 
 a fact is crushed the harder you grasp it. Certainties? 
 Those old-fashioned believers have made America what 
 it is, that 's a fact. This city is flooded with foreign 
 ers, yet these certainties, as you call them, are strong 
 enough in their minority of descendants to overmaster 
 and to leaven the new and hostile majorities, here and 
 over America so far. Did it ever strike you," Eoss 
 added, " in regard to those who have departed from 
 their hold upon your certainties, that in so short a 
 time they are already a spent force ? The certainties 

 
 'THE WINDY WAYS OF MEN. 337 
 
 hold out, in the past as in the present, here and over 
 Christendom, better and longer than that. Guernsey," 
 Ross added with one of his steady looks, " I will say 
 this : I know men who are worn out by debauchery 
 idleness, the owning of too much money. A blase 
 man is as weak as water. Mr. Adair is intellectually 
 a rout. Alert as he seems to be, he is, except in vio 
 lently opposing everything, as weak as a man can be, 
 as to the definite doing of anything, as to the going 
 in any definite direction, because he is the victim of 
 ennui. You see, a man must exhaust his brains 
 sooner or later; there is but a saucer full of them 
 at best; why should the brain not give out as much 
 as the nerves or the stomach ? " 
 
 " Yes," I said, " Mr. Adair is, at heart, as profoundly 
 disgusted with his present position as you or I or any 
 man could possibly be. His resolve to escape from 
 it is desperate. No man has a clearer head, yet when 
 he asks of himself, Where shall I go ? he falters like 
 an idiot. He must get out of his Moscow crumbling 
 about him to ashes, but, like Napoleon, whither shall 
 he go through the trackless snows ? If he could but 
 come to see that, in this matter, it would not help 
 him were he a Socrates and a Plato, a Bacon, Newton, 
 Shakespeare, all in one ! The divine certainties are 
 apart from men, are as clearly revealed as they are 
 eternal, inexhaustible." 
 
 "Oh, well," Ross added, "this I will say: the power 
 is with you who believe in them, the power, because 
 with you is the heart. I fear some of even your 
 churches, as churches, are dying ; the heart in them 
 
 22
 
 338 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 seems to be ceasing to beat. But I am not interested 
 in such things ; let us talk of something else." 
 
 Of course I knew that I might do more harm to 
 Ross than good, but I had a hope in a promise my 
 friend had made Mrs. Trent, that he would go and 
 hear her pastor, good Mr. Brown. He was a plain 
 man, sincere in his faith, excellent, hard-working, 
 humble, seeming never to think of himself. His creed 
 was that in which I was born and reared, and I was 
 anxious as to the result when one Sunday I went 
 with Ross to hear what he had to say. Mrs. Trent 
 was lingering for us in the vestibule of their modest 
 church, and I saw her eagerness in her eyes as she 
 gave Ross her hand, forgetting me entirely. I im 
 agined I saw her lips move in prayer as she seated 
 herself next to Ross in her pew, my seat being on the 
 other side of him. 
 
 While the people were singing I was thinking of 
 the cafious in the Sierras, how they run a thousand 
 feet deep this way and that through the solid rock. 
 " Ross is, in comparison to other men," I said to my 
 self, " as a canon is among the glens and valleys. He 
 tends, as it were, due north ; is deep, is rock, is 
 seemingly unchangeable. And yet there are fires and 
 internal forces which can and do alter the trend of 
 the deepest valleys. If Ross is changed into a hap 
 pier direction, he will be Ross Urwoldt in that too, 
 and to the end." I glanced at him as Mr. Brown 
 took his text. His eyes were fastened upon the 
 speaker, and he remained motionless to the end in 
 his fixed attention. It had been my fortune irume-
 
 THE WINDY WAYS OF MEN. 339 
 
 diately upon the close of the war to help feed the 
 starving men taken from Audersonville prison, and it 
 reminded me of them, the gaze which Ross riveted 
 upon the speaker. His face was gaunt as with want ; 
 the features were sharp, pinched. He was a very- 
 strong man, had vigorous appetites ; he had nothing 
 to satisfy his soul so far, he was hungrier than he 
 would let me know. Everything else had failed. So 
 far as churches went this was his last chance. 
 
 I try to hold on to the Christ, but it is scant faith 
 I have iu any Peter or John whatsoever, however 
 near Christ they seem to stand. My experience now 
 but established me in this. Had Mr. Brown known 
 the result, he would have died rather than have 
 done it. Alas, all he said was about something, I 
 forget what, in connection with Christ, not about the 
 Master himself. It was as if he held up for our ad 
 miration the holy coat of Treves, the seamless vest 
 ure of Christ ; but it was not the Son of God himself 
 whom he showed us. As the sermon advanced, Ross 
 still listened, but took how could I blame him ? 
 as little interest in it as he would have done in any 
 other bundle of rags. After service Mrs. Trent had 
 not a word to say. Eoss had already forgotten Mr. 
 Brown and what he had talked about. As I came to 
 know afterward he was saying to himself, as we 
 walked away, 
 
 " I am done now with everything else but Persis."
 
 340 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVII. 
 
 EXTEMPORE. 
 
 TDEESIS and Kachel were still absent, and I was 
 *- walking along the street one afternoon, when 
 Dr. Trent, who was driving rapidly by in his carriage, 
 reined in his horse and beckoned to me. " I have 
 seen to it," he said, "that the young ladies in the 
 country know nothing of the visit of Colonel Unvoldt. 
 It is essential that Persis should have a good rest 
 from all kinds of excitement, and for that it is neces 
 sary Rachel should be with her. Mrs. Trent tells me 
 that Urwoldt is here, chiefly, she believes, with refer 
 ence to Persis, and it is partly her suggestion that 
 Persis had better remain away, for the present at 
 least. I think it is due to you," the Doctor gravely 
 added, " that I should speak. There are times when 
 a physician must be frank. Miss Persis is, I fear, 
 very inconsiderate. Confound education !" he broke 
 out ; " they distil knowledge, these days, into strong 
 drink, and the use of it, where women are concerned, 
 has grown into an intemperance ! " 
 
 1 knew that Dr. Trent was becoming almost rabid 
 on the subject, and answered him lightly. " People, 
 you mean, are abandoning the flowers of garden and
 
 EXTEMPORE. 341 
 
 field for perfumes in bottles of cut glass. It is an 
 age of telegrams, you mean, and the distillation and 
 condensation of everything. The essences of men 
 and women, as of nature in general, are so sublimated 
 into novels and poems that we prefer the books to 
 everything else." 
 
 "It is no joke," Dr. Trent said, almost roughly. 
 " Persis always was, I learn, of a high-strung, excit 
 able temperament, liable to intense excitement ; of 
 late she often sinks into deep depression. She has 
 worked herself too hard ever since she came. A few 
 weeks ago a much better position as teacher was 
 offered her, a large salary attached. It is such an 
 opportunity as few women have even in this city ; it 
 is a great compliment to her, and I was so alarmed 
 for the result that it was by my arranging, unknown 
 to her, that she is to-day among kind friends. Be 
 fore she enters upon the new position she must rest. 
 She has allowed herself to be drawn off, as if she had 
 not distraction enough already, by Mr. Adair and 
 others, into doubt and everlasting discussion as to 
 the very foundations of what had been her faith. 
 Poor child ! she is completely at sea. Tell Urwoldt 
 she is sick. He can visit her some other time." 
 
 I fancied I saw Mrs. Trent's hand in that sugges 
 tion, but the Doctor said to me, as he gathered up his 
 reins, "We regard you as her next friend, and, I assure 
 you, she is in a critical situation, and I cannot 
 answer for the result." Thereupon he insisted upon 
 telling me of a number of young lady patients of his 
 who had graduated with high honors at this institu-
 
 342 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 tion and that merely to sink into melancholy wrecks 
 and die. 
 
 Before he was done, Ross crossed the street toward 
 us, and Dr. Trent waited only to shake hands with 
 him, and drove on. I could not define to myself why 
 I shrank, as I did, from repeating to Ross what the 
 Doctor told me. As we sauntered along the street, my 
 friend stopped before the entrance to a public hall 
 at which there was displayed a staring placard. " I 
 saw a notice of this affair in my paper at breakfast," 
 he remarked, " but had forgotten it. Let us drop in 
 a moment. We don't have this style of thing every 
 where, and I may never be in this city again. We 
 need not stop more than a minute or so." 
 
 Knowing as I did what was going on within, I was 
 sorry that Ross should, in his present mood, be even 
 a momentary spectator thereof, but there was nothing 
 to do but to go in with him and take what came. 
 
 It was a long hall, narrow and poorly lighted from 
 without. At the farther end was a platform, upon 
 which, to my surprise, several ladies, old and young, 
 were seated, with here and there a man or two. The 
 audience was small, straggling, no individual man or 
 woman seeming to have relation to any other. One 
 or two were reading the papers. It is more than 
 possible that I was prejudiced, but I was struck as by 
 a malarious chill, there was something so dreary in 
 the aspect of everything. At least so it seemed until 
 I looked up at the presiding officer, who, as we en 
 tered, was addressing the meeting. Evidently he 
 was, or had been, a clergyman, and might be a bishop,
 
 EXTEMPORE. 343 
 
 so patriarchal was he. There was more than clerical 
 dignity in his towering height, his iron-gray hair, his 
 paternal gestures, his benignant and persuasive ac 
 cents. You would have taken oath that, whatever 
 his abilities might be, he was an eminently good man, 
 one who had endured with patience much persecution 
 for righteousness' sake. 
 
 " The sole article of our creed, dear friends," he was 
 saying, "is the most perfect freedom, freedom for 
 everybody, freedom for everything. It has been ex 
 emplified upon this platform since our Convocation 
 met. We have had the pleasure of hearing every 
 variety of views from almost every variety of individ 
 ual. A distinguished rabbi has addressed us, a rabbi 
 of a large and wealthy synagogue, and of the liberal 
 school. With great pleasure we have heard from his 
 lips the assurance that the Jews are rapidly abandon 
 ing their belief in Moses as any other than an able 
 lawgiver. The pretended inspiration of the Old Tes 
 tament, the ridiculous stories of miracles attending 
 the history of the Jews, the superstitious rites and 
 ceremonies, all, he tells us, will soon be, to the Is 
 raelites also, among the refuse of the past, with Buddh 
 ism and the miserable fetichism of the poor African. 
 The expectation of a Messiah is definitely given up, 
 and we have been charmed with the story of Jewish 
 love for America as the only Christ or Canaan desired 
 by them. We have had, also, the pleasure of listen 
 ing to the eloquent lady who spoke so well for female 
 suffrage ; to a medical friend, also, who assures us that, 
 with due observance of the laws of health, all disease
 
 344 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 and death itself will be unknown. I could not assent 
 wholly to our female friend, following after, who has 
 depicted before us the horrors of marriage and the 
 blessedness of perfect freedom of divorce, but there 
 is much truth in what she advanced. We have been 
 amused by the earnestness of the Christian enthu 
 siast who addressed us so vehemently ; nor have 
 we failed to learn much from the lady who spoke to 
 us, as she believed, under possession of the spirit 
 of Thomas Paine. The living and, the dead," the 
 speaker said in a fatherly manner, " Calvin and Vol 
 taire, sceptic, atheist, Spiritualist, Mohammed, Jesus, 
 Joe Smith, Methodist, Swedenborgian, we are glad 
 to hear whoever conies. If there w r ere a Satan," 
 and the benevolent bishop smiled upon his laughing 
 hearers, " he should be as welcome to say his say 
 as God, if there be a God. That is the peculiar glory 
 of our platform, that it is free, free as the air, as 
 the light ! " Great applause followed this state 
 ment. 
 
 He proceeded for some time in this strain. More 
 people dropped in, some went out. Here and there 
 little knots conversed together. I was tired of it, but 
 Ross would not go out with me. He seemed singu 
 larly interested. When the speaker sat down after 
 a hearty invitation to any one to speak who liked, 
 quite a number complied with the request. I can 
 not remember them all. One woman with close- 
 cropped hair and spectacles was so very plain in her 
 language as to the tyranny of man as a husband that 
 the benignant presiding officer was obliged, although
 
 EXTEMPORE. 345 
 
 in a very fatherly way, to warn her that the police 
 were present. When she had flung herself from the 
 platform in a rage, a mild-eyed Quakeress had her 
 say ; after that, a long-haired, pallid-faced individual 
 freed himself of the bitterest of assaults upon relig 
 ion, any and every religion. 
 
 Then followed a lull. No one seemed inclined to ad 
 vance anything further. People arose here and there 
 and yawned. A small and active man passed along 
 the seats, soliciting subscriptions to a radical periodi 
 cal ; conversation rose into a universal hum ; men and 
 women began to go out. The officer looked at his 
 watch. " I see, dear friends," he said, " that we have 
 some time left us. Is there no one who will favor 
 us ? Feel entirely free, whoever of you, dear friends, 
 may wish to attack anything, to defend anything !" 
 
 There was no response. The worthy bishop fastened, 
 to my dismay, his persuasive eyes upon my compan 
 ion. "I have observed among us," he said, coming 
 to the edge of the platform and rubbing his episcopal 
 hands slowly and softly together, " a friend who has 
 listened with great attention, and whom I take to be 
 a stranger. Perhaps, sir, you will give us the pleas 
 ure" 
 
 Without a moment's hesitation Ross arose, went 
 down the narrow aisle, took his place beside the pres 
 ident, and looked deliberately around him. From our 
 coming in I had observed that, whoever spoke, there 
 was applause. Whenever any point was made, it 
 mattered not what it was, for or against, if it was 
 amusing everybody laughed, if it was striking every
 
 346 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 hand lent its cordial tribute of clapping. When my 
 friend faced the audience there was a pause. He was 
 so tall, erect, vigorous, there was so much of meaning 
 in his aspect, his sad face was so dark and determined, 
 that during the hush people asked of each other in 
 a whisper who he was ; evidently he was a man of 
 distinction. Then came a round of applause. The 
 reporters looked up from their desks below, while the 
 patriarch whispered to Ross. 
 
 " Our friend declines to give his name or abode," 
 the presiding officer remarked, still rubbing his genial 
 hands together. "What does it matter? It is not 
 himself, but what he may say, which should interest 
 us." And the applause ratified the words. 
 
 I had read much in the papers of the power of 
 Ross over his hearers, but had never heard him speak 
 since we were together in college. What wholly in 
 describable quality is it in mere aspect and tone 
 which compels us to yield to such a speaker, as one 
 does not so much to music as to weight ? Before he 
 had opened his lips every one present felt that there 
 must be value, yes, weight, in what this stranger had to 
 say. His first accents strengthened the conviction. 
 
 I report merely such points as I can recall of the 
 remarks made by my friend. 
 
 " Stranger as I am," he began, " I know that there 
 are multitudes, large majorities I dare say, of the 
 people of this city and region whom you do not rep 
 resent. What I say is to you, and to those whom, 
 organized into associations or not, you do represent. 
 Please accept what I say in a few definite statements
 
 EXTEMPORE. 347 
 
 of the way in which you as a class, an increasing 
 class, impress me. 
 
 " First, it is plain, from what I have seen here and 
 elsewhere in your city, that you are consumed by a 
 great desire to learn something you do not already 
 know. It is natural. All men feel it. I do, perhaps, 
 as deeply as any. An unspeakable desire!" And the 
 depth thereof was, as he spoke further, in his eyes, his 
 whole aspect. Thereupon the hearers applauded; they 
 agreed with him in that. 
 
 " Another thing I have observed," Ross continued. 
 " You are, I suppose, as intelligent a people, as reso 
 lute and persistent a people, as any alive. When you 
 go at making money, you make it. If any needed 
 improvement is pressed upon you, it is invented, 
 invented out of the apparently impossible. Above 
 all things you crave, must have, as you think, a new 
 religion. For how long and earnestly have you 
 striven to invent a religion which shall supersede 
 the old ! Thus far have you hit upon anything 
 which will serve as even a temporary substitute 
 for it?" 
 
 Eoss waited for a reply. There were several mo 
 ments of silence, and then applause, always applause. 
 
 " So far as I can see," he went on, " the only clear 
 conclusion you have reached is that any final cer 
 tainty to rest upon is impossible. You have lost 
 your last hope of such a thing as truth, ultimate 
 truth, final fact. It is purely from the force of habit, 
 because you have nothing else to do, because you like 
 to talk, to hear other people talk, that you keep up
 
 348 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 even the show of trying to get at something upon 
 which to rest. You are like divers who, having 
 abandoned all hope of securing any pearl from the 
 depths, having given up the last lingering belief that 
 there are or ever were any pearls, are plunging about 
 in the brine hither and thither from love of the 
 sport, grappling with and eluding each other, laugh 
 ing, chattering. But in all the wide ocean there is 
 not a pearl; the diving is all!" The pathos of the 
 words had for an instant a stilling effect ; but then 
 followed the invariable clapping : they did not care ! 
 
 "Then what is there of practical use," Ross M'as 
 only less scornful than Mr. Adair, " in your efforts ? 
 Except to unsettle yourselves the more, what do you 
 accomplish ? Do you constrain men to do what is 
 right, to hate what is wrong ? Say that you help 
 men in every other sense, do you soothe the suffer 
 ing where it becomes agony, the suffering of the 
 soul ? In every business beside you are the most 
 practically successful of people. As to religion, what, 
 unless it is the destroying in men the very senti 
 ment of religion, what do you do ? " And from 
 out of the sadness of the speaker the demand flashed 
 like lightning across a dark cloud, it was said so 
 fiercely. The applause was none the less, rather the 
 more vigorous. 
 
 " To what rest have you attained ? You are," he 
 proceeded, " the hardest- worked people on earth. 
 "With your hands, with your brains, you toil as was 
 never required of slaves. It is consistent in you to 
 war upon the Sabbath ; to all rest, rest, you are the
 
 EXTEMPORE. 349 
 
 deadliest of foes. This mill of yours runs more 
 steadily, makes louder clatter than any other, but the 
 only grain ground therein is yourselves ! There is 
 not one certainty upon which you even profess to 
 pillow your head or heart for a passing instant. 
 Eternal thirst for repose, eternal and desperate effort 
 for repose ; and so far what have you obtained but 
 the profound assurance that for you such a thing as 
 repose is forever impossible ? You stand upon ice ; 
 do you think," Eoss said with sudden ferocity, " that 
 I, who also feel my feet slip from under me, will 
 hold on to you for support ? " No one was offended. 
 There was general laughter, with applause coming 
 after. Nobody cared one way or the other. 
 
 " Let me tell you one last thing." And my friend 
 drew nearer to his audience. " As a city you inherit 
 more from your forefathers than any people that ever 
 existed, schools, wealth, free institutions, health, 
 unusual vigor of mind, renown. You have inherited 
 as men never did before, = reputation, influence 
 reaching across the land, over the world. And yet 
 the most precious part of your heritage has slipped 
 utterly through your hands. You have lost it so 
 entirely that you refuse to believe it ever existed. 
 You think your ancestors were hypocrites for pre 
 tending to possess it. Do you know what I mean ? 
 Greece no longer enjoys the artistic skill which made 
 it the wonder of the world. The Roman of to-day 
 scarce knows that his nation was once the mistress 
 of all lands. What remains of its former supremacy 
 to the Spain of this century ? The one thing you
 
 350 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 have lost, which did most to make your fathers what 
 they were, that one supreme thing is the fear of 
 God. Do you fear him ? " Eoss waited as if for a 
 reply. 
 
 " Yes," he added at last, " as much as you do Thor 
 or Jupiter. How many of you have the smallest fear 
 fear 1 } of anything? To you, when you regard 
 him at all, God, before whom your grand old ances 
 tors trembled, the only object they did fear, God 
 is as an aged grandfather, a good old soul in his 
 dotage ! You may cherish a lingering, compassionate 
 affection for him. But fear, the fear of God ! 
 it has perished from your nature ! " And then Eoss 
 paused. " Because I am with you in that, " a 
 thrill ran through the audience, the stranger stood 
 erect, his hands extended, there was such unspeak 
 able sadness and sincerity in his face, " because I 
 am side by side in your hell in that, I say it ! Of all 
 that you inherit from men who possessed it as men 
 rarely do in this world, you have let slip, have cast 
 away, your chiefest birthright, you have lost your 
 God ! In place of God what have you found ? 
 what ? what 1 " 
 
 It is out of my power to tell the manner in which 
 it was uttered; it was like the wail of a lost soul. 
 As Eoss said it he descended the platform. After a 
 moment the applause broke forth louder than ever. 
 The people were delighted. One or two women with 
 smiles on their faces .arose as my friend came down 
 the aisle, and extended their hands to thank him. 
 
 " You did it very well," one said, and another.
 
 EXTEMPORE. 351 
 
 " It was the best speech we have had." 
 
 " I was quite interested ! " 
 
 Eoss looked at them in a dazed way. He could 
 not understand. Yes ; even the capability of believ 
 ing anything was gone, gone from the very women ! 
 Without a glance at me he picked up his hat from 
 where he had been seated beside me, and kept on 
 down the passage and out at the door. 
 
 He was no believer, but as he walked away he had 
 but one thought : " Is Persis become like this ? 
 Persis ? " 
 
 " I see," he said at last and in an absent way as we 
 neared our hotel, " that these foolish folk do not make 
 you miserable." 
 
 " Me ? miserable ? My dear fellow," I remarked, 
 "the people who are most ignorant of, who most 
 oppose, the blessed result toward which all things and 
 every soul of us tend, these work as effectively to 
 bring it about as any. The sun itself has not a surer 
 orbit than the silliest comet, a mere flying fleece, as 
 it is, of gas. No, sir, I hate no man, have a kindly 
 feeling even for the shortest-haired of those poor 
 women, knowing that, all unconsciously, they are 
 helping toward the august end ! " I waxed jubilant 
 as I went on, but I fear Eoss did not listen.
 
 352 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 CHRISTMAS. 
 
 /^HEISTMAS came, and Persis was still absent, 
 ^^ and Eachel. It is hardly necessary to say that 
 Eoss would have gone to them if, from day to day, he 
 had not hoped they would return any hour, Dr. Trent 
 and I holding him back from going after them mean 
 while. They were to return with the new year, and 
 there was nothing for Eoss to do but wait. " I must 
 see her ! " he one day said, rather to himself than to 
 me, and abruptly; at the time I thought he meant 
 Eachel, for of Persis he never spoke. 
 
 "I am glad you will be with us at Christmas," I told 
 him. " You can nowhere find it so set forth, as it 
 were, by contrast. These barren fields, these lines of 
 stone fences, these severe winds and snow-hidden 
 plains at which you shiver with a deeper than bodily 
 chill, it is these things which produce these people. 
 This State, for instance, is the steel die out of which 
 comes the coin of gold with its bold and sharp-cut 
 bas-relief thereupon of Liberty. What an intense, 
 anxious-faced people it is, you have often remarked. 
 Eemember that, for centuries now, the very quietness 
 of the Sundays has been because of their deeper in 
 tensity then of thought and feeling, a thought and
 
 CHRISTMAS. 353 
 
 feeling of which all word and act are but the noisy 
 overflow. Two holidays only they have had, Fourth 
 of July and Thanksgiving ; and the sermon is perish 
 ing out of the last as the oration has out of the first, 
 leaving little beside the smell of pop-crackers in the 
 one and the fragrance of turkey in the other. Even 
 Sunday is passing away." 
 
 "And Christmas is becoming the only holiday," 
 said Ross. 
 
 "You see how it is." I threw my hands apart 
 toward the proofs of that in the streets along which 
 we were passing as we talked. " Look at those dry- 
 goods palaces," I said. " From the days of Eve and 
 the apple, we men have always been flanked at our 
 austerest through the women. Tougher, more vigi 
 lant men never lived than those who settled and built 
 up this city, as they did, in fact, our whole civilization ; 
 but they, too, have had to surrender. Do you see 
 those windows of plate glass, the rich and varied 
 millinery heaped within them in easy reach, appar 
 ently, of every hand, as well as hungering eye ? 
 Year by year those windows are widening, the brill 
 iant display becoming more luxurious. In view of 
 Christmas see how they outdo all they have attempted 
 so far ! You said that our liquor-shops are innumer 
 able; did you ever think that the confectionery estab 
 lishments are to the women and children what the 
 dram-shops are to the men ? The theatres are larger, 
 finer, more crowded here than elsewhere. Now I 
 know that the harder men work, so much the more 
 eagerly do they rush, in the reaction therefrom, into 
 
 23
 
 354 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 amusement, if not into drink. So it is with us. 
 Look at that window ! The creams, cakes, candies, 
 these show, here as elsewhere, the reaction of chil 
 dren from their incessant books, of the women from 
 their hard housekeeping, if not from their excesses in 
 hearing lectures and dabbling in the sciences and the 
 metaphysics. It is by the swing of the pendulum 
 between, between " 
 
 "The intellect and the stomach," Ross rather 
 coarsely interrupted, "that the clock-work of your 
 civilization is kept going, is it ? " But I knew that 
 he enjoyed the brilliant display as much as myself. 
 The air was clear and very cold. Before we were up 
 that morning the deep snow had been cleared, under 
 stress of the police, by every householder from before 
 his own door, and the snow-ploughs had done the 
 same for the tracks at least of the horse-cars. Every 
 now and then, as we went, some man, hurrying along 
 a little too fast, slipped and fell, and spectators 
 laughed louder than they would have done had not 
 Christmas been so near. More than once groups of 
 ladies and children were startled into shrieks which 
 ended in laughter, as small avalanches of powdery 
 snow fell upon them from the house-tops high over 
 head. The toy-shops were in their glory, Saint Nich 
 olas himself parading up and down in front of each, 
 with hoary beard and profuse liberality of advertising 
 chromos. 
 
 It was the only season of the year in which Ross 
 would have done so, but he went with me into the 
 warehouses of toys, consenting meekly to the crowd-
 
 CHRISTMAS, 355 
 
 ing of the throngs about the laden counters, for he 
 insisted on adding to the purchases I was making 
 for Jean, little Guernsey, and the rest. Except for 
 the universal good-humor which prevailed, we might 
 have been in a baker's shop during a famine, in 
 a dispensary during a pestilence, so multitudinous 
 and eager were we in the making of our purchases. 
 There was something delightfully absurd in such 
 eagerness after dolls, tin wagons, trumpery gimcracks 
 of all sorts, which could not last a week, and had no 
 practical use while they did. But it was in Eoss I 
 was most interested. He was more of a boy than 
 I had supposed possible, more, I dare say, and by 
 reason of Persis, than he ever was before. 
 
 There was something in him for which the brilliant 
 day, the happy crowds hustling us hither and thither, 
 the infection of good-humor, could not fully account. 
 I wondered at first if he had heard from her, his 
 eye was so bright, his smile so ready, his participation 
 in the mood of the hour so hearty. Why it was so 
 I did not then know, but Persis might have explained. 
 He had centred his one hope in life upon her, and 
 upon her alone. Very slowly, but now for a very 
 long time she had come to take, to and in him, the 
 place of everything for which men care. Home he 
 had none. Not as yet had he come to see in the re 
 united Republic something unspeakably greater than 
 his lost Confederacy. Even the love and trust men 
 give to God, Ross reserved for Persis. "What she had 
 come to be he did not know ; how she would receive 
 him he could not say. Nearer to nature than other
 
 356 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 men, his instincts were deeper and truer in that too ; 
 and there was something in Christmas itself which 
 strengthened his intuitions concerning Persis into 
 certainties. As I afterward learned, he had been out 
 that very day, in behalf of Rachel, but especially of 
 Persis. Now he insisted oil helping me bear to our 
 rooms the purchases we had made; he would not wait 
 to have them sent. 
 
 We were not the only ones bearing brown-paper 
 parcels. Our way lay past one of the railroad depots, 
 and, at his own suggestion, we lingered within it to 
 watch the crowds of people swarming in and out. 
 
 "They live," I explained to him, "ten, twenty, fifty, 
 a hundred and fifty miles out of town, in villages 
 or on farms. Men and women, young men and girls, 
 they come in every day except Sunday to business, 
 most of them, and go back at night. The tides are 
 not as regular. From five until ten of mornings 
 they are at their flow ; from five till ten at night they 
 are at their ebb. To-day they are reinforced by those 
 who have come in to buy presents. They will pay as 
 much, if not more, than if they bought nearer home ; 
 but this city gives, beyond any other, a peculiar glory 
 to what is bought in it. Look at the people ! " 
 
 It was late in the afternoon as we halted in the 
 wide doorways of the depot, and the movement was 
 homeward. Fat and lean, tall and short, old and 
 young, male, but chiefly female, it was a proces 
 sion of bundles, big and little, with all sorts of people 
 attached thereto. The current ran into the depot at 
 that hour as steadily as a swollen brook; and now
 
 CHRISTMAS. 357 
 
 it was a brook in autumn, laden with brown-paper 
 packages in place of the sere leaves of the forest. 
 
 Sharp-visaged women, thin and spare, whom we 
 knew at a glance to have given over their last hopes 
 of marriage ; sandy-bearded men, recognized by their 
 weather-beaten faces to be farmers ; women stout or 
 scant of flesh, mothers evidently of children ; fragile 
 girls, pallid from work at sewing-machines or weary 
 standing at looms or counters, at four dollars a week ; 
 old men whose intense shrewdness had puckered 
 their lips and eyelids into microscopic consideration 
 of the veriest trifles, every soul of them had, thank 
 Heaven ! a parcel. 
 
 " Yonder," I pointed out to Eoss, " is a lad with a 
 cigar, which he will be very careful to be through 
 with before he gets home. He is a clerk at a hun 
 dred dollars a year; but he takes a glass of lager 
 already, as he does his cigar and oath, in order to be 
 as tall a man as his companions. They do not know 
 at his house all he is up to ; but see ! he has saved 
 out of his daily twenty cents for lunch enough to 
 buy a velocipede for his little brother. Do you 
 observe that poor fellow with a crutch ? He has that 
 box under his arm because he did not have money 
 enough left to send it home by express ; and he en 
 joys carrying it. Look at that hollow-cheeked woman 
 in black, the one stopping out of the rush to get 
 through with her attack of coughing. You can count 
 her children by the bundles under her arm, one, two, 
 four, six ; not one of them old enough yet to help her. 
 That red-faced scamp on the left has no bundle;
 
 358 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 everything has gone for liqtior; but he isn't drunk 
 to-day; he is carrying himself home sober for once, as 
 the only present he can give. He will make fifty 
 promises to-night, and his wife, poor fool, will try to 
 believe he will keep them this time ; but he won't." 
 
 " Where are the children ? I see very few," said 
 my companion. 
 
 " If you want to see children you must go into 
 the Irish quarters. Your section has its sins. Here 
 a dastardly crime is one answer to your question. 
 But there are children, children waiting at home in 
 a fever of impatience. These people will steal in 
 through the back door with their bundles when they 
 get home, will hide them under beds and behind 
 chests until to-morrow, rebuking the children mean 
 time for foolish expectations. What children are 
 here have been in town at work. Yonder is a little 
 girl with a bundle bigger than herself. You might 
 know that she is the oldest, and has to support the 
 other orphans." 
 
 "Your people," my friend said, "are, as I have 
 often remarked, the thriftiest, saddest people alive, 
 but they don't seem so to-day." He had heaped 
 his packages at his feet, and was considering the 
 crowd which poured in past us, stroking down his 
 black mustache with the palm of his left hand, the 
 scar across the back of it. 
 
 "The old force is in them," he said. "The war 
 showed that. Just now the force has taken to frol 
 icking. How hard they go at it ! It is like the 
 nourishes a man makes after he has signed his name,
 
 CHRISTMAS. 359 
 
 the foolish curlycues, you know. It makes me 
 figurative to be among you." 
 
 " There is something in Christmas ! " I said. 
 
 " It is largely the doing of Dickens. He has popu 
 larized it by his sentimentalities." 
 
 " He is but one of a myriad influences converging 
 to one end. I belong, as you know, to no church, 
 but," I urged, " as matter of fact, is Victoria a queen 
 as really as Christ is a king ? No, sir ; kingship is not 
 waning more evidently from czar and emperor than 
 it is increasing in the man whose birthday is becom 
 ing the chief holiday, and the gladdest, of all nations. 
 This universal glow of joy and generosity which is 
 melting the midwinter into more than tropical happi 
 ness and plenty, what is it but the flush upon the 
 sky, the mildness on the air, which heralds the sun 
 soon to arise ? That, my dear fellow, is the most ra 
 diant of my certainties." 
 
 " If I get my wish this Christmas season, I," Ross 
 suddenly said, " will try to believe as you do." 
 
 I did not understand, but made no reply, and we 
 went on our way to our hotel through streets thronged 
 by the burden-bearing crowds, and brilliant by this 
 time with lighted windows, joyous with the unaccus 
 tomed good-humor of people plodding cheerily along 
 through the snow and the crush of the multitude. 
 
 Next day we were to have met Rachel and Persis 
 to dinner at the house of Dr. Trent. I did not know 
 why, but I was almost afraid to look at Ross when, 
 on our arrival, we were told that they could not be 
 with us. Neither did Mrs. Trent look at him, as she
 
 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 said to us at table and over our turkey, " Persis is 
 still quite unwell, and Rachel, dear girl, is unwilling 
 to leave her. Don't be cross, Doctor," she added, in 
 the same breath. 
 
 "I am not cross, my dear," her husband replied. 
 "I ought to be used to it by this time." He cer 
 tainly did full justice to our excellent dinner. But 
 a cloud rested upon us : any stranger could have 
 seen that by the effort we made to talk about too 
 many things. Jean w r as a tall girl now, and a very 
 pretty one. Ross sat by my side, and I did not care, 
 as I said, to look at him. He had come with me to 
 the house in such almost boyish gladness of heart, 
 and now he was so silent. His face was reflected, 
 however, in the clear eyes of Jean sitting opposite 
 him. There was that in it which darkened her happi 
 ness ; even little Guernsey glanced at him with appre 
 hension, and both of them were glad to get away 
 from the table sooner than they would otherwise have 
 done. We could hear them rejoicing in the parlor 
 over what Mrs. Trent declared to be the shameful ex 
 travagance of the gifts to them of Ross and myself. 
 
 My friend was too much master of himself to show 
 his disappointment, not at least beyond the first half- 
 hour. In some way Rachel and Persis had learned 
 at last of his presence in the city, and had written to 
 him through Mrs. Trent. It may be that the one or 
 the other of them said something to her, too, in a 
 letter, for I could not help seeing that some new 
 mood had fallen upon Mrs. Trent. It was plain she 
 took a deeper interest in Ross, in me, too, for that
 
 CHRISTMAS. 361 
 
 matter. There was more than anxious uncertainty 
 in her manner toward him and toward me. She 
 seemed to suffer under some apprehension. This 
 helped Koss and myself, I think, to do what we 
 could to make the time pass pleasantly. We would 
 have succeeded better if it had not been for her 
 husband. When a patient was concerned, he would 
 have his own way against even his wife. Moreover, 
 he was too much absorbed in the case in hand as a 
 " case " to remember other persons and things as he 
 should have done. 
 
 " I used to be dreadfully concerned," he now re 
 marked, "about people. When I undertook a diffi 
 cult case I would rush from it to my books, from my 
 books to it incessantly. All night long I lay awake 
 worrying. If I had kept it up it would have killed 
 me. More than that, it would, before I died, have 
 killed my patients. Now I am bravely over all such 
 nonsense. When I know all that the books say, 
 when I know my patient almost as well as a Yankee 
 clock-maker does his clock, I simply do what is to 
 be done and then stop. If men and women will not 
 do what I want, since I cannot call in the police and 
 force them into doing as I wish, I let them alone. 
 Many a time, I know the woman will get well if 
 she will do so and so, or not do this and that; if 
 she don't, she will die. She may be as good, as lov 
 able, as necessary to her family, as Mrs. Trent there, 
 if you please, but when she won't obey me, I sit 
 down and eat my dinner, and let her die ! Sixty 
 thousand persons kill themselves with their own
 
 362 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 hands every year in Europe. As yet," Dr. Trent said 
 sententiously, " only ten thousand suicides a year are 
 recorded for America. But, think of it! Every 
 year, in Europe, two thousand boys and girls take 
 their own lives ! " 
 
 A man accustomed to the dissecting-table can say 
 anything ; but, with Ross to hear it, I would have 
 been glad if Trent had held his tongue. 
 
 " There is but one thing in the world By the by," 
 the Doctor interrupted himself, " it is Christmas, and 
 I give it as a conundrum. Colonel Urwoldt, what is 
 the only thing on earth stronger than a woman's 
 will?" 
 
 " Don't answer him, Colonel," Mrs. Trent broke in ; 
 " it 's an old riddle of his ; he says it is a woman's 
 ' won't.' You cannot think how dreadfully he slanders 
 my sex." And, with a warning glance at her husband, 
 she hastened to change the subject. 
 
 But her husband was either as forgetful as a babe of 
 the situation, or, more likely, he was surgically deter 
 mined and obstinate, now that the theme was in hand. 
 " The time was," he persisted, not heeding what we were 
 talking about, and at the first opportunity, " when I was 
 terribly exercised about matters which do not disturb 
 me now. You read of some horrible affair in every 
 paper you open, some outrage, abominable cruelty, 
 murder. Once I used to groan, ' Why was I not on 
 the spot to stop it ? If I could but have been on 
 hand at the instant with club or revolver ! ' I don't 
 worry myself that way these days ; why should I ? " 
 
 "Let us talk of something more pleasant," inter-
 
 CHRISTMAS. 363 
 
 posed his wife, for we all felt that the Doctor was 
 about to say unpleasant things. 
 
 But, no, there is a fatality in it; he persisted, al 
 though he knew he ought not. " There is death, for 
 instance,", he remarked. "To us death is the most 
 appalling of events. What folly ! Looking back from 
 another life, it may seem the best thing which could 
 befall a man. Read of the ravages of plague and war, 
 of famine and disaster ! A baby dies as easily as a 
 flower. Put a particle of prussic acid on the tongue 
 of Hercules and " 
 
 " Steven ! " Mrs. Trent exclaimed. 
 
 " No, sir. Our Maker does not attach," the Doctor 
 went on, " the value to life we do. All of us do die 
 sooner or " 
 
 " We won't listen to you ! " His wife got up from 
 the table, and we all arose, not until I remarked that 
 Ross was listening, looking in his old way so steadily 
 at the speaker. Evidently he was struck with the 
 idea, and he went with the Doctor to his study, while 
 I gladly remained with Mrs. Trent and the children. 
 As I supposed, Dr. Trent was as angry as it was pos 
 sible for him to be with Miss Persis for her imprudent 
 course in regard to her health. 
 
 "He thinks it would have been better for her," 
 Mrs. Trent told me in the end, "if she had never come 
 to the city. The Doctor is dreadfully old-school in 
 his notions. He says that women may come at 
 last to take the highest positions. Extraordinary 
 women have done so in the past, it may come to be a 
 common thing for them to do so, but it will require
 
 364 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 generations going before. During many a long year 
 they must slowly toughen themselves, he thinks, 
 before, as a sex, they can stand it. Many a poor 
 thing," Mrs. Trent mourned, " must fall as a martyr 
 before that." 
 
 And then we talked about Colonel Urwoldt, and 
 again the flutter of uncertainty, of apprehension, came 
 into her eyes for me ? for my friend ? I could not 
 tell which. 
 
 Dr. Steven Trent gave himself so much to his prac 
 tice among women that he made a hobby of it. It is 
 a pity a man cannot become a specialist without being 
 afflicted, more or less, as by mania. To escape becom 
 ing brutal the Doctor cultivated the poetic view of 
 things, especially as his sympathetic nature found, I 
 suppose, its only relief therein. More than once, 
 woman, he told me, being to man what music is to 
 the words, it follows that, unlike man, she must be 
 rhythmic, varying, alternative in her moods. I lis 
 tened, amazed at the analogies he drew from nature. 
 Man was the rocky coast, woman as the ocean com 
 ing and going in its tides ; and much more to that 
 effect. 
 
 " The charming difference between herself and us," 
 he said at last, " the essential loveliness of woman, 
 consists largely in the variableness of her health and 
 consequent states of soul as of body. At one time, 
 and herself as powerless in regard to it as a floating 
 feather, she rises to the highest crest, so to speak, of 
 her nature. Then she reaches a height, Guernsey, far 
 beyond us ; she does things, says things, feels things,
 
 , CHRISTMAS. 365 
 
 yes, and writes things, quite above us, nearer the 
 stars. But then, and because, alas, of that, she has 
 her ebbs of being also. Then she is less than herself. 
 We do not get as high, Guernsey, as she does ; but 
 then we cannot get quite as low, low, physically, 
 mark that, and therefore mentally, I dare not add 
 morally. We cannot equal her at her highest; we 
 should keep away from her at her lowest ! " 
 
 The Doctor had much more to say to the same 
 effect before and after the day of our dining with him, 
 and I remembered it, ah, how well ! afterward.
 
 366 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 A SOCRATIC SOIREE. 
 
 ACHEL and Persis were to return to the city 
 as soon as the health of the latter allowed, 
 before long, it was hoped. Eoss spoke about them 
 less than before, but I fancied he was growing rest 
 less, although, as I knew better afterward, if ever a 
 man hid himself in himself from others, and because 
 he was feeling so deeply, he did. A few days after 
 Christmas the meeting of one of our Socratic Soirees, 
 as they were called half in joke, took place, and I 
 was glad to secure an invitation for my friend. The 
 assemblages comprised, at times, some of the best 
 people, in certain lines at least, in the city, and was 
 held from house to house of its members, a card 
 thereto being considered quite a prize. 
 
 When the evening arrived I took Eoss with me. 
 Ensconcing ourselves in a corner of one of the large 
 and handsome parlors, I explained things to him as 
 the company dropped in. 
 
 " Here," I told him, " are men and women holding 
 all conceivable views upon every possible topic. Now 
 and then a merchant or inventor attends to hear us 
 talk, and to see any distinguished person who may 
 be here ; but such people consider themselves, I fear,
 
 A SOCRATIC SOIR&E. 367 
 
 as having already climbed about the only practicable 
 Olympus in reach, and care little for our discussions. 
 That substantial citizen by the mantel is one of them. 
 Yonder is a celebrated Professor; that white-headed 
 gentleman is an eloquent divine ; the person beyond 
 him is a sculptor ; the lady at the window is a fine 
 musician ; that gentleman is a painter ; the lady con 
 versing with him is an authoress ;" and, naming each, 
 I went through the list, as far as I knew those present, 
 of the diversified gathering. "I do not suppose," I 
 said in the end, " that there are two individuals here 
 who hold precisely the same opinion upon politics, art, 
 religion, education, philanthropical endeavor ; but the 
 fact that a person is here at all is itself proof that 
 each one is as willing not quite, almost so to 
 hear as to speak, either in defence of or opposition to 
 anything, everything, which can be held by such as 
 are essentially gentlemen and ladies. Few cities in 
 the land," I added with some pride, "can show a 
 room full of persons more variedly yet distinctively 
 influential, so far as ideas have influence. I am glad 
 you can be with us to-night. There is Mr. Adair." 
 
 For that gentleman came in as I spoke, ushering, 
 to the astonishment of Ross and myself, Persis into the 
 room. But I did not call her Persis even to myself; 
 beyond all doubt she was now Miss Persis Paige. 
 Her dress was a well-fitting yet flowing fabric of some 
 shade of green, which became her so wonderfully well 
 that I murmured to myself, " I know it is Rachel's se 
 lection," and I knew also that Rachel had come back 
 to town by the way in which the hair of Miss Persis
 
 368 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 was arranged. I was right. At the moment Rachel 
 herself entered with Major McAllister. The Major 
 was arrayed in the glossiest of linen, the finest of 
 broadcloth. His whiskers were fresh from the hand 
 of his barber, for he was one of those gentlemen who 
 remind you of that artist as inevitably as a freshly 
 mown lawn does of the gardener. He wore a yellow 
 vest and heavy chain of gold. His cravat was as irre 
 proachable as his manner, each having in it starch 
 sufficient to enable it to retain to the end its correct 
 set. He was broad, bald, eminently commodious, and 
 you wondered that he was not married, as in passing 
 upon the street a desirable but vacant lot, you wonder 
 why it has not been built upon. Eachel was looking 
 well, with that peculiar charm which does not mark 
 city life. One never thinks of Mary, or Martha 
 Washington, except as living in the country. The 
 broad low brow, the full cheeks, the old-fashioned 
 freshness of complexion, speak of Mt Vernon, of 
 its substantial sideboards, ample porches, grassy 
 yards, fat kine, wide fields, the Potomac flowing near. 
 So was it with Rachel. You knew at a glance she 
 too was from and of the country in distinction from 
 the city ; that she would rather live there than in 
 Paris itself. As I looked at her I saw that I could 
 no longer speak of her without adding the Miss to 
 her name, as in the case of her more intellectual 
 friend. Throughout the evening she listened to what 
 was said with the pleased attention of one who has 
 only to listen. No one asked her to say anything; 
 her repose of manner forbade it.
 
 A SOCK A TIC SOIREE. 369 
 
 As I said, neither Ross nor I was aware that our 
 friends had got back from the country.. The fact, as 
 I afterward learned from Rachel, was that Persia 
 could no longer be prevented from coming. " It was 
 hard enough to keep her there before she knew of 
 the arrival of Ross ; after that," Rachel said with a 
 meaning more than her words conveyed, " it was 
 impossible ! She was far from well enough,"the near 
 ness to her of Ross excited her almost dangerously ; 
 but she would come." They reached the city barely 
 in time to dress for the soiree. Persis was sure I 
 would have Ross there with me, and persisted in 
 coming. 
 
 It was now that I began fully to understand mat 
 ters. Ross did not seem to know that Rachel was 
 present. From the moment Persis came in his eyes 
 were upon her; and, considering how strong a man 
 he was, what experiences he had known, they were 
 such wistful, such hungry eyes ! He had not seen 
 her for so long, she was so greatly changed, who can 
 say what he thought as he watched her ? It was 
 little he listened to me, but I went on with my duty 
 to him as to a stranger. 
 
 " Did you ever notice," I whispered to Ross, " how 
 the habit of public speaking stamps itself upon the 
 face of a man, upon his whole person ? I could 
 show you trees along this coast which tell of the 
 wintry winds. Now, look at that man ! " And I indi 
 cated with my eyes an advocate of reform in the 
 room who had been all his life in a forlorn hope of 
 one kind or another. "Do you not see the same 
 
 24
 
 370 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 blown-backward, yet persistent aspect one observes in 
 the struggling trees ? More or less it is true of every 
 public speaker. There is hardly a gentleman here 
 who is not such. They have faced audiences until, 
 look at them ! they have the aspect of cliffs washed 
 by the seas." 
 
 . Eoss, looking at Persis, had nothing to say. On 
 coming into the room she had looked almost wildly 
 around ; had seen him ; her cheeks flushed, then paled ; 
 her eyes glittered. After that she guarded herself 
 from looking our way any more. 
 
 As I came slowly to understand things, I also looked 
 keenly at Persis as she stood talking to Mr. Adair, 
 and then to one friend and another. Her face was 
 thin, but so full of color that I was ready to pro 
 nounce Dr. Trent a quack ; there was no sign in her 
 of ill-health. She held herself erect, was outwardly 
 as composed as any woman present. To my eyes no 
 lady there Rachel excepted, and she in a totally 
 different way was to be compared with her. Her 
 beauty suggested so much more than mere beauty that 
 I heard the question buzzed around Ross and myself, 
 " Who is she ? " " Who can she be ? " " What books 
 did she write ? " Then something was said about Mr. 
 Adair. Unless I mistake, envious glances were min 
 gled with those of admiration. I winced lest Ross 
 should heed a criticism or two upon her which fell 
 upon my ears. I need not have feared. Oblivious to 
 everything beside, he was asking himself if she could 
 indeed be the sunburned Ocklawahaw girl whom 
 he used to see in her calico frock, her feet bare and
 
 A SOCRATIC SOIREE. 371 
 
 very brown. She was to him as if he saw a striking 
 portrait of her instead, idealized, in a costly frame, 
 and by the hand of a master. He had forgotten that 
 I was with him. Drawing myself back, I glanced 
 again at his face. His eyes were settled upon her 
 with such steadiness as is not allowable in good so 
 ciety. There was an unpleasant suggestion in them 
 of the eyes of a panther crouched in ambush and 
 watching a doe grazing nearer and nearer. If he 
 had said anything to me about her, I should have 
 liked it better; he was too entirely natural for the 
 place we were in. She must have felt his gaze. 
 One feels it when a lens brings the sun to a focus 
 upon one's hand, and it was impossible for her not 
 to know it, when love so deep, so single, love which 
 had waited for so long, love like that of this man 
 of the earlier ages, was centred upon her. By the 
 paling of her cheeks as by the flushing I saw that she 
 did feel it ; what I did not know was, that it took 
 all the strength she had to hold herself in hand. 
 Even then, while she loved him, she defied him as she 
 defied herself ! Not for nothing had she been train 
 ing herself all these years; she would be such a 
 woman as he did not imagine a woman could come 
 to be. She would be stronger than he, than herself, 
 and he should see that she was ! 
 
 There was a movement in the room. The host of 
 the evening arose, manuscript in hand, to read an 
 essay. With the rest of the company, Persis settled 
 herself in her chair to listen, and Boss, seated beside 
 me in the rear of the assembly, was fain to transfer
 
 372 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 his gaze to the face of the reader. I came, as has been 
 said, to know it afterward, as I did not even then, 
 that my friend had an almost wolfish hunger while 
 with us to learn whatever we could tell him. This 
 Pilate did not ask, What is Truth ? and turn away not 
 waiting for an answer. His mind was in at least as 
 vigorous a measure of health and appetite as his body, 
 and it pains me now to the heart as I think how 
 intensely he wished to know, wished to know while 
 then and there, at the very table, so to speak, of the 
 very men and women of all the land who professed 
 to be best able to impart the food for which he was 
 dying. 
 
 It so chanced that the essay was upon "Truth." 
 No man in all that region had more reputation for 
 wisdom than our host. He was a pallid, slight man, 
 who gave in the reading whatever was lacking to 
 the writing. We accompanied him with breathless 
 attention. From the first sentence we had the feel 
 ing that he knew and was on the point of announcing 
 something new, valuable, of the utmost importance. 
 He was a miner who was being followed by eager 
 friends to the spot among the Sierras where he had 
 found and left, hastening back to tell us of it, the larg 
 est nugget of gold eyes ever saw. And now, strik 
 ing, so to speak, straight across the rocky ridges, 
 our leader hurried on with steps so rapid and confi 
 dent that even Eoss himself almost shared his con 
 fidence of finding treasure ; the luck of my friend 
 having been, alas ! so bad hitherto. Arrived at last 
 upon the edge of the inmost ravine where lay the
 
 A SOCRATIC SOIRE. 373 
 
 priceless prize, in the very act, as it were, of pointing 
 it out to our ardent gaze, the distinguished pioneer 
 suddenly ceased reading and sat down, leaving us star 
 ing into vacancy. With lips still parted by reason of 
 the hope and haste with which we had hurried after 
 him, each of us looked with blank inquiry in the 
 face of his neighbor, and, while all smiled, it was 
 so ludicrous, Eoss forgot himself for the moment and 
 laughed aloud. 
 
 " What struck me," he said when I remonstrated 
 with him for it afterward and in private, "was the 
 politeness of your people. It reminds me of what hap 
 pens when I am hunting wild turkeys. As you may 
 know, they are the shyest of game ; and the company 
 last night were like people lying low, alert but quiet, 
 in the brush, with a drove of fat turkeys nearly but 
 not quite in range of their rifles. The one thing the 
 hunters do is to keep silent ; there must not be, how 
 ever excited they are, a whisper, a motion. What 
 that indispensable silence is to these, politeness is to 
 your philosophers. Whatever you think, feel, have 
 to say, and however strongly, the essential thing is 
 to be polite. That is all right, of course ; half civi 
 lized as I am, I admired it ; your friends have reached 
 the self-control of heroes." 
 
 That was afterward. When the essayist ceased to 
 read, the company, after a decorous silence, were 
 called upon in turn for their opinions upon the essay 
 and its topic. It was impossible for language to ex 
 press more tersely, lucidly, even strikingly, the ideas 
 which the reader had advanced. Hardly a sentence
 
 374 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 but was an epigram, and each person was full of 
 deserved eulogy upon what was presented, adding 
 thereto some suggestion of his or her own, in dissent 
 or assent. " It was remarkable," Ross told me when 
 we talked it over afterward, " what bright things peo 
 ple said under the impulse of the essay ; the dullest 
 man there caught from it the trick of smartness. For 
 the moment the reader actually inspired the intel 
 lects of all, only their intellects, mind, as the 
 Christ is said to inspire also the heart and the soul." 
 
 Ross was right ; the essay had the effect of cham 
 pagne. Many beautiful and suggestive things were 
 said until, nearly the last of all who were called upon, 
 Miss Persis Paige was asked for her opinion. It was 
 the first time she had had such an opportunity. I 
 knew that she could not but be much interested. 
 We have all heard the music which a cunning per 
 former can draw out of the rim of a glass goblet, and 
 there was a certain subdued intensity in the little she 
 said, which thrilled the others almost as much as Ross 
 and myself, it told us so well the depth of her shall 
 I name it excitement ? After expressing her thanks 
 to the essayist, she strove to gather up the criti 
 cisms and suggestions of those who had spoken. Yes, 
 Truth was the harmony of things, the symphony of 
 all conceivable sounds, the choral melody of all 
 movement, the blending of all contradiction in the 
 end into an absolute unit, the passing of paradox into 
 proverb, the evolution of doubt into assurance. I 
 cannot repeat all she said, for I was sympathizing 
 with her in her evident alarm at her own earnest-
 
 A SOCRATIC SOIRE. 375 
 
 ness, her haste to say as little as she could and stop. 
 She ended, I remember, in saying that Truth was 
 like the statue of the veiled Isis, upon which was 
 inscribed, " I am all that hath been, is, or shall be, 
 and my veil no man can lift ; " but my chief impres 
 sion was of perhaps exaggerated pride in the lady 
 herself, of admiration exceeding surprise. 
 
 There was a murmur of applause when she was 
 silent, and I did not need to see the face of Mr. 
 Adair to know what he thought of the eloquent 
 woman. 
 
 Even before Ross Urwoldt was called upon, I 
 shrank a little from him with apprehension, it was so 
 much like a personal encounter, too, between Persis 
 and himself; then I recalled to myself that he was 
 as essentially a gentleman as any man alive, and 
 rested on that. All along, people had glanced at him 
 with respectful curiosity. When he began to speak, 
 there was that in his tone and coolness of manner 
 which confirmed the impression that he was, in a 
 deeper sense than of birth and abode, a foreigner. 
 After a brief tribute to those who had spoken before 
 him, he apologized for differing from them. Because 
 of what followed afterward I remember almost his 
 very words, so few were they and deliberate. 
 
 " It is very beautiful and interesting," he re 
 marked, " the much which has been said in regard to 
 Truth. For one, owing to defect, possibly, of educa 
 tion, association, temperament, I have no idea even of 
 what is meant by Truth in the abstract. To me the 
 truth means nothing whatever but simply that which
 
 376 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 is so. That so much oxygen and so much nitrogen 
 go to make up the atmosphere is one truth ; another 
 truth is, that so much sulphur, so much charcoal, so 
 much saltpetre will make gunpowder. That the rings 
 of Saturn are so many, that the sun is so many miles 
 away, having just such dimensions and force of heat, 
 light, attraction, is another truth. It is a truth in 
 mathematics that twice two are four. The same of 
 everything. On investigation, the intellect seems to 
 possess such and such faculties, and these only, 
 that is truth. Men have found that, in the long run, 
 virtue is best and vice is worst for a man. That 
 is truth in moral science. Why say anything fur 
 ther ? Truth is Fact. That which is so is Truth! 
 Beyond that, I, for one, have no belief in any phan 
 tom, ghost, spectral something named Truth." 
 
 As Miss Persis had spoken with small reference 
 except to her lover seated behind her, so Ross said 
 what he did with her only in mind. As to the rest 
 of us, his feeling, I fear, was scorn, where it was not 
 disappointment amounting to disgust, despair. In 
 his perishing hunger we had given him for food the 
 most vaporous, if beautiful, of abstractions. From 
 beginning to end no one there was more courteous 
 than he ; but there was a bitterness, too, an almost 
 fierce impatience, under and through it all, which 
 conveyed what he meant beyond the words he em 
 ployed. He was a gentleman, but of the type of 
 Ishmael and Esau, that was evident. Nowhere in 
 the world do men and women detect and appreciate 
 character more surely and swiftly than those among
 
 A SOCRATIC SOIRE. 377 
 
 whom my friend then was, and I was not ashamed 
 to introduce him to more than one of them as we 
 broke up our assembly and parted. 
 
 I did not see, in the throng, what took place be 
 tween Persis and himself. As both Rachel and her 
 self had escorts, there was nothing for Ross and 
 myself but to walk home together. 
 
 " You tell me," he said, as I took his arm, " that 
 ministers of every denomination and shade of opinion 
 were there, to say nothing of the others present, as 
 able, decided, diversified, and intelligent in their views 
 and beliefs. Now would you like to know the thing 
 which impressed me most of all ? What were the 
 subjects which came up for discussion ? According 
 to the avowed belief of many present, they related 
 to exactly the. matters of fact which are the most 
 tremendous of realities known to men. And yet," 
 asked Ross, " were they handled as such by any man 
 there, believer or unbeliever ? I admire the cour 
 tesy, it is the condition, I know, of any coming 
 together at all of people of views so radically oppo 
 site, and yet, and yet ! " He rubbed an impatient 
 palm over his forehead. " It is because I am so up 
 and down in my way," he said, " so used to dealing 
 with facts as facts, but may I be damned if I under 
 stand it ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " I demanded, for he had 
 not sworn in my presence before. 
 
 " Mean ? Look at me > Guernsey ! Do you sup 
 pose," he said, his black eyes holding mine as in a 
 vice, "that if I believed as you say you do, I could
 
 378 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 discuss my surest, most essential belief as one does a 
 matter of dress or art, a point in politics or science, 
 the newest poem, the latest novel ? I '11 tell you 
 what, Guernsey, as sure as you live, man, it is not 
 because you must be so polite with each other, it is 
 because that, really and truly, not a man or even 
 woman of you believes any more than I do ! It was 
 worth my coming here to find that out. It pays you 
 for the bore of having me here for you to be told it." 
 
 "I hardly think," I remarked, "that faith is perish 
 ing from the earth. Since the year 1800 the popu 
 lation of this country, for instance, has increased nine 
 times, the membership of the churches twenty-seven 
 times." 
 
 " It was not the number of Christians I was speak 
 ing of," Ross said, " but the measure of personal be 
 lief." 
 
 It had no effect upon my friend ; why, then, should 
 I record a word of what I said in reply ? While I 
 spoke he was rather looking at, than listening to rne. 
 " One thing," I remarked in the end, " even you 
 cannot deny. When a cannon goes off you know 
 that the explosion and the ball come from within the 
 cannon. No one denies that light and heat are from 
 the sun. Now a man is a fool who does not agree 
 that the source of the largest manifestation of sheer 
 force known to men is in the Christ. Say he never 
 existed, none the less out of the idea delusion, if 
 you please of the Christ issues the sublimest meas 
 ure of energetic force the world knows of. Yes, force, 
 influence, power, power to make men write, sing,
 
 A SOCRATIC SOIRE. 379 
 
 paint, carve, give money, do hard work, endure, fight, 
 hope, believe, die ! Here is a force in direct opposi 
 tion to the wish of men, the habit and custom of 
 men, which is more effective, statistically, than when 
 it began to operate twenty centuries ago. You can 
 no more ignore it than you can a locomotive at full 
 speed, a thunder-storm, a " 
 
 " None the less, I don't believe in it ! Guernsey," 
 Eoss said coolly, " I '11 tell you one thing. You think 
 Christ made deaf people hear, blind people see, dead 
 people live. Very well. Let me tell you that his 
 greatest miracle is to make a man believe. You are 
 yourself a stronger proof than anything you can say. 
 Belief is perishing from men." 
 
 " I agree with you," I said, " and it will go on 
 perishing until men see it is so, and dash through 
 everything to Christ to be miraculously made to be 
 lieve by the one who alone can do it. Yes, belief 
 will, at last, so nearly perish from the earth that, 
 in their desperation at what follows on that, and 
 who knows what terrible calamities may attend it ? 
 men will break their way through the official 
 disciples to their Master for this, as they did when 
 he was visibly on earth." 
 
 But, as I said before, Eoss did not listen to me. 
 " Each el," he now remarked, more to himself than to 
 me, " is what she is in virtue, I suppose, of being a 
 woman, in virtue of her perfect balance of body and 
 mind, which is another name for her excellent sense. 
 You are what you are because you have had so much 
 suffering. Is n't that so, Guernsey ? "
 
 380 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY, 
 
 " What I am ? I do not understand you." And I 
 suppose my color must have risen, his steady eyes 
 were considering me so. 
 
 " It is you, not what you say, which has any 
 weight with me," he said ; and I cannot repeat what 
 he added except that he closed with the remark, 
 " You are the happiest man I know of, Guernsey, and 
 it is because of your faith, I suppose. I don't care 
 for your faith, but I do care for you, as a sort of 
 phenomenon," he added ; but, of course, in that he 
 was satirical. So far as Ross preferred me to others, 
 it was because even he could not remain indifferent to 
 my interest, as has been before mentioned, in him. 
 
 " If I am the happiest of men," I said, " it is be 
 cause I am so rich in my certainties. I can ring them 
 down to you, one by one, on this table," for by this 
 time we had reached my room, "as a man rings 
 down upon his counter his twenty-dollar gold pieces ! 
 Take one of them. I do know that the Supreme Force 
 is seeing to it that out of what now seems to be the 
 worst thing in my lot shall come to me my greatest 
 good, that " But Ross was not listening. 
 
 " ' It is charged upon us,' " he quoted, " ' that our 
 only creed is that in Judaea eighteen hundred years 
 ago nothing particular took place.' When the liberal 
 clergyman said that in his jocular way, every soul of 
 you agreed with him that it was a good joke. It 
 bewilders me ! Supposing," Ross said, "that there 
 was, is, a Christ, would Peter, John, even Herod, have 
 considered it funny ? And yet, Rachel excepted, 
 everybody laughed ! The fact is," he added, " you
 
 A SOCK A TIC SOIREE. 381 
 
 believers have really no more faith than the unbeliev 
 ers. Your belief, Guernsey, is less than you imagine. 
 Curse your shams ! " 
 
 There was the sudden anger in it of a man bitterly 
 disappointed. It does not matter what I replied. He 
 seemed to dismiss the subject with contempt. I had 
 much to say, but Ross was not listening to me; it 
 was of another Messiah he was thinking.
 
 382 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXX. 
 
 ROSS AND PERSIS. 
 
 OSS may have been unfortunate in timing, as 
 he did, his call upon Persis next day. Men 
 .have moods enough, but mood means more where 
 a woman is in question. Marc Antony spoke from 
 personal experience when he alluded to the infinite 
 variety of Cleopatra. What woman more lovely than 
 Melusina, yet how could she help becoming a mer 
 maid during Saturday night ? Considering the tem 
 perament of the barefooted Ocklawahaw girl, and to 
 what a pitch she had kept that intensity strained 
 during the years since, the wonder was that the in 
 tellectual over-stress of school and parlor did not, as 
 with women of her kind always, react into some 
 thing worse than dishabille and deep sleep. 
 
 But Ross had already remained a longer time than he 
 intended when he came. His business elsewhere was 
 pressing upon him. Moreover, love, like every lesser 
 hunger and thirst, comes at last to a point where it 
 must have its supply or perish ; and when a man like 
 Ross has waited so long, the moment arrives when he 
 cannot be put off, and I tell his story at all because to 
 me he was Marc Antony come again, in love as in 
 everything else.
 
 XOSS AND PERSIS. 383 
 
 Once, twice, he called to see Persis. Rachel knew 
 the strong, stern man as if he were a child, knew 
 and pitied him with all her heart, so haggard he had 
 come to be, so silent under his anxiety. When she 
 excused Persis to him, she encouraged him so far as 
 she could. " Persis was not very sick, she was over 
 taxed ; she would soon be well." When the lover 
 came the third time even Rachel's prudence gave way, 
 and she consented that Persis, too weak to do so, 
 should go down to see him. 
 
 Like every other lover, Ross had arranged what he 
 would say and do. It would be very simple. He 
 would tell her that he had always loved her, that was 
 all. Persis knew his direct manner of doing things, 
 and she \vas ready to yield to herself at last as to 
 him. She had come East with great expectations. 
 What was there at last to compare with Ross ? Ra 
 chel was alarmed for her when she saw her pallid 
 cheeks becoming crimson, as she felt her thin hand 
 tremble ; but Ross was astonished to see how strong 
 she seemed to be when she came into the parlor. 
 
 " Why, Persis," he said, " they told me you were 
 sick. You never looked as well in your life." 
 
 " Do I ? " she laughed, and was glad of it, he seemed 
 so pleased ; she was proud of it, he so evidently ad 
 mired her. It deranged his plans, she was so erect, 
 so beautiful, her eyes were so bright. " I am a rude 
 fellow from the West," he said to himself. " There is 
 not a woman to compare with her in the world. I 
 must be careful." And so they fell to talking of indif 
 ferent things for a while. The trouble with both of
 
 384 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 them was that they were so certain of each other they 
 could afford to wait ; there was pleasure in dallying 
 with rapture. They spoke of Dr. Trent and his wife. 
 Then Ross told her of his plans for the future ; he was 
 going into politics ; he had schemes about schools to 
 be established over his State ; he was organizing a 
 society to encourage emigration thither. 
 
 " I see you have learned much since you came here," 
 she said ; and she went off into praise of the city, its 
 people, its institutions. Here was, to Ross, the frui 
 tion at last of the hopes of a lifetime. She was think 
 ing only of Ross ; it was Ross she was rejoicing in, 
 and the city, for which she cared not a straw in com 
 parison, was but the nearest topic ; her heart over 
 flowed, she must praise something. As they talked 
 she became more exhilarated under the admiration, 
 adoration almost, of his eyes so dark and steady. She 
 knew that she was saying brilliant things, and she 
 felt so strong, too, and well. " How can you endure 
 to go back," she said at last, in sheer wantonness ; 
 "it is so dull there, so slow and behind the times ! I 
 know that you like everything here best. You do, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 Her lover was burning to get at that which was 
 nearest the heart of each, but he said something in 
 denial. "What did he care for anything but her ? He 
 would come to that in a moment. But she was full 
 at the instant of her admiration for this author and 
 that, several of whom she knew personally. He 
 loved to hear her talk, noticing that she was so much 
 more improved than he had thought possible, then
 
 XOSS AND PERSIS. 385 
 
 forgetting even that in her vivacity. " And you do 
 like everything here ? " she repeated. 
 
 If he could have been a little cooler ! The day when, 
 as a boy, he had crept upon and brought down his 
 first deer had seen him more composed than now ; 
 but then Persis had become more to him than life 
 itself. If he could have reflected, he might have known 
 that her great liking for these writers was but the 
 irrepressible expression of her love for him ! But her 
 excitement was contagious. " No ; I do not rate them 
 as you do," he said. " What author of them all com 
 pares with those of other lands and ages ? People 
 hereabout have deft fingers ; they take English or 
 German bullion, and draw it out into fine wire and 
 weave it into all sorts of fancy work," and much 
 more to that effect. 
 
 Eoss did not care a penny about it ; he only wanted 
 to aggravate her to further speech ; he loved to see 
 the -play of light in her wtmderful eyes, the motion 
 of her restless hands. His was the curiosity of a big 
 boy come into possession of a new and wonderful 
 toy ; he examined it carefully, tried it this way and 
 that, wanted to see how it would work, was it not 
 his own ? He was more of his father's son than he 
 knew. There was in his mariner of playing, so to 
 speak, with her an appearance of ingrained contempt 
 for a woman as a woman beyond what he knew. 
 It may be because Persis was too tensely strung at 
 the moment, but she felt it so. His face, the familiar 
 tones of his voice, brought Ocklawahaw back again, 
 and she remembered vividly what women were there. 
 
 25
 
 386 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 She had rebelled against it when she was a child ; 
 these last years had been spent in another place than 
 Ocklawahaw ! Moreover, she was weak, nervous ; she 
 had drawn upon her health as a spendthrift does upon 
 money which he considers immeasurable. She had 
 engaged in her studies with such energy, such velocity, 
 so to speak, that she had not strength left wherewith 
 to check herself. Now, as she talked with her lover, 
 her cheeks grew hotter, her lips became dry. 
 
 There was no excuse for Ross ! He had fallen into 
 his hereditary trick of continuance, as after game ; as 
 if, drawn aside by a squirrel when pursuing deer, 
 he had persisted in pursuit of the unworthy object 
 from mere habit of persistence. Neither of them 
 cared anything except for each other. Had he told 
 his love when he first came, she would have given 
 herself to him without a thought of anything but 
 him. From that hour their mutual affection would 
 have melted and moulded them into one by a flame 
 more than the double of that which glowed in their 
 hearts while apart. But Ross had fallen now, only 
 for the moment, he said to himself, into another mood. 
 Could it be that, born and raised as he was, he felt a 
 secret jealousy of this Persis whom he so admired 
 and loved, jealousy, that is, of her as a woman ? 
 Was it only her imagination that this strong man 
 was provoking her to say tilings, as he would have 
 done a precocious child ? " She ought to know," Ross 
 was saying to himself, " that, whatever I think of her 
 sex in general, she is to me the one exception to all 
 women that ever lived."
 
 XOSS AND PERSIS. 387 
 
 What he said aloud was : " It is natural that 
 these people should seem to you as they do. The 
 change from Ocklawahaw was very great ; you were 
 quite young, and merely an impressionable girl. To 
 a man, accustomed to a rougher, stronger life, things 
 seem different. These people spend their days in 
 furbishing up and grinding down the broadswords 
 of their stout old grandfathers into razors, razors 
 wherewith to split hairs. The way it strikes one from 
 ruder regions is, that excessive over-culture is the 
 law of your life." 
 
 " What Vandals and Goths might think " Persia 
 legan; but Ross had already listened long to what 
 she had to say, he would not be put down. 
 
 "Thank you for the suggestion. You know," he 
 said, "the condition of Rome when the Goths and 
 Vandals broke in. The masters of the world were 
 sunk into a luxurious effeminacy, womanishness, 
 that means. The difference with this Rome is that its 
 womanishness is not sensual, but intellectual. It re 
 sembles paralysis ; that is, even in matters of thought 
 and the deepest thought, the hand shakes, is uncer 
 tain, as with perpetual palsy. Your leading minds 
 are undecided. Therein lies the reason they effect so 
 little. Nobody can accomplish anything by indefi- 
 niteness. There never yet was a man who conquered 
 except in virtue of strong personal conviction, 
 conviction positive, sharp, final. It is worse than 
 nonsense, it is feebleness ! " 
 
 Colonel Urwoldt had been used too long to the 
 handling: of soldiers. His accents were too much
 
 388 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 like words of command. He may have known Persia 
 up to the hour when she left the Reservation ; he 
 did not know her as she was now. He loved her a 
 thousand fold more for what she had become without 
 at all understanding what that was. Moreover, he 
 had a deeper aversion than men in general have to 
 seeing the women they love under the influence of a 
 priest. This lover had no faith in any religion ; yet, 
 strange to say, he shuddered to see that Persis had 
 none, yet the influence over her of such an unbeliever 
 as the Rev. Mr. Adair was more offensive to him 
 than if that gentleman were a Jesuit instead. He 
 had no faith himself, but he unconsciously clung to 
 his faith in woman's faith. Ross was in a state of 
 transition, little as he knew it, and what should have 
 been in Persis a woman's faith was to him the sole tie 
 to life, as of a babe through its mother. Mr. Adair 
 he hated ; and it was the outcry, although Persis did 
 not know it, of his soul as of his heart, when he said, 
 "Biddy yields to her priest; don't yield to yours, 
 Persis, don't do it ! " 
 
 Persis felt her lips grow parched as he said it. 
 She was very weak; and that much the more she 
 was excited, exasperated. I will not detail what 
 followed. Must manliness become brutal, and as 
 by its very completeness ? And Persis ? Alas, the 
 sweetest music breaks into a scream if it soars too 
 high ! yet it was merely the excess of womanliness 
 in her which made her the more bitter as she replied 
 to her lovar. For Ross seemed to be possessed of a 
 very devil of teasing ; he intended no more than that.
 
 &OSS AND PERSIS. 389 
 
 She had become attached to the persons and things 
 about her, knowing what they had done for her ; but 
 of that he did not think. He might have seen in 
 her dilated eyes, in her hot cheeks, how feeble she 
 was. Had he taken her hand its trembling would 
 have taught him. All that he saw, as he talked, was 
 her brilliant beauty. He had no feeling but of ardent 
 affection, affection on the edge of possession at last, 
 as he gave vent to his gladness in ridicule of authors, 
 lectures, literary clubs. 
 
 " The emptiest nonsense of all," he said at last, " is 
 the everlasting disquisition going on here in regard 
 to matters which are hopelessly beyond the reach of 
 even the ablest. Persis, it is the sheer frivolity of 
 this which makes it so acceptable to your sex." 
 
 In view of what came after, let it be remembered 
 how her grandfather, yearning after a regenerated 
 world, and despairing of existing instrumentalities 
 toward it, had taught Persis that it might come by 
 means of a race of women better qualified for the 
 work than any going before. From a child she had 
 studied her Bible to that end. Christianity had 
 slowly wrought the world up to its present estate by 
 the unsuspected force of the meanest things. Yes, 
 woman was the undreamed-of force which was to 
 revolutiouize and complete the salvation of the race. 
 She had, then, found many a scripture for it. If this 
 Joan of Arc had left all that behind her of late, it 
 was because she had come out into the open field 
 where flags were more avowedly unfurled to the same 
 result. How keenly she felt the contempt implied
 
 390 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 even in jest, for her sex, and by Ross of all men, she 
 alone could know. He had told her long ago that 
 the intense determination of the North at the outset 
 of its war upon the South was itself an assurance of 
 its success, and she believed that the very earnestness 
 of feeling by woman for woman, these days, was itself 
 a prophecy of what, purely as women, they were to 
 be and do. 
 
 " You think that at last we are only squaws, " she 
 said, and he began to see in her eyes fastened upon his 
 something he did not understand. Was it the dawn 
 of a morning he had not anticipated in her, in any 
 woman ? Was it the first flash of a coming storm ? 
 He shrank before it. If Persis could have known ! 
 
 Strange as it may seem, the chief hunger of the 
 man since he could remember had been for a home of 
 his own. It was in his nature from the first ; he had 
 been deprived of it by his father's brutality and then 
 by the marriage of his mother. To this he had looked 
 forward through his years in camp and the uncertain 
 ties following upon the close of the war. He hun 
 gered for peace, for rest, for time to think, for a period 
 during which he could come to some final decision in 
 regard to matters which, often as he denied it, made 
 worse strife within him than Federals and Confeder 
 ates had ever made without. Even as he spoke his 
 one desire on earth was for a home, a home, and 
 for Persis as the wife who alone could make that 
 home. 
 
 Perhaps Persis could have endured any measure of 
 joy. Eachel had allowed her to come into the room,
 
 XOSS AND PERSIS. 391 
 
 hoping in that as in the best medicine in reach, in 
 that and in the rest of soul which could not but come 
 to Persis when her years of hope had found assurance 
 at last. "Her future will seem to her," Eachel 
 thought, " a heaven of repose. After that, after she 
 and Ross have come to an understanding, the long 
 strain will be over. What does she care for except 
 for him ? " Persis had gone down to see her lover 
 with the craving, under show of strength, of weakness, 
 utter weakness. She loved him with her whole 
 heart, she knew that he had never loved any but her. 
 He was so strong ; none but she herself understood 
 how strong he was, how tender he would be, how 
 true ! She already saw, and before she entered the 
 room, his eyes fastened upon hers with the steadiness 
 of a love^ which would never change. Already she 
 felt his arms about her. " I am so tired," she had al 
 most sobbed. " I can trust to nothing else in earth or 
 heaven. Everything else is emptiness. He will take 
 me to his heart. It will rest me so ! rest me, rest me " 
 
 And then befell what has been but imperfectly de 
 scribed. 
 
 "You think we are only squaws !" 
 
 She lifted herself by grasping the marble of the 
 mantel, and, holding herself apart, she stood before 
 him there, the one object, stern, pale, which was to 
 come between him and everything else for many a 
 day to follow. Even then he could not help seeing 
 how her dress fell away from her as she stood, how 
 much she had lost of flesh. Her cheeks were hollow, 
 even if they were brilliant, and her eyes were too
 
 392 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 bright. She could not remember afterward what she 
 said to him. It was an irrepressible torrent upon 
 which she was but as a floating leaf. Nor could he 
 remember what she said. He saw in a stupid way 
 the mischief he had done. Not regarding what she 
 was saying, he studied how to remedy it. Once or 
 twice he was on the point of taking her in his arms, of 
 soothing her upon his bosom, of begging all manner of 
 pardon, of stifling her angry words with kisses. He 
 dared not attempt it. He was afraid to risk it. He 
 loved her the more for the terrible things she was say 
 ing, even while they angered him and drove him off. 
 Then she stopped and began to laugh; she could not 
 help it ! As he looked at her in amazement she broke 
 into a violent weeping like a little child, and, before 
 he could stop her, she had gone out of the room. 
 
 Left alone, he stood in the centre of the apartment, 
 staring at nothing, like a fool. Then he began, as he 
 stood, to curse the city to which she had come ; but 
 when he entered upon the profanity due himself for 
 his brutality the subject was too vast. He could do 
 that more justice afterward. Then he rang the bell 
 and sent up a line by the servant. He had hardly 
 supposed the note could be delivered when the answer 
 came back. 
 
 "Per sis is seriously ill. Neither she nor I can see 
 you now, nor for a very long time. You need not 
 wait. EACHEL." 
 
 Even then it struck him that the writer had not 
 written before, so far as he had seen, in a hand so
 
 XOSS AND PERSIS. 393 
 
 full and bold and clear. But he held it in his grasp 
 as he walked down the street, and entered again upon 
 the task of cursing himself. 
 
 My knocking at his door that night brought no 
 response, although the hotel clerk became irritated 
 at the number of assurances he had to make me 
 that my friend was undoubtedly in. As I learned 
 afterward, he called again and again upon Persis and 
 Rachel ; but neither of them would see him. They 
 could not. He was not the kind of man who resorts 
 to writing ; nothing less than a personal interview 
 would suffice for him. All this time letters on 
 pressing affairs of business had been pouring in upon 
 him. He was needed at Washington, then in the 
 South. Large amounts of money depended upon his 
 immediate return thither. Indignant telegrams began 
 to follow each other in rapid succession. So sure was 
 I that he avoided seeing me that I was as careful at 
 last not to be seen of him, and in a day or two he 
 was gone. The only memento he left was his card, 
 with the words scrawled in pencil upon the back : 
 
 " Called off by business."
 
 394 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 OCKLAWAHAW AGAIN. 
 
 vv 
 
 his plantation, it was to enter upon his affairs 
 with a species of cold energy such as he had never 
 before shown. If such a metaphor is allowable, his 
 arrival was as sudden as that of an aerolite, and he 
 struck, so to speak, with such force as to bury him 
 self in the soil. For a time he saw no one but his 
 overseer and the freedmen, and, rising with the dawn, 
 he gave himself, and exclusively, to the making of 
 corn and cotton. Apparently, but not for more than 
 a few weeks. When the change of season enforced a 
 relaxation in his planting interests, he turned from it 
 to other things with such vigor as to dismay his rivals, 
 for this one law seemed laid upon him, he must 
 work without cessation; why it was so he did not 
 define to himself, but he dared not stop. The paper he 
 edited had sunk during his absence into that most 
 mole-like of things, a " local paper," and he took it in 
 hand and lifted it out of its narrow circle, breathing 
 such breadth into it as alarmed its patrons for his 
 " soundness " on State affairs. His success at Wash 
 ington in things legal brought him new clients, and 
 he took every case that came with the avidity of a
 
 OCKLA WAHA W A GAIN. 395 
 
 man who had his bread and his reputation yet to 
 make. 
 
 With it all he went into politics as a candidate for 
 the Staje Senate. Everybody knew him as one who 
 had fought with desperation during the war, and the 
 comment ran the round of friends and foes, " The 
 Colonel always was as ambitious as Lucifer. He has 
 been in Washington and knows the ropes. When he 
 gets in the Legislature, won't he make Rome howl ! " 
 For weeks he toiled, in his paper and upon his round 
 of speech-making at every cross-roads. There was a 
 fierceness in what he wrote and said which slow-going 
 people could not understand. " He has fought so long," 
 they said, " that he cannot stop fighting. You can't 
 get the hang of what he is after. He is harder on us 
 than he was on the Federals. The hotter he gets the 
 harder it is to make out what the Colonel is after. 
 But he is all right, you bet ! They say he is to marry 
 the daughter of the old Governor, who is at school up 
 North somewhere. Smart move ! " 
 
 How could others comprehend him, seeing that he 
 did not stop long enough to comprehend himself ! For 
 this friend of mine did not have an atom of sentiment ; 
 you are imagining a different Ross Urwoldt from the 
 man of whom I am speaking, if you think he had. He 
 stripped himself of his last dollar during the war that 
 Rachel and Persis might not, so far as he could help it, 
 be inconvenienced, and no man ever loved woman more 
 than he did Persis ; but the passion Persis had for him 
 was because he by no means did his wooing upon his 
 knees. He sought or did not seek her, as opportu-
 
 396 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 nity served. He had taken his time about it. In mid- 
 torrent of his greatest ardor he had held himself in 
 check, and her. But, and so much the more, would 
 
 he make and none knew it as well as Persis 
 
 
 
 a husband who, till he died, would be even truer to 
 her, as he came to know her, than he was to himself. 
 
 No man, meanwhile, so sick of strife as he. During 
 his political canvass he spent night after night under 
 the hospitable roofs of planters, the whole household 
 coming about him after supper to hear what the can 
 didate had to say. While husband, wife, and chil 
 dren listened to his talk about Washington City, about 
 the schools the South must have, how best to deal 
 with the negroes, and the like, the wiry, stern-featured 
 man was envying the dog, even the cat sleeping upon 
 the hearth, these had at least a home. A home with 
 Persis ! in the universe there was nothing he cared 
 for except that ! 
 
 He was elected to the State Senate, but he was not 
 popular there even while he was acknowledged to be 
 the ablest man in the Legislature. His was a nature 
 which could not sour ; but how could he be patient 
 while the war was fought over again in his hearing, 
 day after day, with impassioned but futile oratory ? 
 It was in vain that he introduced and urged what he 
 regarded as measures of the utmost importance ; in 
 almost every instance they were voted down, and he 
 found himself upon his plantation again at the end, 
 a very tired and badly beaten man. While this was 
 going on, his practice as a lawyer ran down ; his 
 paper lost its circulation and stopped. The day of
 
 OCKLA WAHAW A GA IN. 397 
 
 his return to his home he learned that his overseer 
 had been swindling him and had fled. State enter 
 prises in which he had invested money failed ; the 
 titles to much of his land in the Reservation had 
 fallen into dispute, owing to Spanish grants which 
 had been found or forged. Even the husband of 
 his mother, indolent Amasa Clarke, became in some 
 way a contestant, in behalf of his wife, for large 
 possessions which Ross's father did bequeath, or 
 should have bequeathed her, and long letters began 
 to come to him, first from Mr. Clarke and then from 
 the lawyers. 
 
 Except for the sickness of his early childhood, he 
 did not know what illness meant ; but now he lay 
 prostrate in body as in mind. The indomitable will 
 remained, but mind and body both were to the will 
 as broken arms. If Persis had been his wife he would 
 have arisen from his troubles, and have been, by vir 
 tue of having her to fight for, a stronger man than 
 before. As it was, he was as much alone in the 
 world as if wrecked on a rock in mid-ocean, There 
 was something worse still. Along the Atlantic sea 
 shore there are trees which strive to lift aloft vigor 
 ous branches. But they draw their existence from 
 a soil of only a few inches in depth ; beneath that 
 is a bed of clay, white and barren as marble, into 
 which the roots strive to thrust themselves in vain. 
 Having no grip, as upon the globe itself, how can the 
 tree resist the storm ? And that was the curse of 
 Ross Urwoldt, that he could not lay hold upon the 
 world with the grasp of any living interest.
 
 398 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 For weeks he lay as in a stupor. Beyond a neigh 
 bor or two, almost the only person he saw was the 
 freedman whom he had made overseer ; and he came in 
 after night with the same old story that not a freed- 
 woman could be got into the fields, and that the men 
 were little better ; " de hebbiest crop of cottin you 
 ebber saw a perishin' for de pickin' ! " Who can say 
 what passed through the mind of this man as he 
 lay ? Everything had failed him. Fersis ? When 
 he was upon his feet and strong, he had been con 
 fident of what she would have said if he had asked 
 her to marry him. In his weakness he was not so 
 sure. She knew everything, was very beautiful ; but 
 now that he was sick himself, he doubted whether, 
 with all her education, she was at last anything more 
 than a nervous, capricious, hysterical woman. His 
 mother had been highly educated in her day, and 
 why should not Persis, too, slide downward again 
 into the same limp womanishness ? He remembered, 
 as he lay, what Dr. Trent had said of the sex ; their 
 weaknesses, perversities. Dr. Trent ? Yes, and he 
 had said, too, that life does not have the value, by 
 any means, which men attach to it. 
 
 " Let me look at it as one does at the raising of 
 cotton, what does it pay me to live ? " Weak from 
 fever, his whole life passed languidly but distinctly 
 before him. Ocklawahaw and here was his black- 
 eyed mother, loving him so ; no, it was Mrs. Amasa 
 Clarke, Mrs. Pooga-Dooga, dirty, stupid, ignorant; 
 the other woman was his childish delusion. The 
 Big Meetings what good had they done ? Parson
 
 OCKLAWAHAW AGAIN: 399 
 
 Williams so poor all his life, and dust for so long 
 now ! Then his bloated, red-faced father stood over 
 him as he lay. Ross could smell the whiskey-breath 
 of flesh consuming in alcohol, as he did that day he 
 rode with him after the thief. Yes, and there he lay 
 dead among the gravel. What good did his land 
 operations and browbeatings of people do him ? 
 
 " And there is Governor Beauchamp, orator, buf 
 foon, Congressman, lying drunk under the sycamore ! 
 Governor again, with a yell and a whoop, dragged out 
 of office by the shoulders, making a pitiful stand for 
 the Union, dead, and this time for good and forever ! 
 And here comes the war! what ardor, and beating 
 of drums ! what speech-making, and glorious proph 
 ecies ! how the boys were hurrahing ! Then the 
 fighting ! Victory. Defeat. Victory again. De 
 feat once more. The fields covered thick with the 
 dead ! And they were so brave, too ! Prison, hos 
 pital, camp, nearly four years of it ! What was it for, 
 anyhow ? 
 
 " I went to the city to see Persis. And if they had 
 anything to tell I wanted to know it. What did 
 I hear ? Guesses, clatter, contradiction, Persis 
 lived there, she knew all they had to say ; what did 
 she believe ? Nothing. Persis ? Poor thing, what 
 does your fine education make of you ? " A fragile 
 woman stood before the sick man, talking, arguing, 
 getting excited like a peevish child, her hands tremu 
 lous, her face white and drawn. Her eyes glitter 
 ing, she talks, she laughs, she storms, she cries, she 
 can't be silent, she can't be still. " She can't wait to
 
 400 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 see when a man is only teasing. Know ? She does n't 
 know me,, and after all these many years ! Know ? 
 She knows so much that she has lost the power of 
 knowing the simplest thing. Know ? Yes, but she 
 does not know how to love ! " 
 
 When the end came, I, Guernsey, was selfish enough 
 to be almost hurt at the little influence I had exerted 
 upon him. I had wanted to do him good. I had 
 tried not to say too much to him. All that he said 
 in his last letter before his sickness was, " I like you, 
 Guernsey, more than any man I know. If I could be 
 as certain as you, I would be a happier man than even 
 you can ever get to be. But I do not know. What is 
 more, I cannot know ! You would not be me, I can 
 not be you." 
 
 The one person in the world who could influence 
 Ross Urwoldt was Persis Paige ; but Persis ? She 
 had learned a vast deal, had learned, if you please, 
 everything else. But in learning it she had broken 
 herself down from doing the one thing she was created 
 to do. 
 
 It was because he became as weak as a child that, 
 like a child, he was seized, as he lay, with a desire to 
 get back to Ocklawahaw, not back to his mother, 
 not back to the mere woods and prairies of his child 
 hood, but to his childhood itself. Leaving his affairs to 
 take what course down-hill they pleased, he got out of 
 bed, and journeyed back, as he could bear it, to the 
 Reservation. 
 
 The keeper of the old log tavern in Ocklawahaw 
 did not at first recognize him when he dismounted at
 
 OCKLA WAHA W A GAIN. 401 
 
 his door. " Had chills an' fever, hain't you ? " Mr. 
 Golson demanded. 
 
 Emigration had brought in men and money, but 
 these, too, had so yielded to the inertia of things as 
 to make matters worse in the town. Everywhere 
 appeared dilapidation and decay. The keeper of 
 the tavern, the men loafing about the store, the old 
 Indians and half-breeds prowling through the neg 
 lected streets, the half-naked children rolling in the 
 dust, the small farmers driving in with unpainted 
 wagons and rawbone horsesto sell their produce, 
 all were in keeping with each other. "What Koss had 
 grown accustomed to in the East, and even in his 
 own State, made Ocklawahaw seem doubly down by 
 contrast. 
 
 All the way, as he walked through its well-known 
 streets that day, he tried to make things look as they 
 used to do when he was a boy. Hardest to do of all, 
 he tried to bring to mind his mother as she used to 
 be. Not an ounce of paint had been applied to the 
 house in which she lived since he had left it ; that 
 and the broken pickets were the things most notice 
 able as he drew near. But who could that fat old 
 woman be upon the front porch, rocking herself in a 
 hide-bottomed chair, her hair about her shoulders, her 
 dress an old calico, a baby in her arms, a pipe in her 
 mouth ? It was impossible for Eoss to believe that 
 she could be his mother. She had fallen below what 
 he had feared when he saw her last ; but now ? 
 Weak and tired out, he sank into a chair and looked 
 at her with eyes sad and steady. Yes, although she 
 
 26
 
 402 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 was the master so far as her husband was concerned, 
 his shiftless indolence had degraded by infecting her 
 beyond all that Gerald Urwoldt had done. It is sad 
 for a man or a woman to possess health and lose it, 
 to possess a million in money and lose it, a throne 
 and lose it. Men and women have had character and 
 pre-eminent reputation and have lost it. " This 
 mother of mine," he thought, as he looked at her, " has 
 lost her education as completely as I have lost my faith 
 in everything. The worst of it is that she does not 
 know it." The squaw-like cringe of manner at first 
 sight of her son, that was there still. Almost with 
 her first words she began to ask him about her brand 
 of cattle. The baby in her arms began to cry ; other 
 of her children, fat and dirty, came in and clustered 
 about him with their beady black eyes. Amasa 
 Clarke might return at^any moment. Eoss made his 
 stay as short as possible. 
 
 " Did you know," she called after him, " that they 
 have got back again ? " But he did not hear, or hear 
 ing did not heed her. 
 
 Before breakfast next morning he got up, went 
 over the street to the old store, managed to find his 
 way up into the loft. As when he left it, the low 
 walls were covered with the paintings of his father. 
 Ross forced open a little window and looked at them. 
 They were coated with dust, the rats had gnawed 
 them here and there, the rain had got at and washed 
 out much of the color. The largest of the pictures 
 was at the gable end of the loft, and reached from 
 the floor to the slanting roof. It represented a hunter
 
 OCKLA WAHAW A GA IN. 403 
 
 in the midst of a herd of buffalo. Notwithstanding 
 the dust, the damp, the general decay, Eoss could not 
 but observe how true to nature, although but in spots 
 here and there, was the transparency of the sky, the 
 rolling of the prairie slopes. Even then he saw that 
 the tangle yet elasticity of the grass was that which 
 he had so often observed. And the buffalo too, the 
 confusion of the stupid yet infuriated brutes, with 
 their small eyes gleaming through their matted hair, 
 their distended nostrils, their gaunt flanks, Ross 
 had himself often been in the midst of such. " Never 
 have I," he thought, " been other than in the surging 
 brutality of some such beasts since I was born ! " 
 
 But it was the hunter upon the frightened horse 
 amid their throng which fastened his eyes. Eoss 
 recognized in the man in his buckskin suit and 
 broad-brimmed hat, his rifle in poise, cool, athletic, 
 exultant, what his father must have been before he 
 himself had any existence, recognized himself ! The 
 horse the hunter rode was a spectral smear, but the 
 head of the rider projected from the discolored can 
 vas, its eyes glittering like the last lingering sparks 
 in a heap of ashes. 
 
 " You had your day ! " It was the sole tribute the 
 son could offer as, turning away, he rummaged under 
 the joist beneath the roof and drew out of the dirt a 
 short gun. He almost smiled as he remembered the 
 day he had hidden it there so long ago. Lying beside 
 it in the dark, was the old shot-pouch and powder-horn 
 which Eoss had forgotten. He examined them ea 
 gerly. Yes, it was his mother who made the pouch out
 
 404 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 of the skin of his first deer; every stitch was familiar 
 to him. And the powder-horn ? There were his 
 initials, " R. U." He could not have been more than 
 eight years old when he scratched them upon it. He 
 had fitted the bottom in and the stopper ; the charger 
 he had made with his own hands out of a boar's tusk. 
 He was too weak to be ashamed of his emotion as he 
 handled them now. As he took the weapon in his 
 grasp and looked it carefully over, the first thrill of 
 pleasure he had known for many a day passed through 
 him. It was a double-barrelled shot-gun, yager pat 
 tern, the first fire-arm he had owned. It was rusty 
 with years of hiding where he had put it under the 
 drip of the eaves, but he took it over to the tavern, 
 rubbed it up and cleaned it with an almost personal 
 affection, remembering that day in the snow when he 
 had brought down with it his first squirrel. Not a 
 dog or horse he once owned remained to him. " This 
 is the last friend left to me," he said, " and it may 
 prove to be the best to me of all." 
 
 An hour after, Ross was seated on the stone be 
 neath the sycamore outside the town. He had slept 
 like a babe, so tired out was he, the night before ; 
 but there was that in the familiar scenes around him 
 now which crowded upon and dazed him, like the 
 darkness and stillness of another night. 
 
 " Governor Beauchamp used to sit on this stone," 
 he tried to state it to himself, " and talk. How often 
 have I seen him lying just there ! " For the moment 
 the purple-faced patriarch lay at the feet of Ross, so 
 vivid was the remembrance. " He was but a bigger
 
 OCKLA WAHA W A GAIN, 405 
 
 grain of dust," the wearied man tried to think, "an 
 atom of dirt whirled by the winds this way and that, 
 dropped when the wind stopped blowing, picked up 
 again, hurried by the gust here and there. Now he 
 is dead, is dust and nothing else." 
 
 But what did he care for the old Governor ? And 
 he fell, as he sat upon the stone, his head against the 
 sycamore, into a dreamy dulness, to awake out of it 
 with a start. " Persis ? Yes, it was here Persis used 
 to sit, poor little thing, in your calico and trying to 
 hide your little brown toes ! ' Penna, pennae, pennae,' 
 was it ? What did you get out of it at last ? Persis ? 
 Did I love you ? Did I ever love anybody ? It is 
 all too long ago. Let me see see " To keep awake 
 he forced himself to get up, and walked slowly on to 
 the river, and then up its ragged bluffs into the belt 
 of dense forest separating the town from the prairies 
 beyond. 
 
 " Yes, here you are again, old river." He sat down 
 on a rotting log to look at the muddy stream, while 
 he tried to think how he used to swim in it, to paddle 
 up and down in his canoe, to fish, and shoot alligators 
 caught sleeping along the shore. " Halloo, old pecan- 
 trees, how are you ? Have they gathered all your 
 nuts yet ? Let 's see." He had forgotten for the 
 moment the season of the year; but, yes, the earth 
 was thick with dead leaves, it was late in the autumn, 
 the ground was covered too with the brown hulls, 
 what nuts he could find were rotten. " Any mustang 
 grapes left ? " He went peering about through the 
 tangle of vines. " There used to be so many," he
 
 406 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 complained. Finding a cluster or two, he sat clown 
 on the dead leaves, laid his gun aside, and ate the 
 grapes very slowly, picking them off one by one. 
 The pulp was at its sweetest, but the skins were at 
 their bitterest, and he ate these, too, as when a boy. 
 Then he sat, his hands fallen between his knees, and 
 thought, tried to think, for the woods were closing 
 in upon him as in a dream. 
 
 " It used to be so much to me," he murmured to 
 himself, " used to be everything. Is it because I have 
 got behind this stage-scenery, too ? I am so dull, so 
 stupid." It was a cloudy day ; there was no wind, 
 and the trees, except where the poison oak-vine clam 
 bered up their trunks, were almost leafless and silent. 
 Now and then a lingering leaf detached itself and 
 fluttered slowly to the earth, a squirrel ran from tree 
 to tree, the stealthy tread of opossum or raccoon 
 was heard, a chipmunk darted across the openings, 
 in the distance a rotten bough fell to the ground, a 
 blue-jay chattered, a catbird called, an owl whooped ; 
 but all sounds so neutralized each other that they 
 made themselves into a murmuring silence which 
 pressed upon the, brain, a hush that was also a force. 
 
 He had counted upon relief among the scenes 
 of his childhood, and found only depression. For a 
 long time now he had thought and felt until it was 
 impossible to think or feel as he had done. Be 
 yond mere earth and wood and water; beyond mere 
 light and air, and such animals as he chanced upon, 
 there was to him nothing. A hand gloved, so to 
 speak, in these things, was laid, could he but have
 
 OCKLA WAHAW A GAIN. 407 
 
 known it, tenderly upon his eyes, soothing him 
 thereby into that solitude, silence, repose, out of 
 which comes recovery. As he sat he fell asleep. Re 
 laxing in his exhaustion from his upright position, 
 he lay at last upon the thick mattress of dead leaves. 
 Often when a boy he had slept all night beneath 
 those very trees, and now he had been pressed back 
 by a living hand out of his manhood into his boy 
 hood, pressed back of that into his infancy, back 
 of that into an unconsciousness such as goes before 
 birth. To his utmost he had asserted himself and 
 failed. His was the submission which comes at last 
 to every man at death. For hours he lay, his dark 
 hair tangled with leaves, his hands cast out helplessly 
 on either side of him, almost as utterly done with 
 himself as if he w r ere dead! Almost, not altogether! 
 A mother need not fear she will awake her child 
 when she creeps at midnight to its crib and bends 
 over it ; not so when the child has grown to be a 
 man, at least not so if the man is of strong person 
 ality. Stand over such a man when his sleep is at 
 its soundest, and suddenly you will see his eyelids 
 unclose ; he is back again, and in a moment will have 
 you under his knee and throttled if not recognized 
 as a friend. So in the case of Eoss Urwoldt, lying 
 dead asleep. What is the inmost self of the man ? 
 What was that which was within Ross as a man is 
 within his clothing ? It was a Ross Urwoldt so 
 much apart from his sleeping body that suddenly 
 he awoke as if aware of, and resenting and resisting 
 the presence with him of another, even of that
 
 408 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 invisible presence bent over him only in tenderest 
 care. 
 
 Angry with he knew not what, he arose to his feet, 
 and, picking up his gun, he struck through the woods 
 and out into the prairie beyond. " I can remember," 
 he said to himself, " when, as a boy, I counted over 
 a hundred varieties of flowers which I found among 
 the grass here. They must long ago have ceased to 
 struggle against the hoofs of the cattle ! " 
 
 When he reached the first eminence he stopped, 
 threw his hat upon the ground, and looked around. 
 It was a hill too high and too conical not to be, as 
 he well knew, one of those mounds in which slum 
 ber a buried race. He had been present at exca 
 vations made in others like it, and knew what it 
 contained, rude implements, bits of pottery, and 
 bones, heaps of the ashes of what were once multi 
 tudes of living men whose name and history had 
 perished with them. " But that much more dust," he 
 thought. " It was dust from eternity. In the whirl 
 of things it became men ; ate, drank, slept, fought, 
 slew, suffered, died, and so was dust again. Is 
 there among it a smaller atom of dust than myself? 
 And this what is this ? " 
 
 The clouds were broken, and the sky was blue, the 
 sun shining brightly. His eye slowly swept the 
 entire expanse of earth and heaven, trying to recall 
 the amplitude and glory of what it had been to him 
 in days gone by. " Is my brain sodden," he said, 
 " that I can make nothing of it but a vast prison ? 
 What good is there in mere size ? It is, at last, walls 
 and roof, not^- more."
 
 OCKLA WAHA W A GAIN. 409 
 
 Who can tell by what instinct he followed, as he 
 walked slowly on, the road along which he had 
 driven that day with his enraged father ? He was 
 very tired when he sat down at last upon the spot 
 beside the creek where his father had fallen and died. 
 The road ran abruptly down to the water and through 
 it, and so up a steep incline, and out again toward 
 the farms beyond. It was the way most travelled by 
 those going in and out of Ocklawahaw, and the gum- 
 trees and willows grew thick on either side, making 
 a shade deep and dark over the current, gurgling as 
 it went. 
 
 " You need not sing it so steadily," he murmured, 
 his voice sounding far off to him as he said it. "Do 
 I not know, know, know it ? Yes, 
 
 ' Men may come and men may go, 
 But I go on forever, ' 
 
 go on forever, ever ! " His head sank upon his bosom. 
 It was late in the day, and he had walked many miles 
 forgetting the food in his deerskin pouch. 
 
 There was a sound at last of wheels coming from 
 the town, and, looking up a moment with a blank 
 stare, he hastened to his feet, and, barely in time to 
 do it, he stumbled rather than sprang into the thick 
 undergrowth until it should pass, whoever and what 
 ever it was. He might have known, had he cared to 
 do so, who were in the vehicle as it drove by. It was 
 impossible that he should not have recognized their 
 voices, for, halting mid-stream to allow their horses 
 to drink, they conversed together, talking of the 
 death, near by, of Gerald Urwoldt, and all that had
 
 410 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 followed. But Ross heard the sound as he did that 
 of the babbling water, and when they were gone on 
 he came out of his concealment and sat down again 
 upon a stone, his gun between his knees. 
 
 " Do they ? " He looked up in surprise. Who was 
 it was saying so loudly, " Accidents do happen, you 
 know ? " 
 
 " Do they ? So they do ? I wonder who said it ? 
 Yes," and he repeated it over and over to himself. 
 " That is a fact. On that very spot " He looked 
 dreamily at it, putting forth his foot to touch it. 
 
 Even now it was not that the Niagara swept him 
 downward beyond his strength ; it was because he 
 deliberately refused to put forth his strength and 
 swim ashore. Wilfully and deliberately he gave 
 himself up to the effects of loss, defeat, sickness ; 
 took luxurious pleasure in letting go and drifting 
 with the torrent. 
 
 " I am glad I wrote the letters. She will under 
 stand ! " . 
 
 He sprang to his feet wide awake, resentful. " Cow 
 ard ? Who said I was a coward ? You are a liar !" 
 A moment after, " I must be crazy." He laughed as 
 he said it. " No ; I never was more sane. I know that 
 all is but dust, a whirl for a moment of dust. How 
 angry she is, how beautiful, and how weak ! Dust, 
 only dust."
 
 SOLUTION. 411 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 SOLUTION. 
 
 " T")ERSIS is not well enough to see any one." That 
 -* was all the satisfaction Rachel afforded me when, 
 as soon as I could after the departure of Ross, I 
 called at their house. 
 
 " I hope she is not seriously ill ? " I asked, there was 
 so much of what I may call determination in Rachel's 
 face. 
 
 " Dr. Trent does not allow her to see even Mrs. 
 Trent," Rachel said ; and the resolve in her face took 
 so much rising color, almost as of anger, but not at 
 me, that I began to talk of Ross instead. She listened 
 to me, as she always did, with eyes serene and atten 
 tive, and to the end ; but she would not converse 
 concerning him either, and under disguise of chat 
 ting upon indifferent topics, I gave myself up, as I 
 always did, to a fresh study of Rachel herself. When 
 I say that she had improved as much if not more than 
 Persis, it is not in rny power to explain what I mean. 
 You must know such a woman for yourself to under 
 stand her. Both of them had developed in intellect, 
 as in personal beauty. Whatsoever charm comes to 
 their sex from frequent hearing of the best music, 
 from daily association with the best society, was
 
 412 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 theirs alike. "Will it help us if I say that, beyond 
 this, Persis was a specialist and Eachel was not? 
 That Persis was an enthusiast in reference to cer 
 tain branches, while Rachel accepted whatever she 
 learned in equal measure. In conversing with Persis 
 I noticed that her entire education manifested itself 
 in her strong preference for this and that, with dis 
 likes equally decided, while Rachel was interested 
 but impartial. In Persis culture was an electric 
 fire quivering in her eyes, tongue, finger-tips, as in 
 brilliant points ; in Rachel it was the glow of a 
 higher health which suffused her entire person. 
 
 The day, for instance, of which I am speaking, her 
 silence in reference to Ross and Persis, her control, 
 after the first salutations, of her color too, had deeper 
 effect upon me than words could have had. But it is 
 of Persis I wish now to speak, of Persis only. " Per 
 sis has as much regard for me," Dr. Trent told me 
 when I next saw him, "as Elizabeth had for Burleigh, 
 and is about as obedient to me as the Queen was to 
 her counsellor. When Urwoldt saw her last, she 
 had reached a climax of some sort, Heaven knows 
 what. Things went wrong. If she had succumbed 
 at once and cried herself out, she would have been 
 over it by this time. But she would not. She is a 
 woman of that kind, and, setting her teeth, she made 
 a desperate effort to hide matters, to go on as before. 
 Her strength was already exhausted and down she 
 came." 
 
 " Surely there is some remedy," I said. 
 
 Dr. Trent sympathized with my anxiety. " Opiates
 
 SOLUTION. 413 
 
 react," be explained. " "What she needs is natural 
 rest." He paused, but I knew as well what was 
 coming as the traveller does who waits beside the 
 empty basin of a geyser. " Do I not believe as 
 much," he said at last and with vehemence, "as a 
 man can in education, in the highest education for 
 women as for men ? But when," and he was lifted 
 from his chair to his feet, " a woman takes to know 
 ing as a toper takes to whiskey ! " 
 
 " But men, do not men ? " I began. 
 
 " Not as often ; not with such womanish intensity. 
 Besides, they cannot stand it as men can. Let them 
 learn everything if they will," arid the Doctor threw 
 his hands wildly apart, "but there is one thing a 
 woman must do. She may know much or little, but, 
 being a woman, she must love, must ! " 
 
 " Her parents died," I began, " when she was a child ; 
 she has no brother, has no sister " But the Doctor 
 broke in upon me. 
 
 " I never could comprehend how matters stand be 
 tween her and Urwoldt, between her and yourself! 
 Mrs. Trent does not, never could ! For what I know, 
 Miss Persis has no lover unless it is Mr. Adrian. Like 
 many of our noblest women, she has not married be 
 cause," with sarcastic emphasis, " she has as yet found 
 no man worthy of her. You have disappointed us, 
 Guernsey," he added, " cruelly disappointed us ! Never 
 was there a woman so admirably suited in every way 
 to you." 
 
 " Perhaps there are reasons," I stammered, " circum 
 stances which I cannot expl "
 
 414 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 " Oh ! ah ! Pardon me. I am beginning to under 
 stand ! She would u't have you ? Mrs. Trent did not 
 know that. Then," and the warm-hearted physician 
 seized my reluctant hand, " it is in her I am cruelly 
 disappointed. Yes, yes, I will say no more ! Except 
 this, that, being a woman, she must love some 
 body. A woman cares nothing for science, for any 
 system of truth whatever, but solely for detached 
 facts; nor for a separate fact, except so far as her 
 feeling is enlisted for it in some way. For the race 
 she cares nothing ; only for her mother, child, lover, 
 husband. You cannot feed the ears with splendid 
 sights any more than you can satisfy the eyes with 
 music. Persis could not stop the craving of her 
 brain, if she should try to do so, with loving. How, 
 then, can she satisfy her heart with knowing, and 
 when her heart is really the largest part of her ! If 
 there is no man she thinks worthy her love, she can 
 love God, can't she ? When a woman has no God, it 
 is ten times worse with them than it is with men." 
 And he illustrated it from his experience to a degree 
 I do not care to repeat. 
 
 " That is the reason," he added at last, " why Persis 
 perplexes Rachel so. Rachel does not talk about her, 
 but Rachel cannot even imagine any one without a 
 faith and a love, at least for her Maker, which conies 
 first and before everything else. To her Persis is a 
 painful puzzle. If she were a sceptical brother in 
 stead, Rachel would say, 'Oh, it is because he is a 
 man, and a wicked man, for what I know,' but for 
 a woman to doubt ! To Rachel it is an unfeminine
 
 SOLUTION, 415 
 
 peculiarity, an absurd crotchet ; worse, really, than if 
 her friend should adopt boots and trousers. She never 
 reasons about it with Persis ; it is something too eccen 
 tric to be reasoned about. Rachel cares less for learn 
 ing on that account, but she has on that account a 
 more pitying love and care for her friend. I admire 
 Persis, but Eachel I admire and love," said Dr. Trent. 
 
 That was all he would say about his patient; he 
 would go into no details. When wrought up he used 
 frightful language concerning the follies in general of 
 women ; as to particulars he was as silent as if it was 
 of his own wife he was speaking. 
 
 I was very busy in the days which followed. When 
 ever I was in the city, and had time to do so, I pre 
 ferred to get my information in regard to Persis from 
 Rachel, especially as Dr. Trent and his wife grew shy 
 of speaking freely to me of her. There was a sudden 
 pity, too, in Mrs. Trent's eyes the instant we met. 
 She would check herself from her usual high spirits 
 when with me ; would say, by way of comforting me, 
 more things about my lectures and books than facts 
 warranted. She was so careful in her allusions to 
 Persis, was so consolatory that I almost liked it in 
 the end, as one does a new species of confectionery. 
 For I had, from ignorance, maybe, no fear that Persis 
 would die, even that she would be ill for any long 
 time. She possessed, whenever I saw her, an elastic 
 energy which reassured me. One afternoon Jean 
 came into the office where I was seated waiting for 
 her father, and putting his microscope out of order 
 while I did so. Jean is not fourteen as yet, and, by
 
 416 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 reason of her golden hair, we are great friends. After 
 standing for some time in silence beside me, she re 
 marked soberly, 
 
 " Miss Persis is very sick, is n't she, Mr. Guernsey ? " 
 
 " Yes, no, oh, no, not very sick," I said. 
 
 " Mr. Guernsey," Jean planted herself full in front 
 of me to ask it, " do you love Miss Persis very much ? " 
 
 " Certainly. Don't you love her too ? " But I felt 
 my face growing hot under the compassionate eyes of 
 the immature woman, who kissed me by way of silent 
 consolation, and walked sadly away, as if she knew 
 things which I was not prepared to hear as yet. 
 There had been many weeks, even months, during 
 which Persis was out of the city with Rachel some 
 where. I also was forced to go away again, and I 
 had a general idea that Persis was so ill that, however 
 anxious I might be, it would be best I should not in 
 quire into it too often or too closely. But Jean must 
 have been mistaken, for when, on my and their return, 
 I arranged with Rachel to have Persis take a ride one 
 lovely October afternoon, Rachel was sure it would do 
 her good. Obtaining the most comfortable carriage, 
 and the safest horses and driver to be had, I rode to 
 the door merely to see the ladies off; but when Persis 
 was comfortably nestled beside Rachel on the back seat, 
 they begged me to go with them. I thanked them, 
 declined, replaced my hat on my head, and was walk 
 ing off, when Rachel remarked, " Mr. Guernsey, please 
 get in," but in such a way some women have it 
 that without a word I took the seat opposite them, 
 and we drove off.
 
 SOLUTION. 417 
 
 Not until we were out of the city did I take a good 
 look at Persis. She had on a dress of what is called, 
 I think, myrtle-green, with a fleecy wrap of some 
 cream-colored material about her head and shoulders. 
 Except that she was thinner, I could not see that 
 she was sick. Her cheeks were bright, as were her 
 eyes. She had larger, finer eyes than I had supposed, 
 more intelligent, they seemed to me. For I tried, 
 very quietly though, to interest her as we rolled at 
 last through the woods ablaze, by this time, with the 
 glories of autumn. 
 
 " I had no idea it was so beautiful," Persis said, and 
 I felt as if winter itself had touched me when I saw 
 a subtle likeness between her and the foliage on 
 either hand. The manifold gradations of gold, from 
 black which is becoming bronze up to brilliant yel 
 low, with reminiscences of a more ardent red in the 
 pink which streaked and tinged the leaves, these 
 told of a ripeness which was hastening toward decay. 
 
 Why is it that one is sure to say, and from one's 
 very eagerness not to do so, precisely the thing which 
 should not be said ? It was so now. " To think," I 
 remarked, " that last June all these woods were of a 
 tender green ! The year is a babe stricken with these 
 colors of age and death before it is five months old ! " 
 And I saw my blunder in the tears which gathered in 
 the lashes of Rachel, but I was glad that she was too 
 much occupied with her friend to look at me as I 
 deserved. 
 
 " It is so beautiful," Persis said, loving the foliage 
 with lingering eyes as we passed slowly along. Her 
 
 27
 
 418 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 accents were in unison with the waning life of the 
 woods. It clothed her like the crape of a nun, her evi 
 dent abandonment of things. She was so exhausted 
 as to have lost the desire to strive. Something 
 stronger than herself had come upon her, and so 
 tamed her that she loved the subjection. 
 
 " It is merely a passing weakness," I thought ; " she 
 will get well." But I dared not look again when I 
 noticed how the tears of her utter surrender were 
 moistening her eyelashes. Her silence seemed to 
 subdue even Rachel into a quieter affection, but she 
 looked at me at last in such a way that I began again 
 to talk lightly of this, of that. And I did succeed in 
 bringing the smiles to the face of Persis at last. For 
 not even then did I know how long and how well 
 she had loved Ross, how her hard work was but a 
 means toward that, how she was sceptical because 
 " she believed that," as Rachel told me afterward, 
 " even if books /ailed her she had Ross. When he 
 failed her, too, and was gone," Rachel added, " she 
 broke down utterly. Then she rallied herself, and 
 made so frantic an effort to go on with her teaching 
 for she had a noble position that when she fell 
 in the effort it seemed impossible she would ever re 
 cover. I will never speak of those dreadful days ! " 
 Rachel vowed, and she has kept her vow. 
 
 There were many things taking place at that time 
 which I cannot mention as yet, but out of our ride 
 that day came one result. 
 
 " I intend to go to Ocklawahaw," Persis announced 
 as we returned homeward.
 
 SOLUTION. '419 
 
 " Will Dr. Trent consent ? " I asked in amazement. 
 
 " I am going in any case," she said. 
 
 It was not that she was not submissive, but it was 
 to another man than to Dr. Trent. Ross had always 
 had firm hold upon her since she could remember; 
 now he was drawing her to himself through all that 
 lay between. I dare not say that Eachel and myself 
 could feel, through Persis, the irresistible grasp which 
 was laid upon her, but we knew that we must go 
 with her if she persisted. 
 
 In this remarkable world things fit with accuracy, 
 and the fit there is no other word for it of its 
 burr to the chestnut, of its air to the lungs, of the light 
 to the eyes, is but an instance of the universal adjust 
 ment. For there was a sort of parenthesis in my 
 affairs during which I had nothing else to do, exactly 
 then, but to go with the two friends. It is not neces 
 sary to detail all that. 
 
 " Go ? Yes, by all means ! " Dr. Trent assented. 
 " It is the best thing that can be done for Persis. I 
 do not want," he added, " to distress you, Guernsey, 
 but if I were to tell you what might befall her, it 
 would break your heart. Be sure and start soon." 
 
 We took our time at it after we were started. By 
 rail, by steamer, by rail again, by steamer once more, 
 by private conveyance, we reached Ocklawahaw at 
 last. We had arranged beforehand for rooms with 
 the family which lived in the house once owned by 
 Rachel Mrs. Amasa Clarke was there to greet us. 
 She astonished me. It was hard to think that so 
 coarse a woman could be the mother of Ross, the
 
 420 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 mother he used to boast of to me when we were in 
 college. He had told me how she had changed, but 
 I was not prepared for change as great. The poor 
 woman was glad to see Rachel and Persis again, and 
 yet she saw the change in them too, and shrank from 
 it, I could see that. There was an old negro woman, 
 Seelye, who was beside herself with joy at our coming. 
 I do not imagine that she could have changed in any 
 thing, Persis and Eachel were so glad to see her. 
 
 I confess that I was not quite prepared for Ockla- 
 wahaw. It is true that I had seen many of the 
 roughest regions during the war. Our journeying 
 had, of late, been through a cypress swamp which 
 ought to have made the town an Eden in comparison. 
 Moreover, Ross and the young ladies had never de 
 scribed their old home to me in any other light. 
 Most of all, my introduction to the Mitchabuna of 
 other years should have qualified me for what fol 
 lowed. And yet, when I sallied out the morning 
 after our arrival, I was long in accepting the fact that 
 this was indeed the place in which Ross, in which 
 Persis and Rachel, had lived so long ! 
 
 Let me acknowledge it frankly, I was borne up 
 and over even Ocklawahaw, as I had been during our 
 coming thither, by Persis. She grew stronger with 
 every mile since leaving the East. The morning after 
 we came to Ocklawahaw she was radiant, not with 
 joy but with excitement. But her eagerness looked 
 beyond Ocklawahaw to that which drew her, and 
 more vigorously now than ever, to something beyond. 
 
 Rachel had put on a new beauty the moment we
 
 SOLUTION. 421 
 
 went down the steps of the porch and out into the 
 November coolness. "Here is the same dear old 
 silkweed," she said. It was nothing but a low brown 
 shrub, with queer bowls full of flossy silk, but she 
 took the silvery streamers in her hand as lovingly as 
 if they were the locks of a child, herself a child 
 again. "And this is our Indian- weed once more," 
 she cried, seizing upon one of the myriad stalks of 
 an ugly growth with which the country was disfig 
 ured. " Listen, Persis ! " And she shook it till the 
 pods rattled again, and both of them laughed with 
 glee at the sound. " Yonder are the same old, old 
 Indians wrapped in their blankets and sitting in the 
 sun," she said, as we walked on. " If you were an 
 artist, Mr. Guernsey " And she pointed out the 
 children who had grouped themselves to stare at us, 
 as we went, half naked most of them, chilly as it was. 
 Nor did my companions seem at all afraid of the 
 men loitering about, with beards as portentous as 
 their flapping hats. That these companions of mine 
 should have originated in such scenes, it was that 
 which bewildered me. Until, at last, like a man 
 swept downward by a muddy torrent, I laid hold 
 upon the low-hanging limbs of the live-oaks every 
 where about me, with their leaves still green among 
 the swinging masses of gray moss, nothing could be 
 more magnificent, and by their help I regained my 
 feet, so to speak, and entered into the nature of 
 things, understood it all, and was myself again. 
 
 Rachel and I yielded, as we had done all along, to 
 Persis, when she halted in front of a disreputable log
 
 422 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 tavern, and begged me to go in with a question for 
 the keeper. "Was it pure intuition on her part ? Per 
 haps Boss had written to her. She may have heard 
 in some other way, I never asked. But the tavern- 
 keeper told me yes ; that Colonel Urwoldt had come to 
 town. He was not in the house ; he was out " a hunt 
 ing," and my informant threw his hand in a general 
 way up street. Could he let us have a light wagon 
 and a pair of horses ? That he did not know ; and he 
 came out upon the front porch to think more clearly, 
 scratching behind his ear, looking suspiciously at 
 me as he did so. 
 
 Some people are fond of ferns ; others have a pas 
 sion for dogs, for horses. As I have already remarked 
 too often, my chief interest is in people, and I 
 watched my newly made friend as he stood, shirt- 
 sleeved, upon the steps, and ' stared at Rachel and 
 Persis waiting on what ought to have been the side 
 walk. It was not often that he saw ladies. Never 
 had he seen such ladies, never ! 
 
 " Mr. Golson," said Rachel, " don't you know us ? 
 This is Persis Paige. I am Governor Beauchamp's 
 daughter, Rachel. Have you forgotten us so soon ? " 
 
 The man was the roughest of the rough, pitted with 
 small-pox, a scar across his left temple, and now, 
 his hand still in his shock of red hair, he stood and 
 stared. Both Persis and Rachel laughed and blushed, 
 and Persis, strange to say, the most, so excited was 
 she, the flattery of the man's astonishment was so 
 sincere. It was some time before he could adjust 
 himself to the circumstances. But he knew from the
 
 SOLUTION. 423 
 
 instant of his recovery that he did have horses and 
 wagon, and it was not long before I had helped the 
 ladies into it, had gathered up the reins and was 
 driving off. The last I saw of him he was standing 
 on the ground gazing after us, his hand in his hair, 
 endeavoring to realize things. 
 
 I knew, without looking back, as I whipped the 
 hard-worked plough-horses along, that Persis was 
 greatly elated ; that Rachel had firm hold upon her 
 hand, and was whispering to her as we went. I 
 turned here and there at a word from Rachel ; there 
 was a half-suppressed exclamation as we passed near 
 an immense sycamore, under which was a large stone. 
 Soon after we emerged from the village, and the 
 woods which belted it in, upon a highway leading 
 between fields, and then on and on, up and down, 
 over a rolling prairie. None of us felt disposed to talk. 
 As I checked the horses for a descent toward what 
 seemed to be a creek winding its way through wil 
 lows, I glanced back. The remark I was about to 
 make died on my lips ! Persis must have had a let 
 ter, must have had information of some kind, for she 
 was seated, her face now dark and cold, drawn tense 
 and silent by I know not what. As we stopped in 
 the stream to allow the horses to drink, I said some 
 thing. Rachel replied to me, but Persis, held firmly 
 by Rachel, was looking to the right and left, like a 
 deer in search of its fawn. There was nothing to be 
 seen or heard, and we drove up the ascent on the 
 other side. By what I caught as I drove, I judged 
 that Persis had given way and was weeping. Rachel
 
 424 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 was whispering in a soothing tone, and said to me, 
 after we had gone two or three miles, " That will do, 
 Mr. Guernsey ; please turn and let us go back." 
 
 I think we could not have been two hundred yards 
 from the creek on our return, when, looking back, I 
 saw that Persia had ceased to weep, was rigid again 
 as with intense expectation. Even Rachel sat pale, 
 and almost terrified. At the instant there was the 
 report of a gun, and with it Persis had risen to her 
 feet, was struggling with Rachel, who had thrown 
 her arms about her. 
 
 " It is all right," Rachel said, clear and calm ; " drive 
 on, Mr. Guernsey ! " 
 
 What came after was swift beyond measure, yet 
 exceeding slow as in a dream. Before I could cross 
 the stream Persis had broken furiously from her 
 friend, had leaped into the water, had dragged herself 
 through it, had thrown herself moaning upon the 
 earth, her head upon the bosom, her arms about the 
 head of Ross Urwoldt, lying where his father had 
 died, a shattered little gun beside him, wounded ap 
 parently to death. 
 
 I think, looking back at it, that when a woman is 
 most a woman she enters upon the possession of 
 qualities which are those of men, but of men never 
 except rarely, and then only when at their best. It 
 was Rachel, not I, who took command. Weeping, 
 but not interrupted thereby an instant, she had 
 cut open the coat and underclothing of my poor 
 classmate, had torn something into strips, was 
 stanching his wounds before I realized what had
 
 SOLUTION. 425 
 
 happened. Under her directions I untied the bucket 
 hanging between the hind wheels of our vehicle, and 
 brought water. Then I spread the old buffalo-skin 
 in the bottom of the wagon, helped make Persis get 
 in and sit down on it, throwing out for the purpose 
 the movable seat upon which she and Eachel had 
 ridden. After that Eachel and I lifted Ross in, laid 
 his head in the lap of Persis, Eachel seated beside 
 her. Then I drove toward the village as rapidly as 
 I dared. 
 
 I had placed the bucket in the wagon before start 
 ing, and Eachel continued to bathe the unconscious 
 face, to stanch the ugly wounds. Not a word was 
 said by us, and I am sure that Persis was aware only 
 that Eoss was lying there. She did not know where 
 she was, who we were. With a hand on either side 
 of his head, smoothing out his matted hair, untan 
 gling his heavy beard, she was kissing his lips, and 
 crooning inarticulately over him, like a child over its 
 dead bird. It was Eachel who wept as she worked. 
 The eyes of Persis were dry and glittering. 
 
 I had not observed things as we went, but now it 
 seemed to me as if sudden winter had smitten the 
 world. The prairie stretched brown and barren on 
 every side. The fields, as we passed among them, 
 the corn in stacks, here and there, looked desolate 
 enough among the stubble. So tense was every nerve 
 that I could hear their leaves, brown and dry, rustling 
 in the breeze which was rapidly rising. When we 
 drove beneath the live-oaks the breeze had become a 
 strong wind which was swaying the hanging moss like
 
 426 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 banners on the blast. It was raining, and I saw a bit 
 of hail lying upon the exposed forehead of my friend 
 as I glanced around, before driving on more swiftly. 
 Then there was a rush, a roar, as if all at once a cat 
 aract had fallen from heaven upon us. The air was 
 full of flying leaves, of shreds of moss, and then it 
 was as if the clouds themselves had descended upon 
 our heads ! I had entered upon my first experi 
 ence of a norther, and so blinded were we by the 
 sudden tempest that it was all I could do to guide 
 the affrighted horses to the house at which we were 
 staying.
 
 CERTAINTY ITSELF. 427 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 CERTAINTY ITSELF. 
 
 T AM obliged again to go back to events which 
 -^ took place before our coming to Ocklawahaw. If 
 I seem indefinite as to the precise date to which I 
 wish to return, the uncertainty has reference to that 
 alone ; in everything else I am as thoroughly assured, 
 as vigorously confident, as the dryest mathematician 
 could desire. 
 
 Not the smallest intention have I of telling at this 
 late hour the story of how, and all along, I had wooed 
 Rachel ; it is with the blessed result thereof alone 
 that I have now to do. This I must add, though I 
 am sure to say it over again before I am through, 
 that both of us, and from the outset, were confident 
 how it would end. An oak is an oak from the acorn, 
 and our mutual affection in its germ, growth, flower, 
 fruit, was and could be none other than of the order 
 of the certainties. 
 
 Dr. Steven Trent knew nothing of it ! His knowl 
 edge of the sex was the result of long, thoroughgoing, 
 sympathetic study, but round-headed little Guernsey 
 knew as much of the matter to which I allude as 
 he. When it broke upon him at last, it so staggered 
 him that I do not think he will ever again be quite
 
 428 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 as dogmatic concerning women as he was before. As 
 to Jean, she had always considered me as merely the 
 larger of the two Guernseys, in some respects younger 
 than her brother, the one over whom she could tyran 
 nize most. She had no idea of it. During the minute 
 of her coming, at last, to know, I grew many hundred 
 years older in her estimation, and have been to her as 
 a beloved but venerated grandfather ever since. Fer- 
 sis had acquired the art of knowing everything under 
 and beyond the sun, as a gifted musician gains, and 
 by never-ending practice, the command of the piano, 
 yet Persis did not know, for a long time at least, 
 there was anything in that direction to know ! 
 
 What gratified me most was that the knowledge 
 came upon Mrs. Trent, when it did come, like a some 
 thing shall we say a shower-bath ? which took 
 her breath away. This was the stranger since Rachel 
 and herself are of the same type, not so intellectual, 
 it may be, as Minerva, not as intense in pursuit of 
 an object as Diana, but of the gracious, beneficent, 
 altogether lovable womanliness, I will not say of 
 Venus, but of Ceres. Yet I know why Mrs. Trent 
 was, when she did learn the amazing fact, most 
 amazed of all. If they do belong to the same type, 
 the highest to me of all, none the less does Eachel 
 surpass her in the peculiar and divine excellences 
 of the same, in virtue of being so much the younger 
 and therefore the more advanced of the two. For, as 
 has been said, while men are stationary as a sex, 
 women in all their types are ascending. You can 
 measure their ascent during the past; how much
 
 CERTAINTY ITSELF. 429 
 
 nearer they are to climb toward himself in the future, 
 God alone knows ! 
 
 I do not blame Eoss so much for not knowing how 
 Rachel and I stood toward each other. It was of 
 Persis I said most, when I had written to or talked 
 with him, because she it was who, by her incessant 
 activity, by her striking success in certain things, 
 gave me most to say. Now I recall it, I must have 
 shown that enthusiasm which enthusiasts always have 
 for enthusiastic people provided their tastes and oc 
 cupations run, as in this case, in the same channels. 
 Yes, I must have produced in him, as in everybody 
 else, the impression that I was in love with Persis. 
 
 And so I was. But Ross would not have fallen 
 into his mistake about me if he had known ! One 
 word to Persis would have relieved him. Rachel 
 understood it ! From the day I first saw them 
 after their coming to the city she knew that it 
 must be Persis, not herself, with whom, in certain 
 respects, I would be most occupied. It was Persis 
 who took the lead in asking me as to what studies she 
 should undertake, what books she should read. Af 
 terward it was natural my conversation should be 
 most with Persis, and not as regards her education 
 only. So of our conversations concerning what I had 
 written, was about to write, while Rachel sat by and 
 listened, came into the room and went out as she 
 pleased, many and long and animated were the con 
 versations I had with Persis. Of course, as her 
 intellect developed, as her improvement advanced, 
 my interest in so gifted and determined a woman
 
 430 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 increased. Driven here and there as I was, how 
 could I fail to find particular pleasure, during my 
 hasty sojourns in the city, in talking with such a 
 woman and upon such topics ? The keen variety of 
 it to my ordinary life gave special zest to this ; Ra- 
 chel understood that perfectly. 
 
 "And, then, Persis is coming to be a strikingly 
 handsome woman." It was to Rachel I made the re 
 mark when we were alone together one day. " That 
 is," I explained, " when she is excited." 
 
 " And conversing," Rachel added while I was stop 
 ping to say to myself, 
 
 " But you are beautiful instead, and you are al 
 ways the same." What I uttered was, " When Persis 
 comes into the parlor she is pale and worn. Her 
 face has almost the alabaster whiteness of the globe 
 of an unlighted lamp. But it is an electric lamp, 
 and conversation is the machinery which lights it. 
 When it is about things of interest to her, almost 
 from the first word her fires begin to burn. She can 
 not keep her hands still, she becomes more and more 
 interested, radiant, to the end. When the revolving 
 magnets of conversation are stopped, then comes re 
 action, I fear." 
 
 " She is so much interested, and in so many things ! 
 Yes, she kindles at a word. If it were not for the 
 having to come down again, I almost wish," Rachel 
 laughed, " that I could go into raptures. But I love 
 to see Persis in them, she becomes so beautiful." 
 
 " And is this what the Rev. Mr. Adair thinks when 
 she talks speculative theology with him ? "
 
 CERTAINTY ITSELF. 431 
 
 "Yes," Eachel assented slowly, "except that all 
 his ideas were new at first to her. She thought there 
 was something wonderful in them. But Mr. Adair 
 had entertained them long before. He was nearly 
 through with them," Rachel said simply, " when Per- 
 sis began. What he was interested in was in her in 
 terest. There was something positive in her, you see. 
 She is not a a " Eachel was in pain for a simile 
 thin enough. 
 
 " A vapor," I ventured. 
 
 " It is thinner than that," and Rachel shook her 
 head without a smile. " I am so sorry for him ! Mr. 
 Adair got through all his speculations, got at last out 
 of them ; yes, clear through the last of them into 
 into I do not know what to call it into noth 
 ing. He told her so. Persis cried about it. He 
 told her that beside her he had nothing left him 
 to love, to believe in. ' Neither have I/ Persis told 
 him. You see, she, also, was through with all the 
 theories by that time. ' Neither of us has one soli 
 tary belief left,' she said to him; 'it was your beautiful 
 reasoning I loved so,' she said. ' Now that neither 
 of us has anything left us, Mr. Adair, we are too poor 
 to marry.' Persis laughed when she said that to 
 him, but she cried over it afterward in our room. 
 
 "Oh, yes, Mr. Guernsey," Rachel came back to 
 where we began, " when I hear you and Persis talk, 
 talk so long, so eagerly, it is something like that. 
 I understand ! " She had quite a motherly air as she 
 said it. We could not disquiet her ! 
 
 For not only had I fallen in love with Rachel from
 
 432 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 an early period of her coming to the city, but I told 
 her so as soon as I did. She was gentle and yet firm, 
 intelligent yet silent, good yet perfectly sensible, 
 Christian without a particle of cant, sympathetic yet 
 not effusive, beautiful yet unconscious of it If it 
 will help any one to understand my feelings, I will 
 say that, while I can enjoy a good sonnet as much as 
 any one, I greatly preferred to the best of them a pe 
 culiar way she had of arranging her fair and abundant 
 hair. No man I know of has, or possibly can have, 
 a greater pleasure than myself in a well-ordered and 
 Ho wing poem, but I had, and from the first, yet more 
 satisfaction by far in the color and flow of her drapery. 
 Persia said strong things, brilliant things ; but there 
 was a uniform sense and sweetness in the conversation 
 of Rachel, to which I turned as one does from confec 
 tionery to breakfast ? to breakfast, dinner, supper. 
 As I told Ross, Persis was one of the most original 
 women in what she thought and said ; what I did not 
 tell him was that, to me, Rachel was herself such an 
 original as Eve was. There was a virginal freshness 
 in Rachel herself, in her beauty, her voice, her way 
 of not saying and doing things Our affection for 
 each other was as natural as food and sleep and 
 drink. I did not have to come down again after talk 
 ing with her. We walked as in the summer mead 
 ows of daily life, side by side, but each at his or her 
 own gait. There was not the least exertion on either 
 side. We were simply ourselves 
 
 I would not be so broken and abrupt in what I am 
 trying to say, could I have begun at the beginning,
 
 CERTAINTY ITSELF. 433 
 
 and told of all this as it took place. But I assure 
 you I did not hesitate in telling Eachel about it. I 
 seemed to myself to be not more than ten years old 
 at the time, Eachel vastly wiser, yet only a year or so 
 younger than I. Living, therefore, as we did, in an 
 old-fashioned period, apart from more modern people 
 and fashions, I fell desperately in love with her from 
 the start, and just like a boy. Not that I had not 
 known the gust of a feverish passion before, but, in all 
 sincerity, she was my first sweetheart. It was part of 
 our childish pleasure to tell nobody about it, having 
 excellent reason for not doing so, and having many a 
 childish laugh about it all along. Nobody imagined 
 such a thing of people so unlike. We contrived to 
 see more of each other, Persis was so busy, than you 
 would think. Whenever we were separated, as was 
 often -the case, we corresponded closely. I wrote to 
 her wherever I happened to be, almost every day, and 
 it was the chief pleasure to me of the day to do so. 
 Rachel did not write as often, yet the first thing I did 
 in arriving at the town or distant city in which lay 
 my business, was to go to the post-office, and I rarely 
 failed to find that she was awaiting me there in the 
 form of a letter in her clear, round hand, a letter 
 so sensible and precisely what I was craving for that 
 it was only less to me than herself. 
 
 For Eachel has a singularly clear mind, and she 
 saw her duty almost from the first. She had always 
 been in the habit of having somebody in charge. I 
 made it plain to her that I needed her more than Per 
 sis did. Moreover, I must have assumed things in a 
 
 28
 
 434 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 way too ardent for a kind-hearted girl like her to re 
 sist. 
 
 " You are the first woman I ever loved, the one 
 woman I ever can love," I told her. 
 
 She knew me, and knew it was the simple fact, 
 knew that I needed her more even than her poor old 
 father had done; and what else could she do but 
 begin to love one who would be so dependent upon 
 her ? Yes, dependent ! Not for what we call knowl 
 edge, but there are things I need infinitely more than 
 I do knowledge ! Even in my own life-long line of 
 things she was of great help to me. 
 
 " Persis likes my writings," I told her one day, not 
 long before going with them to Ocklawahaw ; " but 
 there is vast difference between me and my books, 
 and it is me you love ! Persis praises me, and sin 
 cerely too ; but you detect and tell me of my faults, 
 faults of matter, faults of manner, accursed faults in 
 the very bone and blood. You are as quick to see 
 them as you are to notice places in a table-cloth 
 which need mending." 
 
 " Yes, I know how to mend," she laughed. 
 
 "I wouldn't have loved you," I said, "if I had 
 not known how much I needed you. Never fear, I 
 intend to be a good boy and mind you," for which 
 she rewarded me we had got that far along with 
 a kiss ; adding, before the sweetness was departed, 
 
 " Yes, I intend to see that you do ! " 
 
 " It would never do for people to know," I began, 
 " how very much you are to me." 
 
 " There is no fear of that. They will not know it
 
 CERTAINTY ITSELF. 435 
 
 from me" she smiled. "And you do not need me 
 except to correct, now and then, the little things. I 
 appreciate you more than you think." And her eyes, 
 fixed tenderly yet proudly in mine, praised me so 
 that I felt happier than if an opera-house crowded 
 to the dome were applauding me. The breeze, strong 
 and steady, which bears a ship along, is not a more 
 practical force than to me is Eachel. Whatever I 
 am attempting to do by the press or on the platform, 
 although I may not get an idea from her, yet am 
 I upheld and borne along by my unceasing sense of 
 her loving approval. 
 
 " There is the matter of money," I said to Eachel 
 from almost the beginning of our affection. I men 
 tioned it ruefully, and she understood and commenced 
 to laugh. 
 
 " I know." She nodded a mother's head at what she 
 was too well aware of. 
 
 " But I always feel as if " 
 
 " You had millions. I understand." 
 
 " Because we were originally created," I argued, 
 " to have everything as abundantly as we do the 
 light, the air. After death we shall, and eternally, 
 have everything heart can wish in infinite measure. 
 Meanwhile I can't adjust myself to anything else." 
 
 It was remarkable how wonderfully Kachel im 
 proved under the influence of our mutual affection. 
 It was to her what to Persis was her love for Ross 
 and her passion for study. Moreover, I am sure that 
 Rachel, for my sake, was more of a student than she 
 would otherwise have been.
 
 436 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 But we kept our secret. As I told her from the 
 beginning, I was too poor to marry as yet. Nor did 
 we have, as the time rolled by, the remotest idea 
 when we would be able. All along I felt like a hypo 
 crite of the blackest dye, when with good Mrs. Trent 
 especially. It was sorely against my nature not to 
 let her into our secret, but it was small proof of 
 my strength to hold my tongue, seeing that I had 
 passed under the influence of a woman who influenced 
 me yet more. Neither Mary nor Martha Washington 
 would have revealed a state secret, and Rachel, for her 
 sake as for mine, held ours as something sacred. 
 
 "There is plenty of time in which to let them 
 know. And it is our matter," she remarked, and 
 controlled me in this as in everything else. Which 
 confession I would be ashamed to make if I did not 
 know how greatly I need to be controlled. 
 
 " There are things," she was pleased to say to me 
 one day, " which you can do at all only by doing them 
 alone. I cannot make a suggestion as to them. For 
 me to intrude then would be worse than if you were 
 to come when we go to housekeeping into the 
 kitchen and pry into oven and stewpan. I am proud 
 of you, dear, and I hope I know when to be silent 
 and to leave you to yourself." 
 
 From almost the hour of falling in love with Rachel 
 every lesser good began to come to me as naturally as 
 could be. I had more occupation than ever in my 
 profession ; better paid because, I dare say, I worked 
 better. I was able to save more money, having now 
 something to save it for. For years I had tried in
 
 CERTAINTY ITSELF. 437 
 
 vain to dispose of my plantation, and the day came 
 when, and without any effort on my part, I sold 
 it, and for much more than I had hoped. " It is your 
 doing," I told Kachel, although how she did it I could 
 not have explained. 
 
 With all our care it did leak out at last, soon after 
 Eoss left us, through me, it is scarce necessary I 
 should say, how things were. What followed I dare 
 not describe, save that it was so entirely natural that 
 Kachel and I should love each other that every one, 
 even Mr. Adair, was amazed that he or she had not 
 thought of it before.
 
 438 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 ASSURANCE. 
 
 TT was this which made it easier for me to accom- 
 * pany Persia and Rachel to Ocklawahaw. What 
 befell after we arrived there I have already related, 
 our drive, our finding Ross by the wayside wounded, 
 our bringing him to the house. As soon as possible a 
 surgeon was summoned from the nearest military 
 Post. The mother of Ross prohibited her husband 
 and children from showing themselves, and assisted 
 her hair about her shoulders in the nursing, Rachel 
 taking the general control, and Persis remaining in 
 tearless misery. 
 
 The breast of the wounded man was dreadfully 
 torn, so much so that the surgeon could not under 
 stand it until I rode out, within an hour of his com 
 ing, and brought in the gun which had done the 
 mischief. It was a short double-barrelled shot-gun, 
 such as I had not seen since my childhood, a cheap 
 toy at best, and rusty from long disuse. Both barrels 
 seemed to have gone off at once, and the discharge 
 had burst them both, making wounds not deep but 
 wide-spread. From the first the surgeon had slight 
 hope of saving my friend, and he took me aside and 
 told me so. As soon as I could, I told Rachel, and
 
 ASSURANCE. 439 
 
 was surprised at the calmness with which she took 
 the news. " For it will be the death of Persia," I 
 went on to say to Eachel, who was scraping lint upon 
 a table in the kitchen as we talked. 
 
 " I do not think so," she said. " If Ross dies she 
 may sink for a time into a stupor, but she has too 
 much strength to die. You have no idea, dear," 
 Eachel whispered, " what hidden vigor she has, what 
 will. Yet I would almost rather she should if Ross 
 is to die. I dare not think what, in that case, if she 
 survives, she may come to be." 
 
 " I do not understand," I said. 
 
 " Because you have never known her as I do. If," 
 Rachel said, " she regains her strength, unless Heaven 
 takes that way to break her down, she will become 
 a bitter, heartless woman. I dread to see her go 
 back to the city, go back to her studies, go back to be 
 the woman she may become. I love Persis," and the 
 tears of Rachel began again to fall, " but, knowing her 
 as I do, I would rather she should die ! You think 
 you know people ; you have no idea," and she ceased 
 from her work to look up at me, " how bitter, how 
 miserable, how desperate for evil, Persis may become. 
 
 "But I do not think," Rachel whispered to me, 
 " that doctors know everything. Not even Dr. Trent. 
 Ross is very strong. He has been terribly shaken, 
 he is dreadfully wounded, but Guernsey, dear," 
 Rachel said, her eyes in mine again, " Persis and 
 Ross are other people than either you or I. They 
 are like iron, like iron," Rachel said, " which God 
 can do great things with if he wants to."
 
 440 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 "And passes them through fierce suffering to fit 
 them for it," I thought, for Kachel had stolen back to 
 the wounded man. 
 
 After a while Mrs. Clarke went home to see to 
 her baby. The surgeon had ridden all night, and, 
 having done what he could for the present, was try 
 ing to get a nap in a back room. Kachel rested for 
 the moment in a chair by the window. Her hands 
 were lying in each other upon her lap, and, dressed in 
 some brown material, having on a white apron, she 
 looked in such perfect health, was so fair and yet so 
 rosy, was so fresh and strong and sweet, that, not hav 
 ing anything I could do for Ross at the instant, I could 
 not help saying to her with my eyes, " If you had upon 
 your head the fly-away cap of a Sister of Charity, a 
 child would know that you were the Superior of the 
 order throughout the world ; that is, until somebody 
 put a crown upon your head instead, and then they 
 would see that you were born a queen." 
 
 But she shook her head at me, and I too looked at 
 Persis. The poor thing was seated on the floor by 
 the side of the low lounge upon which Ross lay. Sur 
 geons care little for the proprieties at such times, and 
 he had allowed her to remain there through his exam 
 ination and dressing of his lacerated breast. The 
 more so as she seemed to be as quiet and as immov 
 able as if carved from stone. She had lost a shoe in 
 her leap from the wagon, and her stocking, stained 
 with the red mire of the creek, showed from under 
 the skirts of her dress still damp from the water. 
 
 Her lap and bosom were spotted with blood where
 
 ASSURANCE. 441 
 
 the head of her lover had lain ; for, unless we had torn 
 her away by force, it was impossible to remove her, 
 not even Rachel had that influence over her. I think 
 she was conscious of nothing but Ross. She had driven 
 him off from her by her weakness when she last saw 
 him ; nothing should part them now ! Her face was 
 set and haggard, her eyes dry ; there was something 
 almost of the wolf in the watch she kept over him. 
 " No, no, it does not do," I thought, " for a young girl 
 to stretch herself upon the rack of intense effort as 
 she has done. It is a devilish fanaticism. Whether 
 it be from love for any man, or from love for knowl 
 edge, it is murder. Whatever makes a Catherine de 
 Medici, a Brinvilliers, a Messalina, a Madame Kru- 
 dener, is equally wrong. Accursed be excess whether 
 it be in drink, in dress, in study, or religion ! From 
 Bacchantes of every sort, from Maenads of all kinds, 
 good Lord, deliver us ! " And I let my eyes rest 
 with fresh satisfaction upon the peaceful aspect of 
 Eachel. 
 
 None the less I saw some excuse for Persia in 
 Ross lying upon his back, his breast swathed in clean 
 bandages. He had been fully conscious while the 
 surgeon was at work upon him; his eyes were closed 
 now, and we knew by the involuntary twitches about 
 the lids and beneath the bearded lips that he was 
 enduring mortal anguish. Not a groan, not a mur 
 mur, escaped him. Persis had not kissed him since 
 he came to himself; but she had held his hand in 
 hers, and waited the will of this her lord as to whether 
 he would take her or not, as to whether he lived or
 
 442 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 chose to die. Ah me ! how have I failed in trying 
 to tell in what sense this friend of mine was unlike 
 ordinary men ! Men may be but duplicates of each 
 other, as much so as silver dollars; but Koss was 
 fresh, at least, from the mint. Not an edge or a line 
 was dulled, in face as in accents, in bearing as in 
 manner, in silence as in speech, in anger as in love ; 
 he was simple, sincere, frank. Never opening his lips 
 about it to any but me, he lied to himself in trying 
 to assume that he was, at last, but of the best breed 
 of animals ; but, having got into the swamp of such a 
 notion, he had persisted in it to the end. For Persis 
 was the one appointed to lead him up and out of that 
 bog ; and Persis, Heaven help her ! had tried to fit 
 herself for him by perfecting herself in mathematics 
 and metaphysics ; in the languages, music, and the 
 study of the Aryan religions ! 
 
 Ross opened his eyes at this moment. Rachel came 
 and stood beside me. As he looked at us, a sudden 
 surprise dawned in his steady eyes like a sunrise, a 
 sullen film rolled away from them, he understood 
 so well that he almost laughed. Persis glanced up 
 at us, then her eyes returned to his bronzed and 
 steadfast face, which had already yielded to her as it 
 had not done to disappointment and deadly wounds. 
 His hand closed on hers, closed so hard that there 
 was the wincing in her lips of pain, while her eyes 
 grew brighter. The surgeon had forbidden him to 
 speak, but I answered what I saw in his eyes. 
 
 " Did n't you know that ? Why, man, I have been 
 in love with Rachel " here I kissed her " ever
 
 ASSURANCE, 443 
 
 since" and I was defeated in trying to kiss her 
 again "I first knew her." Purely for the purpose 
 of having him understand beyond doubt, I would 
 have illustrated my meaning still further if Rachel had 
 not put me away from her, but very gently, laughing 
 and blushing. I was rejoiced at the new gladness 
 in the face of Ross and Persis. But he was asking 
 me something more, his lips were helping his eyes 
 to frame it. I did not understand. Rachel did, and 
 whispered to me. 
 
 " Married ? " I replied. " Of course we are mar 
 ried ! We were married before we left the city, a 
 month ago." Whereupon Rachel was so intent upon 
 helping me make Ross understand, that she put her 
 arm about her husband's neck, and her head upon my 
 shoulder, looking down upon the wounded man with 
 eyes serene and satisfied, adding a little kiss there 
 after by way of postscript. 
 
 How could it fail to be infectious ! Ross turned 
 his face toward Persis ; his eyes half entreated, wholly 
 commanded her. As she lifted herself to kiss him, 
 Rachel and I drew away ; but when we saw that the 
 arms of Persis were about Ross, that she was weeping 
 with the sudden letting loose of her long-suppressed 
 tears, Rachel, crying as heartily as she, had to inter 
 pose, very firmly too. Ross was not to falsify her 
 hopes of recovery by being agitated in that way. 
 
 There was such a look in his eyes when, at last, 
 I stood over him again, Persis weeping quietly, hum 
 bly, by his side, that I could not but say, " Yes, old 
 fellow, there are certainties in this whirlwind of
 
 444 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. 
 
 dust we call a world. There are certainties of evil, 
 absolute and most terrible certainties, if we go or 
 allow ourselves to drift downward. And there are 
 certainties, divine certainties, if we will but climb by 
 them upward. I can put them all in one word, 
 Boss," for I felt, as well as saw, that he was listening 
 to me ; " the supreme certainty is " And with a 
 happy face I threw my hand upward. " Of all the 
 many certainties I know, that is the nearest to us, 
 the easiest for us to accept and rest upon ! 
 
 " And there are lesser certainties," I added, after a 
 while, " all along. The old order of things is passing 
 away. Many things outside the South, things you 
 and I detest, are as dead as negro slavery. They 
 are already struck through and through by the arrows 
 of Heaven, by the sharp certainties of the almighty 
 Christ, which always hit and kill. We are both 
 young as yet. Both of us have served a severe ap 
 prenticeship. Each in his own way, we will have 
 as much to do as we know how ; yes, and we will 
 pocket the rewards of it, too ! " 
 
 I spoke as I felt, soberly, gravely. Never before 
 had I been as conscious of strength. It was the 
 entire weight, serene force, priceless value of my wife, 
 added to me. " Persis, Rachel," I laughed, " are cer 
 tainties to us, ab-so-lute certainties. They will help 
 us through life. Beyond it are the higher certainties 
 into which they and we and all things shall come to 
 be, blessed and eternal certainties ! Why should you 
 and I spend our life in whirling like bats, half the 
 time in, half the time out of, the caves of darkness
 
 ASSURANCE. 445 
 
 and all uncertainty ? " People are very quiet when 
 speaking of or hearing about that which, at last, no 
 one can deny. " Why," I urged, " should we not set 
 tle down upon the primeval rock of what, in our deep 
 est self, we know to be true, settle down upon it 
 both to rest and to be firm-footed for hard work ? " 
 And a peace fell upon us as when head and heart, as 
 when lover and the one beloved, are at one. 
 
 There was peace even after the surgeon had made 
 another examination. His trade lay in wounds as 
 that of a florist does in flowers, and he assured me 
 as coolly as could be that my friend could not get up 
 from his hurts. I am sure / know nothing about it, 
 but Rachel says that Ross will recover. How can I 
 tell which knows best ? Possibly I have too much 
 faith in my wife, love and faith so cling together. 
 We will see. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Cambridge : Electrotyped and Primed by John Wilson & Son.
 
 THREE NEW NOVELS 
 
 BY THREE OF THE MOST POPULAR " NO NAME " AUTHORS. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE HEAD OF MEDUSA. By GEORGE FLEMING, author 
 of "Kismet" and "Mirage." 
 
 II. 
 
 BY THE TIBER. By the author of " Signor Monaldini's 
 Niece." 
 
 III. 
 
 BLESSED SAINT CERTAINTY. By the author of "His 
 Majesty, Myself." 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 Boston.